Professor Murphy is an amazing professor. He enjoys what he does, and makes the material interesting. I have absolutely no complaints about him. However, the class is harder than it should be. If you are looking for an easy A, do not take this class. The quizzes are pretty difficult and almost impossible to study for. Thankfully there are a lot of easy ways to boost your grade. Homework is easy and worth 200 points, clicker questions are also easy and are worth 100, and there are two ridiculously easy pass/fail labs worth 50 points each. Don't waste time studying for either of the labs. Because of these grade-boosters, getting a B is pretty easy, but the quizzes are brutal.

The quiz questions are very random and are not connected to the topics that we learn. I would not recommend this class to people are looking for a science that is low key.

If you're not interested in astronomy and take this class, God help you. You must have at least some interest in basic astronomy to survive this class. I'm an econ major but thought learning about basic astronomical concepts would be cool. I took it in Chem 402 and the lights were off as Professor Murphy went through slides at 2pm, right after lunch. You will fall asleep unless you have the slightest interest in the material.

Anyways, the class was fairly straightforward. I honestly wish I tried harder in the class because I probably would have ended up with an A or A- rather than the B+ I got. Here are my recommendations for the class:
- Take MasteringAstronomy seriously. Don't BS it. Actually read the textbook and take the time to make sure you get every question right. It's a fairly significant portion of your grade over the weeks and it adds up.
- Take good notes in class using a pen and paper because there are graphs and charts.
- Form study groups and go through ALL of the material from lectures and in the textbook. I didn't think any material went untouched on the exams overall.
- Study your butt off for the final.

Professor Murphy is a great guy. Very approachable and willing to help. Some say they don't like how he goes over current events in Astronomy but I thought it kept the class interesting.

Murphy is a brilliant professor! He is super engaging (so lectures are great!!!) & loves to meet with students during office hours. There are 3 quizzes and a final. The material is tough but definitely doable. He curves grades at the end if the class as a whole doesn't perform as well as expected. He records his lectures so you can refer to them before exams. There are also in-class clicker questions and observatory labs which give extra credit, and a chance to better your grade. Very interesting course. Don't graduate without taking a class with Murphy!!!

Great course very interesting with a fantastic professor! Ed is extremely passionate and his lectures are informative however the material is straight forward and not too challenging honestly took 5 pages of notes all semester and started reading the night before each "quiz" or exam. He does throw a couple curveballs on each examination so it is important to thoroughly understand but if you are willing to put in the proper effort an A or A- is easily attainable.

The professor was great and the course was very interesting. There is a weekly homework assignment that you are allowed to do with other people, and there a three quizzes along with the final. He is really good at lecturing, so it feels like you don't have to do any of the readings but you do. He takes questions from the readings and the homework, so as long as you do those and go to class it's pretty easy to get a good grade.

Class is very hard to get an A in. Few midterms that you must do well on to get a good grade. Going to class is pointless because he just reads from powerpoints that are posted to Collab. Most questions are taken straight from the homework.

Murphy is a great guy and great teacher. Would definitely recommend this class for anyone who needs to get the science requirement done or is just interested in acquiring some cool fun facts. This was my favorite class at UVA, Murphy does a great job keeping you engaged and interested while explaining every concept very well. If you do the practice tests in Mastering Astronomy and pay attention in lecture you'll be set to get an A or a B, reading the textbook will help you get the two or three randomly specific questions on the test but isn't necessarily necessary since he curves and lectures straight out of the book.

Coming from the E-school, this class was a very nice break. Murphy is wonderful and very straightforward. He doesn't try to make the class tricky. The class is fairly common sense, and if you do the homework without using Google, pay attention in class, and review Learning Catalytics and do the concept quizzes and reading checks before each quiz, you'll do fine. This was my "easy" class, so I didn't put as much effort in as I should have but managed an A- while taking the other grueling E-school first semester classes.

The main gripe I had with this class was how unnecessarily detailed the test questions were and how much semantics were involved. And as great a professor Murphy is, the material was so dry that I probably would have dozed off in class most of the time if it weren't for my friend being there and having to answer Learning Catalytics questions.