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!

For reference I am a Poli Sci and Geography double major with a 4.0 GPA.

Pros: the class is somewhat interesting and the professor is quite engaging and I have no problem with his explanations during lectures.
- the tricky content is slightly outweighed by Park as a good professor

Cons:
1) TAs are an issue - this class is extremely TA dependent and what you get on assignments, which all add up to be 40% of your grade (4 assignments, 10% ea.), depends on your TA - I had a TA called Joan - and not only was she incompetent with the material, she was also an extremely harsh grader for someone who needs to google half the questions I ask her in section = conclusion: assignments are fine and not an extreme workload - but the grading really depends on your TA
2) Tricky tests and exams - this was in my opinion one of the heavier content classes out of my 3 this quarter of which I have spent a good amount of time studying and preparing for and still ended up with a B+ as a final grade - so my tip would be to study hard. [Midterm 17%, Final 33%]
3) Lectures aren't recorded - although he might have changed this towards the end of this quarter - it was extremely unhelpful at the start since he only started doing this Week 9.

Things to look out for/tips:
- Be SPECIFIC in your answers in your assignments and pay attention to the question - assignment grades are more important in the LR than you think!
- Pick a good TA (anyone but Joan)
- study ahead for midterm and final - they're worth 50% of your grade combined
- go to lectures and LISTEN - he often says stuff that aren't written on the PPTs

If you don't need to take this class and have other options, I would recommend perhaps entertaining those first and use this class as a last resort. And if you really need this class for a major requirement - I bid you good luck.

I agree with all of the reviews below. Professor Williams is a great professor. His lectures are very engaging, his review sessions are helpful, and he overall understands the material very well. HOWEVER. I was also one unfortunate enough to have Joan as my TA which made this class much less enjoyable as I was docked for the tiniest mistakes on my assignments or for not using the right words or missing small details that weren’t even required. The discussions were mandatory- but not complaining because it counted as a lab credit with no extra work whatsoever. But sitting through a mandatory 5pm discussion while Joan barely understands the material herself and makes every concept 10x more confusing was not very fun. This is definitely an easy lab GE with a great professor, but watch out for the TAs. I’m pretty sure they all graded harshly but Joan was just another level of harsh. There were only 4 assignments with about 10 questions each so not completely unmanageable but when the grading is so harsh and specific it is much more time consuming.

I'm a geography major, and I took this class as one of my final prerequisites. I enjoyed the material, and Prof. Williams is a nice guy with a genuine passion for the subject. I agree with the reviews on the TAs for this quarter; they were not good graders. I didn't have Joan (sorry to all the people who did), but even so, my TA did not go over how they wanted the answers written and took off a lot of points for not using specific words, even though they commented how my answers were generally correct. Would I take a class with Prof. Park again? Yes, but I do hope the geography TAs figure out the grading. I don't know if they have trauma from some of them working with Dr. Illes in the past, but even her classes had easygoing assignments and were not harshly graded. All this is to say that Professor Williams is a good professor; don't let the reviews discourage you from taking a class with him, but definitely check out the TAs before taking one of his GE classes.

wanted to give my two cents as I study for the final... Professor Williams is amazing, a great lecturer and super helpful. It is clear he is very passionate about the subject and I enjoyed attending his class. However, I agree with the recent reviews that the TAs were lowkey awful. Mine was nice but the assignment grading was incredibly harsh despite the lack of specification of what was wanted (on every assignment I would get .25 off like 20 times for not using a specific word that wasn't required or for not saying exactly what the TA wanted despite still being correct/answering what was needed). I think that the assignments either need to be adjusted or the TAs just need to realize that this is a GE class and its not that serious. Overall the content is generally not too difficult to grasp, definitely attend lectures and take good notes, not too difficult of a GE but tbh choose your TA carefully.

Professor Williams is a great lecturer and the content of this class is very interesting. However, the optional textbook doesn't really align very well with the topics he covers/wants us to understand, so the lectures are really our only materials. Since Prof. Williams didn't begin uploading lecture videos until around week 8, I had to audio record every lecture myself and spend way too long after class making sure I had every detail right. Also, my TA, Joan, sort of seemed like she was learning the material with us because she often didn't know how to answer students' questions during discussion. The TAs also imposed unreasonable grading criteria on our homework, often expecting our (written, open-ended) answers to precisely match the sample answers that Professor Williams provided them. This often meant losing points for writing a perfectly acceptable explanation when it differed from how the sample answer approached it.

TAs ARE WAY TOO HARSH!!!!! For context, I have a 4.0 and have taken many GEs at this point but none have made me as mad as this class. I also never write Bruinwalk reviews but I think some of these reviews are misleading. While there is not much homework or work to do in general besides the assignments, the assignments are graded SOOOO harshly, expecting you to know every little supporting detail (even when the question doesn't specifically ask) or points will be deducted. And it is a big deal because each assignment is worth 10% of your whole grade. My TA also just does not know what she's talking about most of the time and always asks us to help her answer a question. This is also upsetting because discussion sections are MANDATORY and it just feels like a complete waste of time at 8am. It also makes me so mad because I just know if she had to do the assignments she would definitely not get an A according to the ridiculous rubric. Overall, I just want the TAs to get off their high horse and realize this GE is not that serious. I do like Williams as a professor, but the TAs of this class have really left a bad taste in my mouth that I felt compelled to write a negative review before the class is even done.

If you are reading this as you are trying to decide if you should take this class from Spring quarter, do not. Do me favor, look at the date this review was posted, notice how the review was posted BEFORE the quarter is even over? Yeah exactly, that should tell you what you need to know. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. LOOK THE OTHER WAY. DONT FALL FOR THESE REVIEWS FULL OF LIES. Up to this point I have been so full of anxiety because I don't know where my grade stands in this class. Park is an amazing professor, very clear answers, very knowledgable and will answer any questions you have. The TAs? yeah no. I don't know where he chose these TAs from but they are horrible they grade super harshly, and oh my god, Joan does NOT know what she is talking about half of the time!!! When she is asked a question in section, she looks at students for the answer or says "I will have to google that." I don't understand how she got the position, must have been nepotism. The assignments are worth 40% of our grade, Joan marks you down for anything she can, at the beginning of the quarter the TAs sent out a list of everything they would be deducting points for (it was the smallest and craziest things.) Considering that the assignments are graded so harshly, you would think they would help with the homework, but no. They won't even look at your answers to make sure the answer is up to their standards before you submit the assignment. I don't know how they expect us to meet their standards if they won't help. Again, run away from this class until there are better TAs. Don't think twice about dropping, if you are reading this it is probably to late to even drop, so I wish you the best. For the Midterm study his blue font questions and the red font terms. Park holds office hours which get full near the exam dates, he answers all of the questions you might have, and will go over the answer until you understand, he is super chill, again I don't know how he found these TAs if he is so chill. k overall, NOT AN EASY GE. Take GEOG 5 instead.

This professor is very clear, and has good slides. For the midterm, you should just review the slides and understand those thoroughly. HOWEVER, the 40% of the grade is composed of 4 homework assignments which TA's grade. Be warned of Joan. Majority of discussions she needs student's help or to correct her teaching because she doesn't even know what she's talking about. On top of that, she thinks we are in some high level class and grades the assignments SO harsh. So I guess if you have a good TA, you will be fine. But if you have Joan, or any TA on a high horse, you will be screwed. Like the other reviews from Winter 2025, I have never been compelled to write a review before the class is even over. But LITERALLY do not trust these "very easy GE" . THE TAs ARE SO BAD. PARK IS AMAZING HIS STAFF IS NOT.

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.