This class is a hit or miss to be honest. Professor Hall is obviously an expert in his area and knowledgeable during office hours, but he basically reads off the slides he puts in class. Only reason I would show up was for the clicker questions. TAs were useless in my opinion, and grading is strict. I felt confident walking out of the midterm and final but I would find myself only earning half the points and it's honestly very frustrating! Do not be deceived by all the positive reviews. This class wasn't what I imagined, just my two cents.

The class was easy to understand, but the tests were HARD. After the first midterm, he asked who felt good about it and 80% said no. He is funny but the lectures are so boring. I had no knowledge of anything and now I feel like I lost what little I knew.

Nothing I would change about this class. Amazing professor and expert on the subject

Only a midterm and final in this class, course material was easy even though the lectures could get boring

Professor Hall is very knowledgeable in this field, and that was made clear pretty early on in the class. However, aside from just reading the lecture slides word-for-word (which are posted online), he does not add very much information in his lectures. Attendance in both lecture and section was not mandatory but I went to every one. Most of all, I feel like the class was made harder than it should have been. Homeworks were somewhat hard to understand without clarification from TAs , and the wording on the midterm/final was tricky, despite Professor Hall claiming he was not out to trick the class. Not incredible hard, but if you really want the A, do someone studying beyond lecture.

First and foremost, let me say that I'm a junior (Economics major) and I took the time to write my first review on Bruinwalk for this class.

With that being said, I took this class to fulfill my science and lab GE. Overall, the class is enjoyable and not very difficult.

Class: The class is honestly straight forward - Professor Hall is a nice guy and teaches the material on the slides. Everything he goes over will be on the slides which ultimately led me not to attend over 3/4 of the lectures. My class was also not podcasted, but if you study the slides or at least review them you should do fine on the midterm and the HW. This class is really not difficult at all - the topics relate to present day issues so if you have some common sense you'll catch on.

Lab: The best thing about this class that the lab section (1L) doesn't require you to come into class. It's basically a homework assignment and you just do it. My TA was also extremely generous in going over the Lab in discussion and basically guiding you through the lab.

Grade: I got an A. If you take this class, you should get an A as well unless you didn't even try.

I am an Econ Major taking AO1 and Lab to meet my GE requirements. With very little science background, I really quite enjoyed this class as Climate Change is currently very pertinent in our society right now.

The lectures are video-recorded so the number of people going to lectures dwindle quite a lot as it gets closer towards the end of the quarter. To succeed in the class (unless you have photographic memory), I do encourage you to attend lectures EVERY WEEK. You do retain knowledge better and participation in class always improves your odds of getting an A in the class.

Dr. Hall is extremely passionate about his subject and is a pioneer/top researcher/expert in the area. He is extremely organized in lectures (excellent powerpoints) and is not one of those professors that just reads off of powerpoints. He is extremely good at explaining things and is also quite patient too (no matter how many times people ask him to explain Hadley Cell again and again and again).

The only downside to Dr. Hall is that his office hours are by appointments only but he usually prefers that you go up to him after lectures to ask your questions. So you have to compete with 4 or 5 other people after lectures in order to ask your questions. I definitely wish he was more available. He can be quite intimidating to approach at first because he is a highly intelligent individual but slowly, you will find that he can be quite shy and is not at all discouraging to students asking questions (educated questions, not questions like, "what's on the test...")

I ended with A- in the class. It is curved but it is curved because the Midterm and the Final are quite difficult so the absolute grades in the class are quite low. Nevertheless, if you're a good students, attend all classes, all discussions, and office hours, I don't see why an A is not attainable.

Most definitely recommend this class. I love it so much that I'm going to take A & O 2 next fall.

Professor Hall is VERY enthusiastic about what he does. I found lecture to be very interesting! There is no textbook, which is a plus. But that also means that you will have to study the slides for the tests. I would highly suggest taking the lab component with him and getting it out of the way, because I found it to be very easy. Overall, a great class. Take it if you get a chance!

Really a passionate professor who cares about his students and their understanding of the material. Probably one of the best classes I have taken at UCLA. The lab assignments and the readings were very reasonable, and the lectures followed very closely with what was on his exams. Discussion was somewhat repetitive and tedious, but it effectively gave away the answers to exams to those who went. If you go to class and pay attention, you should have no problem mastering the material.