ASTR 5
Life in Universe
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. No special preparation required. Topics include formation and evolution of Earth and Sun, life on Earth, origin and evolution of life, solar system, habitability, extra-solar planets, search for intelligent life in universe, and interstellar travel. Draws primarily from astronomy and biology but includes some chemistry, geology, and physics. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Professor Rich was honestly such a nice and genuine professor. He seemed really passionate about the course and tried to make small jokes to compensate for some technical topics. The homework honestly wasn't too bad and the midterm was relatively easy if you just studied the notes and attended the discussions. The final was 100 questions and tougher than the midterm, but still wasn't too bad. He does have extra credit that can boost your grade by 1%. I would recommend his class as a pretty easy GE and would definitely take it again.
Fall 2023 - Professor Rich was honestly such a nice and genuine professor. He seemed really passionate about the course and tried to make small jokes to compensate for some technical topics. The homework honestly wasn't too bad and the midterm was relatively easy if you just studied the notes and attended the discussions. The final was 100 questions and tougher than the midterm, but still wasn't too bad. He does have extra credit that can boost your grade by 1%. I would recommend his class as a pretty easy GE and would definitely take it again.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - As a GE, it's a perfectly fine, easy class, but I was not a fan, mostly because I wasn't interested. Treu is a cute prof, in that old guy passionate-about-astronomy type of way. However, he has the tendency to be really wishy-washy during lecture, so it's a little hard to stay engaged, particularly if you aren't already into the material. His slides were pretty disorganized and it's hard to really know what's the most important stuff to know for exams. He is very passionate about the material and open to student questions, so if you're really into astronomy, unlike me, he's a fun prof to have. Exams are open note and therefore, weren't too bad in terms of difficulty. The questions were sometimes confusingly worded and it wasn't always clear what they were asking. Final was actually trickier than anticipated because the questions weren't clear and I ended up using the entire 3 hours LOL. The most helpful materials were definitely worksheets that were done during TA discussions that covered much of the mathematical computations that would be on the exams. As long as you have some prior understanding of the topics (especially the math!) and where everything is at in your notes, you'll be fine. I will say, however, that I HATED Kudu, the online textbook we were required to pay for. If you're familiar with the LS7 series and Launchpad, it's pretty much a budget version of it. Super buggy, often changes answers to your quizzes, and a lot of the texts and videos are available for free online so I wasn't sure why I was required to pay 50 dollars just to watch Crashcourse Astronomy and have my quizzes graded wrong because the program changed my responses post submission. It was easy to get your credit back, though, by emailing the Kudu administrators to get it corrected. But still, if you're paying for a service, you'd think that it would work properly. Most people didn't go to lecture from what I saw, so that's up to you, but I do recommend attending discussions! He also had an extra credit opportunity that was fairly easy and only took like two hours of my time. Overall, fairly easy GE if you don't totally drop the ball on it.
Fall 2019 - As a GE, it's a perfectly fine, easy class, but I was not a fan, mostly because I wasn't interested. Treu is a cute prof, in that old guy passionate-about-astronomy type of way. However, he has the tendency to be really wishy-washy during lecture, so it's a little hard to stay engaged, particularly if you aren't already into the material. His slides were pretty disorganized and it's hard to really know what's the most important stuff to know for exams. He is very passionate about the material and open to student questions, so if you're really into astronomy, unlike me, he's a fun prof to have. Exams are open note and therefore, weren't too bad in terms of difficulty. The questions were sometimes confusingly worded and it wasn't always clear what they were asking. Final was actually trickier than anticipated because the questions weren't clear and I ended up using the entire 3 hours LOL. The most helpful materials were definitely worksheets that were done during TA discussions that covered much of the mathematical computations that would be on the exams. As long as you have some prior understanding of the topics (especially the math!) and where everything is at in your notes, you'll be fine. I will say, however, that I HATED Kudu, the online textbook we were required to pay for. If you're familiar with the LS7 series and Launchpad, it's pretty much a budget version of it. Super buggy, often changes answers to your quizzes, and a lot of the texts and videos are available for free online so I wasn't sure why I was required to pay 50 dollars just to watch Crashcourse Astronomy and have my quizzes graded wrong because the program changed my responses post submission. It was easy to get your credit back, though, by emailing the Kudu administrators to get it corrected. But still, if you're paying for a service, you'd think that it would work properly. Most people didn't go to lecture from what I saw, so that's up to you, but I do recommend attending discussions! He also had an extra credit opportunity that was fairly easy and only took like two hours of my time. Overall, fairly easy GE if you don't totally drop the ball on it.
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