Reviews for PHYS401

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Kara Hoffman PHYS401 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/29/2023	I thought this class was very well-taught. I've come out of it with a strong understanding of the fundamentals of QM and feel like I was able to follow along with the material without having to fake it. Homeworks were usually helpful and suitably challenging, albeit often computationally intensive and tedious (don't shy away from using Mathematica/integral calculators). Exams were very fair as long as you went over the homework and understood it. There were a few lectures (spherical harmonics, harmonic oscillator) where she just quickly went through a complicated derivation, which I didn't find particularly useful, although I don't really know how I would teach those in an engaging or memorable way either. Most lectures were engaging and comprehensive. I know there was a lot of frustration from the class over the fact that 20% of the grade was participation/attendance. 10% of the grade came from attendance to the weekly Friday discussions/group worksheets. She dropped one of these at the end of the semester if you missed it but wasn't really communicative or forgiving if you had to miss more than one, so just don't be sick on Friday more than once I guess. Another 10% of the grade was "class engagement" through Piazza, which she graded based on whether or not you were responding to the in-class clicker questions because people weren't posting questions/discussions outside of class enough. She didn't tell us this until the end of the semester, so lecture attendance was being secretly graded.
Christopher Lobb PHYS401 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/24/2017	Best prof I've had, makes class entertaining and clearly cares about students. Also exams never require memorization at all, only test for understanding.
Christopher Monroe PHYS401 Anonymous 05/14/2014	Do not take him. He is awful. Worst Professor of all time. He is mean. Bad! He ate my cheerios
Sylvester Gates PHYS401 Expecting a C nmendels 08/14/2013	So I had a lot of problems with Gates' teaching style. First is that, being a theoretical physicist whose career is based on quantum mechanics, he is a bit too good at the concepts in this class. So he would often go over material too quickly for everyone to understand it. Also, he was frequently out of town so we would often have a substitute which was not a horrible thing but I kind of like consistency. However, my biggest problem was his grading. He gave several quizzes throughout the semester and one of those was the day before Thanksgiving. How many people go to class that day? He also refused to let people make the quiz up. On both of the midterms, the front page said you have 2 hours to complete the test. We had 1 hour classes. So pretty much no one finished the tests and the grades reflected that. Even if we had had enough time the tests were incredibly difficult and the grades still would have been awful (virtually all the questions were incredibly difficult unless you knew some obscure math trick). These poor grades are reflected by the grade distribution. I think that over 60% of the class got a C or below, including about 1/4 of the class getting D's or F's. In my opinion, that is an absurd distribution that reflects an awful grade policy. That said, he was good about answering questions so if you knew what you didn't understand you could ask for help easily enough. But I really didn't know what I didn't know until after the tests.
Sylvester Gates PHYS401 Expecting an A applesandgrapes 12/22/2012	I've never met a man who has such a deep understanding of the subject matter at hand before taking a class with Dr. Gates. He is very passionate about what he teaches and genuinely wants everybody to do well. PROS: - Class is engaging and upbeat - Fair grading scheme - Definite sense of actually learning something throughout taking the course CONS: - Tests are DISGUSTINGLY hard; the first test had an average of about a 50%, and the second test grades were so poor that he did not count it. - Is absent frequently
Carter Hall PHYS401 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/26/2011	This professor is a no-nonsense professor. His notes just get straight to the point. His notes are also very clear and excellent. His tests are no-nonsense. They are similar to the homework problems, and his final exam just re-used questions from old homeworks and midterms. He is not out there to try to get you or screw you over. He is just straightforward. If you study, you'll do well; that simple. No strings attached. His assignments are simple, and are much more testing of concept, and not just mathematics. An excellent physics professor indeed. I dont think he'll teach PHYS401 a year from now ... which is unfortunate for many (as the PHYS dept. does 3 - year cycles). Good luck to those who have not had this guy for 401.
Carter Hall PHYS401 kthandler 11/09/2010	I've had Dr Hall twice now. I liked him the first time (phys272) and I loved him the second tie (phys401). He's a good lecturer. His notes were very well organized, which is something I find extremely helpful in understanding the material. He also would use the discussion time to go over the answers to the homework, which was amazingly helpful. The tests for 401 were take home, which made it more about what you actually understand and less about what you can remember in an hour. He has definitely been my favorite physics professor.