ASTR220 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Jessica Sunshine ASTR220 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2024	This class was very interesting, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to either satisfy General Education credits or explore the astronomy minor. The class was highly based around group projects, but Professor Sunshine took many precautions to ensure that fair and satisfactory work was being done by each group member. Students were also given an option to privately inform Professor Sunshine at the beginning of the semester about people they did or did not want to work with. My only problem with Professor Sunshine is that she did not provide feedback for exams and was unclear about how to access past exams. As such, it was challenging to improve upon test scores with limited feedback. This was less of a problem, however, as most of the grade for this class comprised of the group projects.
Jessica Sunshine ASTR220 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2023	We got donut holes and TA gave us stickers for the Final Exam! The class was not easy to get an A in, but the professor was really nice and caring for the students. Overall great professor to have!
Derek Richardson ASTR220 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/01/2022	Astronomy is the love of my life and my passion. However, this course burnt me out and I have to take a break before my next astro course. Both Derek and Carrie were phenomenal, but the class is all group work. Everyone in my group were complete (insert profane term here). Every day I got chirped at and bullied. The assignments were absolutely miserable and I hated the use of Nearpod to take polls and do interactive activities. I am in the minority when I say that I just prefer lectures. I don't like relying on other people for my grade, ESPECIALLY because this is a gen ed and everyone in the group made it clear that they did not care about the work and phone it in. I abhorred this class. It was easy, don't get me wrong. But the way it's structured where we do the lecture before class and then in-class activities was not it for me. Ugh. Don't take this class if you don't like group work--that's all the class is.
Derek Richardson ASTR220 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/07/2022	Genuinely such a fun class. The material was super engaging and you could really tell Derek was passionate about what he was teaching. This was Fall '21, which couldn't have been better timing. The DART mission was awaited all semester (which Derek worked on), the James Webb Telescope got some mentions, the Don't Look Up movie, etc. The class itself isn't difficult - the math is formulaic and most errors were due to misinputs. The projects were interesting and he does a good job arranging groups. Exams weren't that bad content-wise, just crunched for time. The pre-lecture work is pretty light. Overall, my favorite class that semester. Definitely something I looked forward to because of Derek. He's very friendly and didn't mind us joking around on the interactive slides. I'm probably going to be adding an Astronomy minor because of this class!
Derek Richardson ASTR220 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/14/2021	Probably the only class I enjoyed going to all semester and I took this class to fulfill a gen-ed. Class is in a reversed format so the lectures are extremely interactive. Derek keeps everything fun and discussion based as the entire classed is based around group work. Pre-lecture quizzes are a free 10 points before every class and keep you up to date. The exams are 2/3 Individual and 1/3 Group so there is almost always a boost to your grade. Extremely large amount of real world applications so it's easy to see why everything has a purpose. Gave us donuts for the final exam. Derek is super easy going if there is problems, the lowest 3 attendance, pre-lecture quizzes, and post-lecture response questions were all dropped so it was honestly hard to do bad in the class. He also was an engineer on the DART mission to deflect an asteroid that just launched so overall this guy is a cool dude.
Derek Richardson ASTR220 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/04/2021	I took the course in person. Professor Richardson is a very nice person and is very knowledgeable in his subject. Overall, he's understanding of student needs and will work with you if you're having issues. The premise of the class is interesting, though I personally thought there was too much busy work for a 2XX course. All major assignments were group assignments and were pretty lengthy. Your group is determined after the add/drop period at the beginning of the semester. Before each class we needed to watch a pre-lecture video (15-45 min) and take a quiz. You'll be taking notes and learning the topics through the pre-lecture videos and reinforcing each topic in the actual lectures through various interactive activities. At the end of each lecture, you'll need to answer a question ( in ~4-5 sentences) that will be about one of the topics covered in that lecture. Exams were kinda tough. Lots of facts to know and equations to memorize. I'm personally not the best at that but exams are not worth that much of the final grade.
Jessica Sunshine ASTR220 Expecting a B- Anonymous 06/17/2021	Class was really interesting, professor Sunshine included plenty of activities to help us grasp the concept of each lecture. I took this course with absolutely no knowledge of Astronomy and I felt like I struggled a bit, but still came out with a B. This course does involve a substantial amount of advanced math calculations and some physics applications so be aware of that. She also does not do well with answering her emails.
Jessica Sunshine ASTR220 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2020	I took this during Fall 2019. Pros: + Very clearly passionate about the subject matter, if you like astronomy you'll love this class. + Class content is pretty interesting and made topical through the use of real world examples. + (Kinda) easy A (See below). + Tests are extremely generous. Basically, after you take them, you immediately take the same test again in your group, allowing you to net a lot more points. This is carefully designed to never hurt your grade, only help. Cons: - Despite the course being designated as for nonscience majors, the course actually does require quite a bit of rudimentary knowledge of math, science, and physics. Some help is given during class, but most likely not enough. STEM majors will be fine, but non-STEM majors should be prepared for some additional studying. - Class organization was a bit strange, as we had to take extensive notes of pre-lecture videos that were quite long, but in class lectures mostly didn't go over any new content.
Derek Richardson ASTR220 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/02/2018	Great teacher, fair grader. I would definitely take him in another class if I needed to. the class is very straight forward anyone should be able to get a B.
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2014	This course was not too difficult in general, but will require a little bit of time each week spent on it. This IS a science course - you're not going to be getting an A+ from just spending 20 minutes per week on it. If you come to class (mandatory anyway), actually try, and be as interested as you can, you're going to feel like you got a lot out of it. Dr. Hayes-Gehrke is very nice and a good speaker. She's knowledgeable and keeps everyone involved during class. ----- The rest of this review is what to expect from ASTR220 with her teaching: There's pre-lecture videos (anywhere from 20-45 minutes generally) followed by a quick multiple choice quiz. TAKE NOTES WHILE WATCHING THE VIDEOS!! You will be hating life later if you don't because you'll have no notes to study from for the exams. I had groupmates that took zero notes and were complaining about having to watch the videos again to study for the exam. These are your homework (alongside projects). No textbook. The pre-lecture videos prevent you from being lectured during class. Instead, you're going to be doing rapid fire multiple choice questions, class discussions on the topics, and a calculation here and there with your groups. She does this to prevent the typical "lecture until you're bored" style of class, and it works in my opinion. Speaking of groupmates...you will have them for the entire semester. You're going to be assigned them in the beginning of the semester - some you will be ok with, some you will dislike. Learn to get along and distribute work instead of complaining, and your life will be a lot easier. Use Google Docs to get your work done, add comments to papers, etc. to make your life so much easier. Set deadlines, and start early! If you follow those guidelines, you'll never receive less than an A on the projects. And if anyone isn't pulling their weight, you get to grade your teammates based on work effort after the project is submitted. You'll have multiple projects: 1) a research paper about a specific asteroid 2) a poster (large powerpoint slide) project on a random astronomy topic/event, which you'll have printed and present to multiple people/groups 3) a paper where you design a spacecraft to accomplish a specific goal/mission 4) a debate (group vs group) about a random topic that you'll do in front of the class These projects span across weeks, giving you tons of time to take your time on them and not make you feel overwhelmed. I do feel that projects were graded a little harshly though. They weren't unfair, but it just seemed that we lost a few points here or there for minor things, which was making it impossible to get the A instead of A- or B+. The grading also seemed to get MUCH harsher as the semester went on. I felt that she was being overly picky on many aspects of grading projects and exams towards the end of the semester, especially given how busy you are juggling all of your classes. Two midterms, which are average difficulty (35 multiple choice questions that are exactly like the in-class multiple choice questions she posts on the slides) and 6 or so short answer questions (sometimes involving a quick calculation or explanation). Equations are provided, you'll just be expected to understand concepts like "If this asteroid has properties A, B, and C, and I do "this" to it, what will happen?" You get re-tests though: You take the exam, and then you get another week or so to take the exact exam at home with all of your resources, classmates, etc. and bring it back in. Your score will be the average of the two scores, and any additional points that you got from your average compared to your original score will be added as bonus points to your final exam score (since there's no re-test for the final). i.e. if you got a 90, then re-test you got a 100, your average score is 95. So 5 points are added to your final exam score. Final exam was all essay/short answer questions. Felt easy after finishing, but the grade was A LOT lower than I expected, again due to extremely nit-picky grading. Discussion section is fine. We had to get an assignment done each time (pretty easy) and just go over with our groupmates what we're doing/any progress on projects and such. It's what you would expect. Excluding studying for exams, you'll likely spend about 2-4 hours per week on this class (1-2 hours on pre-lecture stuff and another 1-2 hours on projects, depending on how hard you're working). Overall, most people learned a ton from this course and want to take ASTR315 with her next semester (and are considering Astronomy minors).
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 Expecting an A HaliteAnn 12/10/2013	Professor Hayes-Ghehrke is a pretty solid professor. She taught the class very clearly, and almost always had an interesting picture or story related to the topic at the beginning of every class. She does have her students do a little "topic briefing" and attendance slip that they have to pick up at the beginning of class and turn in on the way out, which means you have to attend most of her lectures unless you find a way to slip your attendance paper into the box at the beginning and leave. Her classes are very interesting though, so I recommend just going to them. The biggest downfall to this class is probably the group work. There is a lot of it. You usually end up doing a little group worksheet in most discussions, and there is a large "poster project" at the end of the semester that you must do in a group of around four. As someone who despises group work, this aspect of the class sucked, but overall, it's a very fascinating class that you learn a lot of interesting things in, and Hayes-Gehrke herself is a very clear and easy to listen to professor.
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/29/2012	I think Hayes-Gehrke is a really cool professor. Like others have said, she talks to you like your a kid and babys you through every single activity, but that only slightly takes away from her overall success as a lecturer. She really knows her stuff. The work, however is a different story. Before every single lecture, she posts mandatory "prelecture" videos that are often more than 30mins long. This can be super annoying. However, I find that I can skip through the videos in 5-10mins and still get a 100 on the quizzes. She is really a stickler on grading group projects. She takes points off in random places and I often found myself getting Bs when i thought i deserved at least an A-. The one redeeming quality to the coursework is the exams. They are a complete joke. The way she works it is that you go to the exam and take it, and when youre done you pick up a second copy of the exam which you take home and complete with youre notes. You hand in the second copy and she averages the two grades together! You really have to be an idiot to get less than a B on the exams because what ever grade you get is averaged with a 100 (which I got on both midterm ReTests). Overall, the class can be kind of annoying sometimes, but I think the material is interesting and it really doesnt take that much effort to get a good grade. I would recommend taking it.
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 Expecting an A xenonscreams 01/11/2012	I'm not really positive how I feel about Hayes-Gehrke and this class. I went back and forth between really liking her as a professor and really disliking her as a professor. I think by the end of the class, I settled into liking her quite a bit. The class had a ton of group work, which became insanely frustrating at times. She did make a pretty solid effort to match the teams well, and my team was decent. Still, the class definitely could have done without a project or two, since I often felt like I was doing more work in this class than in some of my 400-level computer science courses. The exams were very easy, but they were not worth very much. She kind of taught like she was speaking to a bunch of five year-olds. At the beginning of the course I thought it was a huge relief, since I'm sick of being held to a stupidly high standard in so many of my courses. After a while it became kind of annoying, and then frustrating since there was a stark contrast between how she spoke and what she expected of us in some projects, like the research poster. By the end of the course I began to appreciate it again. I don't think she does it to be demeaning, I think she is just a very kind and caring person to the point of sometimes sounding like a kindergarten teacher. In the end I did well and learned a ton. I was surprised at how much I could learn while feeling like I was in a kindergarten classroom. I went from completely space-ignorant to being able to hold a serious conversation about pretty much anything related to our space program, especially if it concerned a threat of impact. I also feel like this class was among one of the most practical I took at the university, even though I only really took it because it had a badass name and I needed a core science. I feel like I'm highly informed if I ever have the chance to vote about space issues or make a case to anybody else. Overall, a valuable course, just gets super annoying at times.
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2011	Professor Hayes-Gehrke is an interesting professor and definitely one-of-a-kind. Basically, here are the main points about her that really (in my opinion) define her teaching style: 1) She is VERY patient with students' questions which leads me to believe that she has done a lot of research about teaching styles. Honestly, this can get pretty annoying if you have a head on your shoulders as there were a couple of people in my class who would literally ask her a question that she had just explained thoroughly and she would jump right in without a thought (and waste time). 2) As implicitly stated above, she likes to baby her students. She takes attendance, has mandatory rough draft editing for papers and never, ever refrains from answering a terrible question. 3) This might sound harsh, but she's a fairly poor quiz/exam writer. She has a tendency to say something in class and then put an oddly worded question on an online quiz that correlates to what she said but has a slightly different answer than what you'd expect based on her wording. Her exam questions are also pretty tricky. 4) This is the most important point of all: She somehow manages to make the class very interesting from start to finish. I think it's her delivery style but I had little trouble in following her throughout the entire lecture (unless I was exhausted). She definitely made this course a fun experience for me. Based on all of the above I recommend taking ASTR220 with Dr. Hayes-Gehrke. She's got her quirks but the class is pretty interesting and the exams and quizzes are easy enough where getting an A in the class isn't too much trouble. Oh, one more thing, if you like group projects than take this class -- We had to do ~5 (and they were graded fairly easily).
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/21/2010	She's an excellent teacher. She is very friendly and open to questions. She never patronizes a student for answering a "stupid" question as many professors here at Maryland do (based off personal experience). This class is NOT easy though. It is not an easy A at all and does require a lot of work. There is a post-lecture quiz after every lecture, 2 tests, 1 final, 1 research paper, 1 project, 1 team debate, discussion and attendance. I suggest having taken Astr100 because you do jump right into Astronomy. I recommend the teacher, not the class if you're looking to satisfy an easy CORE class.
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 Expecting an A+ punkmaniac05 11/23/2010	She is a fantastic professor. I am always amazing how enthusiastically she will answer people's stupid questions or questions that she had answered like 2 seconds before. She is very nice and engaging. The class is extremely easy but also really awesome. I mean it's a class on saving the Earth from an asteroid collision, what could be more interesting. There is a online quiz after every lecture that you can do anytime and questions are right from the lecture which are on elms and you can use. I have not gotten lower than a 100 on one and they take maybe 5 minutes. No homework or in class quizzes. There are three projects, a 4 page research paper and 8 minute presentation on an interesting topic. A mission to build a spacecraft to study an asteroid with a budget. And finally an in class debate. All these projects are done with a group that was picked for you at the beginning of the year. Have not really met with my group once except to watch Deep Impact, and still get good grades. There are three exams, two midterms and a final. All very easy, with the ability to get ten points extra on the exam if you do corrections. Overall, one of the easiest and most satisfying classes I have taken at UMD. I would recommend it to everyone.
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 Expecting a B Anonymous 09/14/2010	Unprofessional and unfair grader. Even though answers are written correctly and explained in appropriate fashion, she cuts the points. You would think, you have given complete answer, but wait til you get grades back. I'm sure, she loves to cherry pick on your answers. I went to her office to explain grading, but she already made up her mind. (DON'T BOTHER ARGUING, YOU ARE NOT GETTING WHAT YOU DESERVE). I have answer key of her homework, I wrote it from it, still cuts the points. UNPROFESSIONAL, BIAS, AND UNFAIR. She makes fun class, confusing and complicated. She does not deserve to teach.
Melissa Hayes-Gehrke ASTR220 omgitsalexis 05/23/2009	This class is hard for no reason. The homeworks are graded harshly and there are alot of them. Only take if you love astronomy.

Jessica Sunshine
ASTR220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/17/2024

This class was very interesting, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to either satisfy General Education credits or explore the astronomy minor. The class was highly based around group projects, but Professor Sunshine took many precautions to ensure that fair and satisfactory work was being done by each group member. Students were also given an option to privately inform Professor Sunshine at the beginning of the semester about people they did or did not want to work with. My only problem with Professor Sunshine is that she did not provide feedback for exams and was unclear about how to access past exams. As such, it was challenging to improve upon test scores with limited feedback. This was less of a problem, however, as most of the grade for this class comprised of the group projects.

Jessica Sunshine
ASTR220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/18/2023

We got donut holes and TA gave us stickers for the Final Exam! The class was not easy to get an A in, but the professor was really nice and caring for the students. Overall great professor to have!

Derek Richardson
ASTR220

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/01/2022

Astronomy is the love of my life and my passion. However, this course burnt me out and I have to take a break before my next astro course. Both Derek and Carrie were phenomenal, but the class is all group work. Everyone in my group were complete (insert profane term here). Every day I got chirped at and bullied. The assignments were absolutely miserable and I hated the use of Nearpod to take polls and do interactive activities. I am in the minority when I say that I just prefer lectures. I don't like relying on other people for my grade, ESPECIALLY because this is a gen ed and everyone in the group made it clear that they did not care about the work and phone it in. I abhorred this class. It was easy, don't get me wrong. But the way it's structured where we do the lecture before class and then in-class activities was not it for me. Ugh. Don't take this class if you don't like group work--that's all the class is.

Derek Richardson
ASTR220

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
02/07/2022

Genuinely such a fun class. The material was super engaging and you could really tell Derek was passionate about what he was teaching. This was Fall '21, which couldn't have been better timing. The DART mission was awaited all semester (which Derek worked on), the James Webb Telescope got some mentions, the Don't Look Up movie, etc. The class itself isn't difficult - the math is formulaic and most errors were due to misinputs. The projects were interesting and he does a good job arranging groups. Exams weren't that bad content-wise, just crunched for time. The pre-lecture work is pretty light. Overall, my favorite class that semester. Definitely something I looked forward to because of Derek. He's very friendly and didn't mind us joking around on the interactive slides. I'm probably going to be adding an Astronomy minor because of this class!

Derek Richardson
ASTR220

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/14/2021

Probably the only class I enjoyed going to all semester and I took this class to fulfill a gen-ed. Class is in a reversed format so the lectures are extremely interactive. Derek keeps everything fun and discussion based as the entire classed is based around group work. Pre-lecture quizzes are a free 10 points before every class and keep you up to date. The exams are 2/3 Individual and 1/3 Group so there is almost always a boost to your grade. Extremely large amount of real world applications so it's easy to see why everything has a purpose. Gave us donuts for the final exam. Derek is super easy going if there is problems, the lowest 3 attendance, pre-lecture quizzes, and post-lecture response questions were all dropped so it was honestly hard to do bad in the class. He also was an engineer on the DART mission to deflect an asteroid that just launched so overall this guy is a cool dude.

Derek Richardson
ASTR220

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/04/2021

I took the course in person. Professor Richardson is a very nice person and is very knowledgeable in his subject. Overall, he's understanding of student needs and will work with you if you're having issues. The premise of the class is interesting, though I personally thought there was too much busy work for a 2XX course. All major assignments were group assignments and were pretty lengthy. Your group is determined after the add/drop period at the beginning of the semester. Before each class we needed to watch a pre-lecture video (15-45 min) and take a quiz. You'll be taking notes and learning the topics through the pre-lecture videos and reinforcing each topic in the actual lectures through various interactive activities. At the end of each lecture, you'll need to answer a question ( in ~4-5 sentences) that will be about one of the topics covered in that lecture. Exams were kinda tough. Lots of facts to know and equations to memorize. I'm personally not the best at that but exams are not worth that much of the final grade.

Jessica Sunshine
ASTR220

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
06/17/2021

Class was really interesting, professor Sunshine included plenty of activities to help us grasp the concept of each lecture. I took this course with absolutely no knowledge of Astronomy and I felt like I struggled a bit, but still came out with a B. This course does involve a substantial amount of advanced math calculations and some physics applications so be aware of that. She also does not do well with answering her emails.

Jessica Sunshine
ASTR220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/22/2020

I took this during Fall 2019. Pros: + Very clearly passionate about the subject matter, if you like astronomy you'll love this class. + Class content is pretty interesting and made topical through the use of real world examples. + (Kinda) easy A (See below). + Tests are extremely generous. Basically, after you take them, you immediately take the same test again in your group, allowing you to net a lot more points. This is carefully designed to never hurt your grade, only help. Cons: - Despite the course being designated as for nonscience majors, the course actually does require quite a bit of rudimentary knowledge of math, science, and physics. Some help is given during class, but most likely not enough. STEM majors will be fine, but non-STEM majors should be prepared for some additional studying. - Class organization was a bit strange, as we had to take extensive notes of pre-lecture videos that were quite long, but in class lectures mostly didn't go over any new content.

Derek Richardson
ASTR220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/02/2018

Great teacher, fair grader. I would definitely take him in another class if I needed to. the class is very straight forward anyone should be able to get a B.

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2014

This course was not too difficult in general, but will require a little bit of time each week spent on it. This IS a science course - you're not going to be getting an A+ from just spending 20 minutes per week on it. If you come to class (mandatory anyway), actually try, and be as interested as you can, you're going to feel like you got a lot out of it. Dr. Hayes-Gehrke is very nice and a good speaker. She's knowledgeable and keeps everyone involved during class. ----- The rest of this review is what to expect from ASTR220 with her teaching: There's pre-lecture videos (anywhere from 20-45 minutes generally) followed by a quick multiple choice quiz. TAKE NOTES WHILE WATCHING THE VIDEOS!! You will be hating life later if you don't because you'll have no notes to study from for the exams. I had groupmates that took zero notes and were complaining about having to watch the videos again to study for the exam. These are your homework (alongside projects). No textbook. The pre-lecture videos prevent you from being lectured during class. Instead, you're going to be doing rapid fire multiple choice questions, class discussions on the topics, and a calculation here and there with your groups. She does this to prevent the typical "lecture until you're bored" style of class, and it works in my opinion. Speaking of groupmates...you will have them for the entire semester. You're going to be assigned them in the beginning of the semester - some you will be ok with, some you will dislike. Learn to get along and distribute work instead of complaining, and your life will be a lot easier. Use Google Docs to get your work done, add comments to papers, etc. to make your life so much easier. Set deadlines, and start early! If you follow those guidelines, you'll never receive less than an A on the projects. And if anyone isn't pulling their weight, you get to grade your teammates based on work effort after the project is submitted. You'll have multiple projects: 1) a research paper about a specific asteroid 2) a poster (large powerpoint slide) project on a random astronomy topic/event, which you'll have printed and present to multiple people/groups 3) a paper where you design a spacecraft to accomplish a specific goal/mission 4) a debate (group vs group) about a random topic that you'll do in front of the class These projects span across weeks, giving you tons of time to take your time on them and not make you feel overwhelmed. I do feel that projects were graded a little harshly though. They weren't unfair, but it just seemed that we lost a few points here or there for minor things, which was making it impossible to get the A instead of A- or B+. The grading also seemed to get MUCH harsher as the semester went on. I felt that she was being overly picky on many aspects of grading projects and exams towards the end of the semester, especially given how busy you are juggling all of your classes. Two midterms, which are average difficulty (35 multiple choice questions that are exactly like the in-class multiple choice questions she posts on the slides) and 6 or so short answer questions (sometimes involving a quick calculation or explanation). Equations are provided, you'll just be expected to understand concepts like "If this asteroid has properties A, B, and C, and I do "this" to it, what will happen?" You get re-tests though: You take the exam, and then you get another week or so to take the exact exam at home with all of your resources, classmates, etc. and bring it back in. Your score will be the average of the two scores, and any additional points that you got from your average compared to your original score will be added as bonus points to your final exam score (since there's no re-test for the final). i.e. if you got a 90, then re-test you got a 100, your average score is 95. So 5 points are added to your final exam score. Final exam was all essay/short answer questions. Felt easy after finishing, but the grade was A LOT lower than I expected, again due to extremely nit-picky grading. Discussion section is fine. We had to get an assignment done each time (pretty easy) and just go over with our groupmates what we're doing/any progress on projects and such. It's what you would expect. Excluding studying for exams, you'll likely spend about 2-4 hours per week on this class (1-2 hours on pre-lecture stuff and another 1-2 hours on projects, depending on how hard you're working). Overall, most people learned a ton from this course and want to take ASTR315 with her next semester (and are considering Astronomy minors).

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

Expecting an A
HaliteAnn
12/10/2013

Professor Hayes-Ghehrke is a pretty solid professor. She taught the class very clearly, and almost always had an interesting picture or story related to the topic at the beginning of every class. She does have her students do a little "topic briefing" and attendance slip that they have to pick up at the beginning of class and turn in on the way out, which means you have to attend most of her lectures unless you find a way to slip your attendance paper into the box at the beginning and leave. Her classes are very interesting though, so I recommend just going to them. The biggest downfall to this class is probably the group work. There is a lot of it. You usually end up doing a little group worksheet in most discussions, and there is a large "poster project" at the end of the semester that you must do in a group of around four. As someone who despises group work, this aspect of the class sucked, but overall, it's a very fascinating class that you learn a lot of interesting things in, and Hayes-Gehrke herself is a very clear and easy to listen to professor.

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/29/2012

I think Hayes-Gehrke is a really cool professor. Like others have said, she talks to you like your a kid and babys you through every single activity, but that only slightly takes away from her overall success as a lecturer. She really knows her stuff. The work, however is a different story. Before every single lecture, she posts mandatory "prelecture" videos that are often more than 30mins long. This can be super annoying. However, I find that I can skip through the videos in 5-10mins and still get a 100 on the quizzes. She is really a stickler on grading group projects. She takes points off in random places and I often found myself getting Bs when i thought i deserved at least an A-. The one redeeming quality to the coursework is the exams. They are a complete joke. The way she works it is that you go to the exam and take it, and when youre done you pick up a second copy of the exam which you take home and complete with youre notes. You hand in the second copy and she averages the two grades together! You really have to be an idiot to get less than a B on the exams because what ever grade you get is averaged with a 100 (which I got on both midterm ReTests). Overall, the class can be kind of annoying sometimes, but I think the material is interesting and it really doesnt take that much effort to get a good grade. I would recommend taking it.

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

Expecting an A
xenonscreams
01/11/2012

I'm not really positive how I feel about Hayes-Gehrke and this class. I went back and forth between really liking her as a professor and really disliking her as a professor. I think by the end of the class, I settled into liking her quite a bit. The class had a ton of group work, which became insanely frustrating at times. She did make a pretty solid effort to match the teams well, and my team was decent. Still, the class definitely could have done without a project or two, since I often felt like I was doing more work in this class than in some of my 400-level computer science courses. The exams were very easy, but they were not worth very much. She kind of taught like she was speaking to a bunch of five year-olds. At the beginning of the course I thought it was a huge relief, since I'm sick of being held to a stupidly high standard in so many of my courses. After a while it became kind of annoying, and then frustrating since there was a stark contrast between how she spoke and what she expected of us in some projects, like the research poster. By the end of the course I began to appreciate it again. I don't think she does it to be demeaning, I think she is just a very kind and caring person to the point of sometimes sounding like a kindergarten teacher. In the end I did well and learned a ton. I was surprised at how much I could learn while feeling like I was in a kindergarten classroom. I went from completely space-ignorant to being able to hold a serious conversation about pretty much anything related to our space program, especially if it concerned a threat of impact. I also feel like this class was among one of the most practical I took at the university, even though I only really took it because it had a badass name and I needed a core science. I feel like I'm highly informed if I ever have the chance to vote about space issues or make a case to anybody else. Overall, a valuable course, just gets super annoying at times.

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/20/2011

Professor Hayes-Gehrke is an interesting professor and definitely one-of-a-kind. Basically, here are the main points about her that really (in my opinion) define her teaching style: 1) She is VERY patient with students' questions which leads me to believe that she has done a lot of research about teaching styles. Honestly, this can get pretty annoying if you have a head on your shoulders as there were a couple of people in my class who would literally ask her a question that she had just explained thoroughly and she would jump right in without a thought (and waste time). 2) As implicitly stated above, she likes to baby her students. She takes attendance, has mandatory rough draft editing for papers and never, ever refrains from answering a terrible question. 3) This might sound harsh, but she's a fairly poor quiz/exam writer. She has a tendency to say something in class and then put an oddly worded question on an online quiz that correlates to what she said but has a slightly different answer than what you'd expect based on her wording. Her exam questions are also pretty tricky. 4) This is the most important point of all: She somehow manages to make the class very interesting from start to finish. I think it's her delivery style but I had little trouble in following her throughout the entire lecture (unless I was exhausted). She definitely made this course a fun experience for me. Based on all of the above I recommend taking ASTR220 with Dr. Hayes-Gehrke. She's got her quirks but the class is pretty interesting and the exams and quizzes are easy enough where getting an A in the class isn't too much trouble. Oh, one more thing, if you like group projects than take this class -- We had to do ~5 (and they were graded fairly easily).

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/21/2010

She's an excellent teacher. She is very friendly and open to questions. She never patronizes a student for answering a "stupid" question as many professors here at Maryland do (based off personal experience). This class is NOT easy though. It is not an easy A at all and does require a lot of work. There is a post-lecture quiz after every lecture, 2 tests, 1 final, 1 research paper, 1 project, 1 team debate, discussion and attendance. I suggest having taken Astr100 because you do jump right into Astronomy. I recommend the teacher, not the class if you're looking to satisfy an easy CORE class.

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

Expecting an A+
punkmaniac05
11/23/2010

She is a fantastic professor. I am always amazing how enthusiastically she will answer people's stupid questions or questions that she had answered like 2 seconds before. She is very nice and engaging. The class is extremely easy but also really awesome. I mean it's a class on saving the Earth from an asteroid collision, what could be more interesting. There is a online quiz after every lecture that you can do anytime and questions are right from the lecture which are on elms and you can use. I have not gotten lower than a 100 on one and they take maybe 5 minutes. No homework or in class quizzes. There are three projects, a 4 page research paper and 8 minute presentation on an interesting topic. A mission to build a spacecraft to study an asteroid with a budget. And finally an in class debate. All these projects are done with a group that was picked for you at the beginning of the year. Have not really met with my group once except to watch Deep Impact, and still get good grades. There are three exams, two midterms and a final. All very easy, with the ability to get ten points extra on the exam if you do corrections. Overall, one of the easiest and most satisfying classes I have taken at UMD. I would recommend it to everyone.

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

Expecting a B
Anonymous
09/14/2010

Unprofessional and unfair grader. Even though answers are written correctly and explained in appropriate fashion, she cuts the points. You would think, you have given complete answer, but wait til you get grades back. I'm sure, she loves to cherry pick on your answers. I went to her office to explain grading, but she already made up her mind. (DON'T BOTHER ARGUING, YOU ARE NOT GETTING WHAT YOU DESERVE). I have answer key of her homework, I wrote it from it, still cuts the points. UNPROFESSIONAL, BIAS, AND UNFAIR. She makes fun class, confusing and complicated. She does not deserve to teach.

Melissa Hayes-Gehrke
ASTR220

omgitsalexis
05/23/2009

This class is hard for no reason. The homeworks are graded harshly and there are alot of them. Only take if you love astronomy.

Reviews for ASTR220