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: *************

Overall this is a great class. 1 easy HW a week using basic math, physics, and chemistry in fun and cool ways. Lecture is less technical, with a funny professor that gives an overview of the many types of nonrenewable and renewable energy in the world, and how they are progressing. Tests were easy if you understand the HW and memorize what he tells u to (random numbers like the age of the universe, date of industrial revolution, etc., as well as stuff from lecture). There's a field trip to a bunch of places (wind farm, solar farm, oil rig, etc.) that was interesting. I'd recommend this class as it wasn't that difficult and is very important for the future of humanity.

DO NOT TAKE THIS GE. He changed the format, and the final exam is 45% of your final grade. This class is extremely boring and unengaging. The average for the final was an 84, the mean was an 82, and he graded pretty harshly, honestly. Not worth your time; take something that is actually interesting.

Note that the final exam has changed from previous reviews that have been mentioned here and it is 45 percent of our grade. Although it used to be a take-home essay final, it was changed to multiple choice, short answer, and essays in-person. The professor was asked in class whether content would be from the lecture slides and said that if the content was taken from the lecture slides the exam would be less than an hour. Instead, we were instructed to conduct personal research and compile notes that could be used on this exam so that the professor could test content about our selected mars topic that was never actually covered in class.

We were instructed to use chat gpt to help us "study" and there were no guidelines given as to what would be tested within the broad topic we had selected. The median for the final was low 80s and the lower quartile was in the 70s. There are more engaging and less stressful science GEs to take at UCLA, especially given the recent changes.

Professor Paige is such a nice, fair professor. He is super understanding of the fact that this is a GE course for non-majors. His lectures have lots of content but he explains it well. There is a 4-6 question Canvas quiz every lecture; he usually drops 3-4 quizzes and 1 lab. Discussion section is a short presentation by the TA and then free time to work on the lab for the week. There is no midterm—for the final Professor Paige allows students to choose 1 topic from a list of around 7 to 8 different topics relating to the course, complete their own research on the topic, and compile printed notes which can be referenced during the final exam (multiple choice, short answer, 2 essays). Overall, Professor Paige is the sweetest and this is a super manageable physical science GE.

Most of the other reviews here are mostly accurate, but I figured I’d give an updated one. For a class about renewable energy, I had to put way more effort and energy (pun intended) into this class than I thought. This class gave me more stress than fluid dynamics this quarter, so take that as you will.
Basically, the lectures are pointless to go to because the professor reads verbatim off the slides that he posts in advance. He assigns attendance quizzes each lecture, but all of them are answerable without being present (example: one of them asked what our thoughts are about solar energy). Make sure to submit it during the class time though, because they are only open for the duration of the class and close 15 minutes after. He does drop 3 of them, so it’s ok to forget a couple times.
The homeworks are pretty long, and are far off from his lecture material. His lectures go over concepts like why solar energy is useful, but then the homeworks have you do a bunch of calculations that you have to figure out for yourself with no examples. Most of the problems include a ton of steps that the average student wouldn’t even fathom how to do without the handy help of the Internet. The first homework is just simple conversions, and the rest are based on lab data you collect for that week. The labs are mandatory and are pretty fun, all group based. Some examples of what you’ll do include building wind turbines and making a custom ethanol solution.
You’ll have a midterm and a final exam, all closed book. The midterm had 20 short answer questions, an essay problem (choice between 2) and a calculation problem (choice between 2). The calculations are problems similar to the homework, and the short answer questions are specific questions that are minuscule details from the lecture slides. The final is the same format, but with 30 short answer questions and an extra problem where you choose between an essay or a calculation.
I found that a helpful way to study is to go through all of the slides and make a quizlet on everything to memorize it. Don’t forget to add details from diagrams and graphs, as those are fair game. He also provides a document with numbers to know for the exam, so add those to it as well. The essay and short questions combine for 70% of the points in the exams, so it is wise to focus on the quizlet, and if time permits, go through the homeworks.

Took this class for my engineering tech breadth requirement. Be prepared to have an unreasonably rough time in this class if you do not have an okay-ish physics background. The homeworks do require a fair amount of physics and some chemistry knowledge. The exams are not terrible, but do require you to memorize vague facts and figures from his slide presentations. I never read the "required" book and I was fine in the class. I will say that the labs were pretty fun.

This class is extremely difficult. The only reason I passed the class is because of the TA. Professor Paige only lectures on contextual concepts. The lectures are not recorded but he reads directly off the slides. He always pauses before reading a slide out loud as if he is reading the slide for the first time. The concepts are fairly easy, similar to AP Environmental Science. However, the homework is all physics based analytical questions. Professor Paige never reviews any of the math and expects you to understand how to calculate the answers based on absolutely no support. The only way I knew how to answer the homework questions was by forming a group that went to Jaahnavee's office hours every week after class.
The tests were even more unreasonable. The length of the tests are extremely long and require you to memorize random facts that are sometimes only briefly covered on lecture. We were given a one page sheet of numbers to memorize and some of the random numbers that were assessed were not even on the sheet. He never once explained any math problems yet the majority of the homework assignments and tests were math based questions. I was extremely overwhelmed by the amount of math that we had to learn by ourselves and would not have known how to complete the questions without the assistance of the TA.
I asked for assistance from Professor Paige on how to better prepare for the final and he told me that "undergraduates need to care less about our grades. All we want is an A." I was given no assistance by him.

The only thing that helps your grade is that he curves the entire class but most of us scored very poorly on tests. Jaahnavee made this class bearable by teaching us how to solve the analytical math problems. I then memorized the method of getting the answers for the midterm and final which allowed me to answer the question but not fully understand why.

Extremely easy GE. Very cool topic and professor Paige is extremely overqualified. No tests just in-class quizzes (very easy), labs (also no problem), and a final paper worth 45% of your grade ( takes a while because it's four pages single spaced but if you follow directions and the format you will get a 100%). I will say that Dr. Paige is not the most engaging lecturer but if you find the topic interesting enough you can zone out and listen for your own enjoyment (I took 0 notes throughout the class since you don't have to study for the test). For the paper I'd recommend being prompt about picking your topic, it's on first come first serve basis, and pick something that you can write a lot about since it is a lengthy paper (probably would advise against writing about Mars in video games or Mars in pop songs, even though these are valid topics that he lets you pick).

If you need a science GE for physical science, definitely take this class!
I loved Dr. Paige. He was very passionate and knowledgeable about what he was talking about and overall he seemed to be a very sweet and understanding professor. This class has no exams just in-class quizzes (extremely simple and straightforward if you attend and listen to his lecture), labs (also very doable), a movie assignment and a paper. This is not one of those classes that is overwhelming because of the difficulty of the content or the intensely memory-based exams. I was able to enjoy the materials, especially Dr.Paige being an enthusiastic and funny person, and never felt forced to learn any of the content by heart. He is a great professor and it has been an absolute pleasure to take his course. I have personally never been interested in astronomy and at first, I was worried that this course would hurt my GPA (I am a humanities major, barely any experience in studying physics or chemistry) but it ended up being very interesting and fun to take.