Alan Peel

This professor has taught: ASTR230, ASTR300, ASTR330, ASTR340, ASTR421, ASTR422, CPSD100, CPSD101, CPSD200, CPSD230, CPSD240, CPSD250, CPSP118D, CPSP119D, CPSP218D, CPSP239D, CPSP359D, PHYS102, PHYS106, PHYS131

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Information	Review
Alan Peel CPSD100 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/22/2022	Took him around a year ago. He himself seems pretty cool and is a good speaker, and the class is even interesting sometimes. He tends to make jokes in lectures and somehow finds a way to turn every single class political for whatever reason. He assigns a lot of homework which is very tedious and he grades too hard considering it is a 1 credit class. He is not that bad but in comparison, Thomson seemed nicer and better overall.
Alan Peel ASTR230 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/03/2021	I really liked the content of his class. I learned a lot, and all of the content is interesting. Don't take him for an easy-A though (or even a medium-difficulty A), the exams are very difficult, mostly because they were basically impossible to study for. There was also very little time in class to finish the discussion assignments. A major component of the class was group work. It's a gamble whether you'll like Peel or not. Even depending on the time of day I either love him or hate him.
Alan Peel ASTR330 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2021	I didn't think Peel was bad at all. His lectures were informative and his witty humor kept the class engaged. I would have given him a 4/5, but the reason he gets a 3/5 is because his exams and assignments were just insane. We had a post-lecture quiz after EVERY class and half of them drove me crazy because of how ridiculous they were. We also had 3 exams and a final, and the averages were 63, 71, 77 and 65. As you can see, exam 1 and the final destroyed the class. Thankfully he curved generously so I guess that made up for the stress in some way.
Alan Peel ASTR330 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/15/2021	People have a lot of strong opinions about Peel. Some people love him, some people hate him, but I thought he was just alright. You can tell he's really passionate about the material he teaches, which is always a good thing to see in a professor. My MAIN criticism is that the workload felt overwhelming for a class that's supposed to be for non-science majors. I didn't expect the class to be easy by any means, but even then I felt drained constantly. He had post-lecture assignments after every class that sometimes took hours to finish. For a 1 hr 15 minute exam he would give 30+ questions, half of which were long answers. The final was 68 questions with a 2-hour time limit. Overall he's not bad, but if you don't put in the work your grade will slip really fast.
Alan Peel CPSD100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/07/2021	He da GOAT. This sentiment is shared by the entire class.
Alan Peel CPSD100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/03/2021	I took CPSD100 with him during Fall 2020. He's a fine professor, seems maybe a little arrogant, but the class is very easy. I put in about 20min of work a week, except for when we had to work on our group papers. During those weeks, I probably put in 2 hours of work max. I personally thought the class was fun and he didn't suppress any fun, like the previous review says. I thought the concepts of pseudoscience and logical fallacies were very interesting and I'm glad I took the class.
Alan Peel CPSD100 Expecting a P Anonymous 04/14/2021	He's an arrogant, elitist jackass. This sentiment is shared by the entire class. He made me despise coming to class and I wish I never chose SDU as my scholars program. Peel is often times condescending and rude. His teaching style is abysmal and actively suppresses any fun that the class could have been. He needs to be removed as head of SDU.
Alan Peel ASTR230 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/14/2020	Very likeable professor, puts a lovely brand of dry humor throughout lectures and discussions. The course itself is challenging in that there is almost always something imminent: discussion 3 times a week with a worksheet, working on the Group Project Solar System towards the end of semester, etc. Otherwise, the discussions are graded on how much effort you put into them. The first couple units are math units with the expectations of an English class: make a good enough case, provide the evidence of your thought process, and get corrected if you were wrong later. You will still receive the points, just make sure you know the real answers for the tests. Professor Peel always had a chat open during the discussion for questions, and was ALWAYS real with us. If there was an idea that didn't work out, or something in particular that he expected from us, he would tell us. He mentions things like "I see multiple groups doing this, that, -- please be aware that I am expecting you to know (something important)." Always respectful, in my experience. Also, use ratios. Always. The class is one long gauntlet of group work, so you better get along early or it will not be a good time. I was lucky enough to get a fantastic one where all of our members contributed and spoke up.
Alan Peel ASTR330 Anonymous 06/02/2020	He's a tough person to read but always tried to check in on us throughout the semester after we switched to online learning. His homework is not to be taken lightly. If you want to do well you need to deeply understand the material before attempting to answer the questions; some questions you can't even find in the book and instead need to use your intuition (which means you'll probably get it wrong). His curve at the end appropriately reflected the very low average in the class, but for the easiness of the material taught the questions were over the top and incredibly time-consuming. At times it felt as though the TA grading our homework was inconsistent in their methods and was trying to work against us.
Alan Peel ASTR230 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2020	The class takes a lot of time and can be pretty frustrating and inconvenient. Dr. Peel though is pretty knowledgeable and good at explaining things, and I thought pretty likeable as well. Pros: Interesting content if you are into this kinda stuff Makes you think about problems learn quite a bit no real hw Cons: 3 discussions a week early lecture group project readings clicker questions/attendance mandatory
Alan Peel ASTR230 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/04/2019	Dr. Peel is a professor who can be really chill one day, then totally rude and off another day. I had him for both astr 230 and 340 and both of those classes were quite a challenge with him as a lecturer. Do not get me wrong, he can be an effective professor but can come off as rude and material such as homework and exams can be rather tricky. In astro 230 the average on each exam was a 65, 58, 70, and 68. Which is actually much lower than astro 340 exams which were about 70 to 73 each. Saving grace for 230 was there was no final and there are alot of free points for discussion assignments and clickers. If you really like the material take him, if you are not adapt at the algebra and math of astronomy be advised.
Alan Peel CPSD100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2018	A good professor who presents topics well at a high level (which was what a lot of this course was about). He is very nice and takes the time to learn everyone's name. He has a great desire to turn us into well spoken and productive individuals during our time here, which is a grand goal. Graders will take off points on the homework for weird or maybe incomprehensible reasons (for example, I had ten points, or 1 percent of the final grade, taken off a correct use of a logical fallacy probably because it was not politically correct). Others had points taken off for being too terse, which I feel is unfair for most questions.