Honestly, this was an APES class with a little bit more work. That's all. Really not difficult material. Professor Cavanaugh clearly loves what he does and I appreciated how he laid out this course in COVID times, as I was able to pace myself with the recorded lectures and such. Also LOVED the absence of tests and quizzes, I actually felt like I could learn without stressing over a test grade. The workload itself isn't too bad but in conjunction with other classes it did sometimes get annoying, so try to turn things in early. My TA (Furnaro) really engaged with us, too. Note that medical notes are required for discussion absences to be excused.

This class was actually a bit more difficult than I expected. It was mostly because of the workload as opposed to the actual difficulty in terms of the material. You have to do a lot of work every week and the final paper takes a lot of time, but if you do all the work you should get an A easily enough. My TA was pretty harsh on participation and it kinda screwed me, but overall not a bad GE.

This class had me working a lot. I would spend most of my time on the labs which would end up being over 1000 words long until my TA asked for the max to be 750 words. I think the TAs were all grading a bit harsh on the labs because the professor set up a strict rubric for them to follow and since we didn't get a midterm, this fell on the labs. The readings would also sometimes be really long. I started to skim the readings towards the end of the quarter and I still did good on the quizzes. Participation is important. My TA would mark every time we talked in class and that made it a bit difficult because everyone in the class was trying to get a word in for a 50 minute class with group activities. Despite all of the work, I enjoyed the course and I do recommend it if you're interested in the subject. It might not be an easy GE if that is what you are looking for.

This class is very engaging, especially if you have any interest in climate change or environmental justice. The course is composed of pre-recorded lectures (I've never seen the professor in a live call, though he does host OH for those interested), assigned textbook readings, and often a short article related to the week's content. Everything is provided at the start of the week for students to complete on their own time. I would describe the course as easy, though there is a fair amount of work to be done, mostly in the form of weekly "lab" assignments due at the end of the weekend, which generally take a few hours to do. The workload is still nothing to worry about though, you can get all of the reading and lecture notes done in a day if you wanted and then spend a few hours on the weekend doing the lab assignment. The only assessments are weekly quizzes, which we are given 2 attempts at and are directly based off of the reading and lecture materials. My TA (Sammy) was fantastic and the discussion sections did a good job of further exploring the week's lessons by applying them to the real world or taking on different perspectives.
Overall this course was engaging and interesting; I feel like I'm truly taking away valuable knowledge from it. It's fairly easy too provided you have some time to spend actually studying the course content and focusing for a few hours on completing the weekly assignments. I would recommend it for anyone looking for a solid GE.

I took this course online asynchronously, and my main reflection is that the TA will make or break this course. As for the professor, his lectures are very clear and interesting, and the material is very easy (most of it was review of concepts I had learned throughout high school). However, my TA was very strict, marking down our participation grades if we didn't get the chance to speak during discussion section even if we attended, and grading the weekly labs unnecessarily harshly to ensure not everyone would get an A. I also found the weekly work very time consuming, with a discussion post, quiz on a chapter of reading and an hour or so of videos, and a lab/essay due every week. There was a final paper instead of a final exam, which was nice.

I would say the course itself is not so difficult. There’s no midterms or finals, just a final essay. However, the weekly workload can be heavy as a GE course. You need to watch all videos posted, read a lot from the textbook, submit a discussion post, do a kind of tricky quiz, and submit a lab work ( an essay around 750 words) EACH WEEK! That’s a lot to me. Also, your ta can grade a little bit differently on your lab work. Overall, it’s easy and fun. Just too much work.