PHYS BC3010

The first quarter of the semester was great - one homework problem set that was due on courseworks. After Thanksgiving break, he assigned us almost 2-3 per week, each taking approximately six to eight hours to figure out what he wanted or how to solve it. We also had lab reports due every week, which were not easy tasks. The TA (Dr. Abedi) is amazing though; we love her!! Lab reports were due OVER THANKSGIVING AND FALL BREAK along with problem sets. You will not have a break with this class if you take it so be ready to spend nearly 10-12 hours on this per week. We had one take-home midterm that was split across two weekends (beginning of October, and then had the choice of taking the second either Hoco weekend or Halloweekend). The final was in-person and was extremely intense. He doesn't release a grade breakdown nor his grading scheme, so our grades on Vergil were literally a toss of a coin. He genuinely grades on vibes and nothing else lol.

I knew this class was going to be difficult going in, but I did not expect this. Prof HH, while welcoming, is VERY confusing. He responds to all our emails but does not properly answer the question, oftentimes confusing us more. He stays for office hours after but continues to talk about what he wants rather than what we have questions over. His lectures are very confusing with writing all over the board. It's nearly impossible to decipher them after lecture so make sure to pay attention in class. A lot of the time he will have you do derivations outside of class... DO THEM. THEY WILL BE ON THE EXAM. Unfortunately, Prof HH did not adequately prepare us for the final exam, and we all walked in expecting to fail :(. He expects physics to be your number one priority throughout the year. The content itself is also very difficult to understand and the professor does not do a good job at explaining his thought process. A lot of the time it feels like an info dump and we're just expected to know what he's talking about. He provides a lot of readings which is nice but also very unrealistic to expect us to spend our heart and soul into doing one class our entire semester.

Weekly lab reports that take anywhere between 3-15 hrs depending on how complex it is. 1 take home midterm, I pretty much blocked out the whole weekend to work on it. 1 in person final he told us to get 3/4 questions and you would be fine. Randomly assigned homeworks after the first midterm. Grading scheme seems like it's just based on vibes.

At first his organization and teaching is very confusing and it takes a lot of adjusted, like weeks. But once you get past that his class is quite enjoyable. He's very passionate about what he's teaching and even with my limited knowledge of ODE's I was still able to follow along most of the time. He held office hours right after class which allowed time to ask more clarifying questions. He's a very sweet man who cares a lot about his students and it shows.

1 take home midterm (over Halloweekend), 1 final, weekly lab reports (sometimes take up to 10 hours), occasional homeworks (~6). The grading scale is never specified and I'm pretty sure he just gives letter grade based on his vibes of you.

There is very little structure to this class. HH is confusing and most of the material only makes sense with a background in ODEs and sometimes PDEs. However, this really prepares you for the rest of the physics major. If you can get through this class, all the upper level physics class feel much more doable. With all that being said, HH really cares about his students and his passion for physics makes the class exciting when it makes sense.

1 midterm, 1 final, occasional hw assignments

Professor HH definitely cares about his students and is a nice person but is a really confusing teacher. His lectures at the blackboard are elaborate but really hard to follow, and he leaves out important intermediate steps in derivations.