It was an interesting GIS class. I learned a lot from professor Illes. She makes my morning class fun with her sense of humor.

In order to do great in her class, you must attend every lecture because she will go over the process of the assignment. When you need help, she will be able to assist you. Sometimes there are so many students who need help that she won't be available to help everyone.

I recommend taking her class.

Definitely my favorite professor at UCLA. I take as many classes offered with Professor Illes as I can. I was worried about taking a GIS class because I had horrible experiences with other GIS professors at UCLA. Professor Illes was extremely helpful and made sure everyone understood the material. Not only that, she taught material that employers look for. Unlike other professors at UCLA, she wanted to prepare us for a career and not just go through useless material. ONLY TAKE 168 WITH ILLES!

Professor Illes is the WORST! Avoid having her classes at all cost. She has no interest in teaching and educating students. She likes to use "this is what working in the real work is like" as her excuse for not explaining the instructions on projects or being rude to you. I mean we are not work in a real world, we are in your class and trying to learn useful things and her way of teaching only discourage students from learning in her courses.

I'm not going to lie, Dr. Illes is abrasive and sarcastic; which many people seem to have a problem with. Dr. Illes is not willing to baby her students and she makes it very clear during the first week that her students need to be proficient with what was taught in geog 7 in regards to ArcGIS. She is always helpful during class and during office hours; her advice might be slightly sarcastic but that is just her. As college students that will be entering the workforce we need to be able to work with people who rub us the wrong way. I will admit that the midterm and final (which are both practicals) are very hard relative to the assignments. However, Illes does hint to her students what will be on them. Moreover, they are worth very little of your overall grade. I got a b on both and still managed an a+ in the class. Dr. Illes gets a bad wrap because she rubs people the wrong way, but she is a very good professor. And really, if you have a basic knowledge of ArcGIS, the class will be easy. I would take Illes again, even outside of the GIS courses.

I definitely agree with the two evaluations below me. Taking Geog 168 with Illes was just the worst nightmare.
1) In her lecture, she often says things like "you guys should have learned this in Geog 7, and so you should know how to do this". Are you kidding me? You are here to help your students learn regardless if it is something new or from geog 7.
2) Whenever someone asks her a question in class 9 out 10 times that person gets made fun of by her sarcasm which some find it humorous.
3) She offers no tangible guide lines on the group project which happens to be the assignment that weighs the most in your final grade. Her excuse is that when you are working with professionals you are often not given any clear instructions and still expected to solve problems. Hello? This is our second GIS class, and we are not your graduate students. Her expectations of the class is unrealistic.
4)She is so difficult to communicate with. She has refused to help me with my questions twice through email and just told me that it is my own responsibility to find the answer. I've never missed a class or an assignment. There is no reason for a professor to not help a student
5) She does leave early in every lecture while the TA runs around trying to help everyone. Seriously, if she stays with the TA and treats her students more respectfully and acts more approachable I think this class would have been 100 times better and people would have been able to learn 100 times more.

I have to agree that Geog 168 with Prof. Illes is misery. I have not encountered another instructor so rude, dismissive, and unhelpful on this entire campus. Very little instruction is provided. She takes a strange pleasure in kicking people out of the computer lab as some form of public humiliation; unfortunately half of them so far have been her enrolled students that she doesn't recognize. Requests for assistance with software glitches and problems uploading/sharing files are returned with bizarre tirades about how we will never be able to function professionally. She has implemented a mandatory 2 day cooling off period between assignments that nicely overlaps with her office hours. The TA struggles to respond to everyone's questions while she leaves early. I think this is outrageous. If she hates teaching so much why is she here?

This is my first bruinwalk review and will be my last one.
I am currently taking geography 168 with Prof. Illes. Please do not take her classes. AVOID AT ALL COST.
I had to miss the first lecture to attend preview days for the grad school programs I got in. This class is only once a week. So I emailed Prof. Illes to politely let her know that I will be missing the first class because of grad school matters. She replied "As a student planning to pursue a graduate degree, I am surprised by your choice to miss the entire first week of classes in a 10 week quarter. You may find it worth noting that in graduate school, such a choice may have far broader consequences than just your ability to complete one week's assignments. " How condescending.

Then we all had to join a group online to submit our homework assignments. She told the class about this online group thing in the first lecture but since I had missed it I emailed her and asked her if she can let me know how to join this group to submit my assignment. She replied "You were made aware that it is your responsibility to obtain all information provided in the first class from a classmate."

I can tell you that Illes does not care about her students at all. She also likes to make sarcastic comments in class towards people who ask her questions. Her instructions on how to do the weekly assignment are extremely vague sometimes you spend more time on figuring out what her instruction means than doing the assignment itself.

The midterm is the same way. You are asked to make 4 maps which must contain specific information. There is no instruction at all and the TA was told not to help us with any questions we have during the midterm. I have always enjoyed geography courses and liked our geography professors, but Illes is just unbearable. My stomach cringes every Thursday when I have to go to her class.

Illes is a very funny, engaging professor in lecture but acts more cold & disinterested in office hours. This course definitely pushed me from being an ArcGIS novice to actually understanding a lot of the things you can do in the program. There are weekly projects which are pretty straightforward because she presents them in a step-by-step tutorial way. She's a fairly easy grader and this class is a great way to walk away with UCLA with a tangible skill that shows that you are capable of learning technology & analyzing data--even if you don't end up pursuing a career that uses GIS.