While I didn't find the material all that interesting, Gilles was still a fun guy to listen to. He's really nice and knowledgeable and is always willing to talk and explain things. Tests are based on details, details, details!

His lectures are so dry but I mean it's earthquakes... not a super engaging topic in general. The professor himself is an interesting dude! He has random jokes and he says them so dryly it becomes funnier than it should be. He posts the lecture slides on CCLE and that's basically all you need for the exam (one midterm and the final). There's a 3% extra credit opportunity and you basically go on a road trip around LA county to see different places of the San Andreas fault or something. The labs were super easy and you have a whole week to them even though you can probably finish in the same lab period. His midterm was seriously really easy because it was basic memorization. The final was ten times harder. It was a mix of memorization and application. Oh and he doesn't curve because he believes your grade should be based on your understanding of the material, not relative to another student's understanding. He's super nice and always willing to sit down to talk and answer questions. Plus he emails back really quickly!

Professor Peltzer is probably the most caring professor I have had yet at UCLA. He is ALWAYS willing to meet with you, explain concepts, and talk about upcoming exams. The class is not very difficult: the tests are very fair, the labs are easy to finish in the class period, and there is an opportunity for 3 percent extra credit on your overall grade. Honestly, the only reason I can see that people wouldn't do well in this class is because they don't attend: at the end of the quarter, there were only about 40 of 200 students attending regularly. If you don't go, the lecture slides are posted online, but you obviously don't get the same depth of understanding by just reading the notes. Professor Peltzer is a very good lecturer, there is no reason to not go to class! Take this course, you won't regret it :)

I took this class because I expected it to be an easy GE as the first person who rated it said. I would agree that there is very little work involved (very simple weekly labs, and a midterm and final which was all multiple choice), but I wouldn't call it easy. I didn't go to lecture and instead relied on the lecture slides online and visits the my TA during office hours, and I didn't read the book (don't bother buying it, you don't need to).The midterm was pretty basic and I ended up getting an 80%, but the final was a completely different story...there were a lot of things on the final that weren't a part of lecture/lecture slides. If I could go back, I would have started studying a week in advance at least. There were a lot of specifics such as how large the rupture was for specific earthquakes, how many people died in certain earthquakes as well as other questions I just had no clue about and did not learn in the lecture slides. Plus, there is no curve in the class. Take this class with caution, or if possible the other professor who teaches it.