PHYS 1110

Professor Paschke was kind and a reasonable grader; a good professor although sometimes his lecturing was hard to follow. if you took physics in high school, many of the concepts should be familiar to you (especially the conversion calculations), but the lectures cover lots of bits of info that you should be writing detailed notes on. Most of the semester was fairly low-key because of COVID and Professor Paschke's research commitments (weekly hours may be slightly lower because of this) but at the end it ramped up. I wouldn't call it a particularly difficult course, however. And the content was often fairly interesting because it's information about the energy economy and infrastructure that's all around us. #tCF2020

This class was very difficult for me, but it was Professor Paschke's first time teaching it and I think he did a good job. The material was kind of hard to wrap my head around, but if you're interested in energy, you should have no problem. The demonstrations were really cool too, especially the bottle zipline. Professor Paschke is really approachable, and take the extra credit if it's offered. Overall, I would not take this class again, but I could tell that Professor Paschke enjoyed it.

PHYS 1110 is a fascinating class if you want to actually understand the energy economy and climate change. Rather than droning the talking points about oil or solar panels or the greenhouse effect like in a high school enviro class, Paschke explains the actual science behind all of these issues. He does a great job of balancing the arguments and goes in depth to the advantages and disadvantages of different energy sources. There's not a lot of math, although you need to understand basic unit conversions and I would highly recommend having taken at least basic HS physics before you come in (it will make a lot of his logic jumps make more sense). You essentially listen to lectures, do readings on what you learned, and then have the occasional problem set or short answer assignment. The exams can be a bit tricky but are multiple choice and if you know your stuff you'll be fine. I absolutely recommend this for non-science majors who need to fulfill a requirement, especially politics and econ because it is a scientist's perspective on issues you may talk about in your main courses.