I wouldn't recommend taking this class unless you have to or are interested in physical geography; I needed to take it for my major. I ended up with an A- in the class, even though I expected to get a B or B+ going into the final (based on what I got on the midterm). The class is 30% midterm, 30% final, and 40% lab. His tests are all multiple choice, but the questions are not basic and not always straight forward. I wasn't a huge fan of the labs; a lot of them felt like busy work and kind of elementary, though some of them were helpful. I attended every single lecture, read 95% of the readings, and did well on all of the labs. He does podcast all of his lectures, though I never listened to any of them. He seems to expect you to watch all of the podcasts in addition to coming to lecture, which was frustrating considering I attended every lecture and took notes. Point is - it's not impossible to do well in his class by any means, but you have to understand on Day 1 that the class will require more than just showing up and taking the tests.

While I didn't connect to Professor Okin's way of teaching, he is very knowledgable and a clear lecturer. He makes a point to go over key topics more than once and he provides multiple resources to his students.

Avoid Dr. Okin at all costs. Not only does he think that he is better than everyone else, but also he finds odd pleasure in tricking students and watching them fail. I took Geography 1 with him the quarter before, and heard that he was a better professor when it comes to upper-division classes because he's not trying to weed out the stragglers. FALSE. It's like he feels better about himself when his students fail and can't understand anything. Okin created this test with about 25 short answer questions and 5 essay questions in the span of an hour and fifteen minutes. He refuses to curve according to the difficulty of his exams. You have to write down and memorize literally everything he says in order to have a fighting chance at passing the class. Also, when he tries to explain these concepts of soils in class, he does not make sure that people are following him. He says that a basic understanding of chemistry is all that is needed to do well in the class. This is also false. Okin went into more Chemistry about soils (probably the most boring topic I can fathom, that he makes even more painful) than I had ever wanted to encounter in my academic career at UCLA. He was extremely unapproachable and explained things in the most complicated ways possible. Please avoid him or face the consequences. Maybe people who are like him will do well in the class. But unless you are inherently born with an in-depth knowledge of the chemical properties of soils, then I suggest you steer clear of this class and even Geography 1 with Okin.

This class is almost entirely about soil chemistry. Do not take this class unless you have a serious interest in chemistry for it's own sake, or soil chemistry specifically. There is virtually nothing here of practical use for the non-chemist. You will learn about soil chemistry at the atomic level: protons, electrons, colloids, CEC, anion and cation exchange, surface charges, isomorphic substitution etc., etc. If you want something practical and useful on soils in the Geog department, take Trimble's Geog 107: Soil and Water Conservation.

If however, you do have an interest in chemistry, Prof. Okin is excellent.

There are some rather harsh reviews of Dr. Okin on this page and while I can understand why some may feel like that, it is important for those who read Bruinwalk to understand that those are the people who did not put in the effort to rise to the challenge. Don't be deterred by their reviews. Dr. Okin is the reason I went from N. campus to S. Campus at the end of my 2nd year. He helped me discover my love for science and he helped me realize that being a lawyer was actually the last thing I wanted to be.

I took Geog 1 with Dr. Okin and didn't really like him for the first few weeks of the quarter, but eventually he changed my opinion of him completely, this guy is a genius. If you take the opportunity to get to know him, you will learn SO much.

He is really good at explaining things in more than one way until you understand a concept. I got a C in Geog 1, but that had entirely to do with struggles outside of my academic life.

I decided to give his upper div class a shot and it ended up changing my life. It was SO hard and I had to study so much but I ended up getting one of the highest grades on the midterm and an A in his class. Don't be afraid to take this class if you have never taken chemistry before, its going to be hard but you might surprise yourself.

Prof. Okin is a great professor and I would recommend this class to anyone, if you're up for a challenge. I struggled in this class, but it only motivated me to try harder. I feel that for UCLA standards, Prof. Okin has a perfect combination of challenging, but not impossible. Keep in mind, however, that I took this class remotely, and that I am unsure how this class is taught in person. All in all, I really enjoyed the class and the content.

Professor Okin is amazing! I took him for Enviro M102(Soils and Environment) and he made me want to pursue a career in the field. He explained soil chemistry in easy ways to understand and made sure that students had all of their questions answered. The class consisted of a midterm, final, and discussions where you had to participate. The exams were a little tough and require memorization of soil orders, sub-orders etc but if you put in the work it is very doable and rewarding. I truly do not understand all of the harsh reviews about Okin as a professor. He is accommodating and makes it very clear from the start what he expects out of his students for the exams. Anyone who left a bad review probably didn't go to lecture and expected to ace the test. Take the class! You won't regret it and will have a newfound appreciation for soil and the Earth!

I took this class Winter 2022, when the first half was online and the second half was in person. I'll mainly talk about my in person experience since going forward, this class will probably be in person. The first day of in person class was a closed note midterm, pretty messed up. This class is not easy, probably one of the hardest geography classes i've taken. I would agree with the other review, do NOT be fooled by the distribution, this class was way different this year. Not only is it hard, it's also incredibly boring and very physics and chemistry based. The lecture material was very different than the study guide material. There's just A TON and overwhelming amount of material we need to memorize. So much taxonomy and nomenclature, formulas, reactions, on top of the difficult concepts. It is so overwhelming to make it all fair game for a CLOSED note exam. Okin is a soil expert and this stuff is easy for him so he forgets that us students are new to this and its hard to pick this all up so quickly. The TA sections were all over the place since lecture did not match up to the study guide which was what we covered in TA sessions. Oh yea, he decided to surprise TA sessions on us which were MANDATORY. These TA sessions were NOT listed on myUCLA and nobody knew about them until we were already enrolled. Not sure how this was even allowed, but honestly, pretty messed up to spring them on us when many people have work or other obligations during the TA sessions. The professor was not very good at explaining things, made me even more confused. LOL yea he screamed at a kid on the first day for having his laptop out. He has a no laptop policy and someone was unaware so they had their laptop out. Professor Okin stops the class to scream at him in front of the ENTIRE lecture. There's a mature and professional way to handle that, and he did the exact opposite. Embarrassing a student like that reflects WAY poorly on YOU, not the student. ALSOOO he gave me a C+ in the class and i was like WTF... only for him to check and say Nevermind, you got a B. The stresssss is not worth it. Avoid this class unless you want to get a phd is soil chemistry.

Geog1 is a really difficult class as a GE science requirement. Just working on study guide you will get good grades, however, sometimes you even cannot get the answer of the questions of the study guide. TA does not know too. If you want to get a A, your lab score must above 95 I think. And A is super difficult if you are not interested in GEOG.

TO ALL THE STUDENTS SAYING "The other reviews are so harsh...they must not have put in the work... they must not have gone to class." Literally STFU. Im sick of you entitled UCLA students that think you know everyone. This class was AWFUL. Did I get an A?? Yes but at an expense. I did worse in my other classes, I lost a lot of sleep from studying, and I missed shifts at work so I can attend "mandatory" unlisted TA sessions. This class was hard and I shouldn't have to break my back to get barely an A. You people need to stop being so entitled and thinking everyone is just giving a bad review because they are lazy and did not put work in. We all worked out ass off its just a hard fucking class so stop pretending like you are better than everyone else. Theres a reason why he has a lot of bad reviews, like shut up.

WONDERFUL professor! He is extremely concerned about his students' learning, and is always willing to help. Tests were extremely fair, although beware -- there's only one midterm and one final, each worth 50% of your grade. His passion for soils truly got me interested in the material -- I don't think I will ever look at soils the same again. Take this professor; you won't regret it. One of the best professors that I have ever had at UCLA.