I LOVE TINA. This class was structured so that Jean Luc Margot was the professor for the first half of the quarter and Truede took over after the midterm. I found Treude's sections to be much more interesting than Jean Luc's, and the homework was also way clearer. Jean Luc often put random stuff on his slides that had nothing to do with the homework, but Treude's homework assignments basically all came directly from her slides. You don't need to go to lecture to succeed in this class, but I would still recommend as the lectures can be interesting. They also gave a very generous Extra Credit assignment worth 9.1% of our grade which I thought was extremely nice. LOVEEEE

Professors Treude and Margot are great and are very passionate about Astrobiology as a subject. The class is split in half, content-wise, with Margot teaching the astronomy side of things in the first half and Treude teaching the biology side things in the second half. Their slides are very concise, and I enjoyed how they integrated present-day research and practical information from the field into their/UCLA's work. However, the material is kind of complex, as someone who had a little background knowledge on the subject but didn't do any studying/review outside of lectures (lectures are recorded and slides are posted). The midterm (astronomy/physics/geology) and final (biology) are both online, with about 40 MCQs each (although the midterm had some calculation problems). Since the midterm and final are both open notes (and slides/recordings/textbook), and you have a 2 hour window of your choice anytime over the course of 3 days. What I found to be helpful was copying down everything from the lecture slides onto a Google doc, as well as downloading the textbook as a PDF and converting it to a txt to paste on another google doc. This way, I could efficiently answer test questions by just ctrl+F 'ing everything! And about the textbook, there's no need to read it before/after the lecture, as most of the important material is covered in the lecture anyway - as long as you have it ready to access during a test. There's extra credit as well which gives you a bit of a grade boost, where you visit one of a handful of museums/exhibits and submit evidence of your visit. Doing so guarantees a small portion of your grade 100% and the rest of the categories are weighted down a few percent each. If you don't do the extra credit, the grade weighting is as follows: 25% HW accuracy, 25% discussion participation (need to show up to just 5 to receive full points), 25% midterm, 25% final. Highly recommend taking this course!!

TL;DR - A very easy GE with basically 0 effort needed outside of lecture, interesting (but somewhat complex) topics, and fair midterm and final.

I really liked Tina’s lectures! I’ve always been interested in ecology and evolutionary biology, so I found her content about the emergence of life on Earth (and potentially other satellites) to be really engaging and interesting. Tina’s also quite funny and puts a lot of memes on her slides (and generally makes them look cool), so I think most people would enjoy her lectures. The only con about Tina is that she doesn’t use Zoom, so you always had to go in person to sit in a class of 500 people wet coughing. I also mentioned this in my review of Jean-Luc, but the class should be easy as long as you pay attention during lecture, and the tests were also relatively easy and open-note. Some questions were a bit tricky but generally you could find the answers in the lecture notes, and if not, the textbook. I agree with some of the other reviews that sometimes the questions seemed to come out of nowhere or were worded weirdly, but most of the questions weren’t like this and usually you could make a solid guess based on process of elimination. Tina’s homework was manageable and pretty much was a copy of her slides. You also get unlimited time to think about the problems and can use your notes (and your lowest 2 homeworks get dropped!) Plenty of opportunities to do well in this class, plus I ended up loving what we learned in this class so I highly recommend it, especially if you’re down to completely upheave your perception of life and the universe.

I'm going to be completely honest and say that I really struggled with this class! The lectures felt very lengthy and difficult to understand, though I really appreciate that both Professor Treude and Margot left up their slides and recordings of the classes. The recordings and slides made homework so much easier for me to get done (you will definitely need them). The midterms and finals were definitely the most tedious parts of the class. I would mainly say that the wording of the questions was the most difficult part for me to process. My major is in the liberal arts field, which probably explains why. Despite my own confusion, most of the stem based majors that took this class said it was their easiest class and barely took any time for them. I would definitely find a group of people to study with as soon as possible, since your grade essentially consists of homework, midterms, and the final, with nothing else to boost your grade up.

Even though this class was personally super difficult for me, it had a lot of pros to it! The homework was fairly simple and was required to complete every week (which helped me boost my grade). Your two worst homework scores also get dropped, and there is extra credit that is offered and available to complete online. I wouldn't necessarily take this class again, but it's definitely not the worst science GE out there!

Tina was a great lecturer. She was very clear and very passionate about what she taught. I'd happily take a class with her again.

The class is designed as an easy GE. In fact, I believe a lot of the lower divisions classes in EPS SCI department are. The homeworks and exams are all easy. The only minor problem is that Professor Margot sometimes talk about really confusing astrophysical stuff, such as the multi-stages of the Bigbang, that are kind of hard for me to grasp because I personally didn't take any physics in high school. But none of the difficult stuff are tested, so there's that. Professor Treude teaches the biology part and I find her content clearer than Margot's because the concepts are more concrete and finite and there are no extraneous untested things. I wouldn't take this course again personally to be honest because I find the physics part a bit boring and remote. But that's just me.

I loved this class! I took it (virtually) for fun and would recommend it to anyone who wants to gain some foundational knowledge in astronomy or biology. I would definitely recommend it to first year students, because it covers a wide breadth of introductory material for different fields. Also, lectures are live but do not require attendance.

This was the course breakdown:
Homework 40% (drop 2 of 8)
Take-home midterm exam 30% (multiple choice)
Take-home final exam 30% (multiple choice)

There were also 10 points of extra credit, and the weekly homework and exams were open-notes.

Dr. Treude taught more of the biology content, which I found very interesting because I am a life science major. Unexpectedly, it overlapped well with my MIMG 101 class. Dr. Treude talked about her research too, which I found interesting.
The tests and homework were easy, although there are a few quantitative questions on the exams, which could be tough for people less knowledgeable in physics. I am a life science major with some (not much) background in math/physics and a lot of space knowledge, so I did not have issues with the material, but if you do not have a STEM background, it might be more difficult. Also, there were a few questions on the exams pulled directly from the textbook, so make sure to at least skim it before the exams!

This review is for EPS SCI 15 (INTRO TO OCEANOGRAPHY) since she is not listed with this class in bruinwalk.
Honestly, EPS SCI 15 is a seriously insanely complex class, with it being an intro class. The mid-term wasn't hard, but the requirements that go around this class make your grade primarily focusing on the lab itself... which is ridiculous if you already did your lab requirement. I don't think the lab portion should be required if you already did it! My lab requirement class made it a separate listing... Anyways. I think the concept of weekly lab tests is absurd and over the top. Also, what's the point of the lab assignments if they don't even count for our grade? My TA was extremely nice and patient but sometimes what she made is do during lab wasn't as easy as it was to do on the quiz. Although Treude does allow 10% extra credit, it isn't enough for what she makes you go through with this glass being a GE. This class is only an easy A/B if you have it as a pass/ no pass. Also, the lectures are ridiculously boring and her voice can get very soft and makes it hard to hear at times. The slides also have so much info and most of the time it's pointless writing what she has on the slides because she posts the slides on CCLE, which makes it more convenient to focus more on what she says that isn't on the slides (which is rarely... since she generally reads only what's on the slide). I can't wait for this class to be over... Way too much stress for a class that grad schools won't even care about if you're a non-stem major... and even then, I have some stem friends in this class who hate it. Also, that lab final... Treude needs to find a way to make this class a learning experience and not a stress experience. This class does have the potential to be fun, but the stress brought through the lab makes this class a hell.
Oh UCLA... how I hate your science reqs as someone who is a humanities major...

I don't know why Jean-Luc Margot has a ton more reviews than Tina Treude when they divide the class pretty equally (if anything I felt Tina Treude lectured more). They're both incredibly knowledgeable in their fields, but Jean-Luc Margot is more interesting. At least in my opinion. Maybe that's why he has more reviews.

In my opinion (and it seems like opinions are divided) the class wasn't too difficult. Weekly homework was 40%, midterm was 30%, and final was 30%. So there is a lot of weight on weekly homework, which isn't hard at all. For me, the material can be boring, but there are some interesting facts, especially if you like learning about planets, since there was a lecture on Mars and the big moons of Jupiter and Saturn. As long as you leave some time to go over the material before an exam, it shouldn't be too hard.

Honestly, this is not an easy A GE unless you take it as a Pass/No Pass. I stopped going to lecture week 3 because they were not engaging and found myself reading all the powerpoints and taking notes on my own before each exam. I got a 68% and 70% on the exams and had a 98% for homework and got a B because of the extra credit, but changed it to Pass/NP for other reasons. Anyways, this class is not as easy as others make it seem but I have to admit Jean luc Margot makes the lectures a little bit more bearable.