Professor Murphy is awesome -- very good lecturer, very accessible and friendly, very enthusiastic. Very good for an intro course. He gives plentiful examples and explanation of the material so that students understand. The material is not difficult, although some people seem to have trouble with it. Tests are reasonable -- very aceable if you study.

Murphy's a great guy. Everything is fairly easy and interesting as well.

Mr. Murphy is a great lecturer, funny at times and entertaining.

Definitely not an easy A if you don't go to class or do the reading. I'd say if you do either well, you'll be good to go

Very interesting class. If you enjoy astronomy this is a great class to take. Murphy is an awesome, knowledgeable professor. The hw was not really difficult. The mid term and final were not that bad, just need to study some.

Like most 101-type courses the material can get a bit dry but Murphy uses i-clickers to keep you engaged and is a great lecturer, funny too! Do the homework well, it's worth a good chunk of the grade, and it will prepare you for the midterm and final. Learned a bunch, and the labs are very easy. This is an excellent course, especially for non-science majors looking to fulfill a requirement, hardly any math.

Not as easy as it sounds....great teacher though, he explains really well and obviously likes what he's teaching and wants you to like it too. But, I am not a science person and found some of the lectures kind of boring and the quizzes were harder than I expected. Lots of homework grades though that will help your average and a lot of the quiz questions are from the homeworks.

Very straightforward class. You didn't even have to read the book that much. There are 3 quizzes, 2 labs, hw, clicker questions, and a final. For the quizzes and final just make sure to go to the study area in mastering astronomy and do all the concept questions there for each chapter...Murphy likes to take a lot of his quiz and hw questions off of there. MAKE SURE you do well on hw, it is worth 1/5 of your grade, and don't expect a curve at all. You need at least 930/1000 to get an A. My friend got 929 and got an A-.

This class wasn't quite what I was hoping for it to be. Murphy is a really interesting lecturer and is clearly very passionate about his field. I liked that he used clicker questions to keep you involved. But, the material was just dry at best. I felt like it was more of a class in physics and geology rather than astronomy. You may think that this is going to be an easy A, but really you do need to study. Weekly homework, three quizzes, and final. Two astronomy labs per semester as well.

Don't let people tell you this is an easy a class- it's not. It's really uninteresting material and a really unenjoyable class.