ASTR 2110

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

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.

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.

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.