This may be one of the easiest GE I've ever taken at UCLA, and I wish to write about the whole picture of this class in order to help future generation students who are considering to take this class.
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Grading Distribution: 23% Online Lessons&HWs + 25% Midterm + 40% Final + 12% Discussion Worksheets (6 assignments, 2% for each). This class assigns final grades on an absolute scale (93 = A) with no curve, while the A rate in class is still very high.
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About Online Lessons & HWs & Discussion: For the Online lessons and HWs, the lectures are all asynchronous and pre-recorded, with an interactive form on the website. There are quick questions after each short sub-lecture video, and are very simple. The six discussion assignments are quite easy and short, which just require you to spend less than half an hour for each to complete with your common sense. The five homework assignments are also very straightforward, which you can find all the answers on the internet for both lessons and hws.
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About Midterm and Final Exams: The midterm and final exams are ESSAY-STYLE, 3 hours to complete, instead of traditional exam form. Each exam consists of 4 essay questions, which require you to write for half a page for each. The questions are very very straightforward and easy to answer. Basically, all the exam questions are just asking you to integrate and repeat what you've learned in the lectures and the exam is open book, so I feel like I was just doing the copy from the lecture materials during the exams. Extremely easy to get above 95% in each exam or even full credit. Before the final, the TAs will even conduct review session and pose "review materials ppt" on the website, which from my perspective, they are actually are posing the exact answers of the final exam. Thus, the exams are really just a piece of cake as long as you follow the TAs step and you dont have to spend lots of time to study at all.
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About Professor Li and TAs: Even though the materials are all pre-recorded asynchronous stuff from other professors of previous years and I did not meet with professor Li, still I think Professor Li is a very nice, tolerant, and caring instructor. He is willing to extend the deadlines of the homeworks for a long period of time to adjust for his students' needs. I remember he extended the deadlines of each homework for average about 2-3 weeks (that even cannot be called a deadline), so you have great plenty of time to complete and review. Meanwhile, he was always there to help us solve the technical issue happened on the website. Also, the exam he designed are flexible 3-hour windows, which you can access any time in 2 complete days, to best fit your schedule. Speaking of TAs, I really really love my TA Katie Osborn. She is really nice, caring, professional, and cute. Her discussion session is well organized and her exam review materials are extremely helpful, while she is also very caring, being tolerant about absence. I would say take Katie's discussion session if it is available, and it will be very easy for you to get through the entire quarter in this class.
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Conclusion: Overall, this is a VERY VERY EASY A GE. The high flexibility of the class, easy contents and materials, as well as the great helpful TAs and professor will all help you to get an A in this class. In this class, you can spend the least amount of time to achieve the best grade, so it is absolutely worthy to take this class as a gpa booster.

I took AOS2 as an asynchronous online class, and the class was pretty easy. The work was mainly weekly lecture videos and quiz questions with occasional homework quizzes. The lecture quizzes had unlimited attempts, but the homework quizzes did not. The final was short answer and was graded very easily. It's very easy to do well in this class. Definitely recommend as a GE.

THE BEST CLASS I HAVE TAKEN AT UCLA!!! ALL ASYNC AND SO SO EASY. TRUST ME WHEN I SAY THIS IS THE CLASS TO TAKE. Not only is the professor the nicest person ever, you also learn important and relevant information about LA! The TAs are incredibly accommodating are are lenient with grading and also help you learn the material. I would take this class again in a heartbeat.
(Taken winter 2022)!!

- Professor Li is knowledgeable about the topics taught in this class, which primarily focused on the formation of clouds, aerosols and their effects to the atmosphere, and incoming/outgoing radiation.

- He simplified many of these topics way down and does tell you the bottom line about what is most essential for each one (towards homeworks and tests).

- There were many times where classes were boring, but at times, the topics proved to be very interesting.

- There were 6 homeworks (20% of grade). Initially, some of the problems looked more complicated than others, but he posts hints on the class Facebook page (yes, he uses a group page vs. an ‘unwieldy’ CCLE) and explains them with more detail in discussion (no TA for this class – he leads discussion).

- There was 1 midterm (30%) and a final (40%).

- He provides equation sheet and some hints during tests (though more hints were given during midterm than final).

- The concepts from lectures were focused on more in tests (versus homeworks, where more calculations are performed). Again, he says in lecture the bottom line for each topic, and they’re reflected in tests.

- He cared about student learning, as reflected by mentioning it many times (including stepping away from a job at JPL to become a professor) and his emphasis on student participation.

- Though participation is only 10% of grade, he’s as big a stickler of it as any professor I’ve ever had. He has you sign a sheet into each class and uses that to keep track of every student who attends each class, asks/answers questions, and occasionally calls on those who are quiet.

- Overall, as long as you comprehend the material and do well on the homeworks and tests, you will get a decent grade.

DO NOT take this professor unless you LOVE atmospheric science so so so much. I came to this class with high interest in atmospheric science, but after a quarter, I'm not interested in it anymore. I still don't hate the material, but I hate him so much that this is the worst professor I've ever had.

Lecture: He post lecture slides ahead on Facebook group instead of CCLE. This did not bother me at the beginning, but I feel like checking out CCLE is just way more convenient. He discussed each of his slides very detailedly, but sometimes too detailed to understand what he is talking about. He sometimes used 10 more minutes for analogy to explain some concepts that can be explained within in 2 minutes. His explanation was so long that you get bored very often. There are tons of equations on his slides, and he assumed that everyone mastered in calculus. A lot of the times, his lectures were very very boring, and I just felt like I did not learn anything that could help me solve the problems.

Homework: Homework were math-based, and he walked you through the problems in discussions and office hours. I found them very helpful, but what he taught in the lecture just could not let me do the problems by myself. I recorded his lectures and relistened them for review, but those did not give any help for the homework.

Exam: Open-book midterm and final. These were generally easier than homework and were more concept-based. He was open to questions and he would explain how to do the questions during the final if many people don't know how to do. He also gave out extra time.

Grading: unlike he post below, he post the final grade and it seems like your grade is totally determined by your homework and exams. He took some attendance and said he would give out extra credits to those that showed up, but his words were not revealed on the grade book. He still graded homework depend on whether he likes the person or not. I've seen him being picky about explanations of a calculation question for one person, but giving full credit to a problem with no explanations at all for another person.

Personality: He was generally nice to everyone and hoped to get response during class and willing to help us out, but his arrogance and meanness sometimes really showed up. He despised the fact so much that some Chinese students did not learn some chemistry concepts in their high school. He answered phone calls during lecture and opened the speaker of the calls from Mercedes. Yes, he helped the students so much about homework and exams, but I hate him as a person.

I took this class winter 2022 and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS CLASS! Professor Li is very understanding and is willing to give extensions and extra credit. He always responds quickly to emails in regards of technological issues. Each week consisted of modules, which were accompanied by homework quizzes. You could redo the homework as many times as needed in order to get full credit on the assignments. In addition, our midterm and final format were essay questions that were easy and open note. PLEASE TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR AN EASY G.E, I WOULD GLADLY TAKE THIS CLASS AGAIN!!!

OMG I LOVED THIS CLASS . I TOOK BOTH THE CLASS AND THE LAB for the demo lab ged credits which is why I received an A but I will gladly talk about how everything works below.

CLASS: The class was VERY manageable and professor was very helpful when numerous technological errors were presented . He even extended basically everything so nobody felt stressed. The class being asynchronous and consisted on weekly lectures , not really lectures more like mini videos ranging from 3 to 20 minutes . They open Mondays at 12pm and close the following Monday at 12pm so you get plenty of time. You also have mini questions after each videos which come in handy when talking your midterm and final. Both midterm and final were open note with a 2 day window for your convenience. The exam questions are free response and aren’t hard as long as you take notes (4Q midterm 4Q final).

DISCUSSION: originally the class was asynchronous with in person discussion but with having the first 4 weeks online due to Covid , discussion remained online for the rest of the quarter . My TA was ALY FRIZMANN and she was the best :) she didn’t not grade harshly I got a 92% on the midterm and a 86% on the final . The discussion worksheets were due the following Monday at 11:59 so you had plenty of time. They are also pretty straight forward but sometimes confusing since they are based in that weeks videos and if you were like me you waited til the last days to do them lol . There are only 6 worksheets. ALSO I CAN NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, THE MIDTERM AND FINAL SHEET THEY GIVE YOU IS LIKE GOLD!!

LAB: if you have not taken the demo lab credit I would recommend this class! It’s only 4 labs due every two weeks . The class is out of 1000 points and if you take the lab that’s another 200 for 1200 so your grade would be iur Personally I don’t know how I did on the labs since like I said ccle had a lot of technological errors with everything but they were pretty easy!

RECOMMEND THIS CLASS TO EVERYONE!, EASY GE❤️

This class is EXTREMELY easy, and I cannot recommend it enough. The course consisted of online lessons, homework assignments, discussion section group activities, a midterm exam, and a final. We had a week to complete the online lessons and essentially unlimited tries to get a 100. For a lot of lessons in the beginning, the slides and scripts were posted so you could use those instead of watching the videos. My TA Katie Osborn was an absolute angel. She was so accommodating, adjusted to our needs, and granted extensions to those who needed them. As a whole group, she would help us work through the discussion activities, and we usually would complete them by the end of the section. She also made it extremely clear what she was looking for in her grading of our exams, and she gave us all of the resources necessary to appropriately answer the questions. Overall, I think anyone looking to fulfill science GEs should take this course (especially with Katie Osborn as your TA)!!!
---random side note: this class pairs extremely well with GEOG 5

General: Grade was composed of completing online lessons with questions at the end of each video, homework assignments (based on correctness........ sigh), a midterm, and a final.
Pros:
I genuinely think a lot of the content in this class is not only relevant but really important to know. I took this class thinking that I would not enjoy it at all (was nearly the only GE left) and I was somewhat correct (because learning about atmospheric pollution isn't really interesting to me) but I'm still glad I took the class. The professor always responded to emails and made sure that everything was running smoothly. While they were difficult, the HW and final really made sure that you actually knew the material. The midterm and final are not hard at all, they were open note and five hours to answer four short answer questions. The online format worked well for me because as soon as the lessons for the week opened up on Monday, I would complete them within that day and then not have to worry about the class for the rest of the week (except for discussion and weeks were HW was assigned)
Cons:
Firstly, lectures can get boring sometimes, I took notes to stay engaged but sometimes the things that the professor talked about went super in-depth to the point where I was questioning whether it was really important for us to know (I felt this way in particular when he was talking about the solar system) The questions in between videos were sometimes very specific and I'd have to rewatch the video again even though I took notes just to get the answers. I didn't feel like the discussion section was necessary, I didn't really need a recap of the week's lessons and we did assignments that I thought weren't super helpful. We did the assignment in groups, but because of the online format it was over zoom and ngl I would've been fine doing them on my own and a lot of the time we all just worked in silence. Homework, again, was very difficult and every time everyone would be confused in the GroupMe.
Final thoughts: Just looked at what I've written so far and clearly I do not know the word concise! But yeah, I don't know, I don't think I would recommend this class, but it's doable for sure. I took the lab portion with this class and that was doable as well, but the assignments were definitely time-consuming and sometimes confusing. I think it's important for everyone to learn about atmospheric pollution, and if you've taken APES some of the concepts may be familiar, but this was definitely not my favorite class of this quarter. Sorry for the long review!

Interesting lectures, although I wish the math for some of the equations was explained more. The professor is very helpful during discussion and office hours.