CORE · Columbia University
This is one of my favorite classes I've taken at Columbia. Professor Van Gorkom managed to make this class simultaneously clear and deep. This class wasn't difficult but I learned a lot. This class works for both science majors and non-science majors. She's one of the only science professors I've had who really enjoys teaching.
This is actually a really good lab class for non-science majors who need to fulfill the requirement. It is definitely more conceptual than math-based, but there is still a knowledge of basic math for this class. The class is somewhat boring, and a lot of people chose not to go. She puts all of the slides online after class, so you don't ever really need to take notes, but it is sometimes helpful to go in order to clarify or ask questions. She seems very sweet, although her accent is a little bit understand at first. She happly answers questions and answers them well. I didn't have a lot of problems with the harshness of the grading, and often got 100% or more on assignments or quizzes with minimal effort.
As a disclaimer, I am a non-science person and actually enjoyed Frontiers of Science. Jacqueline is a really serious scientist in her own right, but in the classroom she was engaging and funny. Most importantly, she actually would stop to address every single dumb question when someone needed help. She is one of the few instructors I visited for office hours, and as in class, she was always ready to help no matter how elementary my qestions were (or how soon before the exam). From what I've heard about other Frontiers section instructors, Jacqueline is an extremely lucky catch. But as with any class, you get what you give.
Yes, she has an accent. I think she knows this as well as we students have. She tries to help her students. She cares. And if you have a problem with her accent, ask her to speak louder. She will not be offended. I found Professor van Gorkam to be a very knowledgeable lady and approachable too. This means that if you cannot possibly figure out a problem from the problem set on your own, you can make a visit and she will prod you to the solution. If you are in a small class like intro to ast. then take advantage of it. Impress her. Answer her questions when everyone else is drawing a blank because they decided not to read the quick summary at the back of each chapter. She will reward you. Or if you're genuinely interested, read the chapter and answer her question in depth. Then she'll really love you. Of course we have to remind ourselves that she's in a field where a lot of the things she's teaching, she's also reseraching too and there are no definite answers to, only theories. If you just show her that you too can come up with a theory based on info from the book, she'll appreciate it.
This helped me discuss my research and learn how to communicate what I am thinking about a bit better.
Professor van Gorkom is one of my favorite professors at Columbia. She was incredibly approachable, easy to speak to, and she was also very interested in the subject matter. She is an accomplished radio-astronomer and she often speaks about how her own work relates to the things that we discuss in class. I found the class very easy, and the problem sets interesting as well. Maybe the fact that this class is so enjoyable and the things that we discussed were so interesting made me form a bias in favor of this professor, but I honestly think that she is one of the sweetest, most genuine, and quite frankly hilarious, professors that I have ever had. I hope that I can take another class from her in the future. If you have the opportunity to take this class, please do it. You don't even have to go to class to get a decent grade (based on several friends that skipped often), but I think you will find the material so interesting that you won't want to miss it.
Worst class I've ever taken because I am a humanities major. She is a very nice woman but her classes weren't much help to the homework or the exams. She is a very fair grader and acknowledges your efforts. The problem sets were very annoying because her lectures didn't have much to do with the questions. But the homeworks and the quizzes overall aren't too bad compared to the earth-shattering exams. I have never seen a midterm graded out of 20 points. Her TAs need to be fired because they grade WAYYYYYYY harsher than Professor Van Gorkom herself which is absolutely ridiculous.
Professor Van Gorkom is a delight. She's smart (very very smart actually, if you ever get a chance to look into what she studies) funny, kind and totally dedicated to making frontiers as painless as possible. She even brought out a genuine interest in astronomy in me, a dedicated literature/philosophy major. If you can wrangle it, get into her section!
fair, midterm and final, five problem sets, extra credit assignment
Some problem sets, a midterm and a final.