Mary Putman

As a humanities major trying to complete their science rec, I was at first very hesitant to commit to taking this class since I have not done any physics since High School. However, Professor Putman put together an incredible curriculum that is very friendly to non-stem majors. She constantly re-explains concepts that might be more difficult to grasp and is great at answering questions. I learned a lot and did not feel intimidated despite the fact this class was out of my comfort zone. You will not have to do any math beyond very simple arithmetic, and she provides the relevant formulas in the exam.

Putman's maternity leave came about midway through the semester I had with her, but her appearance in the audience of the lecture a few weeks later clearly shows her interest in the class. She starts the lecture with an "alien of the day", and relates how this alien may or may not be biologically, chemically, and physically able to live in the universe in such conditions as on its planet. Examples included Superman and the alien from Avatar, etc. A kind of silly trigger for the beginning of class, it actually does provide some insight into requirements for life in the universe, which *is* the point of this class. The material was fascinating; a combination of the three classic sciences point to possibilities for life in the universe. Sometimes it will make you feel very small, but it is this notion which, I think, makes this class all the more fascinating. Putman uses a multiple-choice card to gauge the reception of basic concepts learned in class. She asks a question on the board, provides 4 possible answers, and the class holds up the letter of the response they think to be correct. This is a great way to get the participation of the students. Additionally, she would send out in-class assignments (usually worked on in groups or pairs) to answer a short list of questions. This would be counted as a participation grade. Grading was fair; tests were on the material learned in c…

great course to fulfill a science requirement. I have a math background so the various simple calculations utilizing scientific notation were quite elementary. I heard some negative reviews regarding the level of computation in this class and I find that laughable. Anyone who knows exponent rules can complete everything necessary to complete this class. Prof Putman is a lovely woman who is very approachable. She was always happy to answer questions and even meet one-on-one to discuss the content of a missed lecture. She loves the content and was thrilled to be teaching it.

Mary is an interesting person. Students are rude to her and she is rude right back at them. She shows us interesting videos and likes some discussion. However, she says all the material can be learnt in the lecture and that is absolutely untrue. She'll mention it for a split second in class and expect you to know the intricate details only explained in the textbook. She hosted a trivia (Who wants to be an astrobiologist) before the midterm for our review session, which was a waste of time and was filled with misleadingly easy questions. I haven't enjoyed my time in the class, because I find the teacher to be a distraction from the material. If you are taking it for easy points as my intention was I would suggest reconsidering a few more PE courses.

Professor Putman so nice. She's one of those Professors who really is passionate about what they're teaching, and wants to pass that passion onto her students. She wants you to do well, and she wants you to pass the class. She lectures with guiding slides, they don't have much notes on them so it's not a good class to skip, you will fall behind. Overall, I found the class a little rough to get started with, but as the semester went on I actually learned a lot, the material isn't too hard (especially for a humanities major), and she repeats material multiple times so that students fully understand it. I struggled with some of the homework, as sometimes they're very hard to understand just with the basic knowledge we learned in the slides (she sometimes expects us to know more than we do).

Frequent homework sets, some in-class participation required

Very light workload. The homework assignments were very reasonable.

(15%) 4 Quizzes: Open Note, Mostly from lectures or book material (one is dropped) (25%) 7 Homeworks: Mostly from lectures or discussion (25%) Midterm: Harder than expected, but still manageable with average of 84 (35%) Final: TBD

She has a homework assignment due biweekly, they were a bit hard for me so I would attend TA office hours religiously, and got consistently good grades with the TAs help. She also has in-class assignments that are graded for participation. I only spent about two hours working on homework when they were due, and besides that there is no work required outside of class.