Overall: So this course is all about answering the question where the elements on the periodic table all came from. All the concepts are explained quite easily and in a very straightforward way. You learn about stellar evolution and connect that to the story of how everything today was even possible. I think the lectures have a lot of fascinating content, but it tends to be a bit dry. I think the most engaging part was the essay and that was where a lot of learning for me had occurred. I would recommend this course if you are interested in the topics.
Evaluation: 1 midterm, 4 assignments, 1 final essay that replaced the exam. The assignments were done every other week and were not too hard. The essay required a lot of work and we were given a month to do it. We had to choose a topic and write up review paper on it.
Professor: There were two professors for 2014 Winter: Dr. Sills and Dr. Pudritz. Both profs are helpful, approachable, and really want to engage students. I find Sills' slides to be a bit better because it was simpler and easier to read than Pudritz's, but that's just a side note.
Interest: I would say you will hardly apply this to your life unless you go into this field or if you really want to impress some friends. We learned some quarky (heh did you get the joke?) facts such as gold is made by colliding two neutron stars. But as noted before, the lectures are pretty dry at times so it really depends on your interest on the topics.
Easiness: No readings, no homework, no exam. You should go to class because they do write on the boards and these things do come up on the assignments. I would say it's not a hard course to do well on, I think the challenge would be the essay but that's about it. No tricks and this course was meant to attract any science student, the math used is very simple plug and chug.
I think from writing this essay, I developed a lot of skills such as developing a research question, researching, and writing in a way that does not just list facts but tells a story. It was a good challenge because I had some background knowledge from lectures but I had to do a lot of searching and I knew I hit the sweet spot when I started seeing papers with information I was familiar with. This essay will definitely be useful if you are considering an independent project where you have to write a report.
Course outline:
Origins+3B03+Course+Outline+2014.pdf
