PHYS 1425

Okay, everyone here says take this class with Prof. Neu he’s great! Honestly, Chris is enthusiastic and entertaining but he takes forever to get through review and content (I've sat in on his review sessions). Sometimes he doesn’t include some of the equations needed to complete the homework. I was registering for classes and though I was doomed cause everyone said Dukes is terrible. He is honestly not- he’s just an old professor and physics is just boring (just in my opinion). He incorporates demos and there’s a bunch of math, but he’s gotten better at explaining the clicker questions after if people get it wrong. If you aren't required to take this class, then don't. But if you are an engineer then you'll get a reasonable grade if you put in a good amount of work or have prior physics knowledge. Point is taking this class with the other professor won't drastically change your grade- they both give the same tests and same homework.

Overview:
A small part of your grade is based off attending class and answering what used to be "iclicker" questions, now just answering them online instead. Your five lowest days are dropped giving you five skips without any penalty if you wish. For the homeworks which are 20%, they're typically pretty tough as the year goes on but if you give them a good effort you can do well and finish with above a 90% there fairly easily. There are three midterms and one final. The best process for studying them in my opinion is to go over the practice exam and make sure you understand every problem, then proceed to go into the textbook and do the review problems for the chapters where content is covered. I didn't find paying attention in class was important for my success, however I had taken physics 1 in highschool, ymmv.

As a general introductory course I did not expect too much. Dukes is not a bad professor but he is dry. The demonstrations helped to liven things up but lectures could still be dull.

Tests and homework aren't easy but office hours definitely can help with the latter. The semester I took it Dukes did give a small curve (5 points) to some of the tests.

I think I read somewhere that more than half of all engineers end up leaving to take Physics 2 somewhere else and after taking this class it makes a lot of sense. The exams are all MC so making the smallest of errors results in the loss of a lot of points. The lectures are very dull and his PowerPoint slides from 2006 doesn't help the situation. Mastering Physics was designed to be as nonintuitive and annoying as they were always super difficult and nothing like what was going to be on the exams. Overall very terrible class and I would highly recommend going somewhere else.

An interesting course that everyone seems to just want to get over with; which I can understand. I myself didn't enjoy taking physics at all, either. Prof. Dukes isn't the most engaging lecturer, but I do feel as if his lectures assisted with my understanding of the material (when I came to lectures).

Thankfully, the class was fairly easy. Tests are fair, and as long as you complete the homework and answer clicker questions, you won't end up with a bad grade at all.

This class felt very scuffed at times. There were multiple instances of errors in the reading quizzes, which I'm not sure if they were even properly corrected in the grade book (I'm not certain of it, but that lack of clarity for that is a downside in itself). The worst of it came with publishing modules. There were multiple instances of having a reading quiz due on Monday at 2am (which was a weird time in the first place), but the module that included the quiz wasn't published until AFTER the deadline. This might've been his first time teaching the course under Canvas, so maybe it'll be fixed when it comes around next.

Besides that, Dukes knows what he's talking about, but it's hard to fully grasp it when the presentation of the content is bland. We had an interesting video here and there, but you'll mostly be going through a PowerPoint with application questions throughout. Those are a part of your grade, so attendance is required in that sense. Make sure you understand the principles of the content and what's going on in the formulas. It's a lot, but you're given a lengthy cheat sheet with the most important equations and constants, so that's a plus. Besides that, the class isn't too bad as long as you're on top of the subject.