Earth And Environmental Sciences · Columbia University
Dr. Hemming is obviously really smart and very kind, she knows a ton about geology and is enthusiastic to share that, but she is a super disorganized lecturer. She speaks a mile a minute and jumps between things without completing her thoughts at all so if you're new to the material she can be really hard to follow. Overall good though for sure.
Overall, this is an interesting and relatively straight forward class. It gives a solid intro to geology and earth science, and the field-based work can be fun. Both Steve and Sidney are very sweet and knowledgeable about the topics, although, as other people have said, they do tend to read directly from the slides during lecture. All the lecture slides are posted on Courseworks, which is very helpful when studying for the exams, as they contain most of the information you need to know. The textbook readings are less helpful, but are good for getting a better understanding of the material from lecture. Also, most of the TAs were very helpful and there are a ton of opportunities to attend office hours. I do have to say that this class can seem very disorganized at times and I think there could be better communication between the professors and TAs.
Your lucky if you Sid as your frontiers section leader. Some professor just stand there and don't go over anything; they really don't help the students learn or understand anything that happened in lecture. Sid is really good at explaining what is flying in this class. If you go to her before class she helps you with the homeworks. Also, you hand your homeworks in after she goes over them, so you are basically guaranteed a 100 on the homeworks. Without Sid I would not have gotten an A in this ridiculous class.
Sid is by far the best thing to happen to the science requirement at Columbia. She's full of life, incredibly knowledgable and adorable! Not only is she genuinely interested in helping you understand the material but she's very flexible and extremely understanding. Take Earth Science with Sid and you'll be thrilled that you did.
One of the better teachers I have had at Columbia. I would suggest earth science to anyone who is looking for a a way to fulfill the science sequence requirement. She was very enthusiastic and made it a point to tell the class that she doesn't care about your attendence record, as long as you learn the material.
I would recommend this course to anyone wondering about a career in academia. I would not recommend this course to someone who doesn't like writing. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Spring 2022 Course: EESCUN3901_001_2022_1-SENIORSEMINAR : EESCUN3901_001_2022_1 - SENIOR SEMINAR Instructor: Martin Stute
such a sweet gal and a much better prof than steve. she teaches mostly the first half of the semester for this class and then steve teaches the second half. a lot of her lecture slides are pictures rip and this was the grade distribution for the midterm: Mean: 75.88 Median: 77.5 High: 97 Upper Quartile: 86.25 Low: 35.5 Lower Quartile: 68 i am not the biggest fan of geology so this class was honestly mind-numbing. if you dont have to take it and don't already like rocks then i wouldnt recommend this but i had to take it for my major.
My take: This class was totally worth taking. I can honestly say that it enriched my academic experience and taught me fascinating and relevant facts about the earth's geological history - something I feel that everybody should know if they graduated from a liberal arts college. The TAs were all extremely helpful and willing to answer all questions related to labs. The professors, I will admit, read directly off the lectures but they're so awesome that I didn't care anyway. Plus, the lectures were straightforward and easy to understand so them reading it off wasn't a waste of time. This is one of those classes where you get to know your classmates because of labs, TA office hours, fieldtrips, faculty student dinners, etc. I also got to know my professors: both Steve and Sidney are sweethearts and passionate about their field, as are all the TAs.
Sid was my discussion leader and I was underwhelmed. She will know your name after one class and she really wants everyone to do well, but she is pretty boring and explains things about a hundred times, which can be perfect or agony, depending on your science background. On the bright side, she goes over the WIAs in class BEFORE you hand them in, giving you a chance to correct them in marker before you hand them in, basically guaranteeing all perfect WIA scores. She is not good at explaining topics outside of her field (geology).
She is the nicest teacher I have had yet at Columbia. She has the best lecturing format I have seen yet at Columbia if you dont like going to class. She posts all lecture slides online and then she outlines all the chapters for you and post them as well. She leaves no hidden information for studying. Unfortunately all the tests are fill-in so its all recall so you need to know the info cold because there is basically no help if you forget something.