Professor Fitzgerald is extremely knowledgeable on the subject and obviously finds the topics he covers incredibly interesting, but it doesn’t quite translate to the lectures which are a drag to go through. They essentially just consist of him talking for 75 minutes straight on a slide deck with little to no text.

The class had 3 midterms and a final, which meant that the class moved very quickly, as there were only around 3-4 lectures between midterms. The midterms were around 60 questions each, with 10 fill in the blank and the remaining being multiple choice. The questions however ranged from being elementary school level (what’s the order of the planets), to a fair bit of study level (questions about more specific parts of the solar system), to borderline trivia that you wouldn’t think you needed to know for the class since it’s science not history (who was the first person to use the telescope).

The midterm average was surprisingly low, being a 66% usually, and he’d always have a small lecture about it by saying that “this is an opportunity to reflect on your study habits” before going on to say that we should be studying for 10 hours a week on this class, which is a ludicrous amount of time to spend on a GE.

I did like this class more than most though, personally. I think a lot of the reviews were a bit harsh on professor Fitzgerald and he’s a very interesting and kind professor if you get to speak to him.

it's an insane amount of material to cover in 10 weeks and you need to take very detailed notes and even that might not be enough. His lectures are incredibly boring and just him saying exactly what is in the textbook with little to no additional information. The exams are HARD and incredibly specific. Three 60 question midterms and an 150 question final. If you can avoid this class, please do, if not, good luck charlie! (he curves so it isn't gonna tank your gpa but still its not fun or easy at all)

I took this class as a humanities major for a GE and still got an A. An A is definitely doable but it's hard work. There's luckily no homework other than reading the textbook and labs which is nice. On the downside there's 3 midterms and a final, but one of the midterms gets dropped and the final grade gets curved. The lectures are really boring and he goes through the slides fast but they're basically the same as the textbook. I recommend reading the textbook because I read it first half of the quarter and didn't the second half and noticed the difference. The final was also 10x harder than the midterms and based more on the later chapters so study those. Labs were also pretty easy and the TA's help a lot. Professor Fitzgerald is very helpful during office hours though and explaining what you got wrong on the midterms.

This is a very interesting course. However the method of evaluation, midterms, and final are very difficult. This professor is very un-engaging and boring in his lectures. If you do the readings, study a lot on your own, and are a good m/c test taker, you will succeed in this class.

This course has interesting material but I did not like the way our knowledge on the material was tested. The midterms require you to remember random little details from the textbook reading that do not actually demonstrate comprehension of the material; while some test questions were more targeted toward the actual understanding of a topic and not just memorization, I found many of the questions to not be this way. He moved too fast through the powerpoints for anyone to write down anything more than a general concept of each slide (sometimes he still moved too fast for this), which makes it very challenging when some test questions as for memorized quantities or information that he did not give us time to copy down. While the slides are on canvas, it makes it challenging to review every slideshow after every lecture on top of the chapter readings.

Course pace was fast, but not overly so. I don't think this class needed 3 midterms, but it was nice that we could drop one. I think Professor Fitzgerald is a fine lecturer and seems to be quite knowledgeable about the content material. I say that, but after taking the first midterm, I stopped going to lectures because all you need to do is read the textbook to do well on the midterms and final. Labs were not difficult, there was no homework (besides really easy weekly pre-labs). You could drop two labs as well. Honestly, just reading the textbook and taking the notes is enough to get an A.

There were no exams for this course, just projects. Homework assignments and projects are quite tough if you don't have a coding background beyond the prerequisites, and I had to go to office hours every week to figure them out. The professor was very nice but often quite unclear on the assignment rubrics, making the homework a good bit more difficult than I think it was intended to. The lectures also sometimes felt pretty disconnected from what we were doing in class, but were still interesting. Discussion was super helpful tho! I'd definitely still recommend this class though, it covers so much necessary material if you are considering a career in astrophysics. It helped me so much with my own research and I'm honestly shocked it hasn't been introduced before!

I did not like this class at all. The homework was all online through the text book and Fitzgerald was incredibly boring. He also flagged me for plagiarism since one of my answers was similar to a quizlet he found online and I had to fight it through the dean. Would not recommend this class to anyone. The midterm and final were difficult and all multiple choice.

Fun class, professor is very knowledgeable in the course material and happy to answer any questions during lecture. Our first midterm was Week 3 so you definitely have to be on top the weekly reading material and class content. Overall recommend!

I was scared of this class at first but I actually ended up really enjoying it. Prof Fitzgerald definitely knows what he's talking about and I thought that all the lectures were well thought out and helpful. You do have to buy Mastering Astronomy (I think it was like $80 for inclusive access) but I thought it was really helpful for the midterm and final. There's weekly assignments and sometimes they took a while (I also read each chapter before lecture) but it helps you get extra credit. Labs were fine; they're run by the TAs and I thought mine was helpful. I didn't think any of the assessments were that hard and at the end, all the grades were curved and mine went up 1/3 letter grade. Overall, it's a solid lab science GE and I highly recommend!