DO. NOT. TAKE. THIS. CLASS!!!!! I will forever have mental ptsd and anxiety from the stress I endured during this class. Prof Lew doesn’t care about his students wellbeing and the TA’s are incompetent to say the least. My TA Alpha Zhao was generally CLUELESS in our discussion sections and whenever we asked questions she would say something along the lines of “you guys, it’s not that hard, this is basic common sense”. Like I’m sorry there are students in this class who don’t know advanced chemistry and never took a prior earth science class before—this is a GE class for crying out loud.
All the videos are recordings from 2012 and his exam study guides are complete bs with outdated information, full of confusing chemistry and math problems which stresses you out even more.

Lew insisted that everyone MUST take the final exam despite COVID-19 and couldn’t care less about what students had to go through mentally and physically. I lost my job, got kicked out of student housing, couldn’t even afford the money to fly back home and couldn’t find a private place with stable internet to take the exam. I emailed Lew who basically said he didn't care and if I don’t take the exam on time, he won’t pass me.

PLEASE LISTEN!!! do NOT take this class. I was way to much work and Professor Lew does not help you at all. Plus the TA's are not helpful and don't know the material. The class is not organized and Lew is not understanding at all. Over this quarter I had surgery. I receive zero's on some assignments even though I had emailed him with the doctors note and CAE had spoken to him. By far the worst class I've ever taken. save your soul. Don't take it.

Okay ignore other reviews of this class. It's online, but its still a class. Just because you aren't regularly going to lecture doesn't mean it's any less work or any easier. He releases the week's lecture slides and gives you SO MUCH TIME to do them. I could sit down for a couple of hours and do about 2 weeks worth of lectures and homework in one sitting, which IS a benefit to online classes. People are absolutely ripping on Lew but he wasn't a bad professor. He likes the material, is a quirky guy, and will help you when you need help. He offers plenty of in-person office hours. The TAs were great, set up review sessions for the final, and graded the discussion worksheets very nicely. Just do the work, study a little and you will be fine. My only issue with this class is that the information is SO OUTDATED. They need to re-record some lectures because info is from like 2000 - 2010. Our atmosphere has changed so much recently, they really need to step it up and update their data. Other than that, the class is fine, wasn't painful, and you get unlimited tries on answering questions scattered throughout the lectures so you really will get a good grade.

Agree that it’s a difficult class, at least for a GE science req, but if you put in the effort and complete all of the homework and weekly quizzes it’s still do-able. Class was also graded on a curve so I technically got a B but it got bumped up to an A-
I’m selling my midterm/final exam study guides for $3. They’re not test answers or anything like that but it’s just a really comprehensive study guide I made with all the graphs/charts/terms and it helped me score pretty well on both exams. A
Text **********

I can't speak to the negative experiences of a lot of these other reviewers, as I actually had a great experience in this class. The videos go slowly enough that you can watch them at 1.5 or 2x speed and understand them. There is a bit of work because you have to take a quiz after each video (and there's like quite a few videos) but they're not difficult at all; if anything, you can have the video open in one tab and the questions in another. Lew also gives you a LOT of time to do them (they're available like 2-3 weeks before the due date) and gives you extra credit if you turn them in early enough. The discussion sections were pretty helpful because they let you apply the course material with the guidance of the TAs. I slept through the midterm accidentally and he was pretty understanding and let my final just double count. The final was a little challenging, so make sure to study well for it. Before the final, Lew and the TAs hold a review session where they cover the whole quarter (with a focus on the latter half) and answer any questions, which they record and later upload to YouTube.

Don’t let the concept of an online class trick you into thinking this will be an easy GE. The class is quite the opposite because you are required to watch a series of lecture videos and take mini “quizzes” after each one. And if you don’t watch the lecture videos before the deadline, you miss out on a lot of easy points. I had to devote at least 2 hours a day to fully understand the concepts, which was a pain because the professor loads you with an overwhelming amount of information that aren’t even mentioned on the midterm/final. I think what really saved my grade was (1) my TA and (2) the overall curve. That said, I’d recommend finding another science GE.

First off, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. You might think, "oh online class this will be easy" but it's not. It was so much work, you have these series of videos you have to watch which counts as a lecture, within watching those little videos you have to take mini quizzes which counts as points. If you don't watch these videos by a certain time you can't complete them anymore and you lose all those points, which add up. On top of that you have a homework assignment due every week and although this is an online class you have an in person discussion where you will complete a worksheet. The midterm and final were hard and we had no idea what to prepare for, there are no study guides they just say "here study everything". The curve isn't much help either. I really tried in this class. It was very math and chemistry based so I wouldn't recommend this class for a humanities major. All in all do not take this class unless you absolutely have to.

I took this class because I needed some extra GE credits before graduating, and I saw some past reviews on here that made the class seem fairly easy/doable. Well let me tell you--- this was literally the hardest class I have ever taken in my life. This was supposed to be a beginners air pollution class, and there was so much extremely complicated information that I pretty much didn't understand anything in this class. Not to mention there was math and chemistry involved. I am an anthropology major, and this class absolutely should be restricted to only those who are in the hard sciences... I seriously don't know how I passed this class (I took it as pass/no pass). Thank god there was a curve.

Based on the majority of the reviews below, I elected to take this class for my GE physical science requirement since I am a Humanities major and did not want to take a difficult class that is not relevant to my major. Unfortunately, this class took up so much of my time this quarter, and like one of the other reviewers stated, there was a large portion of completely unnecessary information that was not even on the tests. I took a day off work before the midterm and the final to dedicate to studying just for these tests on top of the studying that I did during regular lecture weeks, and I still barely passed the tests. What saved my grade was the points I earned doing the activity questions online and discussion activities in class, which again, had completely irrelevant information that was not at all tested on, and it was very frustrating that we were practicing with content that would not even appear on the tests. The TA's this quarter set up "homework parties" and midterm and final reviews because SO many people were struggling with the content. 1/3 of the class dropped after the midterm because it was so difficult, and the B- I got was because the class is graded on a curve (which only shows how hard this class is, especially for a GE course), and up until all my assignments and tests were graded a few days after the final, I was hoping for a C. My recommendation would be to look for another class for the GE physical science requirement, because this one is a joke.

AOS 2 is intended to be a beginning class in the department but somehow Jeffery succeeds in making it both boring and unappealing while also creating a terrible atmosphere for the TAs and students. Never have I met someone so capable of teaching students such unnecessary and complicated material for a beginning class - most of which isn't tested - while also managing to cancel his office hours for 8 of the 10 weeks of the quarter. So to recap, he gives you unnecessary, difficult and useless material; doesn't clarify what needs to be focused on while studying; and also is always absent and couldn't help you save yourself from drowning let alone passing this class. If I have a recommendation for this class, it is this - get the fuck out right now.