Professor Okin is amazing! I took him for Enviro M102(Soils and Environment) and he made me want to pursue a career in the field. He explained soil chemistry in easy ways to understand and made sure that students had all of their questions answered. The class consisted of a midterm, final, and discussions where you had to participate. The exams were a little tough and require memorization of soil orders, sub-orders etc but if you put in the work it is very doable and rewarding. I truly do not understand all of the harsh reviews about Okin as a professor. He is accommodating and makes it very clear from the start what he expects out of his students for the exams. Anyone who left a bad review probably didn't go to lecture and expected to ace the test. Take the class! You won't regret it and will have a newfound appreciation for soil and the Earth!

I wanted to give a more balanced review on this class after reading a lot of people's opinions. I loved this class. The content was fascinating, and I came into the class relatively uninterested in soil. I left wanting to learn more and satisfied with the amount I was able to learn during the quarter. I can understand the negative reviews, but it is about making it work - each class is different, each professor is different, and there are certain things you are expected to do. To be fair, I relied HEAVILY on the textbook. That is representative of the level of depth you are expected to understand and it is necessary to read to do well. The TA review sessions were also a lot clearer and more organized than the lectures (one of my complaints), so go to them! I think it also helps that I have a decent background in chemistry, so all of the chemistry involved in this class (and there is a substantial amount, fair warning) was intuitive. For taxonomy MAKE FLASHCARDS. Okin is wonderful. I did notice that his lectures, however, were hard to follow. There was a lot of skipping back and forth, little organization, and lots of points were not clear at all. I really like his no technology policy personally (I do not own an iPad and always take hand written notes anyways). This class is very, very chemistry and taxonomy centered. I WISH we talked more about the environment and soil on a larger scale but we barely did, maybe a little at the end of the quarter, which was disappointing and contributed to how dense the material felt. I also do not love the grading scheme of like the entire grade (other than ta section participation) being determined by the midterm and final, a bit sad to me. Overall, his class takes extra work to understand the material. It is super interesting but I wish it was better organized.
Simple Notes To Consider:
- No technology policy
- Had to go in person to review midterm exam
- No homework other than readings (necessary to do well IMO)
- Lots of memorization of chemistry and taxonomy
- Unhelpful lecture slides, often confusing/minimal
- Recordings only show slides, cannot see anything written on white board
- Dense content

TO ALL THE STUDENTS SAYING "The other reviews are so harsh...they must not have put in the work... they must not have gone to class." Literally STFU. Im sick of you entitled UCLA students that think you know everyone. This class was AWFUL. Did I get an A?? Yes but at an expense. I did worse in my other classes, I lost a lot of sleep from studying, and I missed shifts at work so I can attend "mandatory" unlisted TA sessions. This class was hard and I shouldn't have to break my back to get barely an A. You people need to stop being so entitled and thinking everyone is just giving a bad review because they are lazy and did not put work in. We all worked out ass off its just a hard fucking class so stop pretending like you are better than everyone else. Theres a reason why he has a lot of bad reviews, like shut up.

This class is absurdly difficult for a class with no pre-requirements. This is most students' first soil science class, and some have not yet taken any college chemistry classes, yet this class covers what should probably be split into two or three separate courses. The professor generally covers 1-3 of the more technical topics covered in each week's long and dense readings, yet the tests cover the entirety of all the readings at an intense depth. This class manages to be too broad and too deep for one quarter. Additionally, he requires memorization of a small amount of basic chemistry and mineral names, along with requiring students to learn intermediate-level soil classification from scratch for the midterm. I attended most of the lectures in the first half of this class (and watched the recordings for any I missed), attended the discussion sections (which were not mentioned on my.ucla, but count for 25% of your grade), and studied for at least a collective 30 hours in the week and a half before the midterm. My grade after a hefty curve was a C+. Not worth the time or effort. Switched my grade scale to pass/no pass in order to do the bare minimum for the next half of the quarter, as the energy this class took was actively harming my other grades. If you find the material interesting and want to preserve your passion for the subject, just buy the textbook and teach this material to yourself. You will anyways end up doing that if you take the class. The textbook is the 15th edition of The Nature and Properties of Soil by Weil & Brady.

EVERY REVIEW IS TRUE. IF I COULD LEAVE 10 MILLION BAD REVIEWS I WOULD JUST TO SAVE OTHERS THE TROUBLE. I HAVE OVER A 3.0, SO I AM IN NO WAY A BAD STUDENT. THIS IS THE WORST COURSE I’VE EVER TAKEN. OKIN NEVER NEEDS TO TEACH A COURSE EVER AGAIN. THIS COURSE CONSISTS OF TONS OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. THE GRADE COMPOSITION OF A MIDTERM AND A FINAL TAKING UP NEARLY 80% OF YOUR GRADE IS ASININE. HE MAKES THIS COURSE WAY HARDER THAN IT HAS TO BE, AND I’M CONFIDENT THAT HE IS THE WORST GEOGRAPHY PROFESSOR AT UCLA. YOU CAN’T EVEN USE YOUR IPAD FOR NOTES! DUDE GET WITH THE TIMES. IT’S 2024. HE EMAILED ME ABOUT MY MACBOOK MAKING W NOTIFICATION DURING CLASS WHEN PLENTY OF OTHER STUDENTS WERE ON THEIR DEVICES OR ASLEEP IN THEIR CHAIRS BECAUSE IT IS SO BORING AND DISINTERESTING. GO TAKE A CHILL PILL. YOU’D THINK AFTER SEEING A 1.0/5.0 ON BRUINWALK, THAT YOU’D MAKE CHANGES, BUT THIS GUY IS ONE OF THOSE PROFESSORS STUCK IN HIS WAYS. HANG UP THE CLEATS BRO. 👎👎👎👎👎👎

Avoid this class. The grade is based on a midterm and final which are closed notes, all written responses. Requires a lot of memorization, categorization and the chemistry should've been a pre-req. Very misleading for the people who haven't taken chemistry. The midterm was very tough, the average was less than 69% even with "curving". I wouldn't waste my time with this class.

I didn't know why i stick with this GE. I wasn't engage in the material. Professor Okins is an Ok professor. Sometimes you might feel sleepy in his class because he talks monotone and sometime very low that you can barely hear him. He does use a mic though. The labs are very elementary and easy . They are like writing definitions for the terms. but yea . Selling the textbook . text me at **********

Similar experience to most of the other reviews for this professor. I would not recommend taking this class unless you have a strong interest in soil and can tolerate learning about the chemistry associated with soil. 75% of the grade in this class is dependent on a singular midterm and the final. Not at all worth the stress if you were just looking for a class to fulfill upper div credits.

Pros:
- No hw assignments, relatively low commitment as far as coursework goes
- Weekly TA meetings are helpful reviews, and you can attend any session during the week (was held over zoom)
- Were given Miterm and Final exam review questions which served as useful practice (*However* these questions were not necessarily representative of the actual exam questions)

Cons:
- Lecture slides are not posted
- Lecture material has no logical flow, and many slides lack sufficient text so it's difficult to take good notes unless you write down every word he says
- Midterm has a RIDICULOUS amount of soil naming terms to memorize, making the test nearly impossible to cram for
- Midterm was not handed back, had to attend TA office hours to see your own exam even though it was taken with blue books
- Material was not presented in a particularly interesting way, didn't feel like I actually learned much about soil as a whole besides the small chemical processes that happen in soil
- The "no technology in class" policy makes it so you have to spend even more time outside of class if you want to write down notes on things you missed in lecture