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Dibs Fall 2026

PHYSICS 5C

Physics for Life Sciences Majors: Electricity, Magnetism, and Modern Physics

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; laboratory, two hours. Requisite: course 5A. Electrostatics in vacuum and in water. Electricity, circuits, magnetism, quantum, atomic and nuclear physics, radioactivity, with applications to biological and biochemical systems. P/NP or letter grading.

Course statistics

Predicted GPA
3.36
n = 5,303 · 11 terms · ± 0.008
A range
55%
of letter grades
Taken P/NP
1%
86% of those passed
D / F / W
1.9%
incl. withdrawals

Sections in Fall 2026

Sections offered, with live enrollment and predicted GPA
Section Status Enrolled Seat risk Meets Instructor Predicted GPA
Lec 1 Closed
176 of 176
100% full
 fills MWF 12:00pm-12:50pm Shi, Q.
3.46n=171 · this instructor
Lec 2 Closed
176 of 176
100% full
 fills MWF 1:00pm-1:50pm Shi, Q.
3.46n=171 · this instructor
Lec 3 Closed
188 of 188
100% full
 fills MWF 3:00pm-3:50pm Schriver, D.
3.84n=382 · this instructor

Enrollment history

Final enrollment per term, averaged across that term's sections. Four years deep, summer excluded. Per-section live curves are on each section page.

  • 18321F
  • 16522W
  • 17422S
  • 19122F
  • 18223W
  • 17623S
  • 14424W
  • 19524S
  • 14224F
  • 18725W
  • 19125S
Enrolment by term: 21F 183, 22W 165, 22S 174, 22F 191, 23W 182, 23S 176, 24W 144, 24S 195, 24F 142, 25W 187, 25S 191
Peak 195 Most recent 191 in 25S 11 terms on record

Grade distribution

  • A+ 497 · 9.3%
  • A 1,780 · 33.2%
  • A- 658 · 12.3%
  • B+ 566 · 10.5%
  • B 671 · 12.5%
  • B- 350 · 6.5%
  • C+ 222 · 4.1%
  • C 302 · 5.6%
  • C- 158 · 2.9%
  • D+ 23 · 0.4%
  • D 34 · 0.6%
  • D- 8 · 0.1%
  • F 34 · 0.6%
  • P 25 · 0.5%
  • NP 4 · 0.1%
  • I 35 · 0.7%

Grey bars are non-letter outcomes — P/NP, S/U, incompletes. They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.

By instructor

Instructor Predicted Raw n Terms A range
BAUER, DAVID JEFFREY 3.27 3.27 1,077 4 48%
TUNG, NATHAN C 3.49 3.49 951 3 64%
NIEMANN, CHRISTOPH 3.31 3.31 900 5 52%
JIANG, HONG-WEN 3.01 3.00 547 3 33%
CORBIN, BRENT 2.96 2.95 394 2 32%
SCHRIVER, DAVID 3.84 3.85 382 2 88%
NARANJO, BRIAN B 3.29 3.29 363 2 44%
ROMBES III, NICHOLAS DEMETRIOS 3.73 3.74 354 1 82%
SHI, QIANHUI 3.46 3.47 171 1 67%
BOZOVIC, DOLORES 3.74 3.77 164 1 80%

“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department — so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.

By term