Peter Timbie is an okay professor but honestly the entire structure of the course sucks. You basically have to teach yourself everything before lecture and only do examples in lecture. Even though Timbie is ok, it's offset by the other 2 professors because all 3 taught 104 together and switched off each week. Highly recommend going to TAs for help.

He is the best physics professor at UW-Madison (which is not a hard challenge). He is great at explaining concepts and he seems like an amazing grandpa type.

Nice guy. Funny jokes. Lectures do get boring however as he only teaches the bare basics of topics while the homeworks are much harder.

Dr. Timbie obviously cares about his students, but he is an extremely poor lecturer. He tends to be disorganized, and his handwriting was literally unreadable. I don't feel that I learned much from Dr. Timbie, and I mostly had to figure things out from the (also poor) textbook.

He is very nice. I enjoy his lectures, and he is super kind and respectful

Labs are tedious. Lectures are boring. He goes over stuff like students have known everything and skips slides for no reason.

Overall the lectures for this class were boring, early, attendance-based (for the extra credit), and not recorded which was frustrating. He never got through the slides which al

PHY207 is organized terribly, but Timbie frustrated me. Confusing lectures, illegible handwriting, office hours swamped by confused students, and ridiculously difficult tests. We were always behind in content and had to skip topics needed for graded assignments. To top it off, he got very passive-aggressive and blamed us for the low exam averages.

Not the worst, but I have some things to say. I was a victim of inconsistent grading and after showing him he refused to give points back. Doesn't understand that students have other classes. Skim the textbook but it's not worth the time to go in-depth reading. He is a good lecturer but rarely got through all the material. There is a nice curve.

I literally can not understand this man's lectures. He does not know how to teach or write exams, as many questions on our exams did not have a correct answer to choose from. Exams have questions that are not even about things we have learned before. Terrible professor.

I don't really have much to say about the professor. Was pretty nice and the practice exams were pretty good prep material for the real ones.

Very nice guy and a good teacher but he often does not finish his lectures. However, when asked, he will post annotated slides and notes and is very responsive on Piazza. The exams were difficult (as expected) but they were reasonable and related to lecture/discussion material.

Underwhelming just kind of regurgitated the textbook back at you. Was behind all semester. A rehash of physics 208

If you wanna go to phy grad school, DO NOT TAKE any class with this prof! Extremely skin-deep things taught and I learnt nothing. Semester hasn't end, but I'm confident to get an A, as my current grade is still above 99% after midterm. He just simply following griffith's on lec, then test some baby stuff. If u're looking for good grades, then...

Prof Timbie co-teaches w Prof Spike and I had them for 103 and 104. Prof Timbie is very nice and fun (wore a shark onesie to make us smile) and understanding. He struggles with tech (sucks w pandemic). He does teach a bit slower than Spike and therefore doesnt always finish lecture in time, but he is a good teacher and deserves more credit.

This is more about the class (Physics 104) and less about the professor. This whole class is garbage. The grading takes forever (up to 2 weeks), lectures are useless and the TAs aren't allowed to do anything in discussion except give you the worksheet and stare at you for 50 minutes. My advice - don't take this class unless you absolutely have to.

Good guy who really wants everyone to do well but just not a good teacher. Horrible handwriting. Lectures are mostly going over old problems and sitting around. Really boring and not helpful

Was great for 103

This was a joint class.... And I liked it... At first I thought Peter was annoying.... but he anted his students to succeed. And respect him for that.

Timbie is a genuinely a good guy and is there to help if you ask. However, his lectures will put you to sleep or confuse you. Its hard to learn physics when the professor doesn't seem certain with topic himself.

Professor Timbie is a really nice professor. He truly wants every student to succeed, however he fails to prepare students for his incredibly difficult exams. Homework is often unrelated to the exam topics. As a physics major, this was one of my most difficult classes.

Lectures are not the clearest but he is very helpful when asked for it, read before coming to lecture

I earned an A in calc 2 without any effort; but struggled to earn a B in 207 intro to calc-based physics. That says enough. Timbie is awful; avoid him if you can, otherwise prepare to be frustrated for an entire semester. Buy the recommended book; he pulls exam problems verbatim.

Timbie was not the best (to be nice about it). I relied almost completely on Google and the Prelestures on SmartPhysics to get me through the semester. That being said, I ended up doing well. Just go over a lot of practice problems and cross your fingers that you have a good TA. Good luck!

He lectures as if you already have a decent understanding of the topics being discussed. I found that the lectures serve better as a review session than a means for firsthand learning. Reading the topics before the lecture goes a long way, especially for this class. He also lowers the grade cutoffs so it's not impossible to do well.

Miserable. I genuinely ask myself did Timbie even try this semester? His lectures were unprepared. He'd stumble and say um a lot, skip through slides without an explanation, not explain concepts- just terrible. Worst of all, he failed the students who were there to learn physics, not just receive a letter grade.

This class was absolutely horrible. Not once were we taught physics concepts and we were expected to know how to do extremely difficult concepts. The tests were complete bogus and my TA admitted that Timbie and the TAs would sometimes get the problems wrong as they were tying to do them. If possible, AVOID.

Really really really bad. He doesn't know how to teach at all. Class is useless, but required. He'll scribble some random things on the board and jump from topic to topic. He'll do experiments, and not explain how they work. Avoid this guy. I've had bad professors, and this guy is the worst.

Seems like a nice man but is a horrid professor. I took this class for two reasons; it is required for my major and I need it for the MCAT. I just can't believe how poor of quality it is. All he has to offer is to tell us to do more problems. Then tries to come up with problems we haven't seen on the exam. Lecture is a massive waste.

Professor timbie was helpful if you went to his office hours and talked to him in person, but was poorly organized and unhelpful in class. If you are going to do well in this class, you will need to put in a great deal of time on your own to understand the material.

An absolutely terrible professor that merely restates the online prelectures VERBATIM and is useless in terms of explaining concepts. If you can't avoid him, good luck. By the way, I'm not bitter about my grade, this course with Timbie is just THAT terrible.

From my experience, most physists are not able to teach. Timbie is no exception. He really wants everyone to do well, but he completely relies on the readings to do the teaching for him. He isn't the worst professor, but definitely not the best. He also is not good with writing exams, our last one was too long and we got a curve.

Don't take if Professor Timbie is teaching this class. It definitely seems like he cares how students do, however he is far too disconnected to adjust to how the students are doing. Exams are much more difficult than anything done in class.

Timbie is probably the worst professor I've ever had. He seems like a nice person, but it doesn't help that the curriculum of the class/textbook (smartphysics) used is extremely unhelpful for students with only a basic knowledge of physics. Lecture is only worth going to for clicker points as he reiterates smartphysics word for word. Avoid avoid!

Avoid him if u can.

I believe Prof. Timbie does genuinely care about the class doing well. However, he is out of touch as a teacher. Exams are extremely difficult and and frequently made me wonder- when have I ever seen this before?! It's not a hard class to get a B or an AB even. But if you don't have a Physics brain it's pretty impossible to get an A.

He's terrible. Relies on prelecture videos rather than actually teaching the material. Lectures are useless. Exams are hard and way too long. Don't choose him for a professor!

This...this was bad. No effort in teaching, completely relies on online prelectures, does not know how to teach. Avoid at all costs. Does not respond to emails - hope you're good at teaching yourself everything.

Absolute worst. Online lectures slightly helpful, lectures useless, homework impossible. Beyond frustrating

You will learn everything from the online prelectures and from your TA's, Timbie will not teach you, Timbie will not answer your questions, Timbie will not help you. He expects you to know things like dot product and integral without teaching them. He does not care if half the class gets a C or D. He is a nice person, but a horrible professor.

He's a really nice guy, but a horrible professor. He expects us to learn everything from the pre-lectures (which just cover the basics). He doesn't explain problems very well either. Majority of the time he leaves the whole lecture hall pretty much confused. When we ask questions he kinda answers it but not fully.

Still can't express in words what a terrible professor he is. He believes students should be able to teach themselves (which is essentially impossible with physics). There's a difference between "saying" and "teaching" the material. He doesn't know how to teach. By far the most frustrating and difficult class due to his inability to teach.

I thought Timbie was great. The prelectures and checkpoints were helpful and it was nice that he summarized them in lecture. It was also nice doing a lot of problems during lecture. He's a really nice and helpful guy. You can tell he cares about his students. Exams were a little tough, but not too bad and you get a formula sheet.

This has to be one of the worst classes I've ever taken. His lectures are completely different (and a lot harder) than anything you do in lecture/discussion. The lectures are pointless. The only reason to go is for the extra bonus point for participation. Very nice guy, but he needs to learn to teach.

I though the lectures were very helpful and I learned a lot. Good professor overall.

Timbie was an extremely difficult professor. He even said his friends thought his tests were too hard. The homework is usually impossible, so expect to get points off. There is lots of math and physics required. Lectures are boring, the only reason to go is to get extra credit clicker points. I don't recommend him!

Timbie is easily the worst professor i have ever had in my life. His lectures are absolutely useless and don't teach you anything, demos NEVER work!. Don't expect to learn anything from him you might as well read the text book during his lectures instead of going to them, as nothing is reinforced. Very poor public speacker and no organization in le

Lectures are useless; he goes over the bare minimum of topics. Expect to learn everything from reading the textbook and doing online homework.

While this class overall was structured pretty well, and I learned a lot from the books, homework and discussion, I never found his lectures useful (aside from the extra credit from clicker problems). I didn't learn anything from them, the demonstrations would fail, and he's just not a good speaker. Not too hard of a class though. Just do homework!

This class is very poorly structured. Timbie is very intelligent and nice, but a poor lecturer. They're basically pointless. The examples he gives are WAY below homework level, and tests are extremely challenging. He does nothing in lecture to prepare you for their difficulty. MasteringPysics (Online Homework Site) can be extremely tedious.

Nice guy, but poor instructor, course manager, and hiring manager for TAs, if he has a choice in that selection. Plan on spending an incredible amount of time with your book in order to do well. Discussion, lab, and lecture are a total waste of time. This should be a distance learning course.

Believes students should learn everything out of the book and thinks lectures are just for reinforcement which is ridiculous for a 5 credit course. Bad lecturer - says "um" and "uh" a lot and has a lot of pauses. In-lecture demo's never work. Lecture, discussion and Lab are all completely useless and boring.

Pretty nice guy, but a sad excuse for a teacher. His lectures are disjointed, dull and provide no additional insight into the topics. His examples are way below the level of the homework assignments/exams and he rushes through them anyway.

Lectures are a joke. Discussions are a joke. Labs are a joke. Mastering physics is a joke. Basically this whole class is a joke. I absolutely hate this class and its not because I'm doing poorly; it's because the class and its professor are doing poorly. Avoid this class to avoid much frustration with absolutely trivial things.

Professor Timbie is friendly and willing to help, but his lectures are filled with "uh's" "um's" and long pauses. The lectures were dry and not helpful at all. The book was in constant use and unfortunately it fell apart and was hard to comprehend.

Really helpful during office hours

Very bad handwriting, hard to read. Doesn't explain concepts well. Even if you read the book you still won't understand a lot of what is going on.

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Gives somewhat difficult exams but has a very easy grading scale.

Timbie tries hard, and he seems like a good guy, but he is unable to overcome the poor organizational choices of the Physics department and the poor text chosen for this class. Timbie never gets to everything he wants to in lecture, and then seems genuinely flabbergasted when we don't know the stuff he didn't get to. Labs for this class are useless

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For some reason, Timbie believes that students in a 5 credit class should teach themselves all the information and that they should recieve no instruction from lecture lab or discussion. This is one of the most poorly taught class that I've taken at UW-Madison and I'm a Junior working toward my ME degree.

Timbie demands that you read the textbook. Lectures are supplimentary, unlike most other classes. He is okay at explaining, discussion sections help with more examples of problems

great lecturer, POOR EXAM-MAKER. his exams were insane...a few probs he had to throw out because his TAs couldn't even understand them. when you learn about inductance ONLY in series circuits, and the questions on the exam are about inductant in parallel circuits...something's wrong.

He is a clear lecturer but his exams are poorly made. Too many problems are put on his 50 minutes exams. Also, he assigned a bunch of 'nuanced' homework problems that took a lot of time and did not help me see the big picture. Lectures were not particularly useful.

He has what seems to be a true love of teaching.

Class overall is not bad at all. The exams are usually pretty similar to homework problems. Timbie is pretty funny and tries to make physics fun.

He is a decent professor. He tries to make physics interesting. Tests are tough though.

Good professor. Trys to make class entertaining and enjoyable. Tests are tricky, but study hard, and you'll do fine. Usually pretty generous curves. Overall a good class.

Goot teacher. Entertaining and makes material make sense. Test are a little difficult.

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Excellent professor, but exams are challenging.

pretty funny, good teacher