Overall pretty easy GE class, felt like a high school class tbh. Lab participation is mandatory, but It's just group work that you'll always get 100% in as long as you do it. The class itself is asynchronous, which was pretty nice. All you had to do each week was watch 4-5 25-50 min lectures and create 3 questions with answers for each lecture.

The structure of the class is good and manageable, the only thing I didn't really enjoy was the professor and how she lectured and created her midterm/final. Illesburg was lowkey annoying in her lectures because it felt like all she did was rant in the recordings, but its tolerable if you skip past her rants. The midterm wasn't that bad, I got around an 87% even though she changed her test structure from 90 MCQ to 85 MCQ and 5 short answer questions. She also changed the structure of the final to be around 40 MCQ and 10 short answer questions because the class voted to have more free response, which didn't work in my favor because I forgot a lot of stuff and didn't have 4 options to choose from.

I didn't take this class that seriously, as I didn't watch the lectures thoroughly until the last couple of weeks leading up to the midterm and did fine thanks to my friend's notes combined with 2x speed. My advice to pass this class would be to work together with your lab group to make notes from recorded lectures and study it thoroughly before the exams.

I don’t know if I can necessarily recommend this class. This class is an online class with a required in person lab once a week. The labs and homework assignments are so easy and you will likely get 100% on all of them. The tests, however, are pretty difficult. A lot of people did really badly on the midterm because we were given no information on what to study and what content would be on the exam. To do well on the tests, you basically need to memorize everything the prof says in all the lecture videos. Every stat, fact, and random statement is fair game to be on the exam. Overall, this class is definitely not the easiest GE you could take, but is doable.

I thought that this class was really engaging and enjoyed Dr. Illes's lectures. I liked that it was online/async and we could watch the lecture videos on our own schedule. The TAs run the in-person labs and exams, so you will never see Dr. Illes unless you go to her office hours. I loved my TA which made the labs enjoyable. You really need to take notes about every single thing in the lectures because you will be tested on it. There were some questions on the midterm that felt a little tricky, leaving not one person to get a 100%. Since many people did badly in the midterm, she decided to make the final easier. The workload was manageable, but if you take this class in the fall, keep in mind that the biggest workload will be over Thanksgiving break; you will have a group project/presentation that requires on campus work outside of class and you will have a lot of homework due. Overall I enjoyed this class and would enroll in another class of hers again, especially if it were online. Another piece of advice is to make flashcards as you go, so you don’t end up having to cram study at the last minute. One last thing: there was no textbook! I enjoyed this because my other classes were loaded with reading, so this was a nice break from that.

Do NOT take geog 5 with Lilia Illes. I enrolled in this class with the hubris of a cs major having survived being egged. Surely the only professor with such terrible bruinwalk scores on a renowned easy GE is not that much of a red flag?

That are demanding professors with ridiculous workload. There are professors who give tough exams. There are disorganized professors. Like the powerpuff girls Illes is the combination of all of the above.

To start off with the class structure: all lectures are on bruinlearn with a 2 hour lab a week. Grades are initially 30% lab, 30% midterms, 30% finals and 10% weekly assignments. I say initially as after the midterm grades came out, where the average was around a c-, rather than curving it or even giving extra credit like a normal human being, she gave everyone the option of converting to a scheme where their finals count double. Not the best of the 2 schemes, you either stick with your terrible midterm grade or risk it all with the finals. I pass/failed the class right after.

Here are some highlights of this class:

No textbook: Sounds great, until you realized that she recorded the lectures and created the exams in previous quarters when there was a textbook.

Disorganized lectures: the lectures are highly disorganized with little in structure. She seems to think herself as one of those ted talk people and refuse to have detailed slides. Except she is not one of those ted talk people. And she still expects you to know the details (oh, and there is no textbook!). It makes you realize that those lecturers who just read off the words words words on their slides are not all that bad. Of course she does not give out lecture notes either.

Heavy workload: about 4 hours worth of those lectures a week. Sounds easy? Well if you want scrape by with even a b you have to take down every minute detail of the lecture because of the exams. The weekly assignments is a strange affair asking us to craft "university level questions" for full credit, "good questions" only gets 2/3 of the marks. It is really unnecessarily stressful.

Ridiculous exams: the exams are multiple choice and short answers. This seems easy until you see the content of the questions. For example, one of the question asked for the exact number of plastic bottles consumed by the average American each year, a number that came out once in the lectures as an offhand comment. This is some extreme level of rote memorization. However, you can argue that that's fair game. What is not fair is that some of the questions tested on content that was not on the lecture (and she specifically said that only content in the lecture will be tested). She probably recycled those questions from years ago without caring that the lectures have changed.

Finally, a personal point: she gives off the air of an extremely condescending and arrogant person. This would be fine if she knows what she is talking about, but comes off quite bad when she doesn't. Just recently she insisted that the common cold has been the most deadly strain of corona virus. This would have been pretty funny had she been a politician.

This class would have been more unbearable had it not been for our amazing TAs seemingly reining in the worst of this class. The nonsense with "university level questions" was struck down to full credit as long as we showed effort in our work, and the labs were graded really leniently.

Why did I write this review before the class has even ended? Well, it is because right as I am about to go home for Thanksgiving, i saw an amazing 5 hours worth of lectures on bruinwalk waiting for me. This is on top of assigning labwork OVER the Thanksgiving break. What an amazing person. This is my first written bruinwalk review after all this time in ucla. Learn from my mistake. Do not take this class.

Alright class, fun professor. Got a book to sell (2nd edition) for less than $10. Text me at **********!

pros:
* prof Illes is extremely helpful and nice.
* class material is very intriguing, and prof lectures in a very engaging way
* wildlife from the wildlife learning center was invited over during the last lecture (WE GOT TO SEE A BABY SLOTH)
cons:
* participation is not mandatory, but prof does not upload slides or anything. If you do not attend the class, you are on your own to obtain class notes.
* prof does not allow late work, no matter the circumstances.

Grading:
Weekly papers: 10% (one-page analytical analysis of readings. Remember to follow the instructions on formatting)
Introduced species paper: 30% + 5% (6 pages SINGLE SPACED) (This is not that hard, but do start early. She does not grade this harshly. You still need to put a lot of time and effort into this though)
Midterm: 25%
Final: 30%
Exams are hard (the median was 74/100 for the final and 82.9 for the midterm). Prof tends to ask questions on the fine details. Remember to review thoroughly and spend more time on the essay questions. Writing more for the essay questions will only do you good (and always read the prompt multiple times and answer every single thing she asks for)

Overall, not an easy A class, but you do get to learn a lot (AND WE GOT TO SEE A BABY SLOTH CLOSE-UP OMG)

The actual content of the class was very interesting, but the professor made it very difficult to learn. Lectures were difficult to follow along because the slides were minimal and did not correspond well with what the professor was teaching. Even though I sat near the front I had trouble understanding and hearing because of the mask muffling and no microphone. The weekly quizzes always had at least one misworded or incorrect answer so every week students had to email the TAs about changing the quiz. The midterm had so many typos I couldn't even understand what the question was asking at times, and they were highly specific. To get an A you practically had to memorize specific quotes from the book or something the professor said once in lecture. It felt as if the goal was to try and trick us through oddly worded questions and answers rather than to test our knowledge on the concepts learned. Everything felt very disorganized and thrown together last minute.

Not an easy A. The midterm and final will surprise you with specific material that you don't remember learning about. That being said, she's an alright professor. Lectures were mildly interesting and she seems pretty nice/funny.

This class is NOT an easy A with her. She asks ridiculously detailed questions that she mentions(?) in class. The material isn't hard but she words the problems in her midterm and finals weirdly, making them impossible. I wouldn't take this class again. I also felt that she was unnecessarily rude to her students. On the plus side, her lectures were entertaining.

I've already rated the professor, so I'm just rating the course. I definitely recommend it. I learned SO much about Eastern and Sub-Saharan Africa. There are a plethora of issues going on in these areas that I knew nothing about and I felt very enlightened about world issues by the end of 10 weeks. She has spent a lot of time in African countries, so it's cool to hear her two cents about certain regions as well. For example, during her lecture on elephants when she was talking about how people often treat them like horses when it comes to riding them she said rather nonchalantly that the only time she's ever ridden an elephant was in Nepal to get across rapids.

I got an A in the class and didn't feel like it was an overwhelming effort. I definitely recommend it to Environmental Studies and IDS majors.