Dear person who submitted on February 27, 2020:

Why are you so pressed? The average midterm grade was a D. So? Multiple times he said that a 19 was a good score, and not to worry too much about midterm grades. There was also 22% worth of extra credit offered, which is miles above what any other class at UCLA will offer any student. That is literally 1/5 of your grade. You could skip the midterm entirely and still end up with at least an A-. Addressing the fact that you were "appalled" by some of the lecture material, what are you, 80 years old?? He tries to keep lectures fun and interesting for his students, and is super funny. Sorry he didn't pass out permission slips for the in-class videos. He also extended the dates for all the extra credits and tried his very best to make the most of a bad situation. What else did you want him to do? Discover the Kuiper Belt? Oh, wait! He did that already :/

I logged in for the first to just to disagree with the negative comment below.

The course was alright. We were given about 22% of extra credit assignments to complete, so despite being tested on material that we didn't actually learn in class (Basic geometry formulas from high school), the grade distribution of the entire class is very likely to be mostly A+, A, A-'s.

Jewitt is a highly logical thinker; his class is organized in a way that is very clear and to the point. He likes cracking sarcastic jokes in almost every lecture, so in general taking this class with him was pretty amusing.

I sent him a picture of his mailbox angled in way to capture the label on the other side of the wall to make sure my assignments landed in the right place. He responded by saying this was the best picture of his mail box every taken, which I then responded by saying I was deeply honored. That's the kind of guy he is like - creative and humorous despite being a scientist.

Every assignment is about his personal research so look out for an entry-level narcissism.

Jewitt is seriously a legend, I loved taking this class with him so much. He makes lecture so fun, clearly is an absolute expert on the topics he talks about, and is just overall an incredible person; I feel so lucky as non-science major to have even been able to take a class with him. My TA, Haotian Xu was also amazing, super kind and helpful when it came to completing labs. If you are at all interested in planets I highly recommend this class as a GE and GPA booster. Jewitt offers so much extra credit it's impossible to do bad. However, his tests are HARD. I thoroughly studied for the midterm and still only got a C (which was actually a lot better than my friends rip). I can't speak on the final's difficulty because this was the quarter UCLA abruptly transitioned to online finals bc of covid-19 and Jewitt, being the legend he is, thought that this was unfair to us (and he knew most people would likely cheat), so he cancelled it altogether! I'm genuinely sad covid-19 cut my time in this class short, as I heard the last lecture is supposed to be epic. Overall, this class is a great GE, and I would absolutely love to take another class with Jewitt in the future, he's the type of professor that makes me proud to go to UCLA.

Disclaimer: this is not about the overall grade I got. I haven't even finished the class yet.

I understand that this man made amazing progress for scientific research, but some of the things he did throughout this course was unacceptable. I don't really care how intelligent this man is: he was not an effective teacher nor did he respect the students. When he denied us a study guide for the midterm, I reached out asking questions about the material and he refused to answer them. When he finally came around, he gave me the most disrespectful, unhelpful answers. And then! The average midterm grade.. was a D (18/29). But most frustrating were a couple videos he showed at the start of class. One was a ridiculous heavy metal performance by two young girls. He said nothing afterwards. At a later date, he showed a video of a woman getting robotically possessed and then physically abused: she got stabbed in the eye, thrown into a wall, and her dress was lifted to reveal her undergarments. I was appalled. Afterwards, he said, "So what's all that about? Well I'm not going to tell you. Let's talk about Gas Giants."
So with all of that being said, take this class if you want, but just prepare yourself for some extremely frustrating moments. He is a clear reminder that being a brilliant person does not equate to being a successful teacher.

This was one of the classes I greatly enjoyed, I never missed a lecture as teachers have been hard to come by for me at least recently. The presentation of the material was excellent and I did learn a lot in this class. The exams were done just right were they were not too hard and not too easy, but if you did not study they would have of course been hard as many of the questions he wrote expanded a little bit on the ideas we learned. I greatly appreciated the videos he showed in class of himself with the concepts we were learning about in the real world, it showed how much he truly likes teaching I believe and how even outside of class you can see the things we are learning about. Although I did not get the grade I desired, I did cruise through this class with no extra credit done, which you probably should, and would recommend this class to anyone even slightly interested in the solar system or those that want to learn about it as we should to get a better grasp of the universe around us.

By far the easiest class I have ever taken. If you do not end up with an A+ that means you didnt do any of the labs, or didn't do the extra credit. Literally just show up to the 1hr lab once a week and do the extra credit opportunities that are offered. If you do these things correctly, it should be the easiest A+ of your life. Thank me later and take this class. Dont be a lazy b****

This class is the easiest GE you will ever take at UCLA. Jewitt provides 20% of extra credit, which involves just going out and doing somewhat "space" related things. If you want an A+ in the class, just do the extra credit and you'll never have to worry and showing up to lectures or studying hard for exams. Jewitt is a great professor and is extremely accomplished and passionate about space. This is reflected in his lectures which happen to be quite interesting. Don't hesitate to take this class- it is a no stress A+.

This had to be one of the most fun and interesting classes I have taken in a while including back in high school. The Professors lectures were very engaging and had plenty of examples for anyone to understand the material as he would even make complicated subjects easy to understand with the way he speaks. The thing I found interesting about his lectures were that he would integrate his own homemade videos of the subject we were talking about in class which made it seem much more in tune with the real world. He gives plenty of extra credit although it is hard to obtain compared to most classes and if you don't want to do it you don't have to, I did not. Overall this was a fun class to take and I would recommend it to anyone looking into this area or anyone really that is in need of an extra GE.

Amazing class! Professor Jewitt really cares about teaching the material without putting too much stress on his students. The midterm and final are online but aren't easy, but it doesn't matter too much on how you do on them since there is so much extra credit. As long as you do the extra credit assignments (some of which are fun like going to Griffith Observatory) and show up to at least lab discussions, you should easily be able to get an A. As for lectures, attendance was not required, but they were interesting, so most people showed up anyways. He also posts "mini-lectures" on Canvas which summarized of what was discussed during lecture, which were very helpful for studying.

It is not an exaggeration when I say that your grade heavily relies on the extra credit and the weekly quizzes. The material taught during lectures was fair, but the ideas and worksheets presented during discussion sections were confusing, especially since the TAs were not much help. The biggest advice is to complete the "Thinking Pages" given after every week. They're lists of questions that the professor posts at the end of each week. Answering them are not mandatory, however, the Thinking Pages often reflect the questions that will be on the weekly quizzes. As long as you do the extra credit (I highly suggest you do), and get high scores on the quizzes, you'll be okay.