Professor Dines is a very nice and personable instructor that has a clear passion for Marine Mammology. I would recommend taking this class if you have an interest in learning about marine mammals or are looking for an interesting upper div unit. While I wouldn't necessarily call this class an "easy A", if you watch the lectures (in person or recorded on Zoom) and take good notes on his slides there is a pretty straightforward path to success in this class.

Class Structure:
There are 3 lecture exams (two during weeks 1-10, and one during finals week) as well as one 8-9 page research paper (on a topic of your choosing) for the class. This may seem like a lot, however, the paper was graded relatively easily (avg was an A/A-) and the exams were non-cumulative (mostly short-answer with some multiple choice) and pretty straightforward as long as you took good notes on his lecture slides. The avg for the exams was usually A-/B+. For discussion, there are weekly research papers to read and leave annotations on which you would get full credit for as long as you completed them.

*Note: At the time of this review this class was only offered for letter grade and not for P/NP*