The class is designed as an easy GE. In fact, I believe a lot of the lower divisions classes in EPS SCI department are. The homeworks and exams are all easy. The only minor problem is that Professor Margot sometimes talk about really confusing astrophysical stuff, such as the multi-stages of the Bigbang, that are kind of hard for me to grasp because I personally didn't take any physics in high school. But none of the difficult stuff are tested, so there's that. Professor Treude teaches the biology part and I find her content clearer than Margot's because the concepts are more concrete and finite and there are no extraneous untested things. I wouldn't take this course again personally to be honest because I find the physics part a bit boring and remote. But that's just me.

I would definitely recommend this class for anyone looking for a fairly easy science GE. Lecture content is engaging and the prof is always willing to go further into depth in a given topic when someone asks a question. Weekly homework is a quick quiz on the lectures which usually don't take very long at all. If you have a strong science background, this class will be almost no work at all for you, but even if you don't, all the concepts are explained very well. Overall a very engaging and easy class to take.

I took this class online during COVID and I enjoyed it. There are two professors that teach this course: Margot focuses on the astronomy/physics parts whereas Treude on the chemistry/biology section. The lectures themselves can get kind of boring since they're just reading off the slides, but they are recorded and you can always watch them at a later time. If you have some sort of background to these fields / have been exposed to them, the material is really easy but for some that do not, I understand how it can be somewhat difficult. The class is broken down the following way:

Homework (40%)
Midterm (30%)
Final (30%)

For the homework assignments, they are assigned weekly. The best 6 out of 8 count towards your final grade, and they all come straight from the lecture. They are very easy if you have the lectures in front of you and can just look through them. I also found the midterm and the final to be fair. The exams are open notes/lecture/recordings so I would recommend going through them right before the exams. If you've been paying attention during lecture that's all you really need to do well on them. There are also a few random questions that get thrown into the exams that are from the textbook, so make sure you at least have it with you so you can ctrl + f .

It was co-taught with Prof. Treude. This was my hardest science GE. The class requires you to have a solid foundation in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and bio, none of which I had. I would go to class and leave more confused than before, to the point where I ended up changing my grading basis. It seemed easier for others, but the lectures went by too fast and required lots of outside work to keep up, unless you're a bit of a space nerd. Extra credit is offered, but it isn't much.

Loved Jean-Luc. Funny, quirky guy. Lectures are quite boring at times, but not nearly as bad as the Treude lectures in my opinion. Short weekly assignments that I finished usually in 30 minutes or less. Midterm and final were multiple choice, not too difficult if you review posted slides beforehand. Offers a small amount of extra credit for visiting certain locations around LA and writing a brief reflection. Take this if you want an easy GE and you don’t mind sitting through boring lectures.

The easiest classes I've ever taken. Tests are really easy (1 hr for both midterm and final, MC-style, non-cumulative), but make sure you know everything from the slides (especially the tiny details in graphs/pictures of the slides etc) cause this is a pretty memorization intensive class. Homework is worth like 40% of your grade so don't slack off, they're really easy and basically recap what was covered. You don't need to go to lectures honestly, as your TA will recap everything during discussion sesh. Extra credit is not that useful (like maximum 1% boost, don't sweat about it)

TL;DR: You'll do extra well if you're passionate about the material, which is super cool, but you'll do just as fine (easy A) if you're not. Overall it's a really fun class.

If you're a south campus major that just needs to take a life science GE then this class is comically easy. I didn't go to a single lecture other than the very first one, and all the slides are posted online. We did have weekly homeworks that we had to turn in during discussion, but they're ridiculously easy if you know a marginal amount of math and science (plus all the answers are always easily found in the lecture slides). Not only is this class stupid simple, but the material is actually cool as hell.

Margot is a friendly French man and his lectures are simple and straightforward, though at times monotonous. The tests were based on the lectures and the slides, so studying for them was not complicated. He requires a small textbook that isn't expensive, but I didn't read it once because it covered a lot of the same things that were covered in lecture. The material itself was interesting and covered a wide range of topics.

One of the easiest GEs I've taken at UCLA. Class consists of a midterm, weekly homeworks due in discussion, and a final. Midterm and final were same number of questions and same duration - only about an hour and 15 minutes. Homeworks only take about 30 minutes to complete. Points are also awarded for attending discussion. I didn't have to go to a single lecture after midterm as the slides are posted online, but going to lecture definitely helps clarify some concepts and there are some pointers and facts that appear on the tests but aren't in the slides. Barely any math, and the material is quite interesting - mostly just facts. Final was slightly tricky, but NOT CUMULATIVE. If you do the bare minimum - homework, attend lectures, and just read through the slides, you could still get away with a pretty good grade.

Class was easy up until the final. Many of the questions in the final weren't relevant to the coursework whatsoever. There was a question that asked how the a bridge was knocked down, and the answer was wind... wind. like are you kidding me? We learn about tides, gravitational forces, extremophiles and he asks me a question about how a bridge was destroyed, and the answer somehow was wind when we never covered wind in the lecture slides. If you are going to ask random questions might as well ask when Napoleon invaded the Russian empire, at least that's relevant to the world.