Professor
David Paige
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - Super easy science GE! The final two assignments (term paper - 45% and Martian activity) were extremely easy and seemed to be graded on effort/completion. You do have to attend every class to take quizzes worth a decent portion of your grade, but the three lowest quizzes are dropped. Don't let this professor's ratings scare you! He is genuinely so sweet and if you need a science GE this is the one to take
Winter 2023 - Super easy science GE! The final two assignments (term paper - 45% and Martian activity) were extremely easy and seemed to be graded on effort/completion. You do have to attend every class to take quizzes worth a decent portion of your grade, but the three lowest quizzes are dropped. Don't let this professor's ratings scare you! He is genuinely so sweet and if you need a science GE this is the one to take
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - This was a fun and engaging course that was totally worth taking for useful knowledge relevant to real life. I disagree with other posters who indicate that the HW was difficult and time-consuming. It was largely simple and on-par with lower-division courses in many science majors without any mathematical knowledge required beyond high school chemistry/physics (i.e. dimensional analysis). The highest grade in this course was accomplished by an English major. The midterm exam and final exam consisted mostly of short answer questions that were straight off lecture slides plus numbers-to-know that the instructor provided prior to exams to memorize as well as a couple longer essay questions where you could choose between two prompts for each question. Generally, there would be one prompt where you could answer conceptually and another where there was basic mathematics required similar to the HW problems. Even if you are absolutely terrible at math, you can avoid the more calculation-intensive prompts and get away with just knowing the material. I would recommend doing the practice exams in detail as well as memorizing all the numbers-to-know before each exam. Make sure to read ALL the lectures slides which are straightforward and contain the majority of the short answers. Don't focus on the HW since you don't need to do much calculation on the exams. If you finish studying the other materials, then you should go over the HW solutions and lab backgrounds to fill in any blanks in your knowledge base. Selling a collection of past exams, homework solutions, and highly organized course materials: *************
Winter 2019 - This was a fun and engaging course that was totally worth taking for useful knowledge relevant to real life. I disagree with other posters who indicate that the HW was difficult and time-consuming. It was largely simple and on-par with lower-division courses in many science majors without any mathematical knowledge required beyond high school chemistry/physics (i.e. dimensional analysis). The highest grade in this course was accomplished by an English major. The midterm exam and final exam consisted mostly of short answer questions that were straight off lecture slides plus numbers-to-know that the instructor provided prior to exams to memorize as well as a couple longer essay questions where you could choose between two prompts for each question. Generally, there would be one prompt where you could answer conceptually and another where there was basic mathematics required similar to the HW problems. Even if you are absolutely terrible at math, you can avoid the more calculation-intensive prompts and get away with just knowing the material. I would recommend doing the practice exams in detail as well as memorizing all the numbers-to-know before each exam. Make sure to read ALL the lectures slides which are straightforward and contain the majority of the short answers. Don't focus on the HW since you don't need to do much calculation on the exams. If you finish studying the other materials, then you should go over the HW solutions and lab backgrounds to fill in any blanks in your knowledge base. Selling a collection of past exams, homework solutions, and highly organized course materials: *************
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2017 - EPS 153 with Paige is a mixed bag: for one, his homeworks are damn near impossible (require a lot of assumptions on your part that may or may not be wrong) and his lectures cater to graduate students and can be very hard to follow. That being said, the final exam was both fair and curved, and the material itself is fascinating and extensive. Professor Paige is very helpful and willing to answer questions about the homeworks (which you will inevitably have), and a pretty engaging lecturer. I would take this class again, for one reason especially. The homeworks absolutely slaughtered me and I often felt lost in lecture, which contributed to a decent amount of stress in my life - however, this class has an AMAZING field trip. For our quarter, we got to go on an essentially free weekend camping trip to Catalina island which would otherwise be very expensive - D Paige even provided snacks and dinner. The field trip allowed me to really get to know the people in my class, and camping in Catalina is unreal if you've never done it before. Honestly one of my favorite memories at UCLA. In summary, this class is hard as shit, but at the same time it's pretty interesting stuff and the field trip makes it all worth it in my opinion. Would take again
Spring 2017 - EPS 153 with Paige is a mixed bag: for one, his homeworks are damn near impossible (require a lot of assumptions on your part that may or may not be wrong) and his lectures cater to graduate students and can be very hard to follow. That being said, the final exam was both fair and curved, and the material itself is fascinating and extensive. Professor Paige is very helpful and willing to answer questions about the homeworks (which you will inevitably have), and a pretty engaging lecturer. I would take this class again, for one reason especially. The homeworks absolutely slaughtered me and I often felt lost in lecture, which contributed to a decent amount of stress in my life - however, this class has an AMAZING field trip. For our quarter, we got to go on an essentially free weekend camping trip to Catalina island which would otherwise be very expensive - D Paige even provided snacks and dinner. The field trip allowed me to really get to know the people in my class, and camping in Catalina is unreal if you've never done it before. Honestly one of my favorite memories at UCLA. In summary, this class is hard as shit, but at the same time it's pretty interesting stuff and the field trip makes it all worth it in my opinion. Would take again
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