Professor
Victoria Sork
1 of 2
AD
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - The subject matter of this class was interesting and focused a lot on real world application through real case studies and conservation methods. Throughout the quarter, Professor Sork built upon concepts so that I felt like I had a well-rounded grasp on the material by the end of the course. Sometimes the lectures could be a little confusing and scattered, but the professor was super open to questions at any time and tried her best to understand the student point of view. Office hours were useful for any questions as well. The class was small which was very conducive to discussion, and discussion sections were very helpful for reviewing and expanding on material. Quizzes each week were quick but required some thought. There was one case study reflection paper due with a straightforward rubric. The exams were not too difficult, although the some regrading/post-exam question changes were made because some questions were not worded correctly/fairly -- but at the end of the day, Prof. Sork did her best to be fair and understand student performance. Workload was really not bad. The textbook was a bit wordy but useful to skim read before lectures or tests. Maybe not the best class to take if ecology/conservation/genetics don't interest you, but if it does, I recommend!
Winter 2024 - The subject matter of this class was interesting and focused a lot on real world application through real case studies and conservation methods. Throughout the quarter, Professor Sork built upon concepts so that I felt like I had a well-rounded grasp on the material by the end of the course. Sometimes the lectures could be a little confusing and scattered, but the professor was super open to questions at any time and tried her best to understand the student point of view. Office hours were useful for any questions as well. The class was small which was very conducive to discussion, and discussion sections were very helpful for reviewing and expanding on material. Quizzes each week were quick but required some thought. There was one case study reflection paper due with a straightforward rubric. The exams were not too difficult, although the some regrading/post-exam question changes were made because some questions were not worded correctly/fairly -- but at the end of the day, Prof. Sork did her best to be fair and understand student performance. Workload was really not bad. The textbook was a bit wordy but useful to skim read before lectures or tests. Maybe not the best class to take if ecology/conservation/genetics don't interest you, but if it does, I recommend!
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - Dr. Sork was a good teacher on the field trips we went on, and I like her overall ideas for the class and its goals. She does not have sufficient knowledge of plants to lead the field visits though, and I wish she was more proficient so we could actually learn plant identification. Additionally, the lectures were poorly planned, felt scattered, and not always relevant to field trips. The transect data collection was disorganized throughout the whole quarter. We should've gone over how to do transects in class before starting. We should've been given the Excel table to input our transects after the first field trip, so we had a template as we collected data over the rest of the quarter. It made the end of the quarter more difficult because we never knew what the final format of our data needed to be. She waited for Diego to figure things out for her instead of leading the class. The final exam about ecosystems is extremely long and tedious, at least we had it early in the quarter. The final data transect report should've been a group paper. If our data within our group was always the same, we should've been able to collaborate on the paper. I overall thought the idea of this class was amazing. It has the potential to teach practical field skills, allow students to gain a deeper understanding of plants and their ecosystems, and create an enjoyable field class. I think tweaks to instruction could make this the best class students take at UCLA.
Spring 2024 - Dr. Sork was a good teacher on the field trips we went on, and I like her overall ideas for the class and its goals. She does not have sufficient knowledge of plants to lead the field visits though, and I wish she was more proficient so we could actually learn plant identification. Additionally, the lectures were poorly planned, felt scattered, and not always relevant to field trips. The transect data collection was disorganized throughout the whole quarter. We should've gone over how to do transects in class before starting. We should've been given the Excel table to input our transects after the first field trip, so we had a template as we collected data over the rest of the quarter. It made the end of the quarter more difficult because we never knew what the final format of our data needed to be. She waited for Diego to figure things out for her instead of leading the class. The final exam about ecosystems is extremely long and tedious, at least we had it early in the quarter. The final data transect report should've been a group paper. If our data within our group was always the same, we should've been able to collaborate on the paper. I overall thought the idea of this class was amazing. It has the potential to teach practical field skills, allow students to gain a deeper understanding of plants and their ecosystems, and create an enjoyable field class. I think tweaks to instruction could make this the best class students take at UCLA.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - So this is for her EE BIOL C146 class.... Where to start? When there was a shooting threat and UCLA canceled classes, she still held in person classes and when I emailed her about it, she said not to worry because the classroom was in "a remote part of campus." When we were on zoom, her lectures were very confusing and she frequently lost her trail of thought to the point where you think, "what did she even say?" This would also happen in person, which was even harder to deal with because she wouldn't record the lectures. If the TA wasn't in the zoom lecture, you can kiss that recording goodbye because she would just straight up leave the zoom and one of students would become the host lol. The midterm was also extremely long and almost everyone talked about how they left an entire essay (of 2) blank. There was also a few dozen mpc. with the 2 essays. The textbook was also pricey and you couldn't get by using the previous edition because the quiz's questions were completely derived from examples in the new edition. Also expect a lot of regrades on the quizzes. Her and the TA would mess up the answers so many times. Unless she changes the structure of the class, I'd skip!
Winter 2022 - So this is for her EE BIOL C146 class.... Where to start? When there was a shooting threat and UCLA canceled classes, she still held in person classes and when I emailed her about it, she said not to worry because the classroom was in "a remote part of campus." When we were on zoom, her lectures were very confusing and she frequently lost her trail of thought to the point where you think, "what did she even say?" This would also happen in person, which was even harder to deal with because she wouldn't record the lectures. If the TA wasn't in the zoom lecture, you can kiss that recording goodbye because she would just straight up leave the zoom and one of students would become the host lol. The midterm was also extremely long and almost everyone talked about how they left an entire essay (of 2) blank. There was also a few dozen mpc. with the 2 essays. The textbook was also pricey and you couldn't get by using the previous edition because the quiz's questions were completely derived from examples in the new edition. Also expect a lot of regrades on the quizzes. Her and the TA would mess up the answers so many times. Unless she changes the structure of the class, I'd skip!
1 of 2
