Coming into this class, I was really interested in Astro 5: Life on other planets. The first half of the quarter was about lipids, carbohydrates, and a bunch of other things (avoiding curse words here) very indirectly related to what the topic of the course was.
But that was fine.
The absolute, WORST, part of this class is how unorganized and ambiguous Coriniti's slides are. He doesn't explain them that well in class either.
However, I would take this class again because the second half of the class was very interesting, even though the slides didn't get any better. It was about actual other planets and solar systems, and how life/Earth/the universe was created. Nothing to do with lipids or carbohydrates.
There is a small curve to make the class average a B/B+.

The class has no homework at all and there is basically nothing that requires you to go to the lectures besides your interest in the subject. The tests weren't overly difficult but they require you to memorize literally every slide (stress on every slide). I would set aside at least 6 hours for each midterm and maybe double that for the final for just pure memorization time. The good news is that that is about all the commitment needed for the class. Coroniti is also a nice guy.

I think a lot of these astro classes follow the same pattern in that they are not very interesting for the first half and then become more interesting towards the end.

Overall I would recommend. And make sure you know all about DNA replication!

I've gotta say, this class was a really interesting experience... I took this class because I needed 4 random units for the 180 requirement and I saw that there's literally no assignments for this class, just 2 midterms and a final.

The material itself is kinda difficult, but maybe it's because I only showed up to one lecture and my "studying" mainly consisted of racing through the lecture powerpoints (he posts them online) as quickly as possible. I also never showed up to discussion, but I know someone who went to a few discussions and he told me that the TA just ran jeopardy review rounds (so people got up and left in the beginning lol).

Somehow I got median on both the midterms; I actually wasted more time walking around and doing laundry while reviewing for the second midterm than actually studying. He didn't show the grades for the final which is unfortunately cumulative, but I'm guessing I got around median, or a bit lower. To my credit though, I only reviewed for approximately 70 minutes the night before.

Overall this class is insanely chill...well maybe not "insanely" if you actually care about your grades. Sure I only got a B in the class, but c'mon I didn't do jackshit and I showed up to exams 2 more times than I did for the actual lectures. I probably should've taken it pass/ no pass, but the $5 fee was a bit too expensive. Take what you want from this, but I think I've never put in less work into a class- the only comparable course is probably EPS 3 (that's a whole other story though).

The class material can basically be summed up by 40% high school bio, 30% random solar system facts, 22.5% random facts outside the solar system, and 7.5% facts about life outside the solar system. All the lectures are given through PowerPoints, which are posted online though their scattered slide structure can make them pretty intimidating. And the professor tells you about a few diagrams from the ppts that will show up on the exams, so you can study those and get some free points. Also, the book is definitely unnecessary.

At first, I was going to drop this class, especially cause I stopped showing up to lectures after week 2 (they're too early at 9:30 AM!!), but my friend told me to wait it out until the first midterm and stay in it if I got an A. Thanks to the help of a knowledgeable premed student I was able to learn the high school bio portion before the first midterm and acquire a 98 through some solid guessing!

The second midterm was definitely harder though as there were too many planet facts all over the place to learn the night before, and I was having a hard time staying awake throughout its duration (cause they're during class hours at 9:30). Also, this was the one exam to not have any diagrams. I got slightly above median with a B on that one. My friend who was doing laundry during our study session the night before only got 2% lower than me, and he probably guessed on at least a third of the exam!! As you can see, my guessing game wasn't really on point this time.

Despite my distress, I was too busy with my other classes, and too lazy, to give this one any time until two days before the final. Now, the new material here was definitely the most interesting of the class although some of it I still never completely understood (i.e. the life of a star, which has a really weird diagram to it). Nevertheless, though the final was harder than the two midterms (it's cumulative), guessing came thru and I somehow pulled off an A in the class!

This class is really easy if you’re good at memorizing information on the slides. His slides are kind of disorganized, so you might need to go to lecture to understand what he meant to say, but it’s definitely doable without going. He posts the slides online, and discussion has no grade to it, so you don’t need to go. This is a nice GE to take when you have a heavy workload from other classes since there’s no HW. You just need to put in some time before each test.

Here’s the grading scheme:

Midterm 1 (25%)
Midterm 2 (25%)
Final (50%)

Tests are pretty straightforward, and everything you need to know is on the slides. Overall, very easy class, which means it can get kinda boring, but if you don’t mind that I would recommend this class.

Great class, everything you need to know is in the lectures. I just reread the slides for the exams and did well. Second half of the class is a little harder than the first half. Coroniti is great though

Professor Coroniti was awesome, and his tests were very straight forward. The class material was more difficult than I was expecting. Pretty much the class was 50% "life," 45% "other planets," and 5% "Life on Other Planets." I enjoyed the class and did pretty well, but it was a decent amount of work.

I took Astro 5 with Professor Coroniti. I want to start off by saying Ferdinand is a nice guy. The class however was a blood bath. The tests are ridiculously hard and require a good background in physics and math. I mistook this for a good GE because Astro 5 with Mclean is easy but this class was terrible. I took this class as a third year with 3.9 GPA and got a C on it.
Avoid at all costs !

Is there anyone took this class before?