professor
Rebecca Grossman

I have taken physics mechanics two times already (since high school credits did not carry over), and this is the most confusing way I have ever had it taught to me. I understand that Becky is trying (she's a really nice person) and that she herself is very good at physics, but I think she often forgot what her students knew and did not know. The only way to get 100% on the homework was to attend office hours every week, where the problems were essentially done out for us. This did not feel like a helpful way to learn physics. The tests themselves were very very difficult and had almost no partial credit awarded. Most people I know finished with an ok grade in the class, but I feel like I understand physics less than I did before. Youtube and the textbook taught me more than the actual class itself did.

PREMEDS DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS take physics at Columbia instead. The exams were impossible and did not reflect what we learned in class. Becky offered regrades for each assignment/exam but even with those, it is difficult to do well in the class. You need to have a natural inclination to physics/actually like it for this class not to completely destroy your self-esteem and GPA. Becky is really nice and I think she really cares about us understanding the material (hence the opportunity for regrades by submitting a video explanation, and all her office hours) but I don't think her teaching really got through to me or other students enough for us to do well on the exams she made. Each exam has 3 multiple part questions and each was worth 25 points. Sometimes the average score for a question was under 10/25 :/ idk Becky is really nice and she cares about us understanding the content but I definitely regret taking this class solely for the difficulty of the exams

This class was a mistake, I wish I had taken physics at columbia. This class was poorly taught, the tests were impossible (like 1-2 people out of seventy got above a 6 on a few quizzes), and I felt like studying made me do worse. I essentially had to teach myself this course, but the textbook isn't even good. I was just miserable and stressed and this class was a major source of that. I realize that physics is hard no matter who teaches it, but she is not a good teacher