Do yourself a favor and do not take this class. The lectures are boring and redundant. The professor basically reads the words off of his slides with no further explanation. There are 4 homework that total up to 20% of your grade, and they are graded very harshly and my TA did not even explain to me why he took points off of the problems I missed. Most of the material on the homework is math based and in lecture we would be presented some formulas and there would be no explanation as to how to apply them, so basically you're on your own to learn how to do the irrelevant homeworks. The midterm was extremely difficult and not what our TA's told us to study. There was a curve but even so it is not a grade I would like to receive in a GE that I try my best to keep up with and understand. In my discussion my TA is very unenthusiastic and does a horrible job going over what we have learned in lecture, most of the class is bored and does not pay any attention because it is pointless. We did not even learn that our final exam is cumulative until Week 10, giving us a week to go over the whole quarter's lectures. This class is going to bring down my GPA and it is very disappointing because I genuinely was interested to take this class. If you read the course title and are pulled in by the word "policy," don't take this class because policy is only discussed in Week 10. Overall I sincerely regret taking this class and wish I had spent my time taking a more interesting and worthwhile GE.

The reviews that are positive for this class are super misleading, please don't believe them. This class has got to be the most boring class ever and keep in mind, this is an INTRO class yet the prof treats it as if it was a upper-div. Avoid this class, professor, and the TAs if you can. The professor is a nice guy but it doesn't fix how he doesn't care about the students and what they are struggling in. The TAs and prof would take forever to reply and their replies were practically useless. I agree that the professor should be more clear in exams and be more responsible, like how he told us the thursday of week 10 that it would be cumulative. However, a TA said it would be less than 20% cumulative. Clearly, there is no sign of proper communication. Additionally, the TAs told us to study the wrong things for the mid-term.

This is the most boring class I have taken in my life and I just took Math31b and coding classes.

He goes into so much unnecessary detail and requires students to learn EVERYTHING POSSIBLE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT. EVERYTHING. There is NO focus. Each lecture has powerpoints with 50+ slides and each slide is filled with font size 10 text. Also if you wanted to take this because it says "policy", DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. He only talked about policy in week 10 and just conducted a history class.

Homeworks are at least 6 pages long with boring maths and long questions and you need to hand in a physical copy every week. Are we still in the 19th century?

Honestly. I don’t really recommend this class because of the T.A.’s. They aren’t really helpful at all and grade way too harshly. This could be a fun class if it wasn’t for them. most of the T.A.’s deduct points if you get a question wrong l. So let’s say in total you get a 25/31. You can end up getting a 18/31 because you missed the question that was worth 5 points and another that was worth 2. Honestly, this class shouldn’t be a G.E.

This class is not as easy as other reviews make it seem. The TA’s told us to study parts that were not even on the midterm!!! They respond very late to emails, if they even respond back. The wording of all the homework assignments is confusing to understand. Some of it wasn’t even talked about in lecture. The questions on the actual midterm were very hard to understand. You needed to take your time to read each part, and even with that I got a C on it. Please avoid this class if you want to save your GPA.

Bianchi is SUCH a good professor! His lectures are interesting, and tbh the only ones I actually attended this quarter. Its a good/easy GE, and I have no background in climate change studies whatsoever yet I still got an A. There is a midterm and a final, and one homework packet due roughly every two weeks. The tests are doable, and he gives a super generous curve, with a 77% still being an A- ! So definitely take this class if you get the opportunity.

I took this class my first quarter as a first-year, and liked it much more than I thought. Classes pertaining to physical geography were not really my forte, but I heard great things about Professor Bianchi and decided to take it. No regrets, really - it's quite an easy GE with interesting material that is not too hard to cover. Professor Bianchi makes the tests and material easier to digest as well, without too many tedious requirements. His tests consist of multiple-choice and short-answer questions. While some of the multiple choice questions can be slightly tricky, most are easy, and the short answer questions are graded quite leniently so your overall marks will probably be alright. The curve for the class is also pretty generous, so in terms of grades, it's nothing to worry about. Considering my lack of talent in this subject, my grade proves that the professor was really good and the class caters well to beginners :)

Professor Bianchi is great! He's enthusiastic and engaging and posts slides online. His slides say EVERYTHING you need to know. After the midterm people will stop coming to class since the tests (multiple choice and graph free responses) are ENTIRELY based on his power points (where ALL the information is presented). There are also 4 homeworks (which all the steps to do them are labeled so its easy) a midterm and final.

In his class, you go, you listen to him talk nonstop for 1:15hr and then leave. It is clear he likes the subject and he explains it really well. However, you DONT NEED to go to class since the 2 exams (midterm and final) are about the bullet points from his slides (that he posts online before every class and lets them online forever). To do well on his exams just READ all the slides well and memorize the important parts WELL, and know some details (he asks very random details-from the slides- in exams)

Midterm and Final are very similar. Midterm is 25 multiple choice and 3 graphs/free responses. Final is 35 multiple choice and 6 graphs/free responses. To do well on both, MEMORIZE THE SLIDES that's all. Details and non details are important and its the same to listen to those details in class than to read them on the slides so just start studying for both early enough. Midterm was 9 power points and final was another 9 (but some questions were cumulative so basically 18 PP).

To do well on the free response/graph part, you have to UNDERSTAND the homeworks. The homeworks are graphs and he will ask you to identify points in the graph etc so ask TA before handing in homeworks. Will help a lot since understanding the 4 homeworks is CRUCIAL to the free response part in exams.

Finally, suddenly the class is weighted to befeit EVERYONE, so magically I ended having an A- which is a miracle but it was since I did better in the final and because of the weight of grades he gave in the end. GREAT PHYSICAL SCIENCE G.E. If you need lab, do it, its like the homeworks but 4 more and you satisfy your lab requirement.

The class is very interesting and straightforward and the professor is very clear. When I first attended the class I thought it was going to be very boring because his slides were crammed with information and the lecture seemed too long. However, the material is very interesting and well put together, so if you are into the topic you'll like it.
We had 4 homeworks (20%), 1 midterm (35%) and 1 final. The homeworks are really easy, there is little to no math needed and it is easy to get 100% but if you want to be sure just do them before discussion and ask the TA's if you have any questions.
The midterm was also easy. The first half was made up of multiple choice questions; most of them were pretty straightforward, but some people complained about the way they were worded so if you don't understand just ask during the exam. The second half was made up of short answers, they were not as easy, but they were doable if you had an understanding of the concepts.
Overall, an easy A if you attend the lectures, listen and go over the slides. You can totally skip a lecture in this class because you'll probably understand from the slides.