Took this class in-person fall 2021. To me, I found the material incredibly boring, and the professors are really terrible at creating slides. Each lecture consists of hundreds of slides with either a. repetitive information, b. useless information c. boring information. Most of the information you need to know for tests is not covered in lecture. Fall quarter is all astronomy and creation of the earth. Basic knowledge of elementary physics/chemistry would help, but you don't need any strong math/science skills. The class is really more a writing class since the essay is what makes/breaks your grade.

Class is taught by like 3 professors so consistency is a huge issue and each professor teaches class differently, which makes it aids logistically for you and the TA.

Never talked to any of the professors so can't really say how helpful/willing to help they are.

Quizzes are 30%, consisting of 10 at 3% each. 5 free response quizzes that are super easy, 5 multiple choice that are ridiculously hard. 35% discussion work, this is basically a free grade booster, 35% essay.

Your TA grades everything: get a bad TA and you are finished since you really can't afford to lose points in discussion since your quiz grade is going to be okay at best.

Overall, it's not that hard of a class, but you will need to put in a little effort to get by. Curve is very nice, professors feel the need to give every a grade bump should they feel not enough kids get As. Probably >50% of the class gets As, and you can pass the class without any effort.

Dr. Jewitt is one of my favorite professors in this cluster. He makes lectures engaging and actually helps you learn the content he is teaching. He is very knowledgeable and intelligent about what he is teaching and makes it relatable to anyone taking his class. I really liked the quizzes that he integrated into the course, they were all written based on documentaries which were a pleasant change from the usual math-based 7-question written responses from other professors. I recommend taking this class and ignoring the bad reviews on Dr. Jewitt. At least not during my class, he did not say anything offensive and helped me genuinely learn concepts and apply them to life. His work on the Kuiper belt fascinated me. I genuinely enjoy his teaching and will miss his fun, demonstrative teaching.

I love this professors and teaching staff for this cluster, but the quizzes are actually really hard and oftentimes the lectures aren't really helpful in preparing for them. It IS a cluster, so there is more workload (bi-weekly quizzes, weekly discussion labs and a 5 page paper due at week 10), but it's manageable. I rather do this cluster than fulfill my science GEs with other classes, so I do recommend taking it!

I recommend this cluster to absolutely every freshman who wants to knock out their science GEs. 1/3 of the grade is based on quizzes which are take-home and open note. These quizzes are based on lecture material, and I skipped pretty much every single lecture throughout the entire quarter but since they are take-home and open note it is pretty easy to go back and find the material in the slides. They also grade the written part of the quiz really easily. Another 1/3 of the grade is based on assignments you do in your discussion section, and my TA (Caitlyn Fick - highly recommend) graded these on participation which was super nice for the grade. The last 1/3 of the grade was based on a 5-page research essay that was also graded super easily by my TA. Much of the discussion section material feels disconnected from lecture which is kinda annoying, but otherwise, I have no complaints about this class. Like I said, I never went to lecture and I got an A+. No need to do any ungraded work in this class like readings either. Definitely take this class, I couldn't recommend it more for incoming freshmen.

Grade composition:
Bi-weekly Quizzes: 30%
Lab: 35%
Paper: 35%, 4-5 pages
No extra credit
Attendance not mandatory
Class is not curved (no limit to how many A's they give people)
No midterm or final (bi-weekly quizzes instead)

The quizzes are bi-weekly and online, so make friends in the class and take them together. Quizzes are posted on Thursdays at 5pm and due Friday 5pm. They are 2 part quizzes, 10 multiple choice questions with 25 minutes to complete it from the time you start (not lockdown browser), free response is unlimited time (within the 24 hours window to complete it and not lockdown browser). Everyone has the exact same free response but different multiple choice parts, although some multiple choice questions will overlap with your friends.
Jewitts' quizzes are SO MUCH EASIER than Petiguras', but I somehow did shit on almost all of them, like 5/10 bad. His free response parts are only one question and he makes you watch some 1 hour video of him on a BBC science episode and summarize it. The free response is not hard, just tedious and annoying because you have to sacrifice all that time watching a video, but I'd say make your answer is scientifically backed up because I think that's how I lost points. For Jewitts' part of the multiple choice, I think they were actually harder than Petiguras'. It was either that or he makes way more questions, so if you take it in a group you and your friends won't have a lot of the same questions, so you have to figure more of them out on your own. And for the multiple choice if you have the same question as your friends, he mixes up the answer order, so be careful of that.

He was by far the most engaging lecturer and says out of pocket things which keeps everyone on their toes so showing up to lecture was not so bad when he was teaching, but make sure you are quiet during lecture because he calls people out for talking over him which is embarrassing. Half of his slides are just pictures/ graphs and videos, so the slides are not really useful for the quizzes.

I enjoyed Jewitt's part of the course much more than Petiguras. He took difficult concepts and tried to make them easier to understand by explaining them in detail and even coming up with some great analogies. Although his lectures were sometimes quite random in which he included some interesting videos, I thought his lectures were great and I found myself interested and not bored like I was at the beginning of the quarter. Jewitt's quizzes were much easier in my opinion, especially the free response which just consisted of writing a response to some topic or questions that were not that difficult to understand. However, some of the multiple-choice questions were a bit difficult. Overall, although this class was not the best due to organization and the workload being a bit extensive for a GE, I thought Jewitt was great.

Dr. Jewitt was the second lecturer for this quarter, and I would say that his lectures were easier to understand than Professor Petigura's (the first lecturer of the quarter). He made the lecture material easier to understand by providing analogies to help you remember the more difficult topics. Although the quizzes were still difficult, Jewitt made the free response portion A LOT simpler than Petigura, while the multiple-choice portion was about the same difficulty level. The discussion sections for this course consisted of labs that were pretty simple and graded on participation by my TA (Caitlyn Fick). There was also an essay that was worked on throughout the whole quarter and Caitlyn graded easily on it, but this all depends on your TA. Overall, although this cluster isn't the easiest, I would say that it is a good option if you are looking to knock out all of your science GEs along with the Writing II requirement.

"Yikes" is how I would describe this class in one word. While the course is extremely interesting and engaging, the workload and the quizzes are extremely over-the-top difficult. It feels as if I'm trying to take two classes at once due to the lectures and labs feeling like they don't correlate at all. However, the class is easily doable if you try just hard enough. Nothing about the quizzes or the labs is tedious. It's just the fact that there is so much to do, so you aren't necessarily learning anything. Lectures aren't required to attend since the lectures' audios are posted on bruinlearn, but I would definitely recommend reviewing the lectures' slides prior to attending their respective lectures to get a better understanding of the content. Half of the quizzes' questions are directly on the slide, and the other half are based on what is mentioned during the lecture. The problem is that if you miss just one sentence that is said during 1 lecture out of 4 that you will be tested on in a quiz, you may miss 1 multiple-choice question, which can be frustrating at times. Overall, the course can be fun at times if you have a general understanding of what is going on. I found myself caring more about this class than my other classes, and I can definitely say it was worth it. Good luck with the intense workload even though it is still a fun class.

Please do not take this class unless you are genuinely passionate about the topics. Hardest cluster to exist, dont say i didnt warn u.

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