Professor
Alvar Escriva Bou
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - I would not recommend this class. To preface, he is such a sweet, respectful and kind guy. A really great person, but I just really hated the class. This class is challenging. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. 90% of us who enrolled in this class have a background in Environmental Science or some form of political humanities (i.e. Labor Studies, Political Science, Public Affairs, etc…) and I am assuming you are trying to take this class to fulfill your Environmental major/minor requirement. So, when he hit us with the CIVIL ENGINEERING math equations we were stunned. And let me tell you about the homeworks: The homeworks are HARD. The homeworks are very hard. The homeworks have collectively robbed me of my soul. I lie at night every night wondering where it all went wrong. Each homework assignment took me 10-15+ hours to complete and I worked on it everyday for a week and I barely got a 70% on any one of them. To put it into perspective, our first homework assignment had a class average of 63%. He also cannot teach. It hurts me to say this because he is such a nice guy, and he is genuinely so sweet and kind, but he cannot teach. Sometimes he will say something and then never finish his sentence. I guess he wants you to use your imagination to fill the rest in, I don’t know. Or, he will just repeat the same sentence over and over again. One time he sent us a video explanation on how to do a homework problem and towards the end went “oops, no this is wrong, I made a mistake.” You’re telling me I just sat through 20 min of wrong explanation? Why send the video then? He also explains concepts so briefly then expects us to understand it somehow. I thought we were learning about water management, aquifers, canals, and dams (and we do!) but we also have an insane workload. The workload for this class is a bone to pick with. Assigned readings twice a week and 1-2 discussion posts per week, an individual presentation that robbed me an entire weekend, a final group project, quizzes, homeworks, surveys… The only reason I ended with an A+ is because I think enough students complained that he curved homework and gave us two EC opportunities. So, hopefully he does the same for you. We don't have any exams. Just a final group project which he grades fairly. Overall a really nice guy, but a really not nice class.
Fall 2023 - I would not recommend this class. To preface, he is such a sweet, respectful and kind guy. A really great person, but I just really hated the class. This class is challenging. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. 90% of us who enrolled in this class have a background in Environmental Science or some form of political humanities (i.e. Labor Studies, Political Science, Public Affairs, etc…) and I am assuming you are trying to take this class to fulfill your Environmental major/minor requirement. So, when he hit us with the CIVIL ENGINEERING math equations we were stunned. And let me tell you about the homeworks: The homeworks are HARD. The homeworks are very hard. The homeworks have collectively robbed me of my soul. I lie at night every night wondering where it all went wrong. Each homework assignment took me 10-15+ hours to complete and I worked on it everyday for a week and I barely got a 70% on any one of them. To put it into perspective, our first homework assignment had a class average of 63%. He also cannot teach. It hurts me to say this because he is such a nice guy, and he is genuinely so sweet and kind, but he cannot teach. Sometimes he will say something and then never finish his sentence. I guess he wants you to use your imagination to fill the rest in, I don’t know. Or, he will just repeat the same sentence over and over again. One time he sent us a video explanation on how to do a homework problem and towards the end went “oops, no this is wrong, I made a mistake.” You’re telling me I just sat through 20 min of wrong explanation? Why send the video then? He also explains concepts so briefly then expects us to understand it somehow. I thought we were learning about water management, aquifers, canals, and dams (and we do!) but we also have an insane workload. The workload for this class is a bone to pick with. Assigned readings twice a week and 1-2 discussion posts per week, an individual presentation that robbed me an entire weekend, a final group project, quizzes, homeworks, surveys… The only reason I ended with an A+ is because I think enough students complained that he curved homework and gave us two EC opportunities. So, hopefully he does the same for you. We don't have any exams. Just a final group project which he grades fairly. Overall a really nice guy, but a really not nice class.
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