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 :)

Simply but, this class was fun and easy. I took AP environmental science in High school which definitely made this course easier. I took it with the lab so I had 1 hw assignment a week that would take 2-3 hours to complete. That's it. I studied for the midterm/ final by reading over his slides. That's it. Keep in mine I attended every lecture and discussion (but you don't really have to because slides are posted for lecture, and you don't need to go to discussion). The course material is interesting, applicable, and important in our lives today.

Bianchi is a super sweet/smiley guy.
My TA Victor Pinto was super friendly and sweet too.

Labs are super hard and do not correlate at all with the class. I asked for help (both the prof and the TA) and I got nothing but to review the slides. The slides do not even give examples of the assignments nor anything helpful. Overall, a waste of time. This is not an easy lab nor an easy class. I believed the reviews on bruinwalk and they were a complete lie (as usual). The Professor is nice but it does not make up for the lack of help he can provide nor how vague he is when it comes to explaining anything. The TA was the least helpful out of everyone. In fact, all the TAs for this class are moody, snobby and rude in general. I wish I hadn't taken this class.

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 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?

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.

I would never take this lab had i known how hard it would be. I would not recommend this lab and if possible, take a different class. The assignments were so difficult and confusing and they were graded so harshly, yet, the TAs nor the professor would take the time to help you when you would ask. My TA would always just make me feel dumb, like when I would have a question he would say "Well the information is there so I don't understand the need to ask a question about it." Like bro? You want to be a teacher yet can't even answer a tiny question. Ridiculous.

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.

While coming to class isn't necessary as slides are posted online, I would recommend going. I went to all of the lectures, did the 4 homework assignments, and went to about half of the discussions and got high "A"s on both the midterm and the final without additional studying. There are no readings. The curve is very generous.