Fall 2022: Jewitt/Friscia/Petigura

Jewitt's an interesting one. His lectures are definitely the easiest to understand, then he pulls out some difficult multiple choice questions on the test. He is, however, quite funny and his lectures are interesting.

For full review of class, including more on Jewitt, use this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15vILblHwWrnV7KnB-sOFzTRnQE2QPA7nmHxj4gdNKBU/edit?usp=sharing

Best Professor here at UCLA
Take his class and you will not regret it.

Disclaimer: this is not about the overall grade I got. I haven't even finished the class yet.

I understand that this man made amazing progress for scientific research, but some of the things he did throughout this course was unacceptable. I don't really care how intelligent this man is: he was not an effective teacher nor did he respect the students. When he denied us a study guide for the midterm, I reached out asking questions about the material and he refused to answer them. When he finally came around, he gave me the most disrespectful, unhelpful answers. And then! The average midterm grade.. was a D (18/29). But most frustrating were a couple videos he showed at the start of class. One was a ridiculous heavy metal performance by two young girls. He said nothing afterwards. At a later date, he showed a video of a woman getting robotically possessed and then physically abused: she got stabbed in the eye, thrown into a wall, and her dress was lifted to reveal her undergarments. I was appalled. Afterwards, he said, "So what's all that about? Well I'm not going to tell you. Let's talk about Gas Giants."
So with all of that being said, take this class if you want, but just prepare yourself for some extremely frustrating moments. He is a clear reminder that being a brilliant person does not equate to being a successful teacher.

It is not an exaggeration when I say that your grade heavily relies on the extra credit and the weekly quizzes. The material taught during lectures was fair, but the ideas and worksheets presented during discussion sections were confusing, especially since the TAs were not much help. The biggest advice is to complete the "Thinking Pages" given after every week. They're lists of questions that the professor posts at the end of each week. Answering them are not mandatory, however, the Thinking Pages often reflect the questions that will be on the weekly quizzes. As long as you do the extra credit (I highly suggest you do), and get high scores on the quizzes, you'll be okay.

This is probably one of the best GE's you can take. The professor gives 18% of extra credit and the extra credit assignments aren't particularly hard. There is a weekly quiz and discussion worksheet, but they're both fairly easy and don't take much time to do. The midterm and final are both pretty hard, but if the professor's giving 18% of extra credit and the tests are online, you can't really complain. As for the content itself, I'm not really much of a science person so I didn't find it particularly interesting, but if planets are something you're interested in, then you'd like it. He also gives 10-20 minute recorded recaps of lectures if you don't want to attend (discussions are mandatory). My biggest recommendation is do the extra credit. For context, my midterm and final grades were both in the 70's, and I didn't do all the extra credit offered, and I still got an A+. It seems a lot of people are complaining about the TAs. My TA was Kyle, and he was really good. Can't really say much about the other TAs. For whoever posted on March 22nd complaining about the cost of transportation, it would be expensive if you took Uber's or paid for parking, but if you got bus tickets, it was very affordable. I went to both CSC and Griffith, and I spent a combined $5. If you're looking for an easy and fun science GE, I would highly recommend this class.

I actually hate this class. I can't say this class is hard, but people rely on the EC to pass this class.

The lectures do nothing to help you prepare for the discussion activities and weekly quizzes. The discussion activities are worksheets the TA gives you to complete within the discussion. For the first few weeks, these worksheets were FILLED WITH MATH even though the professor said himself how this course is not math-heavy at all. It was only after sending in complaints did the discussion worksheets become more conceptual and easier in later weeks.

If you do take this class, DO NOT TAKE THE DISCUSSION WITH WENYI SUN. She sucks. She is so quiet you can never hear her when she's giving the instructions. When you ask for help/clarification, she will give you a very broad answer that does not help or she'll tell you to read the worksheet. And she basically says a bunch of instructions at the beginning of the section and then sits down and waits for the section to finish. Also, at the beginning of each discussion is a 10-15 minute quiz. Almost every discussion, WENYI SUN starts her bare-minimum instructions even when people have not finished the quiz yet.

The only helpful thing in this class are the Thinkpages. The prof uploads "Thinkpages" each week, which is a worksheet with 20-30 questions about the week's materials. You are not required to do these Thinkpages, but doing them absolutely helps you prepare for weekly quizzes, midterm and final.

There were 4 extra credit assignments where we had to go to First Thursday, Griffith, the CA Science center and draw the moon. They're manageable but you are only able to do them if you can get a ride to these places or if you have the money to pay for parking. So, overall, these extra credit are only accessible if you are lucky enough to have someone take you, or you can take yourself, or you can afford LA parking.

Overall, this class sucks. Lecture are boring and useless. The discussions suck, the professor does nothing. My TA sucked. I was frustrated with myself every week during the quarter of when I took this class because I felt like I was learning nothing yet I had to keep proving I was learning something. The only pro to this class is no homework and extra credit, and the midterm and final was online.

If you take this class, be prepared for learning everything on your own and plan ahead for your extra credits.

Nothing else about the class matters except the fact that he gives out extra credit that is 15% of your grade. FIFTEEN. PERCENT. Other than that, you can attend unengaging lectures where he goes through the material, droning on about outer space and whatnot. I personally didn't find it all that interesting, but that's always subjective. Make sure you get the lab homework done and the weekly quizzes weren't difficult either. Midterm and final are online, but the final is 100 questions. Take it at your own risk, I think you can find better GEs, but this isn't the worst.

Prof. was fine, but TAs for this huge 450+ class was a complete mess. If you take this class, DO NOT take Jason Utas' section. He does less than the bare minimum as a TA (unresponsive, last-minute grader, and gave vague, rambly, "I don't know either" answers to questions about course content). While he is a world-renowned meteorite finder, he is a poor TA in terms of class management, leadership/presentation skills, being socially awkward, and being unwilling to support students. I noticed the section wrksts are always at a stack in the door and the routine was students worked in silence as we each grabed a wrkst and sat down. Jason would then call out mispronounced names for attendance, and we'd work on our wrkt as he essentially proctored us. The quiz has a time limit of 10-15min, however, Jason would often start presenting (the times when he had slides prepared) before anyone was finished. While he mumbles briefly about the wrkst, I was often still doing the quiz or unable to hear him articulate words. There were virtually zero grades entered into Canvas until the midterm week, and quiz grades, which do not require active grading were muted. Grading among TA sections had great disparity as well with Jason advocating for "accuracy" while other TAs graded for completion. Extra credit assignment collection changed multiple times and was not articulated in a uniform way. Every time he laughs, I die a little inside.

Super, super, interesting class, but at times the tests were difficult. There is a quiz on the material every two weeks, each quiz consists of a written and a multiple choice section. It is pretty easy to get an A in this quarter of the class if you do all of the work and do well on the final, but again the quizzes can be a little tricky. Due to the TA strike a lot of things were graded on completion rather than quality, so there may have been a bit of grade inflation. I would recommend this cluster for pretty much anybody. It is really interesting and Jewitt makes it fun.

My Cluster 70A and 70B professors were Petigura, Jewitt, Friscia, and Brown. This was my favorite class all three quarters. The topics of the evolution of the universe/galaxies/stars/planets/life/ecosystems were SO interesting. I would absolutely take this class again in a heartbeat. It has upended my life plan because now I am debating pursuing a career in astronomy/biology/ecology. Jewitt was an engaging lecturer during 70A, and I was stunned to find out that Jewitt is LITERALLY one of the people who discovered the Kuiper Belt. He is remarkably intelligent -- regardless of how controversial of a person he revealed himself to be in 70B with controversial statements. TAKE THIS CLASS THO!!! I'm pretty sure the department talked to him about the complaints he got. I would take this class 600 times again if I could -- I totally adored it.