CLUSTER 70A
Evolution of Cosmos and Life
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Course 70A is enforced requisite to 70B, which is enforced requisite to 70CW or 70DW. Limited to first-year freshmen. Use of concept of evolution, as it applies to biological organisms, Earth, solar system, and universe itself, to introduce students to both life and physical sciences. Examination of evolution of universe, galaxy, solar system, and Earth. Letter grading.
Units: 6.0
Units: 6.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - The material is genuinely impossible to fully learn, but if you follow instructions well enough, you can get the grade without learning; this is a class for people trying to knock off GEs and not learn anything. This first quarter is taught primarily by Petigura, who's a pretty good lecturer. The main issue is that lecture and discussion are almost two separate classes. There is a quiz (online, half multiple-choice and half free-response) every other week, based on the lecture material—these quizzes are not easy at all. Everything else (majority of the grade) is in discussion, and not related to the lecture material. There are reading assignments (read something, write a reflection), basic labs, and then a research paper. Some of these assignments can take a while and feel like busy work, but most TAs grade them on completion if you try hard enough. The professors feel pretty useless because they're not involved in the discussion assignments, and the amount of help your TAs provide varies (mine gave almost no instruction, but others were super explicit in their expectations).
Fall 2023 - The material is genuinely impossible to fully learn, but if you follow instructions well enough, you can get the grade without learning; this is a class for people trying to knock off GEs and not learn anything. This first quarter is taught primarily by Petigura, who's a pretty good lecturer. The main issue is that lecture and discussion are almost two separate classes. There is a quiz (online, half multiple-choice and half free-response) every other week, based on the lecture material—these quizzes are not easy at all. Everything else (majority of the grade) is in discussion, and not related to the lecture material. There are reading assignments (read something, write a reflection), basic labs, and then a research paper. Some of these assignments can take a while and feel like busy work, but most TAs grade them on completion if you try hard enough. The professors feel pretty useless because they're not involved in the discussion assignments, and the amount of help your TAs provide varies (mine gave almost no instruction, but others were super explicit in their expectations).
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