This review is for GEOG 182A - Introduction to Remote Sensing, not Spanish South America. I took this summer class, and Gillespie was the instructor of record, but it was taught by a PhD student (Emelly Ortiz-Villa), who was great! I honestly recommend taking this class over the summer rather than the regular quarters (fall, winter, or spring) because it is way easier. Throughout the 6 weeks, we had 4 lab assignments for weeks 1-4 and 1 final project where we had weeks 5-6 to do.

The lab assignments were not that bad because they provided very detailed instructions for each step to answer the questions. Sometimes, I ran into errors, but Emelly was super helpful as she gave me guidance to troubleshoot. The assignments did take me around 1-2 hours, but as long as you follow the instructions, you're fine. That's what I did, and I got an A+ in every assignment! As someone with NO background in remote sensing, it was definitely manageable with effort!

For the final project, you had to write a 7+ page paper (excluding figures/graphs/tables) about your own environmental or geographic research question that can be investigated using remotely sensed imagery. I honestly found the paper not too bad since it was cool to apply what we learned on a topic of our choosing! I received an A on it.

I usually prefer human geography classes, so I was afraid I wouldn't do well, but I didn't find this class too difficult! Emelly is also a generous grader as long as you put effort into the assignments (most people got A's on the lab assignments while most grades ranged from B+ to A+ on the final). Overall, would recommend taking this class as long as you're good at following instructions haha!