Professor
David Paige
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Most Helpful Review
Paige is chill and I would totally recommend this class. The midterm and final are straight from lecture and he posts lecture notes online. You still have to go to lecture though (but you can totally sleep through it all) because he does these funny little quizzes every day. They are only like 3 questions though and he gives you the answers in class and you have the entire class period to answer them. You can totally ask your neighbors or even him and he will give you the answers. It is impossible not to get them all right but you are only allowed to miss like 5 so you have to go to a majority of the classes. The lab kind of sucks because there is no lab credit, but the TA was super cool and would always help us and you can find a lot of the answers online and even redo the labs if you blow one and he drops your lowest score. Oh and there are 2 midterms, only 1 counts for your grade though. You have the option of taking both and just using your highest score or only taking one of them. This class is perfect if you are looking for an easy GE.
Paige is chill and I would totally recommend this class. The midterm and final are straight from lecture and he posts lecture notes online. You still have to go to lecture though (but you can totally sleep through it all) because he does these funny little quizzes every day. They are only like 3 questions though and he gives you the answers in class and you have the entire class period to answer them. You can totally ask your neighbors or even him and he will give you the answers. It is impossible not to get them all right but you are only allowed to miss like 5 so you have to go to a majority of the classes. The lab kind of sucks because there is no lab credit, but the TA was super cool and would always help us and you can find a lot of the answers online and even redo the labs if you blow one and he drops your lowest score. Oh and there are 2 midterms, only 1 counts for your grade though. You have the option of taking both and just using your highest score or only taking one of them. This class is perfect if you are looking for an easy GE.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - This was a fun and engaging course that was totally worth taking for useful knowledge relevant to real life. I disagree with other posters who indicate that the HW was difficult and time-consuming. It was largely simple and on-par with lower-division courses in many science majors without any mathematical knowledge required beyond high school chemistry/physics (i.e. dimensional analysis). The highest grade in this course was accomplished by an English major. The midterm exam and final exam consisted mostly of short answer questions that were straight off lecture slides plus numbers-to-know that the instructor provided prior to exams to memorize as well as a couple longer essay questions where you could choose between two prompts for each question. Generally, there would be one prompt where you could answer conceptually and another where there was basic mathematics required similar to the HW problems. Even if you are absolutely terrible at math, you can avoid the more calculation-intensive prompts and get away with just knowing the material. I would recommend doing the practice exams in detail as well as memorizing all the numbers-to-know before each exam. Make sure to read ALL the lectures slides which are straightforward and contain the majority of the short answers. Don't focus on the HW since you don't need to do much calculation on the exams. If you finish studying the other materials, then you should go over the HW solutions and lab backgrounds to fill in any blanks in your knowledge base. Selling a collection of past exams, homework solutions, and highly organized course materials: uclastudent17@gmail.com
Winter 2019 - This was a fun and engaging course that was totally worth taking for useful knowledge relevant to real life. I disagree with other posters who indicate that the HW was difficult and time-consuming. It was largely simple and on-par with lower-division courses in many science majors without any mathematical knowledge required beyond high school chemistry/physics (i.e. dimensional analysis). The highest grade in this course was accomplished by an English major. The midterm exam and final exam consisted mostly of short answer questions that were straight off lecture slides plus numbers-to-know that the instructor provided prior to exams to memorize as well as a couple longer essay questions where you could choose between two prompts for each question. Generally, there would be one prompt where you could answer conceptually and another where there was basic mathematics required similar to the HW problems. Even if you are absolutely terrible at math, you can avoid the more calculation-intensive prompts and get away with just knowing the material. I would recommend doing the practice exams in detail as well as memorizing all the numbers-to-know before each exam. Make sure to read ALL the lectures slides which are straightforward and contain the majority of the short answers. Don't focus on the HW since you don't need to do much calculation on the exams. If you finish studying the other materials, then you should go over the HW solutions and lab backgrounds to fill in any blanks in your knowledge base. Selling a collection of past exams, homework solutions, and highly organized course materials: uclastudent17@gmail.com
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2017 - EPS 153 with Paige is a mixed bag: for one, his homeworks are damn near impossible (require a lot of assumptions on your part that may or may not be wrong) and his lectures cater to graduate students and can be very hard to follow. That being said, the final exam was both fair and curved, and the material itself is fascinating and extensive. Professor Paige is very helpful and willing to answer questions about the homeworks (which you will inevitably have), and a pretty engaging lecturer. I would take this class again, for one reason especially. The homeworks absolutely slaughtered me and I often felt lost in lecture, which contributed to a decent amount of stress in my life - however, this class has an AMAZING field trip. For our quarter, we got to go on an essentially free weekend camping trip to Catalina island which would otherwise be very expensive - D Paige even provided snacks and dinner. The field trip allowed me to really get to know the people in my class, and camping in Catalina is unreal if you've never done it before. Honestly one of my favorite memories at UCLA. In summary, this class is hard as shit, but at the same time it's pretty interesting stuff and the field trip makes it all worth it in my opinion. Would take again
Spring 2017 - EPS 153 with Paige is a mixed bag: for one, his homeworks are damn near impossible (require a lot of assumptions on your part that may or may not be wrong) and his lectures cater to graduate students and can be very hard to follow. That being said, the final exam was both fair and curved, and the material itself is fascinating and extensive. Professor Paige is very helpful and willing to answer questions about the homeworks (which you will inevitably have), and a pretty engaging lecturer. I would take this class again, for one reason especially. The homeworks absolutely slaughtered me and I often felt lost in lecture, which contributed to a decent amount of stress in my life - however, this class has an AMAZING field trip. For our quarter, we got to go on an essentially free weekend camping trip to Catalina island which would otherwise be very expensive - D Paige even provided snacks and dinner. The field trip allowed me to really get to know the people in my class, and camping in Catalina is unreal if you've never done it before. Honestly one of my favorite memories at UCLA. In summary, this class is hard as shit, but at the same time it's pretty interesting stuff and the field trip makes it all worth it in my opinion. Would take again
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