Average on first midterm was a 65 and on the second was a 71, and all he could say was that it was surprisingly low and he did not understand why we didn't get it. Granted I spent hours studying just to get both averages. This is supposed to be a science GE, and as an english major I was not expecting to have to know all of physics to be able to complete this course. The labs have nothing to do with the course, the textbook is useless and has actual crash course youtube videos embedded. Professor rips through the lectures so quickly good luck trying to understand anything.

TW: The midterms for this class are HARD. I think the averages were like a 78% and a 64% on the two midterms. The prof. even made practice midterms that were not very helpful because they were MUCH easier than the actual thing. The midterms are very math heavy and we don't do any math practice problems in class. With that said, the final made up for it and boosted everyone's grades. The textbook readings are helpful but VERY time consuming. I got Bs on both midterms but got an A on the final and got A's on all the labs, so I ended with an A in the class. Some of the lab problems can be tricky but your TA is super available during lab to answer any questions and I never had to finish any of the labs outside of the designated lab time (even though they give you two extra days to finish if you need to). The lectures are super confusing bc prof. goes through extremely conceptual stuff super fast. By week 5 only like 30-40 people started showing up to lecture because tbh reading the slides yourself on your own time is probably easier. Finally, Treu is super sweet and understanding, and offers a 5% extra credit boost for answering people's questions on Campuswire (that's how I ended with an "A+". The material is super dense but really interesting if you're into space and stars. I recommend the class, but it's not an "easy GE". Grade breakdown: 20% midterm 1, 20% midterm 2, 20% lab, 20% homework, 20% final.

I would like to start off by saying that this class definitely threw me off considering how everyone told me that it was a really easy science GE. Going in this class, I did not know much about astronomy or any of the math-related concepts involved, so it was a bit tricky for me. The first two midterms were very very difficult and I am sure many others agree with this statement. However stressful, he did offer 5% EC and a curve on top of the class. Because of this, I felt confident that I would pass the class so I switched my grade to pnp. I really thought I was going to f bomb the final but I actually did really well, so as much as I did not enjoy the class, I think Treu balances the class well between difficulty and curves. Labs were ok, but most people just kept cameras off so it was basically solo. Overall, I think this class gave a very low workload, but when it comes to testing, you really have to study hard!

Easy science GE with a lab. Attendance in lecture is not mandatory or necessary to do well in the class. All slides are posted on CCLE and exams are open note. Labs are very straightforward and usually open note. Highly recommend taking this class with Treu.

Although Professor Treu is extremely passionate about Astronomy, the way he teaches the class is not exactly the easiest to understand. I spent a majority of the quarter relying on what we discussed in Lab and Quizlet to pull me through the tests. Speaking of the tests, I felt as though a lot of the tests were not on things we directly covered in class or in the assigned readings attached to the homework. If you are thinking of taking this professor know that he is funny and passionate but a majority of the learning you do will be on your own and not in the lecture. The one big bonus was that lectures weren't required, they were recorded and the notes were posted and honestly, sometimes the information is easier to understand that way.

To review Professor Treu himself: Great guy! He was very motivated to help students learn. At times it felt like his lectures were often too dense for an introductory course, and it felt as though he was rushing/unprepared to be able to cover all of the relevant information for the class. He would frequently skip over slides or gloss over convoluted concepts as if they did not need to be explained thoroughly. He was incredibly passionate about teaching and seemed invested in making sure that we were not only understanding but enjoying the material; I am not at all saying he is a bad lecturer. I think he just struggled to manage the sheer volume of the material being presented, and struggled to convey the basic fundamentals of certain physical and astronomical concepts that incoming non-astronomy majors might not already know. He's very smart, maybe too smart to teach intro. I very much like the class though. Do all of the work and you should be fine; he curves the tests to save everyone's grade. Solid 7.5/10

Prof. Treu is actually a very sweet and nice person. However, I did not have a good experience in the class. He moves too quickly through his lectures, often ending class early. His exams weren't super difficult, but they were a lot more challenging than I expected for a GE. His exams were very math heavy, so I'd reccomend studying the formulas mostly. I'd also reccomend going to lecture even if it isn't the most interesting, because he will go over problems using the formulas in the same way they would appear in exams. The slides were also pretty unclear to me. The kudu textbooks and homework had no relevance to the exams. It felt as if the labs were also not super relevant.

This class made me rethink the reviews on Bruinwalk. The professor did not effectivly lecture about the topics clearly resulting in many of the students to not pass the midterms. We had a substitute professor one day and he lectured the topic of "stars" very clearly and much better than the current professor. Furthermore, the labs did not transition to our lecture well. The labs take a long time to do and it has a lot of calculation and physics heavily involve. There are other easy science GEs that can be fulfilled

This class was not the worse despite how little effort I put into the course. Treu was a sweet guy and you can tell he is passionate about the topics, but the lectures weren't mandatory and sort of hard to follow along. You don't really need to attend lectures to do well in the course. The main part of the class that determines your grade is the exams (2 midterms, 1 cumulative final). The two midterms contained 32 multiple choice questions and the final had 40 questions. It was open-note but there are a good amount of application questions and to be honest, I can see why he made it open note because the exams were still a little bit confusing and difficult. There was some math involved but it wasn't the worst since he provided us some examples in the practice exams he provides, but some of the concept questions were difficult to answer. I will say that the first midterm average was like 78%, while most people did a lot better on midterm 2 and the final. However, there is not a lot of structure and resources in the course, and I typically felt pretty unprepared each exams because the practice questions were very dry and minimal. Besides that, he offered 1.5% extra credit this quarter for attending a live stream and writing what we learned, which was pretty nice. The grading distribution you see does reflect this course accurately as Prof Treu wants everybody to succeed and do well in the course! He is super accommodating if reach out to him and typically responds very fast. Overall, Astro 3 is highly dependent on your professor and I HIGHLY recommend taking it with Treu (typically teaches winter I think) to fulfill the science + lab GE requirement (5 units)! Definitely not 100% easy, but I would say easy/medium difficulty.

I took this class during the online winter quarter and as a GE, so that might affect my review. I'm also bad at math

The concepts we learned were cool and the lectures/homework made them easy to understand.
overall I felt like this class was disorganized (not a big deal though because most people take it as a GE). The professor is also really nice, willing to answer questions, and explains the concepts well. If you are confused on topics there is a lot of resources online, within the homework, within the lectures, etc.
If you're better at math than me you'll do fine.

Overall though the class felt very unorganized. The class included 1) lectures 2) labs and 3) homework assignments. The lectures were not mandatory and the slides were available on Bruin Learn. Labs included a pre-lab and lab assignments, both were graded, but you didn't have to do all of them. My TA for the Labs was great but they often felt like busy work and didn't really expand or connect to the concepts in lectures in super meaningful ways. The homework was probably my least favorite part though - it's one of those homework platforms where you have to buy the textbook in order to access the homework, which is frustrating and makes it more inaccessible for some people. The homework questions were found on Quizlet which was handy but the videos were just crash course videos, so it was annoying to have to pay just to access the readings/videos which I could have found elsewhere. The midterms (there are two) /final are HARD and I did way better on the class assignments than the tests. Normally I don't mind if a class doesn't provide a study guide, since no one is really entitled to having one BUT I literally had no idea what to focus on because there was so much material and it felt disorganized. Practice midterms/final were given so we could "see what the exam would look like" but everything was multiple choice so that didn't really matter anyway. It would have been helpful if I had a more concrete idea of what to study, especially with the equations (write down ALL THE EQUATIONS!)