Bei Lok Hu

This professor has taught: HLTH672, HLTH710, PHYS161, PHYS171, PHYS260, PHYS270, PHYS274, PHYS371, PHYS420, PHYS475, PHYS675

Sort By:

Information	Review
Bei Lok Hu PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/11/2024	Disclaimer: I did not take AP Physics. This is my first college physics course. This is going to be a long review. Homework consists of five problems (most if not all of them have sub-questions) and we got 5 attempts to answer each question with no deductions. It might be 3 attempts for you. It's always due Wednesday. For discussion, there is a quiz on the material that you covered during your last discussion session. If your TA talked about linear momentum last week, your quiz will be on linear momentum this week. Rinse and repeat. There are TWO exams and one cumulative final. You are allowed a formula sheet for all of them, and you should get it back along with your exam assuming your TA doesn't lose it like mine did. Professor Hu is a nice person but he struggles to teach. His lectures are all done through the blackboard, and his writing can be hard to read (probably more so if you sit in the back). The amount of stuff he writes on each blackboard is also a lot, and it can be difficult to follow because he doesn't write in a left-right up-down direction - it's all over the place. I struggled hard with this course. He does NOT post his lecture notes online so don't miss class; he also has some demos during class that show up on exams too. On top of the professor's messy lecture structure, he focuses primarily on derivations rather than helping you understand the material that is being taught. Even WHILE he is deriving formulas, he skips a lot of algebra and just assumes you can get to the conclusion as fast as he does. (He has also mentioned partial derivatives and double/triple integrals which is peculiar because, while I did take Calculus 3 (MATH 241), it is NOT a prerequisite for this course.) Honestly I even read the textbook and it helped my confusion a little but not entirely, so you're better off using the Organic Chemistry Tutor or something. In terms of difficulty of the graded work in this class, it's easily discussion quizzes < homework < midterm exams. Upon my asking, Professor Hu does not give any practice problems because he says "the quizzes, homework, textbook, and lecture are enough." But the difference in difficulty between the questions on the quizzes and the questions on the midterms is too vast. You're better off taking someone else for physics.
Bei Lok Hu PHYS161 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/06/2024	Very nice guy and passionate about the subject, but I do not recommend his class. I don't know how the other professors are for this class, but I struggled in his. I have taken 3 physics classes before and I came in already understanding most of the material but this class made it more confusing. Pros 1. Homework was flexible and you had multiple attempts. 2. Quizzes were very easy. Cons 1. His writings in lectures felt like they were all over the place and sometimes I felt like I was better off skipping and learning directly from the textbook. 2. His tests are very hard and it takes almost a month to get your score back. Midterm averages were near failing and I still have not heard of a curve. 3. The homework website, Expert TA is awful.
Bei Lok Hu PHYS161 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/03/2024	I took this class for an engineering requirement and here's what I've found Pros: - Super passionate and is a happy person -He seems like he cares about his students - His tests are all examples from the book or his lectures - Homeworks are flexible (5 attempts per question my semester) Cons: - Tests can be difficult - Grades return very slowly - He jumps through lectures talking about non-relevant topics sometimes - He is terrible at reading the room and breaking down/explaining his derivations Overall love the guy, find his teaching to be painful.
Bei Lok Hu PHYS371 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 01/11/2023	Dr. Hu is a very difficult professor. He cares deeply about his students and wants them to succeed, but his teaching skills make it difficult for most students to do that. He is very approachable and kind and was willing to give extensions/move things around if necessary. However, his lectures consist mostly of him projecting his notes onto the board and speeding through them. Many derivations are left incomplete and topics barely explained. To succeed in his class, most students had to either entirely teach themselves or have prior experience in the topics. I would highly advise avoiding him if possible.
Bei Lok Hu PHYS371 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2022	Dr. Hu the GOAT! he is extremely passionate to teach physics. The exams and homework are very similar. Strongly recommend taking this course with him.
Bei Lok Hu PHYS274 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/31/2020	Prof. Hu was amazing! He taught this class so well that I can do some of the problems in my sleep, and was never boring. Great guy!
Bei Lok Hu PHYS274 Anonymous 04/20/2020	Very kind and cares about his students. Expect to work a lot but to get a lot out as well. Very approachable.
Bei Lok Hu PHYS122 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/08/2009	I don't recommend taking physics with Dr. Hu. For one thing, it's pretty difficult to understand what he says half the time because of his accent. Also, he never really explained concepts fully. He would derive equations, which sometimes had different symbols from those given in our textbook; PHYS122 is an introductory physics course- we are expected to know concepts and not derivation of equations, especially since this course is not calculus-based. He would go over problems using the derived equations but they were difficult to follow because he never really would explain WHAT the concepts were. Furthermore, his lectures were Powerpoint presentations often containing images and excerpts from our textbook. In a class such as physics where going over problems step by step helps in explaining concepts, powerpoint presentations were completely ineffective and useless. Using the blackboard would have been a much better approach to teaching this course. Dr. Hu also sometimes never completed problems that he started; thus, often my notes were incomplete. I feel that a majority of the class got by because most of the problems on the exams and quizzes were similar to (or the exact same) suggested review problems that he gave from the textbook as well as our homework problems (which were from the textbook as well). I suppose the predictability of the problems on the exams etc was one good side to Dr. Hu's teaching. This allowed me to get an A+ in the course, despite Dr. Hu's poor teaching skills. I believe Dr. Hu is very knowledgeable and also friendly and easy to approach; however, he does not seem to be the best professor.
Bei Lok Hu PHYS122 rbterp 05/03/2009	Dr. Hu was a very difficult professor to follow and I do not recommend him at all. He used notes and examples from a different textbook, and would jump into topics without explaining basic concepts such as what is a wave, or what is electricity. Even though our course was a non-calculus based course, he relied heavily on mathematical explanations instead of actually explaining concepts conceptually. He rarely worked through examples from the course textbook FULLY, from start to finish. His demonstrations were not effective as many students did not understand the scientific principles behind them. Very few students attended lecture as the course was not tailored to the abilities, background knowledge, and interests of non-physics major undergraduates. The only good thing is that the exams were fair (textbook problems - nothing like the weird examples from class) and I liked that we could use notecards for them. There were also weekly quizzes (no notecards) consisting of a textbook problem and weekly homework sets of ~8 hw problems.