This class is definitely an EASY A class. Just make sure you use professor Larkin's slides and the STUDY QUESTION GUIDE. You don't even have to go to the lecture at all. I didn't go to the lecture this quarter, but I go over all the lecture slides before the midterm (This way can save your time). Make sure you go over ALL the questions of STUDYGUIDE provided before exams, and that is very very helpful. Lots of questions come from that studyguide. Just try to answer all those questions in advance based on information you can find in the lecture slides, and you will get through the exam very easily.

Larkin is so nice and a great lecturer! i have never taken an astro course and probably wont again but this class was so engaging and interesting! also......alec was my ta.. he is amazing, the sweetest guy ever, and super helpful and patient even when my lab group was the last to finish the lab.

Also prof was super helpful as well with office hours! rona hit at the end of the quarter and he was super understanding and logical about solutions for taking the final. he was very considerate of student's needs and stresses and was overall great with that whole thing.

Overall: I would still call this a "pretty easy" GE, but you might have to do more work than you're expecting (especially if you want an A). It would also definitely be better if you have any kind of interest in astronomy to begin with.

I decided to take this class because I figured it would be an extremely easy GE based on the reviews, but I don't really have an interest in astronomy. Professor Larkin was extremely helpful in office hours and overall a good lecturer. My TA was also pretty good although labs were pretty boring (but really easy). I think this class wasn't "hard" by any means, but I found that I had to work much harder to get an A than I originally thought. The midterms were actually pretty difficult (especially the second one). Professor Larkin also talks and moves through material very quickly during class which made it difficult to identify important material (especially because sometimes he goes way too in-depth). He also assigned a lot of readings that mostly just repeated what he said in class (basically they were really boring) but you still had to read to find that like 1 bit of new material. He was really helpful throughout the end of the quarter with all of the coronavirus stuff and made the final optional and I give him a lot of credit for that because it shows he really does care about his students.

This class has been by far one of the more interesting and easier classes I have taken. Professor Larkin's presentations are quite informative and very reflective of his tests. The lab sections are a little bit time consuming but the class itself is easy. He assigns weekly readings with a quiz every week as homework but the quizzes are quite basic and the readings are easy to digest. I would highly recommend this class to anyone who is at all interested in astronomy as well as wants an easier GE.

I'm a north campus major, so I'm not great at science and this class was pretty difficult for me. It was hard to keep up in lecture because he talks so fast and moves on very quickly. you're left wondering what you actually need to know for the exams. STUDY FOR THE FIRST MIDTERM its really easy if you actually study what's in the slides, then the exams get more difficult. A lot of people didn't go to lecture and just read the slides and used the online textbook thing, which is an option. There are weekly quizzes consisting of 4 or 5 questions about the reading, if you get a group together you can use your collective brainpower and usually get full marks. Labs are pretty easy, we usually ended early. The TAs are all really chill and help you a lot. Prelabs are super easy they only take about 5-10 mins. Overall this seems like an easy GE but you will need put in some effort when it comes to the midterms and final. Your lab grade will bring your grade up a lot as well.

Larkin knows his material. He lectures very enthusiastically, using different forms of technology to make us appreciate the immense size of the universe. I think his tests were fairly straightforward. Try to get a hold of his old tests to get an idea of the types of questions he asks. He won't expect you to know exact numbers for the sizes of planets or anything like that.

I gotta say though, I was very lazy when doing his labs. They were for the most part very boring. But at least they just needed to be done in class and not usually outside of class.

https://medium.com/@emilymartin88/title-ix-inaction-at-ucla-astronomy-61065540a39e

Professor Larkin was an excellent, patient lecturer that made this one of the more easier GEs you can take out there. The textbook for the class is online via KUDU and is decently priced at $50. There are weekly quizzes of about 4 questions based on readings assigned via KUDU, and are fairly easy/weighted less.

In class, Larkin is very knowledgeable about astrophysics and it's evident from his quality of lectures. He often goes beyond the slides to explain concepts more in-depth and is more than welcome to discuss interesting concepts during office hours. His tests are all multiple choice and are fairly straightforward (two midterms, one final though this quarter due to coronavirus the final's graded more leniently) and he does say that he has a rather generous curve. Labs are 20% of the class grade and a bit separate from the class itself, but are also fairly easy and you can be done with most labs a little earlier than the 2 hours allotted. Overall, this was an interesting GE and I recommend it to anyone who wants a relatively low-stress physical science class to take, or to anyone who may be interested in astronomy at all.

To succeed in this class, you HAVE TO know the answers to the weekly study questions and you probably should read all the additional readings to reinforce the material, which is a lot.
This class was incredibly interesting, but required a lot of studying and time. You learn about EVERYTHING regarding the creation of the universe until now, so it's heavy on material.
Larkin goes through his slides so so so fast in class that I barely had time to take notes / digest the info, so I just watched the online recordings of class and paused it when necessary.
Kate was my TA and she was amazing, helped us with everything in lab and really wanted the best for us. That said, the 2 hour lab was excruciatingly painful.
Overall not TOO difficult, just a lot of work, but worth it to learn all that I did!

The labs were a bit more math heavy than I was expecting, but the math still wasn't bad (simple scientific notation and conversion of units and formula rearrangement). The TA's will tell you if your answer is right or wrong, and also the lowest two lab grades get dropped so you don't have to go to all of them! (you do have to attend at least 5 to pass the class). As for the lecture content, it felt like 8th grade astronomy except slightly amplified, and was super interesting!! He kept it mainly conceptual which was very helpful rather than going in on the physics. If you want to take this class, make sure that it's Larkin teaching and not another professor!!!!!!