Awesome guy for an awesome class.

Easiest class I ever had. Good lectures and good professor.

Layout:
- 30% Lecture Final
- 25% Midterm
- 20% Labs
- 15% Lab Final
- 10% Participation

Lecture final and midterm were straight from what Gold teaches. Everything's pretty straightforward and easy to memorize. There are some concepts that are a bit difficult to understand at first, but Gold usually tries to help us understand before he moves on. He gives study guides for both the midterm and lecture final and he uses the last lecture before each exam as a Q&A session which were pretty helpful. The labs were easy, and are (mostly) not based on lectures. You're also encouraged to work with others during the labs, and it definitely helps a lot. The TA's also help out with the labs so feel free to ask them questions or help. For participation, there are lectures where he uses "active learning activities" and will use them for your participation grade. Just show up to lecture and turn them in and you'll get credit. Lectures aren't mandatory but he doesn't tell you when he will do the active learning activities so be careful about that.

Overall, loved the class, loved the professor, and would definitely take it again.
Also... who doesn't want to take a class on dinosaurs? LOL

Very easy class, but also very fun and interesting! Prof Gold really cares about the class and really tries to teach as well as he can to get every student to do well in the course. Lab sections are easy and fun and you can work with partners and TAs will answer questions you have. I'd recommend!

Great class. Loved it.