GEOL204 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Thomas Holtz GEOL204 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/13/2024	Pros: -Incredibly passionate professor, who has a pretty entertaining lecture style. He is kind of a real life cartoon character. -Course material is pretty interesting for the most part. -Fairly easy homeworks that often rely more on your ability to read than your ability to understand the material. -Project where you travel to DC and do a scavenger hunt at the Smithsonian. -Open-note midterms -Final project instead of exam that is weighed at about 10% of the grade and is graded very leniently. -Profuse extra credit that will negate pretty much any point deductions. Frankly, I am not sure it is possible to get below an A if you give a little effort for the course. (Minor) Cons: -There is an attendance grade in the form of "QOTDs," but I ended up not attending ~50% of the lectures and the grade hit was so minimal that it did not matter. It's weighted at like 5%. You also get 4 free absences (lol). -Discussion sections feel like busywork. My TAs were very chill though. I think this is an amazing course to check off the DSNS (no lab) requirement.
Thomas Holtz GEOL204 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2024	Excellent professor. Exams are online and other assignments aren't too difficult. Able to miss 4 classes with no penalty but must answer the Question of the Day for participation points during lecture
Thomas Holtz GEOL204 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/09/2024	One of the best professors I've had at UMD and one of the most interesting classes I've taken. This class was an easy A, but it was also super interesting. It's everything you want in a gened. Lectures are recorded and exams are open-note and take-home. You can even use Dr. Holtz's extensive lecture notes for the exam. The final was just a group project that was pretty straightforward. Super easy and super chill.
Thomas Holtz GEOL204 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2023	Super great professor you can really tell that he enjoys taking about this stuff. Take this class if you can!
Thomas Holtz GEOL204 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/10/2023	Awesome professor. Super enthusiastic about what he teaches. He is also super approachable and I find it very fun to converse with him. His classes are extremely interesting and his assignments are fun. If you have a remote interest in prehistoric life, you should take his class. His exams are online and open note too, with lots of extra credit questions. I have over a 100% in the course. I took the class for my minor in paleobiology and hope I can take more of his classes in the future.
Thomas Holtz GEOL204 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/19/2022	It is my favorite course at college!!! Prof Holtz is very nice and he is passionate about what he teaches. The lecture is very interesting and you can learn a lot about fossils. If you love paleontology I would highly recommend all his courses.
Thomas Holtz GEOL204 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/18/2021	Holtz really loves his stuff. For those who do not know, Holtz is a world renown Paleontologist (Studies Dinosaurs), and his love for the topic in this class is quite evident. However, I do not think he handled the switch to online too well. His lectures (pre-recorded) would be around 3 hours in length, thsi combined with the fact that we had mandatory discussion sections and an "optional" review session, meant his class took way too much work and time than it should have for a gen ed. The homework assignments for this class also took way too long, however, I will note that out of the 8 total homework assignments, 7 of them were in the first 5 weeks of the course, which for the rest of the course there was essentially no homework, except for weekly discussion posts and a bi-weekly quiz (of which 2 lowest are dropped). He also gives around 5 bonus points on each exam (usually easy questions), so it is a nice buffer. If you are taking this class for the Dinosaurs in its name, fair warning, this class is more of an evolution class or a speed run of history of life on the planet. We spent 2 lectures on Dinosaurs themselves, and you only really learned about their evolutionary traits or some special things about them as a whole. Like for example we did not talk about like anything about the Cretaceous Period which I find ironic because Holtz specializes in Tyrannosaurs (we did cover the extinction in great detail). We also spent a good chunk of time on stuff like paleoclimate (which while important) , is extremely boring and took up waaayy too much time. If you came to this class for an easy gen-ed, I believe the ease of this class is based solely on your love of prehistoric life, I loved dinosaurs and etc growing up, so this class was quite enjoyable and I did quite well on all of the midterms and finals because of that, however , this class can be challenging for those who werent as invested into Walking with Dinosaurs and etc when they were kids.
Thomas Holtz GEOL204 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/13/2019	Exams, quizzes, and assignments are great. You don't need to go to class, just take half an hour a week to read the lecture notes he posts online.

Thomas Holtz
GEOL204

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/13/2024

Pros: -Incredibly passionate professor, who has a pretty entertaining lecture style. He is kind of a real life cartoon character. -Course material is pretty interesting for the most part. -Fairly easy homeworks that often rely more on your ability to read than your ability to understand the material. -Project where you travel to DC and do a scavenger hunt at the Smithsonian. -Open-note midterms -Final project instead of exam that is weighed at about 10% of the grade and is graded very leniently. -Profuse extra credit that will negate pretty much any point deductions. Frankly, I am not sure it is possible to get below an A if you give a little effort for the course. (Minor) Cons: -There is an attendance grade in the form of "QOTDs," but I ended up not attending ~50% of the lectures and the grade hit was so minimal that it did not matter. It's weighted at like 5%. You also get 4 free absences (lol). -Discussion sections feel like busywork. My TAs were very chill though. I think this is an amazing course to check off the DSNS (no lab) requirement.

Thomas Holtz
GEOL204

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/13/2024

Excellent professor. Exams are online and other assignments aren't too difficult. Able to miss 4 classes with no penalty but must answer the Question of the Day for participation points during lecture

Thomas Holtz
GEOL204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/09/2024

One of the best professors I've had at UMD and one of the most interesting classes I've taken. This class was an easy A, but it was also super interesting. It's everything you want in a gened. Lectures are recorded and exams are open-note and take-home. You can even use Dr. Holtz's extensive lecture notes for the exam. The final was just a group project that was pretty straightforward. Super easy and super chill.

Thomas Holtz
GEOL204

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/23/2023

Super great professor you can really tell that he enjoys taking about this stuff. Take this class if you can!

Thomas Holtz
GEOL204

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/10/2023

Awesome professor. Super enthusiastic about what he teaches. He is also super approachable and I find it very fun to converse with him. His classes are extremely interesting and his assignments are fun. If you have a remote interest in prehistoric life, you should take his class. His exams are online and open note too, with lots of extra credit questions. I have over a 100% in the course. I took the class for my minor in paleobiology and hope I can take more of his classes in the future.

Thomas Holtz
GEOL204

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/19/2022

It is my favorite course at college!!! Prof Holtz is very nice and he is passionate about what he teaches. The lecture is very interesting and you can learn a lot about fossils. If you love paleontology I would highly recommend all his courses.

Thomas Holtz
GEOL204

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/18/2021

Holtz really loves his stuff. For those who do not know, Holtz is a world renown Paleontologist (Studies Dinosaurs), and his love for the topic in this class is quite evident. However, I do not think he handled the switch to online too well. His lectures (pre-recorded) would be around 3 hours in length, thsi combined with the fact that we had mandatory discussion sections and an "optional" review session, meant his class took way too much work and time than it should have for a gen ed. The homework assignments for this class also took way too long, however, I will note that out of the 8 total homework assignments, 7 of them were in the first 5 weeks of the course, which for the rest of the course there was essentially no homework, except for weekly discussion posts and a bi-weekly quiz (of which 2 lowest are dropped). He also gives around 5 bonus points on each exam (usually easy questions), so it is a nice buffer. If you are taking this class for the Dinosaurs in its name, fair warning, this class is more of an evolution class or a speed run of history of life on the planet. We spent 2 lectures on Dinosaurs themselves, and you only really learned about their evolutionary traits or some special things about them as a whole. Like for example we did not talk about like anything about the Cretaceous Period which I find ironic because Holtz specializes in Tyrannosaurs (we did cover the extinction in great detail). We also spent a good chunk of time on stuff like paleoclimate (which while important) , is extremely boring and took up waaayy too much time. If you came to this class for an easy gen-ed, I believe the ease of this class is based solely on your love of prehistoric life, I loved dinosaurs and etc growing up, so this class was quite enjoyable and I did quite well on all of the midterms and finals because of that, however , this class can be challenging for those who werent as invested into Walking with Dinosaurs and etc when they were kids.

Thomas Holtz
GEOL204

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/13/2019

Exams, quizzes, and assignments are great. You don't need to go to class, just take half an hour a week to read the lecture notes he posts online.

Reviews for GEOL204