Selling textbook for this class,email me at ************* if you are interested.

She gives you a lot of options for what the classes can be about. It's general but also informative.

Profesor Tripati's lecture slides had way too much information on them, and it was hard to know which ones were important for the tests.
However, she is always willing to help students out and answer their questions.

Professor Tripati is definitely awesome. I took her seminar last quarter, and this quarter I am auditing her oceanography lecture. She always eager to help if you have any questions.

Yes, like many innocent students here, I was content with simply creeping bruinwalk for the rest of my UCLA career. UNTIL I REALIZED THAT I MUST SUBMIT A REVIEW TO WARN FUTURE POSTERITY after recently ranting to my friends so many times about what happened that fateful day I decided to take ESS 15 with Professor Tripati.

This review is a little late in the game, but there is still time and thus hope left if you want to switch out. If you want to take Oceanography, I suggest going with a different professor in order to forgo loads of pain and suffering. I can’t guarantee a free ride, but at least you can avoid all this unnecessary grief for an introductory GE class. The cons definitely outweigh what little pros there are.

The class itself is divided up into 4 pop quizzes, a midterm, a final, lab quizzes, and a lab final. For the midterm and final, you get a 1-page front-and-back cheat sheet. It sounds like your typical class, and the cheat sheet rather generous, but trust me: it’s a lot harder than it sounds. (FYI I rarely looked at the cheat sheet during the test, but making it was a good way to review facts.) Pretty much a majority of the class failed the first quiz because she wanted us to write half a page’s worth of answers in 5 minutes. Tripati was extremely ambitious to the point of being unrealistic. Thankfully, she allowed us to make up the first quiz. But then she wanted our whole class of 300-something students to sign up for 5-minute appointments so that we could discuss our revisions and show her that we understood the key concepts. Only a week later on the day of the appointments did she tell the class that she realized it was unfeasible and would probably take hours to meet with every student. And it’s TRUE that for the third final, we had to write 2 page single-spaced review and commentary on a pretty short documentary; I don’t know if it was 45 minutes long, but it did take up most of class. Firstly, the instructions were REALLY vague, pretty much a one-liner. Then one day before it’s due, she emailed us saying it’s a single-spaced assignment.

Her lectures included many slides that quickly grew into over 100. They are tolerable, sometimes enjoyable, but sometimes lengthy and boring; I blacked out a couple of times towards the end of the quarter. I started out manually taking notes, but she covered slides way faster than my hand could write. Since I didn’t wanna get carpal tunnel and STILL miss important info, I started printing out slides 6 per page. It was a real nightmare going through each lecture slide by slide so I could figure out which ones to omit and save ink. Each lecture contains recaps of last lecture, but sometimes includes important info that she didn’t say last time. Not to mention, they are rather unorganized. However, I’d say THE REAL KICKER is that we barely make it through 75% of the slides each day. You don’t have to buy a brand-new textbook, but it helps to read the parts of it that are touched upon in class.

Additionally, she would remind us a couple of times that all she wanted for us was to remember the key concepts being taught. DON’T BE SO EASILY FOOLED!!!!! Yes, key concepts were important, but she also wanted us to memorize lots of inane details. For example, she gave us questions about the approximate age of the earth and density of earth’s layers on a midterm and lab quiz. So if you see a number on a slide, you better remember it or write it down on your cheat sheet. Speaking of the midterm, its short answer questions were hard because some of them asked generally-phrased questions, yet required specific answers. The final was even worse because it contained short answer and LONG ANSWER OMG. I think she gave us an extra 15 minutes because a lot of people couldn’t finish in time. The mean for the midterm and final were 72% and 73%, rather tragic for a GE. If it was any consolation, lab quizzes were easy and the lab final was not difficult either. But that’s not to say that lab assignments were very helpful. There were always annoying questions like plot the graph of 50 data before extrapolating information about it. However, listening to the TA reading the lab slides did help reinforce concepts.

As a person, I wouldn’t really know what she is like because I never went to her office hours to talk to her. All I can say is that she could be both respectful and rude, which I had only see when she was pissed. Don’t do rude stuff like text or talk, and she won’t call you out. But she was SO unreasonable in a matter about my grade: My raw grade needed about 0.6% so like 0.006 points to get an A instead of an A-. Less than a freakin’ point. After emailing her twice asking why I can’t just get an A, I get "There is a small curve this year" and "I wish you had done the extra credit." Well that sure was a jolly good slap in the face because I was on top of attending lecture, lab, reading, studying, and sometimes participating in class when she tried to have an intellectual discussion with us 300 students. So let me get this straight. The curve is really smaller than .004 points!?!? Geez… At the time, I deemed the original 3-page single-spaced extra credit where you write your own lab instructions too much of a hassle (I tried it and gave up ten minutes later LOL). Boy was I wrong.

Verdict: THE CAKE IS A LIE.

Aradhna is an amazing prof. She's approachable and her door is always open for students for any matter. I enjoyed the relaxed nature of the Fiat Lux If you have the time in your schedule you should take the class. The material in the course wast introduced in a manner that explained every detail so don't worry about prior knowledge.

There was also only one assignment. ONE!

I thought that this class was really easy but I took Chem 14A&B; so you opinion may vary. Lectures at times do feel like never ending. The midterm and final is primary based off the textbook and her lecture. I didn't really like the group midterm and final that she had us do, but as she suggested, I did learn from each other but unfortunately at the very last minute. I am happy that the group grade did help me get an A in the class.

As for lab, I thought it consisted of primary busy work. One can spend 30 minutes plotting numbers on a graphs. The weekly lab quizzes were easy, but I never got a perfect on it. If you have a good chemistry background, you can quickly finish the worksheet rather quickly. I finished my lab final in 20minutes! But for those who lacks a chemistry background I think this class is manageable.

Run, sprint, fly - as fast and far as you can

(Or take it P/NP and pray for the best)

the book is sold out↓↓↓

When I checked out the class & profeesor on Bruinwalk and read all of these reviews, I panicked!! People really made her sound awful! But I must say, & gladly, that all of these reviews are mistaken!! This class was truly interesting & I loved everything we learned. Professor Tripati was a great lecturer and although I never went to her office hours, the few times I did speak with her after lecture proved to me that she is a very nice lady. Sometimes her lecture slides are too long & we cannot get through them all, but other than that, she was great! The whole set up of the class was great. The labs were cool too, although it felt that they were a separate class because the TAs did their thing & the professor did hers. Overall, it was a fantastic class! I recommend you take it if you love the ocean! Or just wanna take a cool GE :)