UCLA PHYSICS 5C: Physics for Life Sciences Majors: Electricity, Magnetism, and Modern Physics

Lecture and discussion. The registrar has published a final exam time.

Fall 2026: 3 lectures and 12 discussions. 1 lecture and 2 discussions are open. The oldest of these readings was 3 hours ago.

See sections

Grades

3.37

Average grade awarded in PHYSICS 5C. Not a student rating: this is what the grades were.

In the A range

56%

of the 5,652 letter grades

D, F or W

1.9%

of every letter grade awarded, plus withdrawals

Taken pass/no pass

86% of those passed

The registrar's own records: 5,652 grades over 12 terms, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Every instructor is pooled here.

What is inside that record

No summer session is in that record.

The table below splits them, and term averages across those 12 terms ran 2.98 to 3.59.

Historical grades for SCHRIVER, DAVID, across recorded terms. The course summary above includes all professors.

A+ 36 · 9.4%
A 271 · 70.9%
A- 28 · 7.3%
B+ 24 · 6.3%
B 17 · 4.5%
B- 3 · 0.8%
C 1 · 0.3%
F 2 · 0.5%
P 1 of 383

Percentages are of the 382 letter grades. Grey bars are non-letter outcomes: passes (P).

How the non-letter outcomes are counted

They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.

By instructor

Predicted GPA, raw average, sample size, terms, A range and the workload reviewers reported for every instructor with a grade record in this course
Instructor	Predicted GPA	Raw	n	Terms	A range	Workload	Fall 2026
BAUER, DAVID JEFFREY reviews ↗	3.27	3.27	1,077	4	48%	light	not teaching it
TUNG, NATHAN C reviews ↗	3.49	3.49	951	3	64%	light	not teaching it
NIEMANN, CHRISTOPH reviews ↗	3.31	3.31	900	5	52%	light	not teaching it
JIANG, HONG-WEN reviews ↗	3.01	3.00	547	3	33%	-	not teaching it
SHI, QIANHUI reviews ↗	3.47	3.47	520	2	66%	average	Open, 7 seats left
CORBIN, BRENT reviews ↗	2.97	2.95	394	2	32%	heavy	not teaching it
SCHRIVER, DAVID reviews ↗	3.83	3.85	382	2	88%	very light	Closed
NARANJO, BRIAN B reviews ↗	3.29	3.29	363	2	44%	-	not teaching it
ROMBES III, NICHOLAS DEMETRIOS reviews ↗	3.72	3.74	354	1	82%	-	not teaching it
BOZOVIC, DOLORES reviews ↗	3.73	3.77	164	1	80%	light	not teaching it

Why Predicted is not the Raw average

“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.

Grade records describe outcomes. For what a course is like to take, read student reviews written on dibs below or follow the separate external review link.

Reviews for PHYSICS 5C

Workload and assignments

Reported assignments across instructors and terms. This term's syllabus may differ.

No assignment details are available in this review summary. Based on 202 reviews; source checked about 2 months ago. Missing details do not mean there are no papers or exams. Check the current syllabus.

Read reviews on BruinWalk

What comes first

The chain dibs can see is 3 courses long before PHYSICS 5C. This is a floor, not a deadline: dibs has not read a class page for LIFESCI 30B and MATH 3B, so the real chain can only be longer than this, never shorter.

Counted in courses rather than quarters: dibs does not know which of them a department lets you take together.

In Falls

Ran in 4 of the last 5 Falls.

From the terms dibs holds, which start in Fall 2021 and exclude summer. A department can run a course in a quarter it never has before.

From the registrar's catalog

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.

Sections in Fall 2026

Choose an open discussion to enroll; an open lecture alone does not mean a seat is available.

Seat counts as of 18 Oct 19:24: the oldest of these 15 readings. Seat readings are snapshots, not live availability. Their timestamps show when dibs last checked.

Section
Lec 1
MWF 12:00pm-12:50pm

Seats
Open
7 seats left in discussions.

Lecture: 169 of 176 enrolled

Instructor

Shi, Q.

3.47
Predicted GPA
Historical records for SHI, QIANHUI; 520 letter grades

Seat risk
high risk

Wait lists are not possible because of the three-part structure (lecture, discussion, and laboratory). Students who retake Physics 5C must enroll in all three sections: lecture, discussion, and laboratory. Once enrolled, send an e-mail to mtran@physics.ucla.edu with your name, student ID number, and quarter in which you originally took the laboratory. You will be manually enrolled in the G99 laboratory. Any student attempting to hold a spot for another student is violating Student Conduct Code 102.23d and may be referred to the Office of the Dean of Students. See https://pa.ucla.edu/physics-and-astronomy-enrollment-information.html for more information. Registrar's Class notes. Oldest reading: 79 minutes ago. Lec 1

This limit is on the class, so it applies to all 4 discussions below.
4 discussions, 2 open: Dis 1A, W 4:00pm-4:50pm, and Dis 1C, F 8:00am-8:50am.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 4 discussions
- Dis 1A
  W 4:00pm-4:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 2748
  
  Open
  2 seats left.
  
  40 of 42 enrolled
- Dis 1B
  W 5:00pm-5:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 2748
  
  Closed
  42 of 42 enrolled
- Dis 1C
  F 8:00am-8:50am · Physics and Astronomy Building 2434
  
  Open
  5 seats left.
  
  41 of 46 enrolled
- Dis 1D
  F 9:00am-9:50am · Physics and Astronomy Building 2434
  
  Closed
  46 of 46 enrolled
Section
Lec 2
MWF 1:00pm-1:50pm

Seats
Closed
Lecture: 178 of 178 enrolled

Instructor

Shi, Q.

3.47
Predicted GPA
Historical records for SHI, QIANHUI; 520 letter grades

Seat risk
high risk

Wait lists are not possible because of the three-part structure (lecture, discussion, and laboratory). Students who retake Physics 5C must enroll in all three sections: lecture, discussion, and laboratory. Once enrolled, send an e-mail to mtran@physics.ucla.edu with your name, student ID number, and quarter in which you originally took the laboratory. You will be manually enrolled in the G99 laboratory. Any student attempting to hold a spot for another student is violating Student Conduct Code 102.23d and may be referred to the Office of the Dean of Students. See https://pa.ucla.edu/physics-and-astronomy-enrollment-information.html for more information. Registrar's Class notes. Oldest reading: 10 hours ago. Lec 2

This limit is on the class, so it applies to all 4 discussions below.
4 discussions, none open. No waitlist listed.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 4 discussions
- Dis 2A
  R 4:00pm-4:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 2748
  
  Closed
  43 of 43 enrolled
- Dis 2B
  R 5:00pm-5:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 2748
  
  Closed
  43 of 43 enrolled
- Dis 2C
  F 10:00am-10:50am · Physics and Astronomy Building 2434
  
  Closed
  47 of 47 enrolled
- Dis 2D
  F 3:00pm-3:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 2434
  
  Closed
  45 of 45 enrolled
Section
Lec 3
MWF 3:00pm-3:50pm

Seats
Closed
Lecture: 188 of 188 enrolled

Instructor

Schriver, D.

3.83
Predicted GPA
Historical records for SCHRIVER, DAVID; 382 letter grades

Seat risk
high risk

Wait lists are not possible because of the three-part structure (lecture, discussion, and laboratory). Students who retake Physics 5C must enroll in all three sections: Once enrolled, send an e-mail to mtran@physics.ucla.edu with your name, student ID number, and quarter in which you originally took the laboratory. You will be manually enrolled in the G99 laboratory. Any student attempting to hold a spot for another student is violating Student Conduct Code 102.23d and may be referred to the Office of the Dean of Students. See https://pa.ucla.edu/physics-and-astronomy-enrollment-information.html for more information. Registrar's Class notes. Oldest reading: 10 hours ago. Lec 3

This limit is on the class, so it applies to all 4 discussions below.
4 discussions, none open. No waitlist listed.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 4 discussions
- Dis 3A
  M 4:00pm-4:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 1434A
  
  Closed
  54 of 54 enrolled
- Dis 3B
  M 5:00pm-5:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 1434A
  
  Closed
  54 of 54 enrolled
- Dis 3C
  T 2:00pm-2:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 2748
  
  Closed
  40 of 40 enrolled
- Dis 3D
  T 3:00pm-3:50pm · Physics and Astronomy Building 2748
  
  Closed
  40 of 40 enrolled

Final enrollment, averaged across each term's sections: between 142 and 195 a term over 12 terms, summer excluded, most recently 175 in Fall 2025. That is the shape across years, not this term, which is above.

From the people who took it

Student reviews

What taking PHYSICS 5C was like: the work, the teaching, and what students wish they’d known.

Write a review

Your experience could be the first.

No student reviews are available to read on dibs for this course yet. Took it? Tell the next person what helped, what was hard, and how you spent your time.

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External reviews are separate and do not count toward the dibs rating.

Read reviews on BruinWalk

Community guidelines

Seats over time in Fall 2026

How each lecture has filled since dibs first saw it. This course runs 3 lectures; the legend under the chart picks one.

A dot is a reading where something moved: the seat count, the status, or the waitlist.

What a flat run means, and where a line starts

Flat between dots means it did not drift, it held and then jumped, and a line starts when dibs first saw that lecture rather than reaching back before it existed. A lecture that has never moved draws a flat line across the whole window, and one with two or three readings draws a line joining them, which is too few to read a trend from.

Lec 1 · Shi, Q. · 169 of 176 enrolled

Nothing read since 18 Oct, 3 hours ago. Over the 2 months before that, freed 7 seats.

169 of 176 · 7 left in its discussions

17 Aug 12:3217 Sep 15:5818 Oct 19:24 · 3 hours ago

Checked 168 of the 380 hours with hourly history, 44%. No reading was recorded in 212 hours. dibs had no hourly record before 3 Oct, which is the other 1116 of 1496 plotted.

Lec 2 · Shi, Q. · 178 of 178 enrolled

Nothing read since 18 Oct, 3 hours ago. Over the 2 months before that, filled by 2.

178 of 178 · no seats left in its discussions

17 Aug 12:3217 Sep 15:5818 Oct 19:24 · 3 hours ago

Checked 168 of the 380 hours with hourly history, 44%. No reading was recorded in 212 hours. dibs had no hourly record before 3 Oct, which is the other 1116 of 1496 plotted.

Lec 3 · Schriver, D. · 188 of 188 enrolled

Nothing read since 18 Oct, 3 hours ago. Over the 2 months before that, unchanged.

188 of 188 · no seats left in its discussions

Both readings say 188 of 188.

17 Aug 12:3217 Sep 15:5818 Oct 19:24 · 3 hours ago

Checked 168 of the 380 hours with hourly history, 44%. No reading was recorded in 212 hours. dibs had no hourly record before 3 Oct, which is the other 1116 of 1496 plotted.

How readings and alerts work

Dated seat counts can be available even when hourly check history is missing. Gaps do not show whether seats changed between observations.

Seat counts show the last successful read, not live availability. Refreshes can be delayed by request limits or upstream interruptions. Watched sections receive priority, but an hourly update for every section is not guaranteed.

The registrar can change a seat count between our checks. Alerts depend on dibs detecting an opening and completing delivery; a quiet watch does not prove that no seat opened. Check the registrar before enrolling.