Professor Rajagopal provided a very good class in which the primary goal was to learn. Course material was broad but in depth enough to provide a solid understanding of topics covered.

Ther homeworks were well timed, and there was an essay at the end which could replace two homeworks. If you did this and all homeworks you could in effect drop your two lowest scores.

Exams were based around the homeworks and readings, and were very fair.

He was also very good about helping students who emailed him and setting up alternate hours to meet. Overall a very good class.

One of the worst classes I have taken at UCLA. This is for my minor so if you are looking for an engaging environmental class, avoid at all costs. This class requires meticulous detail and tracing lifecycles back to coal production. The homework assignments are frustrating and take hours.

He means well, but ultimately the lectures felt very disorganized. However, the topic of life cycle assessment itself is, as it seems, a difficult and hand-wavy topic to teach. It's very approximate and requires a lot of different averages and assumptions that don't necessarily reflect real life. A lot of accounting, basically. Professor Rajagopal is really helpful on the homework in office hours, but lecture concepts during lecture were really confusing. He also would change his mind about logistical things like the midterm and final, which was frustrating (like scheduling a final when there was none on the registrar, or changing the allotted time we could take our midterm from 8AM-11:59PM to 8AM-10:15AM).

The class was structured well, with five homeworks at the beginning of the quarter that took about 2-3 hours (or less) each (one per week), and then a group project that the latter half of the quarter focused on. I was blessed with a good group, so this was pretty smooth, but the topic itself wasn't very interesting.

Overall, I wouldn't take this class again.