Professor
Gilles Peltzer
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - I am going to be honest, I hated this class. For a GE, this class was incredibly tedious and advanced. I am not a STEM major, so maybe that is why this class seemed extra difficult. The lectures were incredibly boring and we rarely finished the slides in class. I will say professor Peltzer is a very sweet looking professor. He clearly knows a lot about earthquakes. However, he is one of those professors that knows so much about his content, that it seems he expects we are just as familiar with the material. Most of which I will bet we have never seen before in school. The slides are posted, but there is no audio/video option I am aware of. That can be troubling since some of his slides are just abstract pictures. The grade breakdown included 1 midterm, 1 final, 7ish labs, 7ish reflections, and an extra credit assignment I believe. The tests were largely memorization based and often queried about random one-off facts that seemed irrelevant. I did finish with an A, but that is only because I am a decent test taker. If you struggle on tests, it will be difficult to feel successful in this class. Definitely not an easy GE.
Spring 2022 - I am going to be honest, I hated this class. For a GE, this class was incredibly tedious and advanced. I am not a STEM major, so maybe that is why this class seemed extra difficult. The lectures were incredibly boring and we rarely finished the slides in class. I will say professor Peltzer is a very sweet looking professor. He clearly knows a lot about earthquakes. However, he is one of those professors that knows so much about his content, that it seems he expects we are just as familiar with the material. Most of which I will bet we have never seen before in school. The slides are posted, but there is no audio/video option I am aware of. That can be troubling since some of his slides are just abstract pictures. The grade breakdown included 1 midterm, 1 final, 7ish labs, 7ish reflections, and an extra credit assignment I believe. The tests were largely memorization based and often queried about random one-off facts that seemed irrelevant. I did finish with an A, but that is only because I am a decent test taker. If you struggle on tests, it will be difficult to feel successful in this class. Definitely not an easy GE.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - Pretty easy class overall. The lectures were pretty boring but most of the material was on the slides. There were a few times when things popped up that weren't on the slides, but for the most part if you understand what is going on on a slide then that's what was talked about in the lecture. The homework was easy as long as you went over the lecture material. It pretty much went over what we talked about in lecture and lab and just made sure you understood what we did. The labs were quite fun imo. As other comments said, they give you a step-by-step instruction of what you have to do and they are very helpful in troubleshooting any problems you have. The midterm and final was quite similar to the labs, but it didn't give you the directions and you did have to combine things learned in different labs. It also went into a little bit of the conceptual things so make sure you know why you are doing these labs and what the goal you're trying to achieve is. Overall, this is a fun class, especially if you're into rocks, and I would recommend taking it.
Fall 2024 - Pretty easy class overall. The lectures were pretty boring but most of the material was on the slides. There were a few times when things popped up that weren't on the slides, but for the most part if you understand what is going on on a slide then that's what was talked about in the lecture. The homework was easy as long as you went over the lecture material. It pretty much went over what we talked about in lecture and lab and just made sure you understood what we did. The labs were quite fun imo. As other comments said, they give you a step-by-step instruction of what you have to do and they are very helpful in troubleshooting any problems you have. The midterm and final was quite similar to the labs, but it didn't give you the directions and you did have to combine things learned in different labs. It also went into a little bit of the conceptual things so make sure you know why you are doing these labs and what the goal you're trying to achieve is. Overall, this is a fun class, especially if you're into rocks, and I would recommend taking it.
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