Close to 300 students showed up to shop Geology and Geophysics Professor David Bercovici’s geology seminar the “Origin of Everything” today, a class capped at 20 students.

The class, which explores “the origin of the universe, galaxies, the solar system and planets, continents, oceans, atmospheres, magnetic fields, and mono- and multicellular life,” according to its OCI description, received favorable reviews in Spring 2009 for being a relatively painless Sc credit. The class was rated as having “much less,” “less” or the “same” amount of work as other Yale courses and most students assessed it as “very good” or “excellent.”

Yet Bercovici sent an email to shoppers (“in case you’re not able to squeeze into the class this morning”) discouraging those looking for an easy credit. “If you’re looking for a ‘friendly’ science class this is only friendly in that it’s not loaded with problem sets and exams,” he wrote. “Also you should only take this class if you are going to be an active participant; i.e., be willing to ask questions and argue and speak up.”

As of this afternoon, course demand for G&G 222 was listed at 228 people on the online course selection system.