TAs ARE WAY TOO HARSH!!!!! For context, I have a 4.0 and have taken many GEs at this point but none have made me as mad as this class. I also never write Bruinwalk reviews but I think some of these reviews are misleading. While there is not much homework or work to do in general besides the assignments, the assignments are graded SOOOO harshly, expecting you to know every little supporting detail (even when the question doesn't specifically ask) or points will be deducted. And it is a big deal because each assignment is worth 10% of your whole grade. My TA also just does not know what she's talking about most of the time and always asks us to help her answer a question. This is also upsetting because discussion sections are MANDATORY and it just feels like a complete waste of time at 8am. It also makes me so mad because I just know if she had to do the assignments she would definitely not get an A according to the ridiculous rubric. Overall, I just want the TAs to get off their high horse and realize this GE is not that serious. I do like Williams as a professor, but the TAs of this class have really left a bad taste in my mouth that I felt compelled to write a negative review before the class is even done.

I took this class because I was under the impression it would be a relatively simple science GE and an easy A. While this class may have been this at one point, it is not anymore. Professor Williams is a great professor - he is clearly very passionate about the subject material, he's a good lecturer, and he is always open and clear about answering questions. However, the TA's for this class (and my TA in particular) made this class a disappointing and overly challenging experience. I had Joan Sias as a TA, and she was overly harsh and unqualified to be a TA for this course. When asked questions about the course material in section, she would answer with "I don't know" or give an answer that was factually incorrect. While having little knowledge of the course material itself, she was overly harsh when grading the assignments, which cumulatively add up to 40% of your class grade. She comes to section completely unprepared, and once, after asking the class if we had any questions and no one did, we spend the entire 50 minute section sitting in section because she had nothing else prepared, but she also wouldn't let us leave early. She is unclear and unable to answer questions, overly particular when grading assignments, and overall an extremely inadequate TA for this course, especially when your grade in this class depends so heavily on your TA's.
The subject material in this course was relatively interesting, however the exams were tricky and asked questions about random facts mentioned one time in the class that were not made clear that we had to remember. The subject material itself is not too challenging, but with the exams being hard to study for (no study guide or textbook is provided) and the TA's being overly harsh when grading assignments, I would not say this is an easy course, and I would not recommend it to anyone who is looking for an easy science GE. If you get Joan Sias as a TA for this class, or any other class, drop it. She is unfamiliar with the course material and is unfit to teach it.

Professor Williams was by far the best professor I’ve had at UCLA. He was extremely engaging every lecture and made learning intro material so much fun! He is also extremely willing to help students find opportunities outside of school.

Amazing class! Not a single complaint. Professor Williams is super passionate about what he teaches and incorporates his own research into the lectures. When preparing for the tests, make sure to go over all the slides and know how to respond to each question in blue font. Some of the exam questions were tricky.

The former reviews are all accurate. This class is very straightforward and the lectures are very clear. If you need a lab GE, choose this class when you see it opens.

This is one of my favorite classes I have ever taken and much of that stems from how great of a professor Mr. Williams is. His passion for the Earth's atmospheric and oceanic systems makes this class engaging and incredibly entertaining. Great teacher, great class!

This class was a very easy GE. There were only 4 assignments, which we mostly did in discussion, a midterm, and a final. Lectures were recorded and the textbook was not necessary. Discussion attendance was part of your grade. The midterm and final were multiple choice and if you just reviewed your notes/the slides you'd do well. Professor Williams was super engaging, fun, and effective at explaining the material. Overall, this was a great class and I'd definitely recommend.

All the above reviews are pretty accurate. This is a very easy and interesting (you learn a lot) class. Class lectures are very organized and Professor Williams posts lecture slides (very useful when reviewing) on BruinLearn. I am a humanities major taking this class for my science lab GE and this was just so easy of a class. The class says it has a "lab" component so I thought we would have to spend a lot of times doing lab works outside of the twice-weekly lectures, because after all, I assumed a lab science GE would require more work than a non-lab science GE. However this was not the case at all as we only had short discussion sections that required no additional work. Speaking of those discussion sections, they are very short, useful, and productive. TAs essentially review class concepts and go over some HW problems with you.

Regarding grading, I swear this class has one of the easiest—if not the easiest—syllabus at UCLA. HW (4 total, 12% each) is worth literally 48% of your overall grade. Those HW are very, very short problem sets that you can easily answer from reviewing class lecture slides or Googling. Midterm is only worth 15% and the final is only worth 25%. Discussion sections are attendance based; each section is worth 1.5% of your grade and you get the point for just going to them. Also, if you go to all 8 weeks (I believe you can miss one; I am not too sure though) you get 1.5% extra credit.

I can't speak for geography majors, but if you're a humanities major who is not strong at science, then just take this class as your lab GE when you see it offered. This class is not only very easy, it also teaches you a lot of very interesting & relevant concepts about...well, geography I guess? An easy class that is engaging and not at all a waste of time—oh also, Professor Williams is a very knowledgeable professor; he makes lectures interesting, so I suggest you go to them.

MC for both the midterm and the final. Also the class rounds your grade (e.g., 89.5 is an A-, 92.5 is an A, etc.).

Park Williams was amazing as a professor for this class. S. Feldblum was an amazing TA too. I loveee this type of material and this class single-handedly made me decide to add Geography/Enviro Studies as my second major. The class goes over geology, atmospheric studies, oceanography, meteorology, ecology, etc. It is sooo so interesting and quite easy if you take good notes on the lectures slides and review them adequately before the exams. The problem sets were also easy and the TAs and even the prof himself were helpful if you had any questions.

This class was fantastic and even helped me decide on my Major. Professor Williams is an amazing lecturer and is accommodating by providing PowerPoint prior to his lectures for those who would like to get a head start on some of the material that would be covered in the lecture that day. In his lectures, the Big Idea Questions are highlighted in blue font and all of the key terms to know for the quarter were in red font. This made it extremely easy to study for midterms and finals which were both multiple-choice. On top of this, professor Williams is especially interested during his lectures because he uses his own data collected in the field and by running model algorithms. These figures scattered throughout the lecture provided an immense amount of detail and insight into what we were covering that day in the lecture and added to my overall enjoyment of the class. Outside of class, professor Williams is helpful and was happy to answer many of the questions that I had about the course. If you have the opportunity to take this class with professor Williams JUST DO IT.