I REALLY enjoyed this class and it got me learned some really cool stuff about the formation of the universe and the formation and lives of stars. Professor Arisaka was very animated during lectures and always had lots of interesting pictures. There were two midterms and a final, all multiple choice and very easy if you pay attention in class. The book that goes with this course is necesarry to do the weekly online homework (all MC as well). The labs were useless (except the telescope lab where we looked at the sun, that one was really cool), try not to buy the kit or split it between a few people so you can save yourself $30. I got C's on all the labs but I still got an A overall from the A's I got on the midterms and finals. I got a solid introduction to astronomy out of this class and I will definately take more astro classes after this.

arisaka is a great professor. he really cares about his students, and he will even hold review sessions for the midterm and final during out-of-class time. study the homework for exams--almost all of the final questions are from hw--do well in lab, and get an A.

prof. arisaka was such an awesome teacher. he really understands the material, and he is a really nice person too. super-easy class, and really interesting to boot. he used overheads for all his notes, posted them on the website, and used questions straight off the homework on all of the exams. if you ever get a chance, TAKE THIS CLASS.

Arisaka is amusing and enthusiastic about astronomy. Some students had trouble understanding his accent, but I was always entertained with his dorky scientist jokes and factoids about the universe. There is no reason to get anything lower than a B+ if you study the homework questions for the exams and do a reasonable job on the labs. He has a generous curve and offers extra credit oppurtunities as well. He's also helpful and friendly -- he posts his lectures online before class and welcomes talking to students outside of class. In case he has the same TAs: Peter Plavchan was excellent and the best TA I've ever had at UCLA.

Professor Arisaka is awesome. He is very enthusiastic about Astronomy and he is very funny, so you stay awake during his lectures. His lectures don't make too much sense, but it's helpful to go to class or download his lecture notes because a few questions on each test come from his notes. His midterms are very easy, since more than half of the questions come from the homeworks. His final is also very easy. This guy is easy and hilarious...take him!!!

Professor Arisaka was a nice guy, very excited about astro. His exams were basically the homeworks with some other random questions. His labs were pretty boring, and sometimes kind of difficult.

If you don't understand the concepts that he is lecturing on, he will stop everything and try to answer your questions. I thought that was really cool because you don't find too many professor that do that.

I recommend this class because the workload was pretty much non-existant. But the labs really killed the class.

Arisaka is VERY knowledgeable and has a true love for astronomy that carries over into the classroo. His midterms and finals are easy as long as you know the homework. TAKE HIM IF YOU WANT TO LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT ASTRO AND GET AN EASY "A"