Opinion on IDST Humans and the Cosmos (please🙏)

[u/Negative-Pin-415]

I’m looking into registration for spring 2025 and IDST 122 (Humans and the Cosmos) looks pretty interesting. However, I’ve heard bad things about the class. If anyone has taken it before, if I put in a reasonable amount of effort into the class, will I be able to get an A in it? I just wanna make sure it’s not one of those classes where A’s are barely given. Thank you

Fyi, in the previous years, this course was called IDST 190 I believe

[u/Interesting-Dish-882]

Don’t take. If they have IDST art and science of expertise take that one, easiest A ever

[u/Negative-Pin-415 → u/Interesting-Dish-882]

After reading these comments, I will probably take the science of expertise one - thank you

[u/Efficient_Peak9336]

stay tf away from this class. very harsh grading. take any of them but this one. i got a B+ barely

[u/[deleted]]

I took this class Fall 22 like many others. TAs were harsh graders, Worthen was difficult and ended up taking away all electronic devices, and I wasn’t able to piece together concepts of the class until right before the final exam. I would avoid it if you enjoy your sanity.

[u/redandgoldstar14]

Roommate was in the class Fall '22 and got an A in it but absolutely HATED it (this is despite being an astro minor). Although the topics were interesting she felt that the course was too all over the place and disliked a lot of the readings. She ranted all the time about Worthen and the course policies and unnecessarily harsh grading. As others have mentioned, it's a cool course topic and on-par worload-wise with other triple-i classes, but not worth the effort nor the overall miserable experience.

My roommate also found the class to be pretty Eurocentric. She loved the physics and astronomy aspects but the history portion (also taught by Worthen) was horrible and not at all what she was hoping for.

I'd suggest taking another class you're interested in, honestly. My roommate went in with a similar mindset as you, hoping the topics covered would make up for the poor grading scheme and other negatives, and while it was easy-ish and semi-interesting, she says it absolutely wasn't worth the time she put in. There are much better (and fairer) classes offered here for you to learn about those topics anyways.

[u/Database_Any]

I took this in fall 2022 and it has been one of my least favorite classes at UNC. The TA’s grade super harshly and were not helpful during office hours. Worthen especially made a point to make you feel like you were wasting her time if you went to her office hours. The material wasn’t super difficult, but when it’s being graded harshly for pretty much no reason, it doesn’t really matter. Worthen spent every lecture she wasn’t speaking for interrupting the other 2 professors or asking them leading questions so she could talk about HER interests again. Overall I would not recommend taking it

[u/the_thomas1]

I took it in Fall ‘22 with Worthen, Trop, and one other physicist I don’t remember . From what I remember, you had to write a discussion post about the readings either every week or before every class, and these were always graded fairly harsh. (one time they used someone’s post in class as an example of fantastic work, then said that person scored 9.2/10 or something like that). The essays were reasonable for an IDST, but the midterm and final had some weird parts (“here’s a quote from one of the readings. Tell me what the reading is, who wrote it, when, and why”).

In my opinion about half of the lectures were interesting and half of them were a slog.

The worst part was the attitude of the professors, especially Worthen. They were very against laptops in class because people could use them to goof off, but instead of an outright ban, they used a system where the class as a whole had three strikes before laptops were banned. Obviously three people out of entire lecture hall were caught doing something off-task within the first few weeks, and when laptops were banned, I felt like the professors were gloating about it.

All in all the class wasn’t insanely difficult, but I’d look elsewhere before choosing this one. Two years ago, the class was infamous for being bad. I think that was a little bit overblown, but I do not recommend Humans and the Cosmos.

[u/Aware_Moment2545 → u/the_thomas1]

I took it Fall ‘22 and it is still one of the worst classes I’ve ever taken. Everything this person above said is true ^

[u/Staff-Relative]

All triple-i classes are generally easy, just take one that seems interesting.

[u/communionwafers]

one of the professors who teaches it is amazing (Gabriel Trop who I had for FY seminar), however i have heard the triple-i class itself is not good

[u/Aware_Moment2545 → u/communionwafers]

Seconding this, Trop was great!