ASTR 2110

So like don't take this course for fun, unless you really like astronomy and physics, but the prof. is amazing. The Skrutz is a super sweet, cool, brilliant dude who is so enthusiastic in his teaching; he also keeps the course up to date with current events in astronomy. The homeworks are a bit difficult, but collaborating with your classmates is key. Lots of material covered in one semester but all super interesting stuff. long live the skrutz.

The course is a really fascinating exploration of "local" topics - it goes from the basics, like orbits, to structure of stars, to planetary and solar system formation. If you're not really interested in space and not happy with doing a little physics, this course is probably not for you, but if you are interested in space and ok with some physics, it is fantastic. I really did not think a professor would be able to make, for interest, the orbits of the moon as interesting as he did. Skrutskie is an incredibly sweet, dedicated, and engaging professor. He is also extremely accommodating of students' needs, and he brought meteorites to class one day and let us hold them, which was great.

This is an amazing course. Professor Skrutskie is one of the best lecturers you will ever have; he is so passionate and clear in his explanations that class time flew by. He is also a very interesting person: he missed two weeks of class during the semester because he was doing astronomy observations in Spain, and then Senegal, and both times came back with interesting stories and pictures from his trips. While he was gone, we had guest lecturers from the astronomy department, so we got to meet a few other professors in the department. I learned a lot in this class and it definitely increased my love of astronomy. I even enjoyed the exams in this class, because they required that you understood and could explain what we learned. This is how all exams should be, since it actually tests your knowledge, and not your ability to memorize facts. In addition to exams, we had a fun observing assignment throughout the semester, which included activities like watching satellites pass overhead and tracking Jupiter relative to other stars. We also had problem sets each week, which were not too bad, but there were a few tricky questions.

This class was just mediocre for me. Professor Skrutskie definitely knows a lot about astronomy and has a lot of interesting stories about working as an astronomer, but my largest gripe with this class is that his class had very little structure. He'd randomly go on tangents during lecture, which were all about astronomy but unrelated to the current topic. He posts his lecture slides, but often they are sparse or just pictures. Also, he once told us that we were three weeks behind and never elaborated on it again. I had Jordan Shroyer as my TA, and she was the best! In discussion section, she'd work through all the problems on the weekly problem set with us and was much better at explaining things concisely than the professor. The workload for this class is pretty light, there's just one problem set a week and I'd usually just do them during discussion. In addition, you have a semester long observing assignment and a final paper, which were both pretty light, though the observing assignment requires a bit of planning. There are three midterms, and because of the shooting, our third exam only counted if it helped our grade. The midterms are a little bit out of left field, honestly, but if you know the content, you should be fine. In addition, he curves a little bit so you have some wiggle room.
#tCFfall22

Professor Skrutskie is the best lecturer I have ever had at the University. He is clear, concise, and very clearly passionate about physics, astronomy, and connecting with students. Lectures were by far the most entertaining and valuable part of this class, and I learned the most about the basics of astronomy from them.
The homework's in this class were also very applicable to what we learned in lecture and helped solidify some base concepts. If you go to office hours for any kind of inquiry, the professor is more than willing to sit with you and make things clearer. I will warn you though, he can sometimes come off as a bit condescending if you don't understand something right off the bat after another explanation is presented.
This class also offers many different ways for you to interact with astronomy. There is a final paper, where you explore an astronomy research paper that is relevant to current research, and there is also a semester-long observational assignment where you go out and find certain astronomical objects and take pictures/write about them. This was also exceptionally entertaining and made the class more fun.
The one downside of this class is definitely the midterms. They are take-home, you are supposed to work on them for a set amount of time, and they are honor-code based. I absolutely hated the midterms in this class. There were two TAs and the professor, and they would split the grading three ways between them for each individual exam. This was not ideal, seeing as all three of them clearly had different standards of grading, and you would be absolutely wrecked depending on who did the grading for what section. Additionally, the questions asked on the midterm had next to nothing to do with what we did on the homework's. It did not feel like there was an adequate enough way to prepare for them based on the materials given inside and outside of class. Attempting to talk to the professor also is not helpful. Once, upon telling him I was upset about my one of my exam grades, I was told that it was "just a part of the learning experience." Although this is true, it is quite frustrating to be told when you've put a lot of time and effort into trying to be successful in the class. That feedback doesn't actually help.
Astrophysics II was a better class in my opinion in that the class was better structured, and the content was more conceptually interesting - I took it with Bradley Johnson. This was class was entertaining, and the instructor is a great lecturer, but it was incredibly frustrating when it came to the absolutely wacky exam questions that would be asked.

Have fun with the class but go in being prepared!