PHYSICS 5C
Physics for Life Sciences Majors: Electricity, Magnetism, and Modern Physics
Lecture and discussion.
Spring 2027: 4 lectures and 16 discussions. Nothing here is open. The oldest of these readings was about 1 month ago.
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
1%
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 all professors, across recorded terms. The course summary above includes all professors.
- A+ 592 · 10.5%
- A 1,866 · 33.0%
- A- 704 · 12.5%
- B+ 596 · 10.5%
- B 700 · 12.4%
- B- 365 · 6.5%
- C+ 239 · 4.2%
- C 314 · 5.6%
- C- 170 · 3.0%
- D+ 27 · 0.5%
- D 35 · 0.6%
- D- 9 · 0.2%
- F 35 · 0.6%
- P 25 of 5,717
- NP 4 of 5,717
- I 36 of 5,717
Percentages are of the 5,652 letter grades. Grey bars are non-letter outcomes: passes (P), no-passes (NP), and incompletes (I).
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
| Instructor | Predicted GPA | Raw | n | Terms | A range | Workload | Spring 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | not teaching it |
| 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 | not teaching it |
| 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.
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.
What comes first
The chain dibs can see is 3 courses long before PHYSICS 5C. Read from Fall 2026, because dibs has not read a class page for PHYSICS 5C in Spring 2027 and a department can change what it requires. 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 Springs
Ran in 4 of the last 4 Springs.
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 Spring 2027
Choose an open discussion to enroll; an open lecture alone does not mean a seat is available.
Seat counts as of : the oldest of these 20 readings. Seat readings are snapshots, not live availability. Their timestamps show when dibs last checked.
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Seats
Not published yetLecture: no enrollment count published
Instructor
Not yet assigned
3.37Predicted GPA
Historical records across all instructors; 5,652 letter gradesSeat risk
no history4 discussions. The registrar has not published seat counts for them yet.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 4 discussions
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no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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Seats
Not published yetLecture: no enrollment count published
Instructor
Not yet assigned
3.37Predicted GPA
Historical records across all instructors; 5,652 letter gradesSeat risk
no history4 discussions. The registrar has not published seat counts for them yet.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 4 discussions
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Not published yet
no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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Seats
Not published yetLecture: no enrollment count published
Instructor
Not yet assigned
3.37Predicted GPA
Historical records across all instructors; 5,652 letter gradesSeat risk
no history4 discussions. The registrar has not published seat counts for them yet.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 4 discussions
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Not published yet
no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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Seats
Not published yetLecture: no enrollment count published
Instructor
Not yet assigned
3.37Predicted GPA
Historical records across all instructors; 5,652 letter gradesSeat risk
no history4 discussions. The registrar has not published seat counts for them yet.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 4 discussions
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Not published yet
no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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no enrollment count published
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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.
Seats over time in Spring 2027
Read once so far, so there is no line to draw yet.
What turns this into a chart
A second reading is what turns this into a chart: courses come round within about three hours, and a lecture somebody is watching goes to the front of the pass. Watching is on the lecture's own page, not this one.
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.
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.
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.
Looking for more perspectives?
External reviews are separate and do not count toward the dibs rating.