2.4
Quality3.1
Difficulty36%
Would Retake84
Reviews36%
Would Retake
84
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
19
4
8
3
5
2
5
1
47
What Students Say
“I started this class eager to learn, but it became a huge disappointment”
PHYS-UA11 - 1.0 rating“Extremely disorganized and unclear about grading cut-offs”
PHYS-UA11 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Attendance Mandatory
5%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A+
Grade Distribution
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Declining
-2.53 avg changeRatings by Course
PHYS-UA11
2.4
(84)Difficulty by Course
PHYS-UA11
3.1
Reviews (84)
The course is very unorganized. Lectures can be confusing and often contain mistakes. We are given very few problems to prepare for the exams with no provided solutions to check our work. Exams are short and multiple choice but representative of what we cover in lecture.
Gaston's very chill, much better than the previous professor teaching Gen Phys I during COVID, and material is much easier than it used to be during COVID. He's 100% accessible outside of class, responds to emails, and go to his office hours if you have the time. Tests are very fair game and similar to the homework problems.
He might seem intimidating (some students were hesitant to go to his office hours due to his neutral outer appearance) but once you sit down to chat with him, he is very attentive to what one has to say or asks for. Before his class, I would dread physics. Now I admire it! He took the time to help me understand the subject with lots of kindness.
Gaston was the most caring and funny professor I've ever had at NYU. His lectures were a bit confusing if you stopped paying attention for even a minute, but he was SO accessible outside of class to explain anything you missed. The class was 450 people but he made me feel seen and believed in even though I'd never taken physics before this class.
solid professor. class is super weird and it's hard to understand him sometimes, but he had very straightforward grading and exams. didnt try to trick you.
Very strange class. Lectures are unorganized and confusing and sometimes not helpful at all. We are never given answer keys to the homework questions so its difficult to know if you're on track or not. The exams are 10 question multiple choice so no partial credit. Just a strange class. He is accessible in office hours though,
He's a funny and caring professor! The class is based on four exams and your overall lab grade, all worth 20% and the tests are all 10 MC. He doesn't try to trick you during exams but his lectures are a little tough to follow since it's mainly just deriving formulas and the occasional practice problems which he doesn't solve, just formulas to use.
Gaston is amazing!! He really is passionate about teaching and is always very fair in his exams and class expectations. He does not expect you to know anything he did not cover in class. You can def do well in his class if you do all the homework and lecture problems and make sure you really understand them. Textbook problems are very helpful too.
Gaston is a super funny and chill physics teacher. His lectures may be a bit disorganized and sometimes he's hard to understand but he's really funny and engaging so I found it easy to go to class and pay attention. He's also super accessible through office hours and really encourages everyone to come. The tests were straightforward if you do hw.
Highly recommend taking his class - he makes tough subjects approachable and clearly puts though and effort into his lessons.
Gaston is amazing; he evidently puts so much effort into his lectures and really cares that you understand the material. Exams aren't designed to trick you and if you complete the homework the test questions are mostly straightforward. His grading scale is super lenient and he makes the content interesting!
Professor Giribet gave me hope when there was very little at NYU. Wants you to learn and if you go to office hours, he answers you with respect and patience and will reexplain the same thing over and over. If you go to lectures and office hours, you will do well.
Hands down the best professor I've ever had at NYU. This man makes physics so easy to understand he could explain it to a monkey. His lessons are very well made and include tons of practice material, and hella nice drawings. Go to his office hours, he'll give you a full rundown on whats covered in lecture, and what you need to know for exams. 10/10
Gaston is physics professor u want. Lectures are very clear and exactly what he tests on. Plus, he's a great artist & HILARIOUS! His exams are straightforward and the grading cutoffs are very lenient. Many people got to skip the final. The most annoying portion of the course is the lab and even that doesn't compare to the other lab courses at NYU.
He is an artist, all his lectures are drawn so clearly and well that he can explain complex concepts in a way that can be easily visualized. He lets you skip the final if you do well enough and his exams are only 10 questions but generally fair.
Unprofessional and lectures are difficult to understand.
I love this man. He is so funny and slay. His exams are very fair. His philosophy for teaching is very considerate of undergrads. His artwork seals the deal. Love Gaston!
Nice, funny, accessible. But your grade is determined by 40 (30 if you skip the final) MC, so each question is 2% or 2.7% of your grade with no partial credit. Exams are straightforward, no calculus. Would be an amazing prof if he had more standard exams, or at the very least doubled the number of questions on each exam.
Wonderful man, artist, and teacher. As someone who used to struggle with physics, he makes the topics entertaining and consumable and he really wants you to succeed. The structure of the course makes the exams kind of high stakes, but they are genuinely extremely fair, and Gaston is very accessible and helpful outside of lecture.
Super easy exams and option to not take final if you do well on the three midterms. All multiple choice and very straightforward and similar to the optional homework he gives you!
This guy wants you to get a good grade. His exams are either from the homework or his lecture slides (sometimes easier). If you go to class and do the homework you will be fine. He does not grade homework, or take attendance, so the class is very flexible. People who complain about his accent are bad at English; he is perfectly understandable.
Doesn't have clear rules for scoring and will never tell you what works when you ask him questions about scoring. Easy course, but the most arrogant and irresponsible professor I've ever encountered
As a person who doesn't love (or care much about) physics, Gaston was great! He's very understanding in terms of grading and is very lenient even if you fumble one midterm. Everything is very fair and covered in class or through his homeworks! Love Gaston
Had him for gen phy 1&2, easy to get A. I had some basic knowledge in physics and the contents were not that hard. Other than that he is annoying. He didn't give answers to practice problems and exams (only explains them in office hour), so students got together and compared answers. Don't recommend him if your want to actually learn physics.
Pre-meds try not to suck the life out of anything and everything challenge
Earlier reviews must be about a different person because, while Gaston is a kind person and a funny lecturer, his lecture materials are not helpful for understanding Physics. He never provides solutions, never posts answers and is not accessible outside of class. His exams in 2024 are devious, and incomparable to earlier years in their difficulty.
He says the exam will be about one thing, then gives you entirely different exam. Im 100% sure we never went over half the material on the exams. His lectures are gibberish tbh.
Lecture slide isn't clear at all with only equations posted. No answers to homework provided. Exam this year is much harder than last year's exam. Exams are not similar to homework, almost pointless in doing the homework problems. No clear explanation for grade cutoffs.
Has the worst lecture slides of all time, no solutions to homework posted, and about 75% of the material you go through will not be tested on while some weird obscure concept not emphasized at all will show up as one of 10 questions on an exam worth 20% of your grade.
Worst stem/premed course I have ever taken at NYU. I have never had a teacher who was so unfair and inaccessible to students. Lectures are a mess, what is he even talking about? Acts like he's all that but he's unfunny and so bad at teaching. Orgo was way better than this and that's shocking for me to say tbh
He specifically wrote in the syllabus that no exams would be dropped and that people who cheated would get an automatic 0 so tell me why he caught people in the class yet still gave them a pass and let them replace their exam with their final. Highly unfair and goes against his own syllabus. Also very incoherent lectures
Lectures and lecture slides are literally useless, exams are nothing like the homework, and no one can give you a clear answer to the homework except literally ChatGPT. Textbook is also useless, and none of the seem to be dropped or curved despite each one being worth (20%) of your grade. Exams are badly spaced out throughout the semester.
Tough exams
Extremely unclear with grading criteria. Announcements are unclear and misleading for exam review. Leaks exams and comes in late for class lectures frequently. HW and lecture problems do not reflect accurately what will be on exams. Gives hw and examples without answers and the course feels very disorganized. TAs are great tho :)
Worst class I've ever taken.
I started this class eager to learn, but it became a huge disappointment. The professor's lack of guidance and unclear assignments left me confused and frustrated. By the end, I felt completely defeated—no matter how hard I worked, this class seemed designed to stifle enthusiasm and make learning an uphill battle.
Extremely disorganized and unclear about grading cut-offs. Does not care about his students doing well what so ever and has no passion for getting people interested in physics.
All the fall 2024 reviews are just unfair to be honest. The class is super fair and although they have been harder than past years it was not impossible. Pre meds just like to complain about anything. The class is a bit disorganized but Gaston is a super nice and sweet guy if you go to office hours. Easy A if you put in the work.
While I finished with an A, I couldn't stand this class. For the last exam, this guy gave us 5 vaguely relevant problems with NO solutions, along with a list of four topics you needed to know. The lecture slides are horrendous and half of them consist of stupid cartoon drawings with random formulas sporadically scattered.
Do him if you are pre med. easy A if you read the textbook. I went to 15% of his lectures and still got a straight A.
I actually went into this class excited, but Gaston fully crushed it. He never responds and if he does it's so vague. The grade is based on tests. Even though lab is 20% of the grade, he's not calculating it into the grade. He's so condescending, and to the people who are saying he's nice... it's only if you're doing good in the class.
I have never had a professor who was so disorganized. The lectures are often vague and mostly consist of drawings and equations. He rarely reviews examples with real numbers in class, and most of the lecture time is spent deriving equations. There are no clear grading criteria. Exams consist of ten multiple-choice questions, unrelated to lectures.
The only way to do good in this course Is to read the textbook and essentially teach yourself the material. Lectures are disorganized and not helpful and do not reflect what exams are like. He is a funny guy, but not a great lecturer.
imma be real I'm writing this mainly bc he said the final would be 15-20 questions. it wasn't. it was 10. unsure of what happened w gaston. on a positive note: he has rly cute drawings in his lecture slides. love fernando the elephant
His lectures are not straight forward(slides are extremely lengthy and impossible to follow), exams tend to be on the simpler side but his teaching style may not conducive for understanding to be many students. He is very hard to reach outside of class, and when he does respond to emails he is curt and slightly impolite. Unclear grading criteria.
Grading is based entirely on exams & lab. Exams are simple and not too hard, but he makes it really hard to prep by barely giving any practice problems, and for the ones he does give he does not provide solutions. Lectures are very hard to follow bc of his accent and not really efficient, and the slides are handwritten and hard to read.
Grades are based on exams and lab. If you get 90, 90, and 100 on the three midterms, you can skip the final for an A. The exams are straightforward. Do all the homeworks that he posted. He's lecture is confusing, so just read the slides yourself and teach yourself the material (if you don't understand the slides) then you will be fine.
Grades are based on exams and lab. If you get 90, 90, and 100 on the three midterms, you can skip the final for an A. The exams are straightforward. Do all the homeworks that he posted. He's lecture is confusing, so just read the slides yourself and teach yourself the material, if you don't understand the slides, then you will be fine.
Overall easy class, many students I know got 100 on three midterms and skipped the final. Be ready to study by yourself because lectures are not that helpful. However, you HAVE to look over all the slides because many questions came from them. Lab is the toughest part of the lesson, but exams matter more overall.
tests were much harder than practice exams and previous tests. his lecture slides are so cute lol
one of the most disorganized professors I've ever seen. Lied about grading criteria. Refuses to post lectures online and when he does it's not the same as the ones in lecture. Simply cannot teach. Have fun teaching yourself everything. just absolutely horrible
Have no idea what the professor says in lectures because of his accent. No illustrations of homework answers.
tests r a mess
You will teach yourself this class. Homework is ungraded and unrelated to exams, and you will have to find alternative ways to teach and test yourself on the material referenced on the lecture slides. Go to tutoring, Watch videos online. Not impossible but if you don't have free time to teach yourself the material you will not succeed in this class
the lectures are confusing and there aren't practice exams for the midterms (the homework questions are usually unrelated to the exams)
TELL ME WHY PROF IS COVERING A NEW TOPIC ON THURSDAY AND INCLUDING THAT ON OUR EXAM ON FRIDAY. he has absolutely lost his mind.
J go to class and get ur hands on an old midterm to study. Literally just go to class its not that bad. I used to be one of the people complaining bc i didnt go to class so i didnt rlly understand the slides cuz theres barely any words on em but when u go u get it. He doesnt deserve all the h8 lol hes rlly chill
Most of the material is going to be self-taught, so make sure you are getting your online resources ready. Lectures are very round-about and do not teach you what you need to know. However, it was a decently manageable class otherwise. Grading is fair, so if you can learn the material yourself, you will be fine.
Grading criteria is unclear. The only things that factor into the grade are four ten question exams and the lab score. The criteria for my class was getting an average of 90 on all the exams and a 70 on the lab. You could also skip the final if you got an average of 90 on all three exams. There's no practice material, so good luck.
Aside from being terrible at explaining concepts, Gaston simply does not care for his students. I've witnessed him being unnecessarily hostile towards students who asked him questions about the material after class; in any other department, this would not be tolerated. Honest test taker & diligent student? This class will be a nightmare for you.
Gaston is a nice guy but mediocre lecturer. Your grade is only determined by exams, each is 10 MC with 4 options ABCD, and you can skip the final if you have a 90+ average on the 3 midterms. The key to doing well is doing the assigned HW and finding previous semester exams and doing them. Go to the ULC to have concepts and HW answers explained.
Giribet lays out all the concepts that will be tested on in lecture, but he doesn't elaborate on them well. To pass the class, I took all the concepts to physics tutoring where I did most of my learning. There were way too many tutoring sessions offered with like zero attendance so it was basically private tutoring. The exams were self-explanatory.
He doesn't teach anything useful. I have sat through many lectures, hoping to identify some key takeaways and I rarely find any. Every lecture can be taught in ten mins tops. If you ask him a question, many times he is rude to you. Only saving grace is that the grading is fine and the TAs and tutors are great at teaching.
Organic chemistry tutor + Chad's prep will be your holy grail taking this course (trust me). Gaston's lectures are laughable, exams are not comprehensive AT ALL, and almost no helpful practice material is uploaded for students. Lab TAs are amazing, so make sure to take advantage of their knowledge.
I don't know how we can pay 100k a year and get professors like this guy to teach us anything. his handwriting is actually terrible, and be prepared to teach yourself everything in gp1. and 2!! and if u wanna reference his slides, maybe run them thru a ulc tutor first because i fear he doesn't even know what he wrote down half the time.
Worst educator ever. His lectures confused me and made me question my understanding because of how terribly he explains the content. His grading scheme is also extremely unfair and does not accurately represent how well you understand the material. I hope that his career's trajectory decelerates due to the friction that these reviews produce.
Horrible lecturer. Examples on the slides could be explained in 15 minutes but he draws out explanations for far too long. Just self study.
Horrible teacher, slides aren't good, no practice exams, no study tools, no hope just misery. Doesn't teach uses class as stand up comedy time, if you love physics don't take this class, that love will die.
RUN!! If you can avoid his class, please do. Save your sanity, money, and time. His lectures are beyond uncomprehensible, both in terms of how he teaches and his notes. It got to a point where I was WASTING my time going to lectures. There was no material provided to help prepare for the final. If I wasn't premed, I would not have taken his class.
Dont know how he got hired. His lectures are a waste of time and you have to learn the entire content from youtube tutors instead. His lecture slides barely help with the exams and his homework doesn't correlate either. He decided to spite us for not going to lectures or something cause he didn't post any review for the final topics.
Worst class I've taken at NYU. I'm a senior in pre-med and this class was made to be so much more difficult than it needs to be. I guess they changed the way they run it because you can no longer drop the final, and the final exam was so hard. Avoid if you can!! Sorry to the pre-meds that haven't taken physics before. Good luck to you.
He should teach art instead of physics.
this is the first course where i skipped almost every lecture because they are a waste of time. his lectures make no sense and they overcomplicate everything. he's rude if you try and reach out to him, and he gives no practice material besides homework. avoid or take off track if you can
With all due respect, this guy does not care about this job too much. I am sure he is rly smart and once taught a great class, but it's clear that he and the students don't care anymore. Just self-learn the material with Chat+YouTube. The other pre-med science classes are actually MUCH better with passionate profs, just get through this one.
His lectures are a joke and he posts bad slides and little homework review. He doesn't teach yet must spend so much time shading his drawings on his slides instead of actually making practice. I think he got rejected from art school and decided to just abuse poor pre meds instead of going after a different community
you will not learn anything. you will teach the entire course to yourself. he will make the exams so incredibly difficult. all exams are 10 multiple choice questions, no partial credit and your entire grade is made up of these exams. he will make the exams more difficult and will not answer any questions about what's on the exams. stay tf away.
It's time to suffer
Prof. Giribet clearly knows his stuff, but is not the best-suited to teach a class of almost 600 people. The class is 10% labs and 30/30/30% for midterms and final (or 30/60). Pay attention because he often puts the lecture problems on the exams (all 10 MC questions).
do not take unless u hv to
Second worst man in history to fail out of art school
Gaston didn't care to do the bare minimum as a professor—his lectures made simple concepts seem overly complicated and he didn't even post practice problems/homeworks for students to do. His lecture notes had beautiful diagrams. I wish he spent more time actually teaching physics instead of doodling in his lecture slides.
Lecture slides are not good, can't get any understanding out of them unless you go to lecture and watch him talk through them. Seems the course has changed compared to previous semesters, the exams were ultra easy and you could skip the final. Now there are two, and they are HARD. Not much correlation between lecture, HW, and exams.
bro does not wanna teach and makes difficult ahh exams (which he never did in the past)
Tried studying early using the guide he said he'd follow, but once class started he jumped everywhere. The material isn't hard, yet he overcomplicates it. Lectures are mostly drawings and not very helpful. No practice exam for midterm 2 or final because he “lost” the digital file. Wouldn't recommend.
Class Info
Attendance Mandatory
5%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-2.53 avg changeRatings by Course
PHYS-UA11
2.4
(84)Difficulty by Course
PHYS-UA11
3.1