PHYS 2030

Please only take this course if you are pre-med. Here's the grading breakdown: 15% In-Lab Assignments, 15% Pre-labs, 30% Postlabs, 40% Lab Reports. The grade cutoffs for each letter grade are only announced halfway through the semester. I got lucky: the overall GPA was 3.5 for the course (most common grades were A- and then A). Max made the grade cutoff for an A- 89 instead of 90 and made the cutoff for an A 93. Each experiment is broken down into two parts (A&B) and takes place over the course of 2 weeks. There is a pre-lab assignment every week and they are very easy. For part A of each lab, there is an in-lab assignment and a postlab assignment that is due nine days later. In-lab assignments are quite difficult, so make sure you get as much help from your TA to do them during class. Of the seven in-labs, three are graded and you will get full credit on the others. The post-lab assignments are very challenging. You must go to office hours to get help completing them. The lab reports are based on the Part B of each experiment. These are also very hard and can be very confusing. The most important thing is that you make sure that you come to class with questions about the lab report and make sure you understand the report fully. Then make sure you go to office hours to make sure that you are not missing anything because the graders are extremely petty. That's another thing: unlike other lab classes, your TA does not grade your work, there are special graders (not TAs) who do so. One more thing, the lab reports and in-lab assignments are group work, which comprises a total of 55% of your grade. If your group members do not pull their weight, inform your TA and switch groups immediately otherwise your grade will suffer. This lab is a lot of work for a one-credit course.

Before I say anything else, if you are not premed just do not take this. Don't even read the rest of this page. Delete it from your shopping cart and live a happy semester. First off I was lucky enough to take this class during COVID. But let me tell you... it sucks. It's the most poorly put together class I have every seen. The concepts aren't difficult it's just that the class has the customer service of the DMV. Maksim, the TAs, and the graders are never on the same page. Maksim gets butt hurt if you try and question him in any way, shape, or form. The graders actually make stuff up as they go. One grader told me that "the highest scoring groups included x, therefore I took off points for the groups that didn't include x. They give you a rubric but you could actually have everything on the rubric and get like a 10/20 because you didn't guess which way they wanted it. Two different graders will tell you completely different things as well. I explained this and was told to "try and predict which grader will be the one grading my post lab and go to his office hours." Honestly if you want to secure the A in this class you're going to be doing 8-10 hours of work for this class per week. It's genuinely the only way. Go to as many office hours and have as many of the TAs and graders read your work before submitting as possible. Explain everything... like actually everything regardless of how dumb it seems. Use size 8 font with 0 spacing and narrow margins if you have to. Include 20 appendices if you have to. It's going to suck and it shouldn't be as bad as it is but it is doable. I got the A and I did as I stated above.

This class is very difficult and I would not recommend taking it unless it is necessary. It is important to do better than your classmates to succeed in this course, since grade thresholds are based on how the class does. The grade for this course was calculated as follows:

Pre-Lab Homework (20%)
In-Lab Assignments (30%)
Lab Reports (50%)

Generally, the class is structured on a biweekly cycle in which the first week, the pre-lab assignment is due, one attends lab, and then completes the in-lab assignment before the following class. The second week, a pre-lab assignment is due, one attend lab, and a post-lab report is due. Occasionally, there are bye-weeks in which a bye-week assignment is completed instead of a lab report.

The key to success in this course is writing lab reports well. These are 1-page long, not including pages dedicated to appendices or a works-cited section. These lab reports are graded ambiguously, and graders may deduct points for missing things that were not clearly communicated. The best way to avoid losing points is to follow the rubric exactly, including more details and writing in more depth than you think is necessary; however, this is not enough. One must also comb the lab manual for any minute questions or instructions that are posed, and answer them in more-than-necessary detail. By doing this, you end up writing about two to two-and-a-half pages, but you can shrink the margins, font size, line spacing, and paragraph spacing in order to make it fit all on one page—the graders don't take off for this. Having good lab members is also necessary for success in this class. In my experience, I did the majority of the work during lab and in writing lab reports and I should have switched to a better lab group. Carrying the team ended up hurting my grade.

I learned most from whole-class discussions lead by the TAs and those that I usually lead within my small-group. Asking questions from the TAs during class was helpful too. Going to office hours and emailing TAs was also helpful.

I wish the lab was restructured so that students were able to set up their own experiments and measure their own data. It would have been helpful to have less ambiguous grading as well.

This lab was pretty managable! I heard it was super hard going in and it isn't easy but it is not the hardest lab I've taken at UVA (I personally thought that gen chem lab was harder). Max provided videos for the data collection aspect of the class which meant you had more in-class time to go through the week A and B assignments with your group. A weeks you basically go through and answer about 12 questions regarding the lab and B weeks are spent doing more data collection and writing a 1 page lab report. The hardest part of the course was the grading which was extremely nit-picky. Your TAs in the class are not the ones who grade your assignments. But, if you get good TAs and a good group it honestly isn't too bad. #tCFfall2021

Avoid at all costs. I can say nothing that hasn't already been said more eloquently by others. Avoid like the plague.

This class is a complete waste of time, we spend 2 hours a week learning absolutely nothing in class. It's all tedious busy work that gets graded super harshly. The lab also has almost nothing to do with what we learn in lecture. It feels more like a statistics class than anything else. The software we use for class is incredibly hard to use and does not do anything to enhance my learning. Physics lab is the most miserable part of my week and changes definitely need to be made to the class. The class has terrible reviews everywhere and I don't know how changes haven't been made already.

This class should not be as hard as it is, but it is so disorganized, it is hard to understand what topics you are even focusing on, and how they relate to the concepts you are learning in your lecture. Homework is not clear and reading the syllabus is useless to understand the expectations of the course. The structures of the labs are horrific and Maksim is by far the worst person to communicate with to help you improve. He is degrading and further exacerbates the terrible reputation physics at UVA has. I will never understand professors who make it their goal to make their students miserable, but he is really good at it and seems to enjoy it. If you can take this lab elsewhere, do! It is not student-friendly, I feel defeated, and we are hardly through the first half of the semester.

I did not enjoy this class at all. It is an obscene amount of work for a 1 credit class. The lab reports take forever and are graded incredibly harshly. If you don't get a good group, you're kinda screwed. I knew multiply people who took this class that had a group member that never did any work, which made it so much more stressful for them. If you dont need to take this class for some sort of requirement, please don't take it. It's more stress than its worth.

#tCFF23

Nothing good to say about this lab. The labs basically repeat themselves each week and the software/technology used is archaic/not user friendly. You need to pass a math proficiency exam which tests you on concepts that you do not use in the lab at all. There is a big emphasis on deriving algebraic equations and error propagation, which do not help further advance your understanding of physics. The prelabs often contain questions on concepts that are unfamiliar to you and require you to seek help. The lab reports require a lot of coordinated effort and graded on a "rubric" but the graders are so critical and expect you to read their minds so you need to include extra information just in case and hope you were lucky enough to include things that weren't mentioned. I did think the lab TAs did a good job of explaining the basics of what needed to be understood and done so definitely recommend taking notes. Fortunately for me, I had a good group and got an A but this was not enjoyable in the slightest. #tCFF23

Really awful. The lecture textbook explains the lab concepts better than the 2 hour lab. Be prepared to write the group lab report alone if you end up with a bad group. Grades are not rounded up and the cutoffs are posted around Thanksgiving (bell curve).

The best advice is not to take this lab at all, but some tips:
- there are examples of high and low scoring lab reports from the lab before posted on Canvas. They are very helpful. I used them as templates and they helped me not get 60s.
- Pay attention during the error propagation lab because all the lab reports demand error propagation & it has to be done by hand
- the lab manuals have "application" questions in the conclusion section. Ask your TAs about them before you leave lab because the questions usually have a very specific answer/exact words that the grading TAs are looking for that you will miss otherwise
- you are grouped based on how you do on a math placement (ALEKS). It tests basic algebra. If you score 77 or higher you pass and it counts as 100% for that assignment. If you score <77/100 you will have to complete an online math lesson module and retake the test (5 attempts) BUT you will be grouped with people who passed
- Immediately ask your TAs to switch if you get a bad group or be prepared to do all the work alone. Do not delude yourself into thinking it will get better (it won't). Be prepared with strong evidence and/or hysteria because the professor takes it personally and doesn't like switching groups
- The reports are graded out of 20 points. You can fight the grading TAs on Fridays to recover precious points. This is usually a losing battle. They do not like you
- The lab TAs are there to help so do not be afraid to ask them questions. The class is run by TAs. The only time I saw the professor was in office hours when he walked in and the girl I was sitting next to asked him for help with the pasco software and he started berating her instead of helping. He went on for 2ish minutes about how bad he thought it was–an exact sentence that he said, word for word, was "this data is crap how did you even collect this??" and ended it by telling her to redo the experiment
- Your lowest prelab score is dropped BUT there's a very long final/cumulative "prelab" due when the final lab report is due (which is around finals). If you don't do it, it counts as the dropped prelab.

Physics lab has been miserable for years and the department doesn't care. If you do take this class, don't stress yourself out too much; embrace the 8+ hours and tell yourself that you deserve so much more than a 1 credit physics workshop

#tCFF23