Super easy class. I never paid attention in class but I did pretty good for both midterm and final. All you have to do for this class is know all the material for the study guide which would be handed out before the midterm and final. And one more thing, the HW is kinda hard sometime, but you could always go to the TA's office hour to get it done. the grade break down is 30% HW,30% midterm and 40% final. Great and easy GE class.

Professor Shapley was great. She was very caring and nice, and extremely clear in her explanations. She never seemed caught off guard by any questions, which was also great. As for the class, it was extremely easy. It will definitely be a lot harder if you don't go to class, because the lectures require a bit of explanation. But as it was, I went to every lecture, didn't sleep through them, studied 1hr for the midterm, and 1hr for the final and easily received A's on both. Homework is easy too. The class is mostly math/physics based, and the astronomy concepts are easy and actually interesting too.

The course was pretty easy. If you don't fall asleep during the lecture, then it's pretty much a guaranteed A. The concepts are basic physics (force, acceleration, velocity) and the stuff about astronomy is really easy to understand. The midterm and finals consist of short answer and true/false. If you're looking for an easy GE, definitely take this class. The homework counts as 30% of the grade which is just an excellent grade booster (hint: if you don't get the homework or want to make sure you get 100% on it, go to her office hours. She basically does the homework for it). The book isn't necessary though, she puts all her PowerPoint lectures online.

Shapley made this class great. She is passionate about the subject and very concerned about the students. She is extremely helpful during office hours and explains all of the concepts very clearly. The lectures are a little long but it isn't too hard to stay awake, the homework is ridiculously easy, and the midterm/final are simple if you follow the study guides. This is a great class to take if you are looking for an easy GE or if you just think black holes are awesome.

Though she knows the material extremely well and goes into extensive lectures that are extremely fascinating, she speaks in a monotonous voice, is not exciting, rushes through material expecting students to know it right as they see it, and doesn't make her tests easy at all.

Professor Shapley is super nice and her responses to email questions are very helpful/thorough.

Her lectures present the material very clearly. I got an A in the class, but I read every page in the textbook...so I'm not sure how well you'll do if you don't read lol. Definitely go to her review sessions for the exams because there are some questions on the exams that she'll mention during the reviews. You'll end up saving yourself from missing two or three questions. You don't really have to do all that well on the exams...as long as you're about 10-ish% above the average lol. I only got B's on the second midterm and the final.

The labs are pretty easy, but fast paced. Usually the TAs are nice, so I recommend just asking them if your answers are right for any of the answers you're unsure of. As long as you show that you put some thought into your answer, they'll explain the right answer to you if you're wrong.

Overall, an interesting class and a good GE with a nice professor.

Oh man, I have so many great things to say about Dr. Shapley. She is so kind, helpful, and intelligent. She actually went to Cal Tech for her Ph.D. in astrophysics and has made some contributions to the field of astronomy, so it's pretty cool to have the opportunity to take a class with her. Her class is set up in a way where if you do the study guides she provides for each exam (and final) and understand the material on it, you can't get anything lower than a B. If you do that and study her lecture slides, which are accessible online via CCLE, it's hard not to get an A! I will definitely be taking a class with her again if possible.

An overall ok GE class. The professor is approachable but monotonous. All the lecture powerpoints are available online, which made it easy to slack off during lecture; I ended up referring to the textbook a lot for clarification.

20% Lab assignments: the labs were pretty long and tedious; my TA was nitpicky and I rarely got perfect scores. But the TAs usually give you hints/clarifications, so ask a lot of questions during the lab.

10% Homework assignments: easy online quizzes, open book and you get two tries.

20% First midterm exam, 20% Second midterm exam, 30% Cumulative final exam: All multiple choice, so a lot of questions are facts that you either know or don't; study specific numbers/stats and calculation questions because they make up most of the exam. The study guides were pretty helpful and she went over most of the questions during her review sessions.

There's also a ~2% extra credit where you go to Griffith Observatory. The final grade was curved but not by much because most of the class did do pretty well.

Professor Shapley cares about her students. The final is tough but the curve is very fair. I recommend her.

Ok so first of all Mrs. Shapley is a really nice lady. She answers emails super quickly and is always friendly. That being said, the class is not as easy as people make it out to be. I pretty much read the entire book and only managed an A-. The first midterm is pretty easy, but the second midterm and the final were definitely not. The first four labs were easy, but the last four labs were graded very harshly. Weekly quizzes were easy and you get two tries. The lectures were probably the worst part of the class; they were super boring and its very hard to follow lectures even though there are slides. A lot of people ditched class as a result. There is a curve, and she specifically said that the curve will only help people. Even though there is a curve, I don't think that it is that significant. Hope this review helps.

Class breakdown:
Weekly quizzes (10%)
Labs (20%)
Midterm 1 (20%) - average 80%
Midterm 2 (20%) - average 75%
Final (30%) - average 70%