Nicholas Luber

1000 point total; all assignments add to 1000 points, midterm 250 points, final 350 points, lots of assignments and group activities in class.

There is one group project that I found to be a bit of a pain in the neck. Make sure you have a group you can trust because otherwise the group research paper is quite difficult. There are four quizzes, two exams, and six problem sets. We got to take one double sided cheat sheet to the first exam and two double sided cheat sheets to the second exam. The questions are not super easy, so I recommend studying each unit/lecture one at a time as the course goes on to refresh your memory before the quizzes and exams. The quizzes are open book, so be sure to take notes. Come to class! It is super fun to sit in on the lectures, and Dr. Luber does record absences. It also helps so much for the quizzes and problem sets if you've been to the physical class sessions.

Homework every week/other week. 1 midterm, 1 final. You won't be able to see the final, I emailed three times and never got a response, even though he told us to email him to see the final.

This guy is the absolute goat; cares for students, down to earth, makes class very easy and light for first-years. Understands our pains, and offers ample opportunities for extra credit. Cannot recommend enough take his class - I'm in his other Science B class this year and love his enthusiasm. He concisely summarizes what will be on the frosci exams and leaves no guesswork

I expected this class to be just an average distributional requirement, but it was way beyond that. Dr. Luber is an incredible lecturer. He is engaging and funny, and he always explains things in a way that makes everything comprehensible. I recommend this class to anyone who needs a science or math requirement. He appreciates all student engagement, and is totally fine with students speaking out of turn, especially if it relates to course content. One of the best classes I've taken at Barnard.

I went in thinking this would be an easy class as per the reviews. They were kind of right. Prof Luber is an engaging person. Terrible teacher. He constantly tells students to email and ask for help with any questions, yet refuses to respond. Every email I sent to him, I had to follow up with twice to get a response. I vividly remember when we got our midterm back, he told us that we had a higher average than what he hoped for (he wanted an average of 60% and we got 70%), but atleast he "did his job" because no one got 100%. He took off points like a madman, weighing questions where each was ~15 points and taking off 8 each time you made a mistake. Prof Luber is a great lecturer and he wants you to do well, but he also prides himself in making sure no one calls the class "simple". I had fun in the class, though. So take it if you just want to learn about Another Earth.

Homework worth 22.5% of your grade, with a third of those being completion based. Be warned that he will grade the homework’s very harshly, but gives you the answer key after submission and offers half points back for corrections. Group project worth 25% of your grade, not time consuming at all if your group mates aren’t bad. 10% participation grade, show up to class and do his activities (they’re actually kinda fun). A midterm worth 15% and a final worth 25% of your grade. There were 14 extra credit opportunities worth a 0.3% boost to your grade each, so if you managed to do all of them that’s a 4.2% increase or a full letter grade bump.

6 psets 25% (lowest score dropped), 4 quizzes 10.5% (lowest quiz dropped), cumulative midterm & final exam 40%, group semester project 24.5%. 3 extra credit opportunities You can miss up to 6 lectures without penalty - but not sure how participation/attendance factors into the overall grade The final project was new for this semester & may be discontinued

Examinations - 50% Midterm Examination - 20% Final Examination - 30% Homeworks - 25% In-Class Participation - 25% Quizzes - 10.5% Group Work - 10.5% Attendance - 4% Midterm and final are really difficult. I did well on them because I love astronomy (took the class for fun) and it wasn't hard for me to study/remember material. But a lot of my friends in the class struggled and did bad on the exams. HW, quizzes, and Psets are all easy to ace. Avg midterm score was 75, I think, and we never got back our final scores (but I am 80% sure he just gave full points to everyone on the final - it just said "complete" on canvas and my grade in SSOL was really good). He also gave corrections on the midterm for 33% of the points back. TLDR: Exams are hard and you have to do well on them bc they're worth a lot, but if you're interested in the material and put in the time to study really well you'll be fine.

One thing I think everyone who takes Luber can agree on is that you can’t fall asleep during his lectures, not because he’s on you but because he’s hilarious and unfiltered. As far as I know his grading scheme is slightly more generous but overall not too different from other seminar instructors. While I personally bombed several homework assignments, he offers a bunch of extra credit during the semester that’s factored in as extra points towards the total. If you put in a good effort then at worst you end up with an A-.