PHYS 1425

For the love of God, save yourself and do not take this man. I wish I waited a semester to take Zheng, than taking him this semester. By far the worst class I have ever taken. The exam averages were between 20-40 (out of 100!) Just trust me (a total stranger) and do not take him, you will regret it immediately. His quizzes are nearly impossible (thank God for TAs) and the midterms are nothing like any work you'll do in class. Additionally, his exam are almost all conceptual and trick questions, which he deems "Good physics questions." He then is condescending that his averages are so low, and it must be his students' fault. You also lose 4 points of your exam grades if you don't estimate your score within a +/- 10-point range. If you must take him, build a good relationship with a TA and study the weekly quizzes endlessly.

TL;DR: Just save yourself, do not take.

This class is incredibly frustrating. I recommend to try as hard as you can to get it with any other professor. Professor Yoshida does an adequate job of explaining in lecture and you feel generally good about the course until you take the exam and the averages are in the 40s and 30s. To which the professor will tell you that the average is similar to other professors (it is indeed not). Studying for this class is almost useless, as the exams are not reflective of the material. It should say something that it is entirely multiple choice and everyone does so poorly. When we have the group portion of the exam our entire section of over 100 students is allowed to work together to solve 12 multiple choice questions and we are still unable to come to a common consensus. The entire course (slides and lecture notes) are all from a different professor, and professor Yoshida writes his own exams, so there is disconnect between what we think we know and what appears on the exams. In addition he is not clear at all of the possibility of a curve and is dismissive when students ask. I wish I was one of the smart students who switched out of his section almost immediately. I would strongly discourage anyone from taking this class. You will not fail this class due to the weighting of everything but you will perform poorly unless you are one of the few students who can get above a 60 on his exams. The stress is just not worth it.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT TAKE PHYS 1425 WITH PROFESSOR YOSHIDA. This class will make you hate everything about yourself. DO NOT TAKE! Test averages were between 20-40 and the average number of times I cried per week was 6-7. If you enjoy dehydrating your eyeballs, MAYBE ACTUALLY DO TAKE THE CLASS. Otherwise, BEWARE! There was literally only one person in the class who did well and his name was Wilson. I DO NOT LIKE WILSON he makes me feel dumb. Yoshida does not know what the word curve means. But I DO! And it means that we should not have FREAKING Fs IN THIS FLIPPING CLASS. I JUST USED TWO alternative F WORDS to describe HOW MUCH I FRICK FRACKING HATE THIS CLASS. And don't even get me started about the "guess your grade" question on tests -- I might not be able to write another review cuz Ill be dead.

If you have any respect for yourself, do not take this class with professor Yoshida. The lectures were fine but we had weekly group quizzes which were actually the bane of my existence. They were so extremely difficult for no reason, however they were (kind of) take home because they aren't due until the end of the day. The quizzes didn't help understand the material anymore that you already did and were a huge waste of time. The real issue with this class was the exams. Both midterms averaged in the 30-40s. They were 50 minutes timed and 12 multiple questions, and unreasonably difficult. The practice exam had almost no correlation to the exam and there were limited study materials. I have honestly have never had a more difficult time trying to study for a class before. Not to mention that at the end of every exam you would have to guess your grade and if you weren't within 10 points, he took off more points. To make it worse, after everyone in the class did bad on their individual exam, we would take a group exam weeks later and wouldn't hear about our final grade until a month after starting the individual exam. Trust me when I say, take this class with any other professor if you care about your happiness. Save yoiurself.

I actually really liked Professor Yoshida's lectures and it was clear he tried to make things exciting and cares about his students, but his tests and group quizzes are INSANE. Group quizzes you can pretty much ask TAs how to solve and they'll tell you, but the tests are not good. Even the TAs I've talked to have said he makes them much harder than other professors. I wish I could say I recommend him because he is a cool dude, but I really can't based on how poorly I and my friends have done...

DO NOT TAKE. Extremely frustrating class. Even if you did well in high school physics, this class is nearly impossible. Yoshida is a fine lecturer, but his lesson slides are dense and complicated. Still, the in-class quizzes and exams are even more difficult. You basically need the TA's to solve the quizzes for you, assuming they aren't also completely lost, and even when the entire 100+ person class takes the group exam, nobody can agree on the answers. Studying almost feels pointless, since each exam question is some sort of trick or wording issue. It basically comes down to how lucky you are during the exams. With the curve, one correct MCQ in a midterm is the difference between an A vs a B grade. If you normally are a B+ / A- student in STEM classes, this class will be bad for you. The low averages and random bonus credit means that only students who are insanely good at physics will do well, and everyone else is randomly sorted through the letter grades.

DO NOT TAKE, My god, i have never felt so stupid in a course. Listen I may be stupid but Jesus christ, if you struggle with stem courses please avoid this class like your ass is on fire. First midterm you cooked if you got a 50, second midterm? a 30. Not only did he not take any accountability but told the students to go back to the beginning. As said by another victim,"Studying for this class is almost useless, as the exams are not reflective of the material". He's a funny professor but funny will ruin your GPA. He is unsure of a curve(almost everybody I know is failing). Take it from me who took his class because he didn't have any reviews when I signed up for his class. The homework does not match to the exams, good luck if you have him.
TLDR: No.

If you don't enjoy physics, don't take this class. If you enjoy physics, don't take this class. The list of victims here speaks for itself. Yoshida is not a bad physics professor, as he teaches new material well and often includes fun demonstrations in lecture. However, he makes the midterms significantly harder than any coursework he gives us, which includes the online homework, group quizzes, lecture material, and the practice exams offered.

The exams are designed to fail you - they consist of about a dozen questions to complete in an hour, all of which are multiple-choice questions. A few of these are considered "free-response" questions, but are essentially MCQ's since they are weighted just as much and Yoshida gives almost no partial credit for written work or error carried forward if the incorrect answer is selected. For each question, every incorrect answer choice is placed to deceive you with a small conceptual mistake in the solution, which makes the correct choice extremely hard to derive.

If you think you've failed enough, not quite. At the end of each midterm, there is a "self-assessment" that requires you to guess your score within 10 points of your actual score. If you guess outside the range, which most students end up doing since they'd rarely guess such a low score, congratulations - you've just lost another 4 points for something that has nothing to do with physics.

Homework and group quizzes are your saving grace - while time-consuming, they are quite intuitive and graded leniently. However, if you need help in class, the TA's are pretty useless from personal experience. Chances are, they will be just as confused as you since the material is so difficult, though they might provide a semi-coherent conceptual explanation if they have the answer key with them.

For reference, I've scored decently above-average on the midterms (in the 55-70 range, believe it or not) and I'm fighting for a B with my homework keeping me afloat. Midterm averages, according to Yoshida himself, fell in the 30s and 40s. The final is coming up with little hope of a grade curve. In my class, I know of maybe 1-2 well-regarded students who have received good scores on midterms and are on pace to ace the class. Everyone else I know is in the same boat as me, if not worse.

As an ESchool student who has taken two years of high school physics, I'm extremely relieved that ECE 2200 is offered as an alternative to Physics 2 so I never have to touch this department again. If you're like me and absolutely need to take Physics 1, either pray you get an early enrollment time for Zheng's class or take it over the summer instead.

On behalf of the readers, I'm sorry if I come across as demeaning or arrogant. I'm trying to keep this as blunt and transparent as possible to save others. Prof. Yoshida, if you're seeing this, I apologize for my venting session. Your lectures are interesting and you teach concepts well, but I sincerely hope you reconsider your structuring of this course, especially with regard to these midterms. Not every student wants to be a physics professor.

TL;DR: Don't take this class.

this was THE worst class i have ever taken in all of my academic career. please don't take it with him unless you're okay with tanking your GPA and feeling the most confused or unprepared you've ever felt in a class.

yoshida is a chill dude and hes pretty funny in class, but the tests are actually way too hard and he can't lecture well or convey content properly at all in his lectures. his demos are cool, but everything else in class feels like such a waste of time compared to the bs he asks on a test. he barely goes over any practice problems (just says solution posted after class) and flies through chapters like its nothing and just expects you to come up with answers out of thin air to figure out answers on a test or quiz. i've gone into tests feeling somewhat confident, and come out with failing grades. averages are insanely low from 30-40, and he "makes the test easier" throughout the course, but the averages just get lower the more you go on. i'm usually pretty good at self studying and pretty decent at math and science, but unless you're cracked at physics, you're failing. he mentions a curve after but doesn't emphasize it nor reassures his students about anything so you are highkey in the dark about what your grade will be

there's hw and quizzes to help your grade, but none of it matters when the entire class is failing every midterm. as you probably seen from other reviews he asks you to grade yourself at the end of each test, AND MAKES THE GUESSING WORTH ACTUAL POINTS ON YOUR TEST. so if you get every single question right and guess incorrectly, you get a 96 😐. the audacity to joke about how mostly everyone got that wrong and "severely overestimated" our scores and not change anything in the class to help students out is insane. just don't take this class, avoid it at all costs if you can.

Yoshida's class is definitely hard, but what physics course isn't? Expect to get a B or C depending on how u do but the class itself is fun. lotta live demos and he cares about his students. Classwork is 60% of ur grade and its impossible to not get an 100. Plus group exam is easy 90. The actual mideterms (yes obv very difficult avg of like 30) are only worth liike 12%. You will do fin, and yoshida gets a bad rap. love the guy, so stoic and makes jokes with the students.