Simply but, this class was fun and easy. I took AP environmental science in High school which definitely made this course easier. I took it with the lab so I had 1 hw assignment a week that would take 2-3 hours to complete. That's it. I studied for the midterm/ final by reading over his slides. That's it. Keep in mine I attended every lecture and discussion (but you don't really have to because slides are posted for lecture, and you don't need to go to discussion). The course material is interesting, applicable, and important in our lives today.

Bianchi is a super sweet/smiley guy.
My TA Victor Pinto was super friendly and sweet too.

Labs are super hard and do not correlate at all with the class. I asked for help (both the prof and the TA) and I got nothing but to review the slides. The slides do not even give examples of the assignments nor anything helpful. Overall, a waste of time. This is not an easy lab nor an easy class. I believed the reviews on bruinwalk and they were a complete lie (as usual). The Professor is nice but it does not make up for the lack of help he can provide nor how vague he is when it comes to explaining anything. The TA was the least helpful out of everyone. In fact, all the TAs for this class are moody, snobby and rude in general. I wish I hadn't taken this class.

Honestly. I don’t really recommend this class because of the T.A.’s. They aren’t really helpful at all and grade way too harshly. This could be a fun class if it wasn’t for them. most of the T.A.’s deduct points if you get a question wrong l. So let’s say in total you get a 25/31. You can end up getting a 18/31 because you missed the question that was worth 5 points and another that was worth 2. Honestly, this class shouldn’t be a G.E.

This is the most boring class I have taken in my life and I just took Math31b and coding classes.

He goes into so much unnecessary detail and requires students to learn EVERYTHING POSSIBLE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT. EVERYTHING. There is NO focus. Each lecture has powerpoints with 50+ slides and each slide is filled with font size 10 text. Also if you wanted to take this because it says "policy", DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. He only talked about policy in week 10 and just conducted a history class.

Homeworks are at least 6 pages long with boring maths and long questions and you need to hand in a physical copy every week. Are we still in the 19th century?

This class is not as easy as other reviews make it seem. The TA’s told us to study parts that were not even on the midterm!!! They respond very late to emails, if they even respond back. The wording of all the homework assignments is confusing to understand. Some of it wasn’t even talked about in lecture. The questions on the actual midterm were very hard to understand. You needed to take your time to read each part, and even with that I got a C on it. Please avoid this class if you want to save your GPA.

I would never take this lab had i known how hard it would be. I would not recommend this lab and if possible, take a different class. The assignments were so difficult and confusing and they were graded so harshly, yet, the TAs nor the professor would take the time to help you when you would ask. My TA would always just make me feel dumb, like when I would have a question he would say "Well the information is there so I don't understand the need to ask a question about it." Like bro? You want to be a teacher yet can't even answer a tiny question. Ridiculous.

The reviews that are positive for this class are super misleading, please don't believe them. This class has got to be the most boring class ever and keep in mind, this is an INTRO class yet the prof treats it as if it was a upper-div. Avoid this class, professor, and the TAs if you can. The professor is a nice guy but it doesn't fix how he doesn't care about the students and what they are struggling in. The TAs and prof would take forever to reply and their replies were practically useless. I agree that the professor should be more clear in exams and be more responsible, like how he told us the thursday of week 10 that it would be cumulative. However, a TA said it would be less than 20% cumulative. Clearly, there is no sign of proper communication. Additionally, the TAs told us to study the wrong things for the mid-term.

While coming to class isn't necessary as slides are posted online, I would recommend going. I went to all of the lectures, did the 4 homework assignments, and went to about half of the discussions and got high "A"s on both the midterm and the final without additional studying. There are no readings. The curve is very generous.

Literally the worst class I have ever taken. Total of 4 homeworks, midterm, and final. Nobody goes to lecture, a complete waste of time since he just reads the slides. TAs are all assholes and grade the tests insanely hard. Its a GE and they grade like an upper div. They graded the midterm so tough, they would get offended that you didnt know the answer. No help on homeworks either or gave 0 feedback. My TA was at least mildly okay but would spend discussions going so far off topic where he would talk about what he’s learning in grad school and then finish with “you dont have to know this stuff”. Focuses mostly on the ocean because hes an oceanographer and will get offended if you dont understand at their level. Midterm and final review study guides were complete trash. Powerpoints of like 80 slides picked from random lectures that the TAs made when they dont know whats actually going to be on the final. Final was totally cummulative when we werent given any notice besides at the last lecture of the last class. Questions on the final and midterm werent even on the study guides. Literally avoid this class at all costs. The only good thing is the curve and the curve doesnt help much when you do awful on tests.

I usually dont think classes are that bad when I read these reviews, but just do yourself a favor and pick from the 100 other GEs offered.

Do yourself a favor and do not take this class. The lectures are boring and redundant. The professor basically reads the words off of his slides with no further explanation. There are 4 homework that total up to 20% of your grade, and they are graded very harshly and my TA did not even explain to me why he took points off of the problems I missed. Most of the material on the homework is math based and in lecture we would be presented some formulas and there would be no explanation as to how to apply them, so basically you're on your own to learn how to do the irrelevant homeworks. The midterm was extremely difficult and not what our TA's told us to study. There was a curve but even so it is not a grade I would like to receive in a GE that I try my best to keep up with and understand. In my discussion my TA is very unenthusiastic and does a horrible job going over what we have learned in lecture, most of the class is bored and does not pay any attention because it is pointless. We did not even learn that our final exam is cumulative until Week 10, giving us a week to go over the whole quarter's lectures. This class is going to bring down my GPA and it is very disappointing because I genuinely was interested to take this class. If you read the course title and are pulled in by the word "policy," don't take this class because policy is only discussed in Week 10. Overall I sincerely regret taking this class and wish I had spent my time taking a more interesting and worthwhile GE.