Student Feedback

Princeton University FRS113: Rise and Fall of the Roman Floodline

2024

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "Please comment on the quality of class discussion, including the extent of student participation?".

Class discussions were super interesting – I think we all learned how to ask questions in a much deeper way after the course.

The usage of class times and discussions were pretty helpful, but given the varying knowledge and ability to catch on that people had, it was sometimes difficult to join into them.

Class discussions were very informative and engaging. I think we could have been more engaged if there were a few more pauses in class discussion so that we could formulate questions and answers, but overall great.

Class wasn't really discussion based. (...) Other than the occasional genuine question or spur of curiosity by someone in the class, including myself, participation felt forced or coaxed. Although I cannot deny that this type of participation did help with the understanding and retaining of information from lectures, it felt like it lowered voluntary engagement. One thing I did appreciate was the mixture of things we did in each class. While the lectures and coding demonstrations were dull, there would be parts of class where we would try things on our own or do some form of unique activity we hadn't done before, those parts of class were nice. The presentations and peer editing sessions in the last couple of classes were also quite nice and a welcome change of pace.

Class discussions really pushed me to ask quality questions and learn content that was out of my comfort zone. The professors encouraged all students to speak.

Adam encouraged us to ask questions, which made the class discussions more fruitful. However, there were times when the topics were so complex that I wasn't sure what to ask.

Class discussion was fruitful and students were often engaged.

Student participation, curiosity, and discussions were always encouraged.

Amazing! Lots of hands–on experience.

class with the most student participation out of the seminars I took this semester

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "Seminars are taught by a variety of methods. In your opinion, was the presentation of the material appropriate to the subject matter of the seminar?"

I thought they helped a lot with the programming in MATLAB. I also liked the explanations of different processes to help us understand the things we will be seeing/have seen better.

Yes, I think the powerpoints with lots of visual aspects were extremely helpful in the teaching of the courses as the ideas are not things I had previously seen.

Yes, it was all connected. Even if it was not, the content was very interesting and I really enjoyed it. The non–content–based skills were also very helpful––scientific writing, peer reviewing, asking questions, storyboarding etc.

Considering that the seminar was about natural processes that couldn't really be explained in full detail to freshmen, I think the professors did a good job of providing simplified explanations of the subject matter. So, in terms of appropriateness I believe the methods did well. The methods and hands–on research and first–hand witnessing we did in Italy were especially incredible and taught us more than many of the classes we attended. Although the class lectures were slightly dull in structure and length, they had interesting information and so they could retain attention at least for certain parts.

Yes, the presentation of the material was appropriate.

Yes, the presentations were highly appropriate to the subject matter. They helped us understand the concepts that were instrumental in our understanding of our flood.

I found the presentation of material to be logical for the flow of the class, starting with lab assignments to familiarize ourselves with MATLAB and progressively working us through the writing assignments.

Yes, the split format of lectures and labs class provided a strong base in the materials I needed throughout the class, whether it was coding, learning geodesy, or gaining hands–on experience.

Yes, very. Lots of field work relevant to the coursework we learned in class.

Despite a lot of the material feeling tangental to the specific goal of the seminar, I think it's a great introduction to geoscience in general

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "Comment on the amount of writing and the pacing of the assignments. Did you receive helpful criticism? Do you believe that the seminar improved your writing skills?"

There was a lot of work at times. I did receive a lot of helpful criticism, and it definitely helped improve my research–writing skills.

I am a horrible writer and so I found it difficult to transition from my past technical papers writing styles to the ones used for this class (and probably later on). I received an extremely large amount of feedback and think that it was all super helpful in improving my writing skills although I need to take the time to learn how to implement them.

I think my writing skills grew a lot. The pacing of assignments was tough to follow at first but after a few weeks we adjusted and it was generally manageable. TA sessions were very helpful.

This seminar was literally my hardest class this semester. (...) The professors would pick apart every project and essay beyond reasonability. From syntax, grammar, and diction to the quality and sizing of images, the format and correct capitalization within citations and even the essay length down to the letter. (...) The criticism was harsh but the professors promised it would make my writing better and serve me well in the future. Maybe it is just that I am being shortsighted, but I didn't feel like the comments were too helpful, although one thing that was helpful was the professor's insistence and emphasis on extreme conciseness. I can see that being helpful in future scientific writing.

There was a lot of writing in this course, but the pacing was expected (once a week). I received constructive criticism that absolutely helped me to improve my scientific writing.

The feedback was dense but highly informative. However, in the first half of the semester, there were far too many assignments given each week. Reducing the workload would allow students to focus more deeply and give their best effort to each task. Despite this, the seminar was incredibly valuable—it taught me how to write a proper scientific research paper, and I’m really glad I took this course.

I found the pacing to be very fast and often a little overwhelming. I felt I recieved helpful criticism at times, but at others it felt more so harsh than helpful. I believe the seminar did very much improve my scientific writing skills however.

The pacing of the assignments was helpful in that I didn't feel rushed on finishing my final paper by Dean's Date. This kind of writing was different from my usual classes, and I'm glad I was ab

Weekly feedback helped improve the quality of written assignments throughout the semester, and fostered a research mindset.

yes, received an incredible amount of feedback –– the effort the professors put into this was unmatched by any other course I took.

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "Please comment on in-class and out-of-class assignments, hands-on activities, trips, and other kinds of special opportunities, and describe how important they were to the Freshman Seminar."

The in–class and out–of–class assignments were pretty interesting and got us used to the materials/tools that we would need outside of class. Rome was a very cool experience and helped us understand how some of the tools are used on the field. I also liked seeing the different rock layers, faults, etc. in person.

All of the in–class MATLAB exercises were extremely fun and helpful. The out of class labs were a little time consuming, but was a once in a lifetime experience in my case and taught me a lot about being on the field which helped prepare me for the extremely priceless experience of going to Italy and conducting field work.

The trip to Rome was one of the best parts of the seminar; I really liked being able to put our lab skills into practice. The labs all over campus were helpful too, if hard to follow at first.

The trip to Italy was amazing. Despite being work–intensive and giving us no free time as many of the other freshman seminars or class trips did, it was incredible and in my opinion the only thing that made the class worth taking. The work we did in the streets of Rome exposed us to the heart of the city and to many historical cites and beautiful buildings and churches. The mountains were even more fascinating and beautiful. Learning about the natural processes we had been talking about all semester and then seeing them in person and connecting them with the knowledge we'd been accumulating for weeks was very fun. The learning we did there also fueled the rest of the semester and sparked our curiosity about many more topics that brought about future discussions. The one day we dedicated to historical sightseeing and all the cultural food we had were also amazing. The in–class assignments were significantly better than the out–of–class assignments although both were hard. The in class assignments allowed for more help from the professors and from peers. The last three classes in particular in which we worked on our final essays and presentations were particularly helpful and even kind of fun. Watching everyone's presentations and all the information we discovered on our own come together with what we learned in class made the work we did throughout the semester worth it. I think those presentations and the way we did them, with the collaboration and all the professors available to help in that class period, was excellent and very essential to the course. (...) Because they were important for us to learn data collection, analysis, and processing using code, the labs were very important to the class. They also set us up for the trip to Italy and gave us an idea about the data we would collect, how we would collect it and what we would do with it. As for the physical aspects of the labs, it was a hassle at times and constituted us doing unusual looking activities around campus, and it was time consuming. But, I cannot say that it wasn't at least somewhat enjoyable. It gave us a laugh or two and the tools were interesting to get to know. It was especially nice that we were able to do this part of the labs in teams and that it prepared us to use the tools in Italy, which was the truly fun part.

The trip to Rome was the highlight of my fall semester, and it was very aligned to the skills we built during the first half of the course.

Given that many of us were learning completely new concepts, the in–class demonstrations were often a bit fast–paced. However, the ample office hours provided a great opportunity to get guidance and address any questions we had. The trip to Italy was my first fieldwork experience, and I am so impressed by how much I learned not just throughout the semester, but especially during those 7 days. From learning the protocols of fieldwork to seeing how to measure and analyze our results, Adam and Frederik truly taught us everything we needed to know. This course has opened my eyes to the world of fieldwork, and it has inspired me to pursue fieldwork this upcoming summer.

The freshman seminar was defined by the trip we took to rome over fall break. The trip was extremely educational and fun, however with little free time and most of the time spent doing field research. Lab activities and field work were critical to the seminar.

I think the hands–on activities from our labs prepared us extremely well for the actual experience of taking measurements. This class taught me a lot about myself and most importantly, what I can improve on.

Super fun, super rewarding. Lots of in–class concepts were pointed out and observed in nature. Learned field drawing techniques.

most enjoyable and informative assignments I worked on so far at Princeton

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "Please use this space to tell us anything you want to about the seminar."

I liked it! It really reflected the amount of effort that we put in.

I'm glad I took the seminar, it taught me a lot about geoscience content as well as skills like scientific writing, coding, peer reviewing and working on labs in groups. I also got more comfortable with thinking quickly and collboratively in topics I didn't know a lot about.

I loved the people, students and professors. I particularly liked that there were 2 professors, 2 assistant professors, and 1 TA so that if one explanation was unclear or one person's style was not best for my understanding I could get help from someone else. This also meant that office hours were more spread out and consistently available which was necessary and very convenient and nice. The humor Dr. Simmons added to the course was also great. So I suppose that I would include in this part a thanks to Drs. Maloof, Simmons, Walbert and Wilcots, and Ashley Holmes for always being helpful.

Professor Adam and Professor Frederik are some of my favorite professors I have met at Princeton.

This has been the best course I took this semester. I truly admire Adam, Frederik, Olivia, Julia, and Ashley, who helped me learn so many incredible things. I thank them for making me grow as a student and as a human being.

There is so much work in this class! It is a fun class but the distribution of work could be slightly lessened and the teaching could be more expectant of the fact that students are coming in with less base geology/scientific knowledge

Unique experience!

best class I took so far

Every paragraph below is an individual student's answer to the question: "In thinking about the overall quality of the course, please comment on what you got out of the course. What did the instructor do particularly well, and in what ways might the course be improved?"

I think the course could be a bit more clear at times (e.g. the assignments and what kinds of questions we should be answering, the page limit, citation formats, etc.). However, I definitely think I got out what I put in. I really learned a lot about different techniques for MATLAB and analyzing data. I also learned a lot about the geosciences, flood processes, and different data that are important to geoscientists today (to predict future events, etc.)

The quality of the course was extremely great. We had two extremely knowledgeable and really smart professors alongside three full–time TAs who were all also extremely knowledgable, which is usually available to students. I think all of the instructors (including TAs) knew their areas of expertise and helped us learn a lot.

I appreciated the timeliness of feedback and the quality and depth of lectures, labs and the Rome trip. There was definitely a period at the beginning of the semester when the course was challenging not only in content but also in quantity and pace of assignments, but I think this was by design and it helped a lot in terms of adjusting to the overall Princeton workload.

Above all, I became a better scientific writer because of this course.

I learned how to use MATLAB and LaTeX, and I gained important statistical analysis tools, such as the p–test and coefficient correlation. Socially, I made many great friends through this course. One thing that stood out to me was how adaptable the instructors were. For example, when we provided feedback on our peers' papers, the instructors noticed that the quality of the feedback wasn’t up to par in the first round. To address this, they started grading the feedback in the next round, which helped improve its quality.

Frederik was extremely good at walking me through things when I got stuck, in terms of explaining.