Exploration of the Solar System - ASTR 202

Although I am currently taking Exploration of the Solar System (ASTR 202), I can already safely say that this is one of the easiest classes at Rice. This class requires almost no work at all. There are weekly problem sets, two tests, a project, and a paper. The best part is that attendance is not a part of the final grade, and is definitely not required to get a good grade on assignments or tests.

The first lecture I attended was spent learning basic “physics.” He called it physics, but I don’t think anyone at Rice can in good conscience call it physics. He actually spent a good ten minutes explaining the distance formula. No, not the real distance formula, but the formula distance equals velocity multiplied by time (d=vt). He then gave us two examples in order to make sure we understood it. “If a train is traveling at one hundred miles per hour for three hours, how far has it traveled?” This lecture was fairly representative of all the lectures that I have thus far attended.

The weekly problem sets require about an hour of work at most. I usually do the problem sets while sitting in class pretending to listen to the professor. Most people get perfect or close to perfect scores on the problem sets. The professor even gives the occasional extra credit opportunity on problem sets, allowing people to earn back any points they may have missed, plus more. I have well over a 100 average on my problem sets, and I spent no more than half an hour on any one of them.

We’ve have only had one test so far. Seven people, out of eighteen in the class, scored higher than 100 on the test. The test was really a joke. The professor gave us a review sheet of thirty questions that we would need to know for the test. Then, he allowed us to make a one-sided, hand-written “cheat” sheet that we could use for the test. All I needed to do to study for the test was summarize some of the questions on my cheat sheet, and then add a few formulas from his lecture slides. The test consisted of true/false questions, multiple choice questions, a few mathematical calculations, and ten points of extra credit. Don’t be discouraged from taking this course if you are not good at math. The course syllabus emphasizes the fact that you do not need any calculus knowledge for the class, but a more accurate description would have been “only high school algebra knowledge required.”

The project for this year is to create a playlist of twelve astronomy related songs, and describe how they are related to astronomy. The professor plays songs from previous year’s projects before every class, and from those examples it seems any song would work as long as a dubious connection to astronomy can be made up.

The final assignment seems like the only real assignment in the class. We have to write a 900 word paper about our views on either life on Mars or global warming. However, the professor emphasized that he would not be grading us on our viewpoints or on how well we wrote the paper, but rather on how we can support our views with basic science. This paper will probably require a bit of work, but the grading seems like it will be no worse than any other assignment that I have done so far.