John Parsons

The professor is nice and funny. Tries to make himself available for questions. Often makes connections to current physics research being done to make it more engaging, which is nice if you are interested in physics. As expected, there is a good amount of ODEs, calculus, and complex variables material that he teaches during class, but it would be better to be familiar with it beforehand. Not the worst physics class I've taken.

Wasn't sure what to expect going into this class, having only taken intermediate physics lab the previous semester, but I enjoyed this class way more. Most of the content follows labs from The Art of Electronics, building increasingly complex circuits on breadboards, observing signals using oscilloscopes, simulating circuits in LTSpice, and learning the fundamentals of actually useful circuitry as one might encounter in future experimental research. High/low pass filters, rectifiers, lots of transistor stuff like amplifiers/push-pull, Op Amps, digital logic, ADCs and DACs, and finally ending with a little bit of FPGA work. Honestly one of the best lab experiences I've had in terms of just giving us the space to mess around with circuits, make mistakes and learn from them. Highly recommend for anyone interested in electronics from a more physics-y background, because you'll gain some actually applicable knowledge, practical experience, and also experience in simulation software that's actually used in industry. Prof. Parsons and his TA Svanik were super chill and always helped out whenever our circuits were broken. Incredibly useful and chill class if you like circuits, in my opinion.

He is funny and all, but his class average is low, and he could definitely do a better job to help the class succeed.

Literally traumatized me. He is funny, but he is not a good prof. Take whoever else is avaliable

I had high expectations going into this class as parsons had a gold nugget. But honestly try to take Raymer's class if you can. Class averages for midterms in parsons section were 66 both times while raymer's class had a higher average. In my opinion, if the class average is consistently a failing grade something is wrong. As someone else said, the grades were curved to a B/B+ which is nice but I feel like slapping a curve on the failing grades is ignoring the issue at hand. Lectures were really unclear and Parson's use of abbreviations and penmanship made it even harder to follow along. He does post notes but they are not in depth and once again penmanship makes it hard to follow. Also he doesn't give pratice exams for some reason. I disagree with the other commenter who said that exams were very similar to problem sets. Many of the people taking the class had already taken AP Physics 1 and scored well so you are competing with people who already have experience in the subject. I hated thermodynamics coming into this and I was hoping college would change this for me, but it actually made me hate physics even more. (so much so that I changed my major to one that does not require as many physics classes)

Professor Parsons is outstanding. His lectures are clear and organized, and he is very open about what he considers fair game for tests. He devotes a great deal of time to his students, from office hours to email replies. This was incredibly helpful during reading period, when he held an extra office hour AND a finals review session. He does an excellent job of completely addressing questions/problems, and is quick to note when certain material is interesting, but too complex to be acceptable for a test question. Lecture attendance is a must, as his tests are based heavily on his notes and explanations, which are all chalkboard, not electronic. Only one practice test (before the first midterm), but once you get used to his testing style, you can certainly do well by reviewing his notes and the assigned homework problems.

Parsons is a great physics professor! I feel lucky that I was able to take is class this semester. His tests are hard but fair, and not based on endless computations meant to test your calculator skills. They make you think. Just a side note though, some of the older reviews say that there's no calculators on the test. That's not true in Phsyics 2 - some test questions require calculators, but at least half the questions on every test don't. You can use a graphing calculator, so you may want to throw some formulas on there, since his formula sheet is very sparse. Parson's lectures are clear, he writes well on the blackboard and he's sometimes even funny. I enjoyed physics lecture, and I'm hardly a mathmo. I wish he'd been around first semester as well.

The first semester is mechanics; the second E&M. Professor Parsons is very nice and is fairly approachable (although honestly you will probably never need to talk to him personally). His lectures are straightforward and follow the textbook closely enough that it is easy to miss class if necessary. Unfortunately his voice has a monotone, droning quality that can put people to sleep. There were two midterms each semester which had problems similar to the homework but using only variables instead of numbers, so no calculators were allowed (this is a good thing because using a calculator wastes a lot of time). The averages on midterms were very low because the class was filled with SEAS freshmen who are weak at physics (I believe this is the lowest level of physics SEAS students can take). This is also good, because if you take this class with a strong physics background it is very easy to do well. My only complaint is that the problem sets were too long.

One of the best lecturers and best physics professors I have ever seen. He magically explains everything almost incomprehensible in physics. A great class for all of your physics lovers.

I would have like for a bit more guidance from Professor Parsons. Our TA, Maria, was extremely helpful, but she was not always able to help us with some aspects of the lab when Professor Parsons would have been able too. He would often lecture and then leave, leaving us with lingering questions about parts of the lab. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Spring 2024 Course: PHYSUN3083_001_2024_1-ELECTRONICSLABORATORY : PHYSUN3083_001_2024_1 - ELECTRONICS LABORATORY Instructor: John Parsons