Class on alien worlds ranked one of ‘craziest’

Professor Andrew West played David Bowie’s “Loving the Alien” as his students filed into the room for class at 2 p.m. on Tuesday. In the class, named “Alien Worlds,” he discusses exoplanets and the possibility of alien life.

While Astronomy 105 may seem like any other science class students are itching to take to fill a requirement, students said that West gives “Alien Worlds” a whole different flair.

HerCampus.com named West’s class one of its 10 “Craziest College Classes” in August and highlighted the class for its approach to educating students about planets and their properties while exploring the possibility of extraterrestrial life in our solar system.

“I think this type of class doesn’t currently exist lots of places but likely will soon,” West said. “It has been previously wacky or crazy to think about planets and life around other stars, and what was once science fiction is now science fact.”

West said he knows that his class consists mostly of non-science majors trying to knock out a science requirement, so he tries to make his class fun. Class requirements include reading “Nemesis,” the science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, visiting the Museum of Science’s planetarium and observing the stars on the top of the College of Arts and Sciences at least once.

“Alien Worlds” attracted 106 students this year, compared to 35 last year, West said.

“It’s super fun for the students to actually see that science is not this dusty old textbook where you just read about what these dead white dudes said, but instead it is actually like an extremely vibrant, acting, continuing quest for knowledge,” he said, “and that’s super exciting to share.”

In class on Tuesday, West played an old documentary that featured him. As soon as he appeared on screen explaining global warming, the whole class burst with laughter.

“So that’s my documentary film career,” West said.

West said he managed to call on nearly every student by name, which some may consider unusual for a class of more than 100 students.

Students said they appreciate West and his eccentricities. Some said they were not surprised to hear about the wacky reputation of the class.

“I tell my friends we’re reading science fiction novels for it and everybody thinks it’s wild,” said Jeremy Hartman, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Communication. “It’s pretty out there for a college course.”

With a constantly changing field before them, Hartman said that the class has learned that people are always discovering new planets.

“We watch a lot of Star Wars,” said CAS junior Nicole Guerra. “He brings a lot of props in and he’ll demonstrate in front of the class and we’re always afraid he’s going to hit us. It’s really funny actually.”

CAS junior Kamal Hussein agreed that West’s class is eccentric.

“I would say that this is a wacky class in that Professor West often demonstrates concepts in entertaining ways, like balancing on a board with a much lighter student to show how stars and planets both orbit around the center of mass of a solar system,” Hussein said.

West said he does tend to put on funny demonstrations in class. He said he threw Skittles and Almond Joys in a recent class to simulate blue and red lights coming toward you. He has also jumped from a table to a chair to the floor to demonstrate a property of flight and swiveled on a chair with dumbbells to demonstrate another physics concept.

“You have to make it a little entertaining and a little fun, you know,” West said. “I also want to engage them. I want them to be curious and ask questions, and often they’re brilliant, I mean sometimes they ask really amazing questions.”