PHYS 2010

Norum is quite possibly the worst professor I've had at UVA. He doesn't give a shit about his students. Almost no one came to class because he did nothing interesting/useful to encourage attendance. He's unfair, cynical, and just plain unhelpful. He never returned any of our tests, and you had to go to his office and ask for the test to see what you did wrong. Once I even got a laugh in the face and a, "Ha! Tricked you!" when asking about a test question. This man should not be a professor...probably a brilliant physicist, but he needs to stay in the lab with his galactic particles or whatever. I despised this class.

This class is incredibly boring. Norum is nice enough, but his lectures aren't that useful if you read the textbook. His demonstrations sometimes help to clarify the finer points. Grade is really determined by the final (45%) and three midterms (15% each). All tests are multiple choice and the final grade is curved so the class average is B-/B. The class isn't easy, but certainly doable.

I liked Professor Norum's demonstrations in class however the class itself is quite difficult. If you're a premed prepare to spend some significant time into this class, otherwise you could find yourself with a less than desired GPA.

DON'T TAKE IT UNLESS YOU HAVE TO. Norum puts you to sleep in lectures and is completely unhelpful, none of the material will make sense after you leave lecture until you rigorously study on your own. Eventually I relied on my equation sheet and hoping that if I plugged in the right values the answer would appear, but I never really learned the concepts (still did alright on the exams). Had to hire a tutor outside of class, definitely my least favorite class taken at UVA.

Never went to class. I realized after the first two weeks that Blaine was not a great teacher. His interest in physics is definitely evident, but he just wrote down formulas endlessly and I got lost. I used my knowledge from AP physics C in high school to pass his class. I let my clicker grade die, but the additional sleep I got was worth it. Still did well in the class.

If you can help it, DO NOT take this course with Blaine Norum. He is a terrible professor who does nothing in lecture or outside of class to help his students. In class he does lots of demos, but mostly he derives equations endlessly on the board and moves through his powerpoints at the speed of light. However, if you do get stuck in this class, don't fret. I didn't score higher than a 75% on any test and still got a B+ in the course. However, the stress this class caused me was not worth it. Avoid at all costs

This was in my opinion the easiest premed req class I have done. Tests are fair and not too bad, you just have to pace yourself and study hard the night before. Go to enough classes to get the clicker points, go to discussion and take the quizzes, and do the homework. The class had a huge curve; I was 1 SD above for each test, then probably 1.5 SD above for the final, and I got an A.

Norum teaches using the formulas, which was confusing and often silly. His demonstrations were fun, though.

I really liked this course. Most of the students are pre-med and don't share my opinion, however. I thought the material was really interesting, Norum did a good job, and the class was well organized. The exams were hard, and the class takes a lot of work in order to comprehend and be able to work with the material. Make friends and study with them; that's a key to success in this class. It's worth the work. I learned a lot and am excited for the next section.

Blaine is terrible. He does not explain the topics very well and relies on using formulas to teach you concepts. The clickers will rarely ever have math in them but they still suck because its all about manipulating formulas. That's pretty much what the whole class is. He aims to make his class average low and does curve in the end but I guess we will see how that goes.

Decently difficult, but if you need it as a pre-req you can't really get around it. Don't rely on your formula sheet, try to learn and be able to use the concepts. Get a good TA for discussion.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HIM. he does not know how to teach.