Life in Universe

Grades

3.41

Average grade awarded in ASTR 5. Not a student rating: this is what the grades were. i The mean of every letter grade the registrar has published for this course, pooled across every instructor who has taught it. It is not shrunk toward anything, because a course average cannot be pulled toward itself. Standard error 0.014.

The registrar's own records: 1,856 grades over 14 terms, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. 1 of those terms is a summer session, and summer sessions are counted here. Every instructor is pooled here. The table below splits them, and term averages across those 14 terms ran 2.48 to 3.86.

By instructor

“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department, so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.

dibs measures outcomes: grades, seats, how fast a class fills. For what a class is like to sit in, BruinWalk has the reviews.

Reviews for ASTR 5 ↗

In Falls

Ran in 5 of the last 5 Falls.

From the terms dibs holds, which start in Fall 2021 and exclude summer. A department can run a course in a quarter it never has before.

From the registrar's catalog

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. No special preparation required. Topics include formation and evolution of Earth and Sun, life on Earth, origin and evolution of life, solar system, habitability, extra-solar planets, search for intelligent life in universe, and interstellar travel. Draws primarily from astronomy and biology but includes some chemistry, geology, and physics. P/NP or letter grading.

Sections in Fall 2026

You enroll in the discussion, not the lecture, so a discussion's status is the one that decides whether you get in. A lecture can read open while every discussion under it is full.

Seat counts as of 03 Sep 14:40: the oldest of these 5 readings. The registrar publishes hourly and dibs reads what it can each hour, so a row can be older than that.

• Lec 1 TR 2:00pm-3:15pm

  Open

  Rich, M.

  3.49

  this instructor · 727 grades

  5 seats left. 164 of 169 enrolled high risk i A guess about whether this will still be here at your enrollment pass, from how full it is now and how fast classes like it have filled before. Seat risk is a prediction and seat status is what the registrar said: they are two things, and this page keeps them apart.

  standing limit limited by standing: New Students Only: restrictions read 9 hours ago

  4 discussions, all open.

  This limit is on the class, so it applies to all 4 discussions below.

  › Every discussion, with its time and seats (4)

  • Dis 1A

    W 8:00am-8:50am · Physics and Astronomy Building 2434

    Open

    1 seat left.

    40 of 41 enrolled

  • Dis 1B

    W 9:00am-9:50am · Physics and Astronomy Building 2434

    Open

    1 seat left.

    40 of 41 enrolled

  • Dis 1C

    F 3:00pm-3:50pm · Kinsey Science Teaching Pavilion 1240B

    Open

    1 seat left.

    42 of 43 enrolled

  • Dis 1D

    F 4:00pm-4:50pm · Kinsey Science Teaching Pavilion 1240B

    Open

    2 seats left.

    42 of 44 enrolled

Final enrollment, averaged across each term's sections: between 77 and 180 a term over 13 terms, summer excluded, most recently 169 in Fall 2025. That is the shape across years, not this term, which is above.

Seats over time in Fall 2026

How each lecture has filled since dibs first saw it.