I loved this class with Prof Peltzer! The material could be tough at times (heavier in physics than I expected), but he does a great job explaining the course content. The labs were a fair length with extra credit available on each, and the homework was short and easy. The final exam was also open notes, and easier than any of the labs. What I liked best about this class was it was great to learn remote sensing, and I feel I have a pretty good grasp of it from the program we used in just 10 weeks. I would recommend!

I agree with everything said by the other person who took this course the same quarter as I did. Prof's great, TA gives detailed feedback, grading's lax especially with the extremely clear and detailed instructions given for labs -- you couldn't get lost if you tried (I'm a non-EPSS major with 0 programming and little math background) and overall I feel like I learned something useful and practical from this course. I enjoyed being able to complete tasks and basic analyses with the program (SNAP) at the end of it all, it is fulfilling to reach concrete checkpoints like that. I would recommend this class if you have at least some interest in GIS, remote sensing and stuff like that. I myself wasn't particularly interested in the content and only took the course because it seemed useful, and I still came out with a lot. I'm sure you'll get much more out of it if you actually interacted with the prof, he's definitely passionate, extremely knowledgable and happy to help.

BTW I took the course completely asynchronously and everything worked out just fine. Labs and HW just need to be done by the due date and a 2-day period was given for the final. It sometimes took me a long time to do the labs but luckily late work is accepted, just with a penalty by day. Text me 310 689 6581 for the textbook.

I took this class online during COVID season, so I'm not quite sure how the difficulty ranks in person, but it was definitely one of my easiest science classes as an environmental science major. The material was very interesting, although physics heavy (a LOT of chem 20A/physics 1C, and even AOS 1 if you've taken it), as remote sensing is essentially just an application of electromagnetic radiation. So don't be surprised in lecture (which are once a week) if you get bombarded with a bunch of equations and other scary stuff. But do not be worried, as you don't need to need to know these equations/a majority of the physics of remote sensing, except maybe towards the end (doppler effect/waves).

For the gradebook, you're mainly assessed on labs (40%) that we did through the SNAP software. The instructions were very detailed and step-by-step, so you shouldn't have too much difficulty doing them, but if you are stuck, Wednesday's are solely dedicated to working on labs. Our TA, Sim, was present then and extremely helpful. I personally stopped going to the Wednesday sessions after some time because the labs were quite self-explanatory, and most of the conceptual questions' answers could be found on the lecture slides, but they were good regardless if you wanted to solidify your understanding of the material and work with others. You also have homework (20%), which is assigned around every other week, and it's super simple and short; it's just intended to get you to think about the concepts that you learn in class. The final (40%) was like a set of mini labs that tested the last ~3 weeks of material, and it was doable and even quite fun.

Professor Peltzer offers a CRAP ton of good extra credit on the projects that boosts your grade hardcore, so don't even worry about grades. In fact, I've noticed that in the homework, I would get some answers wrong, but I would still get full credit, pog. Our TA always left feedback on the assignments too. With that being said, as simple as it is to do well in this class, the labs do take quite a while, and you won't walk away with much from this class if you're just in it for a major requirement. You really have to take the initiative to ask questions and review the material yourself, because I do not believe that the assessments in the class are very rigorous. But if done right, this is a good thing - Professor Peltzer really lights up when you show genuine interest in the material (my guy has spent many years working at NASA), and your grade is already covered, so try your best to learn the material out of interest.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the concepts of the class can be very science-heavy, and although you don't need to know them at all, I would pay attention to Principal Component Analysis. This was the main thing that kept popping up, and it involves a little bit of linear algebra, but nothing crazy at all if you know about coordinate systems. I will say that a geology background will help more than all those other sciences, as you're looking at a lot of different rocks and geological features in the remote sensing images, and I sometimes had no clue what the heck I was looking at or what were the distinctions between the various rock types. Again, not an impossible class if you don't know these things, but the knowledge certainly helps.

Overall, if you're good with technology, have an ok grasp at physics and geology, and want to learn without having to worry about a grade, this is definitely the class for you. You will absolutely walk away amazed and even satisfied doing the assignments, but it all depends on what you put into this class.

Being a non-ESS major and having no prior remote sensing experience, a lot of the material went over head and at times I felt like I didn't really know what he was talking about at all. But Professor Peltzer is very good about answering questions in class, in labs, and in his office, and he is very willing to sit down and explain things.

His lecture slides are pretty well detailed and the labs are usually explicit in their instructions. His midterm and final are both open notes and open labs. There's also extra credit for each lab (and one extra credit question that went toward the midterm as well), so there's a lot of opportunities to get a pretty good grade. Overall, I felt that I learned a lot from this class and I would recommend taking it.