GEOG 599
Research for and Preparation of Ph.D. Dissertation
Description: Tutorial, to be arranged. Independent study. May be repeated for credit. S/U grading.
Units: 2.0
Units: 2.0
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
Geog 126 Geography of Extinction Quite possibly one of my biggest personal wastes of money at this school taking this professor. Not only did I basically just review things I had learned from animal encyclopedias when I was a kid, they were 'taught' by an extremely low quality instructor with in of the most caustic personalities I have ever seen on a person. Everything in lectures is in the exams so the class is practically an excercise in mindless typing for most students. The quiet sound of the class is penetrated by the monotonous clacking of keyboards. His is what college has become. All you need to do for the exam is memorize facts and have some kind of opinion for the essay. I can recall community college professors that were light years ahead of Dr. Illes. What a disappointment at a school that is supposedly renown for its world class academics. Illes is such an egomaniac that I wouldn't be surprised if half the positive reviews were written by her,
Geog 126 Geography of Extinction Quite possibly one of my biggest personal wastes of money at this school taking this professor. Not only did I basically just review things I had learned from animal encyclopedias when I was a kid, they were 'taught' by an extremely low quality instructor with in of the most caustic personalities I have ever seen on a person. Everything in lectures is in the exams so the class is practically an excercise in mindless typing for most students. The quiet sound of the class is penetrated by the monotonous clacking of keyboards. His is what college has become. All you need to do for the exam is memorize facts and have some kind of opinion for the essay. I can recall community college professors that were light years ahead of Dr. Illes. What a disappointment at a school that is supposedly renown for its world class academics. Illes is such an egomaniac that I wouldn't be surprised if half the positive reviews were written by her,
Most Helpful Review
This current quarter, I took Geography 7 with Professor Shin. Note, within the available courses from the BRUINwalk perfunctory drop down, Geog 7 is not listed. Is this due to the fact that even BruinWalk does not wan't to recognize the existence of this course, or if its relative newness is demonstrated both here and in the novice-like adaptation of Geog 7's corresponding upper-div. This class will indeed truly vet you, you who think you know what GIS is about, or that you find it interesting. Granted, after being nearly completely through this course, the jargon and soul-sucking minutiae expose you well to the world of GIS. That world is a computer lab. Indeed, to extrapolate on that theme, what you learn in lecture and what you apply in lab are from completely different universes. Indeed, lab-work is done with near exclusiveness on a program known as ArcGIS or ArcMAP. Being huddled in a computer classroom, to perform the various labs (which, curiously enough, the professor has had copyrighted as if he needed to show how static these labs have been {the copyright has a two year old date}, one finds this course to be more akin to ITT Tech than an instructional course in a research university. As for the Professor himself, as a person, there are certainly no complaints. He is a swell guy, and has a very casual style of teaching. Although he purports to be more accessible in Office Hours, he is only available outside of this small window, via telephone...his office phone..which he is bound to near around office hours..that overlap probably has not escaped him. His email is easily found, however, in that you need only juxtapose a surname with the first letter of the first, with an @geog.ucla.edu. -Such is every other Geography staff member. I only communicate this, so that he may communicate more. In general, the course takes GIS, which is a relatively simple concept, and drowns it in needless detail, which distracts a fraught mind when it is necessary to learn about this otherwise fascinating subject.
This current quarter, I took Geography 7 with Professor Shin. Note, within the available courses from the BRUINwalk perfunctory drop down, Geog 7 is not listed. Is this due to the fact that even BruinWalk does not wan't to recognize the existence of this course, or if its relative newness is demonstrated both here and in the novice-like adaptation of Geog 7's corresponding upper-div. This class will indeed truly vet you, you who think you know what GIS is about, or that you find it interesting. Granted, after being nearly completely through this course, the jargon and soul-sucking minutiae expose you well to the world of GIS. That world is a computer lab. Indeed, to extrapolate on that theme, what you learn in lecture and what you apply in lab are from completely different universes. Indeed, lab-work is done with near exclusiveness on a program known as ArcGIS or ArcMAP. Being huddled in a computer classroom, to perform the various labs (which, curiously enough, the professor has had copyrighted as if he needed to show how static these labs have been {the copyright has a two year old date}, one finds this course to be more akin to ITT Tech than an instructional course in a research university. As for the Professor himself, as a person, there are certainly no complaints. He is a swell guy, and has a very casual style of teaching. Although he purports to be more accessible in Office Hours, he is only available outside of this small window, via telephone...his office phone..which he is bound to near around office hours..that overlap probably has not escaped him. His email is easily found, however, in that you need only juxtapose a surname with the first letter of the first, with an @geog.ucla.edu. -Such is every other Geography staff member. I only communicate this, so that he may communicate more. In general, the course takes GIS, which is a relatively simple concept, and drowns it in needless detail, which distracts a fraught mind when it is necessary to learn about this otherwise fascinating subject.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Course: Geography 119 (ignore 599 above; the class I took wasn't in the drop down) I just took his new class, Geog 119, "Biophysical and Social Transformations in the Northern Regions." Although the title is a bit of a mouthful, the class was absolutely fantastic. He decided to structure it in an "experimental" way, with no exams. The focus was on two presentations each person did: a "student presentation and discussion," which was a powerpoint given with a partner intended to incite discussion with the class, and the final presentation in a larger group (4 in our case) on the last day on a topic related to the course but branching out in some way. The weekly class discussions took up at least half of the lecture period and were very fun and thought-provoking. There were weekly quizzes intended to make sure you did the reading, but if you're like me, you will WANT to do the reading. The professor teaches mostly from his own book ("The World in 2050"), which is written for general audiences so it presents information in a colorful and intriguing way. It is a significant amount of reading, but it's really worth it if you are interested in the material. So, if you're at all interested in the environmental, economic, and social future of northern countries (like Canada and Russia) and the coming changes to the arctic itself, I highly recommend this class. Just to be clear, even though there were no exams, it was not an "easy A" class. The weekly quizzes were actually quite detailed (the professor was still working on writing good questions that weren't too difficult), and we had to turn in a weekly discussion statement about what we read (<1 page). So, reading is definitely a must. Of course, the prof is still working out the structure of the course, so any of these details could change.
Course: Geography 119 (ignore 599 above; the class I took wasn't in the drop down) I just took his new class, Geog 119, "Biophysical and Social Transformations in the Northern Regions." Although the title is a bit of a mouthful, the class was absolutely fantastic. He decided to structure it in an "experimental" way, with no exams. The focus was on two presentations each person did: a "student presentation and discussion," which was a powerpoint given with a partner intended to incite discussion with the class, and the final presentation in a larger group (4 in our case) on the last day on a topic related to the course but branching out in some way. The weekly class discussions took up at least half of the lecture period and were very fun and thought-provoking. There were weekly quizzes intended to make sure you did the reading, but if you're like me, you will WANT to do the reading. The professor teaches mostly from his own book ("The World in 2050"), which is written for general audiences so it presents information in a colorful and intriguing way. It is a significant amount of reading, but it's really worth it if you are interested in the material. So, if you're at all interested in the environmental, economic, and social future of northern countries (like Canada and Russia) and the coming changes to the arctic itself, I highly recommend this class. Just to be clear, even though there were no exams, it was not an "easy A" class. The weekly quizzes were actually quite detailed (the professor was still working on writing good questions that weren't too difficult), and we had to turn in a weekly discussion statement about what we read (<1 page). So, reading is definitely a must. Of course, the prof is still working out the structure of the course, so any of these details could change.
1 of 1
