Professor
Park Williams
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - I took this class for an easy GE course that seemed like it might be interesting. For the most part, I agree with past reviews. The subject material itself is entry level and straightforward making for relatively easy exams. Professor Williams is a very engaging lecturer and it’s clear how passionate he is about the subject and sharing his knowledge with others. The lectures are not necessarily mandatory as the professor does not take attendance and the slides are posted. However, I would recommend attending the lectures anyway as they are far more informative than the slides alone and were actually very engaging and interesting. This course counts for lab credit but the labs are basically just fifty minute discussions. The only thing that ruined this class was my TA. Beware of the possibility of Joan as your TA. Not only is she condescending and very unconcerned with the success and understanding of her students, but she almost never has any semblance of an understanding of the material she is supposed to be explaining to us. Any questions asked in sections were either met with the longest, most irrelevant response that didn’t actually pertain to the question, or with a simple “I don’t know” followed by her asking us if anyone else knew the answer. She would say multiple times in a day that she didn’t understand a concept from lecture and would have to google it later. To be perfectly honest, it seemed like she was learning the material in lectures with us, in which case she should be taking the class not teaching it. Furthermore, she was tasked with grading our assignments, each worth ten percent of our grade, and she did so in an unbelievably harsh manner considering that she could not answer the questions herself. By no means should this discourage you from taking the course as Professor Williams is one of my favorite professors and his office hours make up for her lack of help, just be warned Joan will do her best to mark you down for as much as she can.
Winter 2025 - I took this class for an easy GE course that seemed like it might be interesting. For the most part, I agree with past reviews. The subject material itself is entry level and straightforward making for relatively easy exams. Professor Williams is a very engaging lecturer and it’s clear how passionate he is about the subject and sharing his knowledge with others. The lectures are not necessarily mandatory as the professor does not take attendance and the slides are posted. However, I would recommend attending the lectures anyway as they are far more informative than the slides alone and were actually very engaging and interesting. This course counts for lab credit but the labs are basically just fifty minute discussions. The only thing that ruined this class was my TA. Beware of the possibility of Joan as your TA. Not only is she condescending and very unconcerned with the success and understanding of her students, but she almost never has any semblance of an understanding of the material she is supposed to be explaining to us. Any questions asked in sections were either met with the longest, most irrelevant response that didn’t actually pertain to the question, or with a simple “I don’t know” followed by her asking us if anyone else knew the answer. She would say multiple times in a day that she didn’t understand a concept from lecture and would have to google it later. To be perfectly honest, it seemed like she was learning the material in lectures with us, in which case she should be taking the class not teaching it. Furthermore, she was tasked with grading our assignments, each worth ten percent of our grade, and she did so in an unbelievably harsh manner considering that she could not answer the questions herself. By no means should this discourage you from taking the course as Professor Williams is one of my favorite professors and his office hours make up for her lack of help, just be warned Joan will do her best to mark you down for as much as she can.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - I love Professor Williams! Hands down one of my favorite physical geography classes I have ever taken at UCLA. He is very passionate about what he is teaching. The figures on the slides are mostly made by himself, which makes it even more impressive. I have learned much about climate science and gained more appreciation for it. Even though I was trained to be a more human geographer, this class is A MUST if you are a geography major. The workload is reasonable with weekly lab questions (4-5 questions based on the lectures), a midterm, and a final. The exams are reasonable, and lab questions help you understand and learn the materials better. The textbook is helpful but unnecessary since it will cover everything in the slides anyway, but exploring more within the topics is good. The lecture attendance is not mandatory, but it is vital to fully understand the materials since the slides can be very bare bones. During my quarter, he also recorded the lecture, but it is not guaranteed that the video might be of good quality. The order of the lecture topics makes a lot of sense, building on one another and expanding my knowledge of this discipline. Overall, I enjoyed the class a lot and would recommend it to anyone interested in this field, especially to those majoring in geography, of course!
Spring 2023 - I love Professor Williams! Hands down one of my favorite physical geography classes I have ever taken at UCLA. He is very passionate about what he is teaching. The figures on the slides are mostly made by himself, which makes it even more impressive. I have learned much about climate science and gained more appreciation for it. Even though I was trained to be a more human geographer, this class is A MUST if you are a geography major. The workload is reasonable with weekly lab questions (4-5 questions based on the lectures), a midterm, and a final. The exams are reasonable, and lab questions help you understand and learn the materials better. The textbook is helpful but unnecessary since it will cover everything in the slides anyway, but exploring more within the topics is good. The lecture attendance is not mandatory, but it is vital to fully understand the materials since the slides can be very bare bones. During my quarter, he also recorded the lecture, but it is not guaranteed that the video might be of good quality. The order of the lecture topics makes a lot of sense, building on one another and expanding my knowledge of this discipline. Overall, I enjoyed the class a lot and would recommend it to anyone interested in this field, especially to those majoring in geography, of course!
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