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Marvin Jones
ASTR230 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2024 |
Honestly, very nice professor and our TA was awesome. He definitely cared a lot about how you do in the course, and I don't just say that about everybody. The class meets four times a week, which is a bit much, but it gets better over time. I actually found the discussions to be a bit fun, so I didn't mind much. Three discussions and one lecture, all of which you must attend. 10% of your grade is lecture quizzes, which you do on the computer and you only need 50% to get full credit. 40% of your grade is discussion worksheets, which you do in groups on the computer and they're graded for "blood, sweat, and tears." There's really no reason you shouldn't be able to get full points in both of these categories. That 50% of your grade is basically given to you for free. The other 50%, you've got to work for. There are 5 units, the first four of which have tests, and the lowest one gets dropped. The tests make up 30% of your grade. The Unit 1 test (on Gravity) and the Unit 4 test (on Biology) are pretty simple. The Unit 3 test (Chemistry) is a bit more challenging. Unit 2 test (Flux), was, well, I'll just post the test medians here so you can see for yourself: Unit 1 - 81/100; Unit 2 - 57/100; Unit 3 - 78/100; Unit 4 - 77/100. Definitely some rough grades for a gened, so you're going to have to put in a bit of work. The exams really weren't that hard in my opinion, though (except for the Unit 2 exam, which I felt we didn't get nearly enough time for). Luckily, the lecture quizzes and the discussions are free points, and Professor Jones also gives you a review sheet before the exam with ~40 questions that you can work through. Around half of the questions on the exam are pulled from the review sheet. The other half of the questions are applying what you know, which can certainly be harder. The last 20% of your grade is a group project. You get the entire semester to work on it in your group. You basically have to design your own stellar system. You have to make it both plausible (consistent with calculations and science) and creative (not too much like our Solar System). You have to make a presentation on your stellar system, which is 15% of your project grade, and you have to write a paper on it, which is 85% of your project grade. If you don't wait until the last moment and check in with the TAs and/or Professor Jones if you have any questions, you'll be just fine. Another note is that this was the first semester that Professor Jones taught this course, and all things considered, it actually went quite smoothly. One important thing to note, though, is that despite being called "The Science and Fiction of Planetary Systems," this class is about 85% science and 15% fiction. The professor who taught this course previously had a lot of assigned sci-fi readings. Luckily, Professor Jones didn't have us do them, although you certainly could if you wanted to. Overall, I'm giving this a 4/5 stars. Very solid professor, very solid course. The tests are a bit on the harder side, so just make sure you don't procrastinate on studying, do the review questions, and go to office hours and ask questions. Professor Jones and the TAs definitely want you to succeed. This class is a very solid choice and you certainly can't go wrong with it. |
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Marvin Jones
ASTR101 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2024 |
The dude is super passionate about teaching and you will learn a lot if you take this class with him. I've taken quite a few classes at UMD and he is one of the few who genuinely cares about the students and loves teaching. Practice exams are pretty similar difficulty wise to what will be seen on actual exams. Some of the questions were a direct copy and paste from the study guide. exams have no curve balls, are pretty surface level, and have a bonus question. Homeworks also have bonus questions which take like less than 20 seconds to solve. The posts below me are a bit of a red herring so let me elaborate (keep in mind this is based on fall 2024 so the structure of the course may change in the future). There are indeed 5 "homework's" in the class and the assignments themselves are not really "apply what you learned in lecture" but rather "do some research to figure out the answers." This is a bit different from the traditional types of homework's given in other classes, but the assignment itself shouldn't take longer than an hour if you are actually trying. It's mostly just figuring out the formulas/constants (which you can google and just cite it) and plugging in values (math just includes basic algebra). You have 2 weeks to complete each homework and are given out sparingly. Keep in mind this is a 4 credit class so are expected to put in a bit more work compared to other gen eds. |
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Marvin Jones
ASTR101 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/07/2024 |
If you are not really interested in astronomy or not a science major, I suggest not taking this class. While I believe that Professor Jones is a very nice person and is funny, if you cannot comprehend difficult material in all science-y terms, it is difficult. Our first midterm, he said to not ask for any equation sheets or practice questions. The class average on that test was a 76%. The second midterm he provided both an equation sheet and practice questions which made me feel way more prepared. Prof. Jones does a good job at including group activities during lecture to switch it up a bit, but when he lectures on slides, my TA told me that only about 5-10 of the slides out of 40-50 are actually important for tests. There are only 5 (I believe) "Homework" assignments, but each problem is very difficult and much harder than anything you would do on the test. You need to be able to understand complex word problems and math in order to succeed well in this class. The only reason why I have an A is because of the extra credit opportunities on the homework assignments and tests. I suggest meeting with your TA to go over the Homework answers because it is so difficult. |
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Marvin Jones
ASTR101 Anonymous 10/12/2024 |
The professor is nice, the TA's are nice, but the only thing is the homework's will become extremely difficult for you if you aren't too much into math or aren't a physics major. They intentionally make the homework's more difficult than it needs to be, so if you aren't a math person and don't understand the concepts you definitely need to go to office hours with the TA or the professor. There are also only guided study guides for the exams, but there are no previous practice exams that you can actually practice on. If you are taking this as a GenEd then I guess it's a okay class to take, but if you are taking this to boost your GPA then you may want to reconsider another course for natural sciences w/lab. |
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Marvin Jones
ASTR288B Expecting an A Anonymous 09/11/2024 |
Really nice professor. Cares about students. Problem Sets reasonable. Passionate about math. If you have this professor and fail, it is genuinely your fault. |
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Marvin Jones
ASTR101 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/08/2024 |
Extremely well-prepared, lectures are interesting, overall a genuinely enjoyable class. He's also a super chill guy and it's clear he's passionate about what he teaches. All slides, review questions, etc are posted in files ahead of time so you can review the material before lectures. Exams are pretty similar to review sheets so if you put time into them you should do well. Grading structure is fair and workload is good. |
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Marvin Jones
ASTR300 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/22/2024 |
Really nice and engaging professor. He tries to make every class engaging but for the most part, it's like any lecture and its hard to always stay focused. He did take attendance in the beginning of the semester and had some spontaneous attendance group activities, but he only started doing that when he realized people never showed up to class. Workload is really chill. 1 homework every 2-3 weeks. 2 group presentations about some topic (pretty light). Exams are the study guide. Chill class, would take again with prof jones. |
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Marvin Jones
ASTR300 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/08/2023 |
this guy is a good professor, he tries to make class engaging but most of you are going to be on your phones anyway lol. besides that the homeworks are easy, and you will be doing a couple group presentations throughout the course just 5-10 minutes. and the exams are also easy as long as your do his study guides, they are basically 1-1 |