CLUSTER M1A
Global Environment: Multidisciplinary Perspective I
Description: (Formerly numbered General Education Clusters M1A.) (Same as Environment M1A.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Course M1A is enforced requisite to M1B, which is enforced requisite to M1CW. Limited to first-year freshmen. Food as lens for local and global environmental and sustainability issues. Integration of environmental, social, economic, and technological solutions for fair, sustainable, and healthy food production, food security, and access. Focus on human impacts on Earth's biological and physical systems, including how food production and consumption contributes to, and is impacted by, global problems, including climate change, pollution, and overpopulation. Laboratory exercises included in discussions. Letter grading.
Units: 6.0
Units: 6.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2016 - The lecture presentations are basic and lack comprehensive detail. Additionally, the professors tend to be uncoordinated and sometimes lack energy to engage students and even get their attention. Granted, this is a 100+ lecture full of freshman. Their guest lecturers are amazing and add great substance to the material being taught in class. Guest lectures are often unannounced and a surprise for the students in an effort to get them to attend class (we are given handouts to be filled out and returned to our TAs after lecture). I took AP Environmental Science my senior year of high school, so I didn't learn any new material. It was all review, straight down to the labs we did in discussion, so the class seemed boring and repetitive to me. The workload is on the heavy side and the papers we are assigned to do are not worth enough points compared to the effort we put into it. Still, the (almost) weekly assignments are not difficult. The discussion sections are unnecessarily long (2 hrs) and pointless other than for being given assignments and turning them in. Attendance is part of your grade! The midterm and final were not super detail oriented as I feared they would be. They weren't difficult at all if you understood the main concepts that the lectures covered and had some specific examples to use. No multiple choice, all short answer and one long essay question. The review sessions that the TAs held before tests were lacking and also uncoordinated - mostly a waste of time. Overall, this cluster is amazing for getting rid of science GEs and a piece of cake for those who did well in AP ENVIRO. Boring and irritating, but manageable. I recommend making friends with your classmates to have study sessions together and ask each other assignment questions that are unclear.
Fall 2016 - The lecture presentations are basic and lack comprehensive detail. Additionally, the professors tend to be uncoordinated and sometimes lack energy to engage students and even get their attention. Granted, this is a 100+ lecture full of freshman. Their guest lecturers are amazing and add great substance to the material being taught in class. Guest lectures are often unannounced and a surprise for the students in an effort to get them to attend class (we are given handouts to be filled out and returned to our TAs after lecture). I took AP Environmental Science my senior year of high school, so I didn't learn any new material. It was all review, straight down to the labs we did in discussion, so the class seemed boring and repetitive to me. The workload is on the heavy side and the papers we are assigned to do are not worth enough points compared to the effort we put into it. Still, the (almost) weekly assignments are not difficult. The discussion sections are unnecessarily long (2 hrs) and pointless other than for being given assignments and turning them in. Attendance is part of your grade! The midterm and final were not super detail oriented as I feared they would be. They weren't difficult at all if you understood the main concepts that the lectures covered and had some specific examples to use. No multiple choice, all short answer and one long essay question. The review sessions that the TAs held before tests were lacking and also uncoordinated - mostly a waste of time. Overall, this cluster is amazing for getting rid of science GEs and a piece of cake for those who did well in AP ENVIRO. Boring and irritating, but manageable. I recommend making friends with your classmates to have study sessions together and ask each other assignment questions that are unclear.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2016 - While I really enjoyed the first half of this course taught by Professor Nordby, I disliked the second half taught by Professor Jay. Jay undoubtedly is an expert in her field and has done a lot of interesting research on the topics she discussed, but her lectures often did not represent her knowledge. She always appeared very scatterbrained and relatively unorganized, and did not construct slides and presentations that would be beneficial to students' learning. I found her lecture style too fast-paced, as she often skimmed over vital material, and her slides usually consisted of large block quotations from readings and other researchers' studies. She did attempt to occasionally make the lectures more interesting by including interactive class-participation and experiments, but these often felt unnecessary. Overall, it was difficult to ascertain what I actually was supposed to have learned in her part of the course when it came time to study for the final, and the materials she provided to students were not extremely helpful. Professor Jay is a sweet, bubbly professor, but she did not really effectively "teach" the course.
Fall 2016 - While I really enjoyed the first half of this course taught by Professor Nordby, I disliked the second half taught by Professor Jay. Jay undoubtedly is an expert in her field and has done a lot of interesting research on the topics she discussed, but her lectures often did not represent her knowledge. She always appeared very scatterbrained and relatively unorganized, and did not construct slides and presentations that would be beneficial to students' learning. I found her lecture style too fast-paced, as she often skimmed over vital material, and her slides usually consisted of large block quotations from readings and other researchers' studies. She did attempt to occasionally make the lectures more interesting by including interactive class-participation and experiments, but these often felt unnecessary. Overall, it was difficult to ascertain what I actually was supposed to have learned in her part of the course when it came time to study for the final, and the materials she provided to students were not extremely helpful. Professor Jay is a sweet, bubbly professor, but she did not really effectively "teach" the course.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - I was really excited about this class but I was severely disappointed. PK is very knowledgeable but his lectures were very disorganized. I found myself constantly looking at the time because I was so disinterested. The discussions, labs, and four writing assignments felt like a waste of time, they didn't help with the retention of the course material at all but the TAs graded them generously. The midterm and final were divided into multiple-choice questions (which had varying weights, from about 2 to 6 points) and one group question. Most of the midterm questions were based on small details from lectures and readings that were insignificant to understanding the major topics and the group portion basically asked to remember one of the studies and replicate the graphs from the lecture. The final was much better in terms of multiple-choice questions (1 to 2 points each) but the group portion was a bit more difficult. I failed the midterm but did much better on the final. However, I think the extra credit (up to 11% grade boost) literally saved my grade.
Fall 2019 - I was really excited about this class but I was severely disappointed. PK is very knowledgeable but his lectures were very disorganized. I found myself constantly looking at the time because I was so disinterested. The discussions, labs, and four writing assignments felt like a waste of time, they didn't help with the retention of the course material at all but the TAs graded them generously. The midterm and final were divided into multiple-choice questions (which had varying weights, from about 2 to 6 points) and one group question. Most of the midterm questions were based on small details from lectures and readings that were insignificant to understanding the major topics and the group portion basically asked to remember one of the studies and replicate the graphs from the lecture. The final was much better in terms of multiple-choice questions (1 to 2 points each) but the group portion was a bit more difficult. I failed the midterm but did much better on the final. However, I think the extra credit (up to 11% grade boost) literally saved my grade.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - More organized than the first quarter and the lectures are engaging. We have one midterm and 2 papers. Lectures are interactive and the readings generally pertain to what is addressed in class. However, I would suggest reading because anything is fair game for midterms. I have learned a lot in this class thus far and it helps you understand the food system.
Winter 2020 - More organized than the first quarter and the lectures are engaging. We have one midterm and 2 papers. Lectures are interactive and the readings generally pertain to what is addressed in class. However, I would suggest reading because anything is fair game for midterms. I have learned a lot in this class thus far and it helps you understand the food system.
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