3.0
Quality3.1
Difficulty63%
Would Retake85
Reviews63%
Would Retake
85
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
20
4
15
3
19
2
11
1
20
What Students Say
“Worst Prof you can possibly imagine”
PHYSICS124 - 2.0 rating“He gets distracted a lot and loses his train of thought”
PHYS124 - 3.0 ratingClass Info
Attendance Mandatory
26%
Textbook Required
11%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.24 avg changeRatings by Course
ASTRO
5.0
(1)ENPH131
5.0
(1)ASTRONOMY
5.0
(1)ASTR120122
5.0
(1)ASTR122
5.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
PHYS146
5.0
PHYSICS108
5.0
PHYS252
4.0
PHYS144
3.7
PHYSICS
3.5
Reviews (85)
Great for demonstrations. Very conceptual.
kinda disorganized
He's VERY disorganized and not sure of anything.
No Comments
He's so strict on physics lab
bad examples, rambles, not at all helpful.
Cool course, really good teacher.
No Comments
worst teacher ever
No Comments
No Comments
If i want examples, I'll look in the text. TEACH SOME THEORY HOW ABOUT BEFORE YOU GIVE EXMPLES! 0/5 on both theory sections of 2 midterms
He may be alittle boring at times but his class is well worth taking. He is extremely helpful and responds to email immediately and keeps regular office hours. If he were more energentic, then this is exactly what every class should be...interesting.
He likes his little laptop deal, but doesn't understand that it's hard to see the tiny little dot that he points at things with. Makes for confusion. Other than that, pretty average prof.
One word to describe him- BOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!
He can be extremely boring, but there are good things about him. He's good with office hours, always answers e-mails, and has internet notes. Nice guy overall. Has tough exams so far. Not the greatest teacher, but not too bad i guess. suffers from his boring teaching.
Duller than a brand new unsharpened pencil.
good guy. sometimes boring, but he's really helpful with office hours and e-mail responses. He also marks very fair, and his exams are decent, provided you study and do the work.
Was not very helpful, approachable or nice.
No Comments
An awesome prof..explains things well..but have extremely hard exams...so be prepared for that. otherwise, he is good.
His inability to teach caused me to drop the course after a week.
Explains concepts using intelligent words such as "um" and "uh".
He is very nice and approachable you just nees to put in a little extra work and read the ch summaries at the end of each chapter in the text.
Not many students liked his class because he didn't have much experience with this particular course. I thought he was a great teacher and did very well.
He teaches a tough course so it becomes easy to knock him, but he's quite good. His wonderful internet notes allow for lots of info and the ability to focus in class without frantically writing.
He marks really fair and if you actually do the assignments and go to class you should have no problem doing well. It is a really cool course and he has pretty much the whole course on his website and although he is disorganized sometimes, its kinda funny.
he's ok, i hate it when he leaves office hours early to play squash.
He was very disorganized. He told the other 104 class he was teaching they were allowed a formula sheet and forgot to tell my class. When there was a huge diffrece in the averages of the classes he refused to do any scaleing.
He is one of the best teachers I have had. He is really funny in class and very helfull outside of class.
Good instructor. In class, his notes are a bit messy, but on his website they are very helpful. His tests are not that bad if you study your material, and he can be humorous while staying on topic and thoroughly covering the material. He is also helpful in office hours. In my opinion, he is very underrated by many of his students. I recommend him.
overall good teacher! slightly scatterbrained, but writes good tests and writes comprehensive helpful notes
Some of the questions on the final were word for word what were on the final exams from previous years. Fair tests, boring class, do the assignments well because the marks add up fast.
The nerdy scientist on the Simpsons. Very awkward, unclear, and strange teaching methods.
he's actually a really good teacher. Study his examples and the questions from assignments and you can't go wrong in the class. Highly reccomended.
I thought his lecture notes were always a little disjointed and out of order. Also, the stuff posted on his website seemed to have big gaps in it, hard to fill when he keeps switching between his tablet PC and the board. If his lectures were a bit more concise and ordered, it would have made the material easier to understand.
No Comments
Scatterbrained while teaching last topics(after rotation)I stopped going to class and found it easier to learn from textbook. Taught everything up until that point very well and was easy to follow in class. Found he was an *** when I went for help on all occasions but 1. Exams are easy if you do assigned problems and work through old exams.
Notes are not that great but overall explian things good. For anyone who gets him, just take your own notes from the textbook. His classes are great for examples, just go over the topic before going to class.
Has done his PhD so realizes the workload an average student goes through. To get a good grade, enroll in classes for ASTR, really helpful for assignments.
Excellent instructor and very nice and willing to help.
Very good prof. Knows his stuff and teaches it well with examples. Tests can be easy if you do all the assignments and follow the examples in class. Very helpful during office hours. His sense of humor and sarcasm come through in his teaching which makes the class time enjoyable.
he was not a good teacher at all only bonus was somehow funny at times but otherwise could not follow through on his examples and would expect you to figure them out on your own. he jumped around alot in his examples which made it extremely hard to understand as well as his thoughts. dont take his class if you want to do good in physics.
Worst mistake of my life having him as a professor. He knows his staff but does not know how to teach it. His notes are just a mess on the board. If you can avoid him, do it.
Can not keep your attention
Helpful. If students put in the effort, he will put in the effort to ensure then succeed. Exams are fair, I wasnt a huge fan of the multiple choice section but overall the long answer was good. Willling to listen to concerns. Friendly
Very smart man, but not the greatest professor. Prolongs explanation of simple things, like force vector diagrams, but then races through the complicated material that need explanation. Go to the first class and judge it for yourself.
Do the work, ask questions when you need to, and you'll do well in his courses.
i can tell he knows his stuff, but he doesn't know how to teach, he spends an hour on 1 question. it's really hard to pay attention in his class.
He is all over the place during lectures. Very difficult to ask questions. However, he has fairly easy exams and assignments. If you want to get something out of this class I do not recommend taking it. I found this class extremely boring but if you make the effort to teach yourself you will get a good grade
i'll keep it straightforward and simple. he is very forgetful. makes tons of mistakes. is all over the place. but has easy assignments and is a nice guy and knows his stuff. wastes tons of time. go to class, use your textbook, teach yourself along with it, and you'll be fine. he's just very disorganized.
ugh. You would think that if he puts an example on the board, that he would go through it all from beginning to end and expand on it. No. He goes half-way through and then tells you to figure out the rest at home and to read the textbook. He's disorganized. He doesn't cover much. I taught myself.
It sucks to take him for low level courses. I had him for Phys 200 and my gosh does that guy know his stuff. He is good at explaining complex theories, but has a hard time "dumbing" it down for 1- or 2-hundred level courses. Great guy, approachable, he likes to get guest speakers and let you use expensive equipment :).
Hell of a boy
He is a great guy, will answer lots of higher level questions if asked.Extremely helpful, all you have to do is ask. At times bounces around, but the topics he is willing to discuss are quite interesting. Great teacher, will be taking his classes again.
Dr. Aaquist is one of the best professors I have ever had. Loves what he teaches, loves when students show interest in his class. Very helpful, funny, and makes an 8am lecture fun. Best professor ever.
Ya as I suspected like most profs, would just leave out most of the relatively simple problems for us to figure out like high school physics and math, but what I really didn't get was he always just has us figure out really hard problems without an example on how to do it
No online notes. Doesn't reference textbook enough, very unorganized. Often makes things way more complex than they need to be. He is insanely smart, but that is almost a hinderance to his teaching ability because he can't explain things in a simple manner for first year students. He expects you to know concepts that he never went over.
Great prof, really enthusiastic about what he is teaching. Quantum physics is not an easy thing to understand as it is almost completely counter-intuitive to everything you know to be true about physics. He made the concepts fun and easy to follow - and added challenging homework questions to assignments to make us think. Very fair exams.
WORST. TEACHER. EVER. Unclear, terrible notes and left numerous chapters for us the learn on our own. Not very approachable. If you take his class, keep up with the textbook reading.
no just no
He often is disorganized and not prepared for class, while going through slides information is incorrect. At the beginning of the term the dates he gave us for midterms were wrong and not corrected until about a week before. Doesn't often go through examples fully in class and leaves us with difficult examples to finish on our own.
Worst Prof you can possibly imagine. If you take his class and don't show up you might actually get a higher grade. Asking questions results in 1 word answers, unless you're a girl then he'll explain in great depth. Class average was 30% for pretty much the entire semester We didn't finish the last chapter even on the last day of the semsester
He was all over the place. His lectures didn't really make sense, and he was quite contradictory. He only liked about 4 people in a 60something person class. He would complain that our class average was below 50 but he wouldn't offer any sort of help. You've got to read your textbook, and going to class is almost not even worth it.
Physics is a tough subject and Orla tries his best. Low rating, but the subject itself is hard. Can't blame Orla for a subject being really hard. Do your assignments, read the textbook and pay attention in class.
He tries, but if you don't know what you're doing, you're in trouble. Luckily, I knew what I was doing.
Very helpful and fair prof, but seems like 100 level classes are too easy for him. He doesn't fully engage and forgets where he left lectures off all the time. Lectures can be a waste of time, but as long as you do the homework and pay attention to what he says will be on exams you'll do well in his class.
He gets distracted a lot and loses his train of thought. He tells you exactly what will be on the exams, he exams are super easy if you do all the assignments. He is a little condescending at times and sometimes makes you feel stupid. If you can understand the material defiantly take his class.
If you value your GPA, don't bother taking a course with this professor (tbh I dont know how he still has a job at macewan). Not helpful at all (infact he takes pleasure in making his students feel inadequate and stupid) and his exams/assignments are unreasonably difficult. If you want to pass this class, I highly suggest reading the textbook.
His lectures are full of side tangents onto unrelated topics which wastes lots of class time, in addition he consistently makes mistakes and spends outrageous amounts of time working though one problem on the board. Bottom line is he is wastes most of the lecture time and you are better of teaching your self the material on your own. don't take!!
Really solid lectures, uses great examples and other materials to convey the topics for this course. Passionate about what he teaches. Fast becoming one of my favourite profs at macewan.
Oral made me feel stupid a lot when called on in class and would get sidetracked all the time. Although he uses great examples and really explains things so you understand. His tests are SUPER easy, is an easy marker and he tells you EXACTLY what will be on exams. If you show up to class and do your work you'll do great.
Marks real hard in the Lab. Brought down my mark for sure. Will take marks off for random errors. Gives a grading rubric, but following that will still result in an error somewhere, somehow. If I could do it over I would've went with a different lab prof.
MANS GOT A YOUTUBE PAGE!!! BEST PHYSICS SINGER!! GOTTA GIVE HIM PROPS FOR THAT.
Orla is an average prof, older and kind of scattered. But is definitely forgiving with marking if you try your best in his class. This class is not your typical physics class as it is a lot of theory and minimal calculations. Tests are tough, must study.
Things to know about Orla: He likes to challenge his students. If in his lectures he finds a challenging question, he will put it on the next assignment. He is very accessible outside class. He also doesn't just give you the answer, we will help you reach the answer through discussions. He works to engage the class in discussions
He assigns a lot of assignments (basically one a week). His lectures are slow and easy to follow. All of his notes were online so you really didnt need to go to class especially since almost everything we did in this class was covered in high school physics.
Good professor. Goes through many examples during class, although he can sometimes get lost while explaining them. Exams and homework assignments are easy if you study the examples in class and use the practice exams.
I dont care what anyone says. Orla is an amazing prof. He is caring and very approachable.
Had his for Physics 124. I really struggle with physics, but he is a great prof, and very clear while explaining sample problems.
Orla is always confused when going over the slides in class. His exams are tough and he gives two assignments per week. I would recommend not taking him as a prof.
Terrible prof. I took Physics 30 in high school and finished with a 97% after the diploma... this prof makes everything unclear and uses 9.80 m/s^2 for gravity?!?! Once I stopped going to the lectures and started studying my own material on my own time my grades started going up. He gets extremely off topic constantly. Don't take the class with him
he is not a bad prof at all. his lectures can be quite boring and he sometimes gets off topic but he is willing to help if you have any questions. his assignments can be challenging (they make you think) but for the most part they can all be found online. his exams are fair and he lets you annotate your formula sheet so that is super helpful.
He doesnt even know the answers to his own material. Doesnt teach concepts properly, its a self teach course. Doesnt matter if you came with a 90+ from highschool hes just that bad. Study from the textbook. 2 assignments a week are too much.
You might as well teach yourself this class from the textbook and just show up for the tests. Too much homework, first midterm is BS. Might wanna drop out now. Hes cute ig but very frazzled
Class Info
Attendance Mandatory
26%
Textbook Required
11%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.24 avg changeRatings by Course
ASTRO
5.0
(1)ENPH131
5.0
(1)ASTRONOMY
5.0
(1)ASTR120122
5.0
(1)ASTR122
5.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
PHYS146
5.0
PHYSICS108
5.0
PHYS252
4.0
PHYS144
3.7
PHYSICS
3.5