PHYS 2415

This class was my least favorite that I have ever experienced in my life. I am confident that a majority of the class would agree. Despite attending nearly every lecture, completing all of the homework, and reading the textbook, I feel as though this class was a complete waste of time and energy and I did not learn very much. The tests are ridiculously hard (I'm not sure why below a 50% average is not a red flag to professors that something must change). Yes, it is possible to get a good grade in this class, but only because the curve is laughably large. Do yourself a favor and find a way to take this course somewhere else, whether online of over the summer. This review is for Professor Liyange, but Profssor Yoshida is far worse. So happy to be done with this class forever.

Definitely don't take this course unless you absolutely have to and I'd say try your hardest to take it online or over the summer or honestly anywhere else. The exams are basically impossible (the first exam avg was a 48%...) and most kids only got points for writing down the right formula because that's all they knew how to do. Definitely keep up with the Mastering Physics and written hw because it ended up saving my grade in the class. I can confidently say I learned nothing from this class and could not be happier to be done with physics.

So glad to be done with this class. The tests are unnecessarily difficult and you only have one hour to do them, so you're better off just regurgitating formulas for partial credit than trying to actually solve problems. The Mastering Physics are annoying, but there's a solution manual (it'll take you forever if you try to get each problem correct on your own). The written homeworks also suck and are graded on accuracy; you'll have to work with friends or go to office hours. Try to get full credit for participation and the homework assignments because they're worth a substantial amount of your grade. The grading is also confusing at times. All of the tests were curved to have the same average (74%), and if you get the average then you get a B for the tests, which are worth 30% of your grade. I honestly learned nothing in this class though. I got a full standard deviation below the average for the final and slightly below average for all of the tests and got a B- in the class. Some of the demonstrations are cool though. Either way, I'm done with physics FOREVER. Have fun.

This class is The Worst™. For midterms, we were given 1 hour to do the entire thing, which is extremely too short and you feel very rushed and frantic through the entire exam. The average on our first midterm was a 44.8% with a standard deviation of 16%!!!! what kind of class aims to make the tests so difficult that the majority of the class gets below a 50%?? The next test was significantly easier (relatively) and the average was around 74%. Apparently 74% was too high for their liking so they made the next test more difficult and the average was a 58%!! Almost a passing score! Love to hear it :') The mastering physics homeworks are straight out of the textbook and there is a solution guide (you WILL need it unless you want to spend your entire life in office hours). I tired to actually learn and understand the concepts behind the problems, but looking back on it, its really not worth it. Plug and chug your numbers bc the mastering homeworks do not help with the tests or learning for the class at all. The written homeworks are definitely something you should do in groups or go to office hours for and they are stupid hard and very time consuming.

I would also like to acknowledge the fact that the professors literally emailed us (i have it in writing!!!!) after they curved the first midterm that each test would be curved to roughly a B average (85% or so), but then proceeded to email us on DECEMBER 2ND AS THE SEMESTER WAS ENDING to tell us that they were going to round the tests to a 74% average instead!!! how considerate of them<33 not that I would have done any better on the tests knowing that the average would be curved to a C, but still!!!! The fact that they LIED to us is so annoying bc I was really counting on the fact that the average was going to be 10% higher than it actually was!

overall, the physics department at uva is a$$ and i would like them all to consider quitting teaching as a profession bc they all clearly suck at it.
thank you and goodbye.

Class is terrible have fun taking it I'm out

Professor Liyanage is super chill. The tests are very difficult, but halfway through the semester he changed the way they grade the tests to (theoretically) give people half credit on questions they might get wrong. Twice weekly Mastering Physics wasn’t too bad, but he had weekly written hw due on Fridays. You had to go to office hours to do that homework because it was very hard, even harden that the tests. But he is very friendly and willing to help if you go to office hours, which are held very often so it’s easy to find time to go. He also had fun demonstrations set up, which made the abstract stuff we learn in Physics 2 a little more easy to grasp. Still a hard class, regardless of who you take it with (or maybe I just suck at electricity and magnetism). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯