3.0
Quality3.5
Difficulty48%
Would Retake84
Reviews48%
Would Retake
84
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
13
4
25
3
14
2
13
1
19
What Students Say
“Lots of hw questions and you have to do something every other day”
PHYS101 - 2.0 rating“I hate the prelecture questions”
PHYS102 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
66%
Textbook Required
7%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.55 avg changeRatings by Course
PHYS100
4.5
(6)141
4.0
(1)PHY190
4.0
(1)PHYS141
3.5
(2)PHYS102
3.2
(18)Difficulty by Course
141
4.0
PHYS141
4.0
PHYSICS101
4.0
PHYS121
4.0
PHYS101
3.8
Reviews (84)
First midterm was a little long and class average fell. Other than that she's a good prof in my opinion, nothing exciting, just good.
she never got back to us on the question we'd ask her that she said she'd go find out.
expects you to know too much, tests are on the harder side, needs to lecture more and go over problems
she was really good... reallyl liked her... as long as u do ur homework ull be fine...
She's a pretty good instructor. Approachable and friendly. Fairly easy exams. I liked her as my teacher.
I think she's a good prof. She does a good job of testing us on concepts, and doesn't ask random obscure exam questions. But you really need to make sure you understand the material, and budget your time accordingly on the midterms. Overall, I would recommend taking Physics with her.
her classes in my opinion are usually self taught, but if you ask her questions personally, she does a descend job explaning.gives part marks for mid terms and exams, she picky on sig fig and using proper formula notations. homework, is usually fine if u read and understand the textbook. Exam easy she allows study guide, WRITE DOWN ALL FORMULAS
Very good professor. Explained material well, and responded well when questions were asked and ensured you understood the material. Do some practice questions to be comfortable with all the material and you'll do fine on her exams.
Don't take this course at the studio lab in surrey. You are not taught but instead receive activity guides and are required to do work and find out things for yourself. Then, you use this information for homework and exams without knowing whether or not it is correct
Friendly, fairly organized prof who makes an effort to get one on one time with students for a few hours a week. Do the hmwk and you should be okay for the final. She made physics bearable.
Awesome Prof
Sarah is very organized and plans her lectures very well. Her notes and examples were very easy to follow. The exams were very fair. I would highly recommend taking PHYS 101 with her.
The labs within this course are absolutely stupid, and never made any sense to me. This course takes A LOT of effort.Midterms are very hard and the final can be somewhat fair with respect to the class average.Sarah is a very strict professor,and can give you the attitude most of the time,so don't try to screw around with her. this class is too much
I took 101 and 102 with Dr. Johnson. Her lectures were pretty boring in my opinion and materials could easily be self-taught. That being said, you probably should attend lecture since there is iclicker questions. Midterms and the final were fair.
she says 'okay" way too many times...
This is by far the worst class I have taken in my university career. 5% for written homework, due once a week. 5% for online homework, which you pay extra for (does she get a cut?), 5% for prelecture questions, 5% for tutorials, 5% for iclicker... It feels like you have been transported to some sort of expensive highschool.
Dr. Johnson is an amazing prof. Her demos and videos give so much light to such a dull subject. She is really helpful and nice when you go to her office hours, so I would really recommend doing that.
Really good prof. The class is a bit tough but she's always super clear. Lectures are to the point, with excellent notes posted online every time. If you have to take 101, do it with Sarah Johnson.
If you can get past her somewhat annoying voice and dull pitch, this course is safe to take without too much sweat and tears. You can half-sleep through lectures as long as you review the notes she puts down. Her tests are fair and she seems nice enough to help out anybody. Would recommend taking this with her, its a safe choice.
if you're gonna take studio physics, take it with dr. johnson!!! my experience taking 141 with her has been a lot better than with neil (sorry to name drop lol), who i had for PHYS 140. her lectures are helpful, and the b.s. assignments are kept to a minimum. she is very clear about what will be on the testspractical exam, and is super encouraging
Very clear, very fair grading. Can't ask for more.
lectures are useless better of going to khan academy only went to class for i clicker points. my overall grade is 45% and im a B student with minimal effort in all my classes. Tutorials where also useless. If you take this class be prepared to teach yourself all the material.
Multiple choice questions are tricky! I got full mark on written and lost a lot of marks on MC. She did her best to make the class interesting, but did not met what I wanted. She shows actual experiments quite often, but I guess she should show more practice problems instead of spending the time on them.
I hate the prelecture questions. These questions are not jest for completion, they occupy 5% of the final mark. So you better get the right answer. She expect you to understand the concept before you come the lecture. If i can understand by myself, then why do i need to pay u for the lectures?
Wasn't hard if youy take her notes study and use the textbook for practice. Class average on exam 1 was 58% for some reason tho.. and i got 96%. I found she wasn't very friendly and didnt like being put on the spot or answering questions. she would say ask the ta or check canvas instead of answering often. came off rude to me when i asked simple Qs
Doesn't fully explain how to approach problems and the course is largely self-taught. Merciless when it comes to midterms, she doesn't go easy on you. Half of the online physics homework questions are at a ridiculous difficulty where you HAVE to search the answers online. Written questions on the tests don't seem fair especially the way she teaches
A prof who teaches you how to make instant noodles and expects you to know how to make lasagna on exams. Lots of hw questions and you have to do something every other day. Not a lot to know, but a lot to do almost everyday, such as the prelecture questions. Hw consists of both online and written, which are usually due on the same day! They're hard.
Her concept of time is non-existent. Essentially, only an hour is given for 3 long written questions and 10 heavy-calculation multiple-choice. Teaches all the topics as if it's a review for everyone & doesn't really consider/care about those who struggle with it. The few examples given in class often aren't applicable when doing textbook practice.
Has a wierd rubric for marking where she wants like all of the formulas written out that are used to answer to questions. It's easy to loose lots of half marks for stupid reasons however once you adapt you it's no big deal. 4.5/5 Proff Im taking PHYS 102 with her nxt semester ;D
Overall, Dr. Johnson's lectures are not so helpful. For the midterms and final exam, I suggest going through all the written homework solutions and mastering physics multiple choice questions. Her midterms/finals are in between fair and difficult. This course requires a lot of self-teaching.
Had her for phys 101 as well -- hard but she gives you a lot of opportunities that help bring your mark up if you do the work for it. exams are fair.
notes don't help with mastering physics' questions...
Sarahs lectures may have not been that informative however her notes provide you with the basis needed for most topics. Tutorials are mandatory for a reason and the tutorial worksheets do help with understanding if you have a good TA. Written homeworks are guaranteed to be your midterm and final long answer problems, Exams were fair but tricky MC
Sarah has straightforward notes that give you a good base of learning for the key concepts. The rest of the learning is up to you - be ready to self-teach. Tests were fair and the written questions were very similar to the written homework. Sarah is a good prof if you can self-teach well and do all the homework.
Wouldn't recommend her. Thinks she is the best teacher, but her content is scattered and doesn't follow any good material. Too many assignments that are a burden.
While lectures are not helpful, she more than makes up for it in her office hour. She is very willing to go over textbook problems and draw diagrams to explain her concepts. Physics courses are all self-study which is why they seem so hard. 100% recommend getting the textbook and reading from it, it will go a long way
Prof does not explain things during the class and expects students to study on their own. There is no learning done in her class due to the extremely repetative activity guides. The tests are much harder than the material covered. Would NOT reccomend. Had waaayyy better physics teachers in high school.
You basically teach yourself through FlipItPhysics. Gives a ridiculous amount of online homework. The entire class is basically a group work lab with really lame experiments. She only lectures for the first 20ish minutes of class then typically spends the rest of the time on Twitter letting the TAs do all the work.
Dr. J is very knowledgeable, organized, and her lectures are well planned. Tests were incredibly fair, but she does give a lot of online homework where you will need to find some information on your own. Written homework is designed to be easy. Overall, she's a good prof who makes it easy to do well in her class.
I really like Dr. Johnson. She is really good at explaining concepts and I got a lot out of her lectures. Her midterms have easy written questions similar to the assignments. The multiple choice was hard but she is a really good prof and enjoys teaching. Definitely take the class with her!
Why is this prof even paid... she literally does not teach anything you watch pre-lecture videos that are each max 3 minutes long which look like they are off a random YouTube channel. The pre-lecture videos have no useful examples and lectures are repeats of the vids. Are professors not paid to teach? She doesn't even provide basic instruction.
I was really excited to have Dr. J as she was really fair in the beginning of the semester. After experiencing her midterms, do not take this class. They are nothing like her homework, or what she teaches. The class average for these tests right now is significantly below failing. Do not take this class unless you want to retake it in the future.
gives out part marks for written part but the canvas portion of the exams are brutal. nothing like what she goes over on lectures or even sapling. its pretty much impossible to study for the exams, the multiple choice is very unfair
Her lectures were enjoyable enough but don't expect any of your learning between lectures and sapling videos and homework practice to help you on tests. Tests have nothing to do with the learning in the course and you're better off guessing for multiple choice. Class averages always well below 50 and she never considered making them fairer.
Dr Johnson seems very passionate about her work but GOODLUCK on her exams. study as much as you want and you may pass the tests��. as a class we have asked many times to change the format of the exams (have the ability to skip questions and go back) but she definitely does not want to. so goodluck in this course and have fun��
I thought she would be okay but honestly after we got the second midterm it got so bad. The midterms were unlike anything we had learned in class or done as homework. We were also unable to go back and look at questions once we had answered them. When we brought this up she said "it would be like that if we were in person too". Don't take her class
Her tests were difficult but the homework assignments and tutorials were worth 30% so it balanced out the grade. She also scaled pretty fairly. She wasnt THAT bad cmon now.
Sarah is a pretty solid prof. She gives out tons of homework. Her lectures are decent. The test averages were extremely low but she would scale them. Multiple choice is very hard and the written section was always quite easy. Tutorials are mandatory.
The prof was easy to understand, and she explains lectures very clearly. There were 4 tests and a final instead of midterms. One con is that we are not allowed to go back and check our answers during quizzes and tests.
If you're ever going to be in her class, I would say drop it but if you can't, make sure you REALLY understand the concepts. Focus more on the concepts rather than actually doing the problems because her exams are heavily concept based (and pretty difficult). Anyways, im gonna need therapy now, I hope you have fun.
There is alot of homework, and is pretty heavy work load. shes not too bad in my experience. Just so much work holy gee moly, but her notes are fine etc.
Dr. Johnson was a really good prof. We had 3 midterms/tests. The 1st was tough due to timing issues. She fixed the timing for the other 2 which were much more fair. The diffculty of the exams and final were just as hard as the achieve homework, written assignments and tutorial worksheets. She often goes over examples in lectures. Understand HW A
Not accessible outside office hours and she just repeats whatever was said in the Achieve.
nothing in the class correlates and rambles during the lecture. Bring a good amount of physics knowledge prior to this class. Everytime you open the homework, the only thing I can think is " when did we ever cover this" . Get good at googling and teaching yourself random concepts she doesn't mention in class. overall mid prof
Average professor, neither good nor bad. As someone who isn't great at physics, I struggled in her class. However, lectures and examples are useful. Homework is difficult but prepares you well enough for tests.
First thing to beware is that there is a lot of homework, 12 achieve questions per week along with written homework every other week as well. There are also pre lectures you have to complete which got annoying very fast. Lectures are just ok, she uses iclicker to keep the audience engaged. The exams were pretty difficult but she gives 2 free marks.
She was a well-spoken prof and did well explaining the challenging material. I took it as a requirement and she did a good enough job. I took this course when COVID was still an issue and only the exams were in-person. Kinda scary doing it that way tbh
Teacher gives out way too much work and rushes through content
Horrible experience. way too much homework means time you could spend learning material is instead spent trying to keep up with the graded content. Literally not learning a thing, just completing homework to get a grade. terrible and not understanding. avoid if possible
Lots of homework and no regard for workload from other courses. Prof also adds random/unrelated content on exams and rushes through learning. The prof is also too lazy to even give lectures during regular class sessions and makes students watch online pre-lectures from an outside source. She does however provide good conceptual questions in class.
She gives SO much homework per week, this class took up 90% of my time. There are pre-lectures + HW questions that take 30 min to finish before every lecture, online HW every week AND written assignments. Her lectures offer basically no help as she relies on the pre-lectures to teach students the material. She doesn't really know how to teach.
Too much homework was given and the mandatory pre lecture videos where hard to keep up with 3 times a week. Second midterm was super long and hard. In class example problems where helpful.
The workload isnt her fault as all physics classes have the same structure (both 100 and 101 at least) but the amount of work in these courses is completely unmanageable. It took up all of my time and my other courses suffered, so take one less class or something. Her lectures were very concise and helpful. Lenient marking on difficult midterms.
Too many assignments due each week. Though this is supposedly a physics course for the life sciences but barely anything on the exams and homework assignments had anything to do with life sciences. Like why were there so many rocket/spaceship questions of the exams. If anything this feels like an astrophysics class rather than life science LOL.
Dr. Johnson made physics feel not as scary is physics usually feels. She does move fast through topics, but she does it well. Very considerate/helpful when talking to her about progression through physics in university.
I feel fairly indifferent towards prof Johnson. I think the way she structured tutorials and assigned homework was very helpful in making sure I did enough practice for the exams. But at one point it became too much for me and I started to skip and miss deadlines. I found this course extremely challenging but also I'm just bad at physics.
Very average experience and decent prof. Exams were tough to finish on time but it was curved nicely.
This class has an unreasonable workload. There are 4 mandatory classes/tutorials to show up to every week. There are 2 prelectures which are not too bad to complete. However every week there are 9-12 assignment questions. They are very difficult and no similar questions to what appears on the assignments are covered in class. Plus a tut question.
Her lectures were not helpful, she doesnt engage with the class as much as other profs do. An ungodly amount of homework, and do not miss lectures or tutorials or else you will lose a grade because of iClicker and Tutorial Attendances. Hard to reach outside class and very condescending, Overall, just strengthened my distaste for physics even more.
she sounds like she's crying
The homework is tough, and do expect to spend hours on a single question, but as long as you like physics it is all good practice (I say this with a 65%). Dr. Johnson gets straight to the point. She has a discussion page where her students can ask her anything and she responds to all of them in a timely manner.
Dr. Johnson is a really good teacher. There is a lot of HW though, but I think that's every physics class. Just try not to skip lectures, because she uses iclicker polls in class. Course load is pretty heavy though so be prepared. Dr. Johnson is pretty chill though, she'll help with any question you have.
I would rather work at walmart than take another class with sarah johnson.
Really hard to sit through lectures, her explanations weren't easy to understand. Midterms and finals are reasonable. def wont take anything with her again if possible.
She is very easy to talk to, she will help you with your questions outside of class time, and has many office hours. She is good at explaining problems.
DO THE HOMEWORK. Her tests are easy if you do the homework and fully understand it. She loves helping students so go to office hours and I find what she says in office hours is more easy to understand from what she says during lectures. If you can't meet her during her office hours she also answers questions on canvas.
There's a lot of homework but I suggest redoing achieve questions to practice for her exams. Professor Johnson is a good professor and she is clearly very passionate in what she does and I strongly suggest taking a class with her if you can.
Lectures were organized and straightforward. She would often do clicker questions and go over examples which was helpful. Tests are far more difficult than the homework and practice tests but she scales marks pretty generously.
I hate physics but Dr. J made it bearable (enjoyable, even!). She loves physics which translates to her teaching. Lecture slides are easy to understand and light, and she does lots of examples in class. Practice midterms and exam are very similar to the real thing. Lots of homework, but doable. She is so sweet, I definitely recommend her classes!
Dr Johnson is actually an adequate prof. I found her explanations easy to understand, tests were fair (no midterm) and final was fair as well. She never made any trick questions and was clear on her expectations for the class
pretty easy A, just attend lectures, every week homework and pretty hard, but midterms and finals are not that hard once you finish the prep materials
this course wasn't hard at all, she made good explanations and was very clear on what would be on tests. there was no midterm and marking was very fair. attend lectures because she uses iClicker
super sweet and doesnt go too fast. Definitely recommend, she explains things well :). Also tries to help as much as possible with examples and office hours and review sessions.
This course was almost completely taught through the mandatory pre lecture videos that were assigned before each class. The actual lectures were mostly spent going over specific examples and no actual explaining or teaching seemed to happen. Tests were extremely difficult, but they would curve if everyone did poorly.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
66%
Textbook Required
7%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.55 avg changeRatings by Course
PHYS100
4.5
(6)141
4.0
(1)PHY190
4.0
(1)PHYS141
3.5
(2)PHYS102
3.2
(18)Difficulty by Course
141
4.0
PHYS141
4.0
PHYSICS101
4.0
PHYS121
4.0
PHYS101
3.8