For those who are good at critical thinking take this class. If you enjoy reading hundreds of pages take this class. If none of the stated above is your strenghts do not take this class.

This hands down the most informative class taken at UCLA.

Pros:

It explored so many interesting topics like how organic food became popular, and how that reasoning applies to stuff like gated communities and bottled water.

This class explores the meaning of space and place, and allows us students to have a taste of different experiences through the various readings. While they may not be super interesting, the ideas that they entail are.

Cons:

Having said that, this class is fairly content heavy. you'll be given review sheets with words that you'll need to know. and that fills a whole page.

Professor Faier's powerpoints are very summarized, so you'll have trouble deciphering what it is saying unless you took some notes on what she said in class.

Although SOME of the information taught in this class was very insightful, other areas were grey...especially because Faier's lectures include a lot of rhetorical questions which fail to explain anything.

The sections are basically recaps of the lectures and the 2hr discussions drag on forever. I loved some of the information that I learned from this class but my TA's d and their ridiculous grading ruined it for me. Despite the fact that I earned an A, the midterm and final are graded ridiculously. Students got partial points marked off because the grading is pretty subjective and there were rumors going on that TAs were taking points off for writing exact definitions. smh. Only a few students got As on the midterms and our TA blamed it on the fact that UCLA is letting in too many unintelligent /lazy students...He failed to recognize that it was probably be his boring and ineffective teaching style since it was the majority of the class that did bad.

This class had the potential to be amazing, but I feel like it's not what it used to be.

Seriously, one of the best classes that I have ever taken.

Professor Faier truly does care about her students and gives intriguing lectures. You get to learn about the LA riots, the LAPD, production markets, cultural differences, environmental issues, etc. It is highly recommended that you attend lectures because on the powerpoints that she posts up [whether she continues that or not], it does not include all of the important information that she goes over. I enjoyed this class very much because everything that I learned is applicable to everyday life. She teaches you about issues that are currently happening right now in this world and sheds light on those shadows.The readings are great and as long as you space them out over the week, it's totally manageable.

There is 1 midterm, 1 final, and biweekly reading responses [2 mages max]. The midterm consists of IDs, short responses, and 1 essay. The final is pretty much like the midterm, but a bit longer. The questions are fairly straight forward, so as long as you do all of the readings and understand the main concepts, you'll be fine. This class does not test your ability to regurgitate definitions, but rather tests your ability to apply those concepts. My TA was Ali, who was great! He is definitely very knowledgeable about the topics and tries hard to make sure his students understand the concepts. Ali makes the discussion section a welcoming place for students to voice their opinions and structures the class as a person-to-person interaction, not necessarily a teacher-to-student interaction... For example, we all sit in a circle, including him, as opposed to him standing in front of the class teaching us. This creates a setting that he would call a "safe place" for students to say what they have to say. He's very concerned about the students and will make time for help those who need it.

Overall, TAKE THIS COURSE! You'll learn SOO much about pressing issues going on in today's society and understand more on why people do the things they do in various cultures.

This course is quite insightful because it requires you to think everyday life from different perspectives. We even had a section about the LAPD.

Of course there are a lot of concepts and readings because it is a social science course but they do offer you some unique viewpoints.

I took this course with the TA Timur, and he is really knowledgable and amazing! His discussion was so much fun and really helpful to organize the main points in weekly readings. He is good at giving examples to help you understand every concept.

There will be maximum two pages reading responses every other week but it's just a tiny part of the grades.
The midterm and especially final matter more, but the questions are pretty straightforward.

With much hesitation from these reviews, I decided to take Geo 3, and I must say I'm very glad I did.

This class had some extremely interesting material and, more so than any other class, taught me to look at things from other people's points of view (for example, how a blind person can experience a museum).

I found Lieba to be an excellent lecturer and very concerned about her students and today's environmental issues. The class itself had a lot of reading, but since I only needed the GE credit I took it P/NP and did essentially no work besides the one page paper every other week.

I'm pretty sure she re-designed the class, because no one had to do a 10-page paper like some other reviewer said.

My one complaint, however, would be the TAs and pretty pointless sections we had to go to since they were mandatory for the grade.

All in all, I highly recommend this class if you want to learn about different cultures (this geography class isn't about maps and cartography at all) and environmental injustices happening in the world.

Professor Faier is certainly nice and gives interesting lectures, but I would NEVER take this class again. When we asked what was expected of us on the exams, her response was "show what you know." I wish that I had known that meant "regurgitate every single thing you have learned in this class onto paper," and that having a simple, clear, and reasonable summary for each exam question will earn you a "B" or a "C".

I learned the hard way that even though I did all the readings, attended all the lectures, and wrote until my hand stopped working on the exams, it still wasn't enough.

She expects WAY too much out of her students for a GE class (or an upper div class for that matter). If you have to take her class, be prepared for RIDICULOUS exams and unreasonable expectations.
On top of all of that, the TA's are HORRIBLE. My TA, Ago, hardly spoke english and designed a research project with a 10+ pg essay due at the end of the quarter, while the other TA's required very simple assignments. How is that fair???? Not to mention, sitting through two hours of his boring ramblings and being subject to his suffocating body odor was enough to make a person want to quit school altogether.

Dr. Faier even admitted to me that her TA's grade the exams too hard, but didn't have the nerve to do anything about it. Don't take this class unless you love reading hundreds of pages each week and taking very difficult and lengthy written exams, and still getting shafted in the process by TAs who only serve to make your life a living hell.

Professor Faier, is more than willing to work with her students, her exams involve a lot of writing and thought but she is concerned about student learning and only creates her exams this way to force you to think. Her lectures are very well laid out and easy to follow. Sometimes she goes super fast but if you ask her to go back over the last slide before moving on she will!