Reviews for GEOG201

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Chris Justice GEOG201 Expecting an A respectmyopinions 12/12/2023	This course is really easy, but only 3 stars because you will not learn anything at all. If that doesn't bother you, then definitely take this for DSNL requirement because its good for GPA and not a lot of work. But he goes so fast in lecture its impossible to absorb anything or take notes, so you end up cramming the night before exams
Chris Justice GEOG201 Anonymous 12/06/2023	He's super nice and is actually able to teach pretty well, but he flies through the lecture slides super quickly, so be prepared for that
Chris Justice GEOG201 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/01/2023	Professor Justice really cares about geog. The tests are not bad if you study for a day or two. The final exam is online. Class is mandatory because you do clickers that contribute to your grade. You get full credit for the clickers just for participating. There is an extra credit opportunity ay the end!
Xiaopeng Song GEOG201 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/30/2023	Great professor. Don't need to go to class as everything is on the lecture slides he posts and he reads them word for word. You also DO NOT need the textbook so definitely don't buy it. I would recommend going to lectures though because he does clicker quizzes (not for a grade just practice) and write down those questions because he takes exam questions directly from those. Exams are in person but they are on elms so you have to go in person to get the code. Definitely take this if you need a NS/NL. The lab GEOG211 was online and also easy. You use google earth
Xiaopeng Song GEOG201 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/25/2023	Don't have to go to any of the lectures. The whole course grade is 3 exams with no homework or other assignments. Exams are decent.
Chris Justice GEOG201 Expecting a B Anonymous 10/18/2023	a lot of material in this class, lectures were pointless but he makes everyone show up for particpation grade. quizzes were okay but your grade is just comprised of 3 quiz grades which is harsh. chris is a nice guy but he can't teach to save his life. good luck learning the whole semester's material on your own
Xiaopeng Song GEOG201 Expecting an A lindsaym354 05/21/2023	The class on a daily basis is very easy, just taking notes during the lectures. I can tell that Dr. Song is very interested in the subject, but he was not a very engaging lecturer. The only grades are two midterms each worth 30% and a final worth 40%. The exams are basically open note but I don't think this grading structure made sense because it put a lot of pressure on the exams. He posts all the lecture slides online so you don't even really need to go to class.
Chris Justice GEOG201 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/18/2023	easiest class ever so easy to cheat
Chris Justice GEOG201 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2022	The class is rote memorization, but it's a lot of information to remember. Lectures are mind-numbingly boring and are practically ripped from the pages of the textbook. Material is covered at a rapid-fire pace and you have to make a substantial effort to stay on top of everything to avoid falling behind. Justice seems like a nice guy but is not a good teacher. Grades are based on 4 exams and nothing else, which may or may not be to your liking. There is an extra credit opportunity at the end which can boost your grade pretty significantly. Overall, if you must take it and make an effort to keep up, you'll probably be fine. But it is certainly not a class that I would like to take again.
Chris Justice GEOG201 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/15/2022	Dr. Justice is a nice guy and the class is pretty much straightforward. That being said, the lectures were boring and he sped through the content. Final grade is determined from 4 exams but he offered extra credit. Good choice to knock off the science class with lab requirement.
Chris Justice GEOG201 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2022	Justice is a nice guy and wants everyone to pass his class, as a lecturer he's kinda boring, and I stopped going to class He's British so has a cool accent. Overall the class itself was pretty straightforward forward and if you put a little work into you will get an A. Grades only come from exams, so that's a little annoying. He did give us an extra credit opportunity at the end which is nice. Overall since this is his first time teaching I think he did a good job and he'll get better over time.
Chris Justice GEOG201 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/05/2022	At first, I heard some bad things about him. I agree, he is not the best teacher, but he cares sooooo much about his students and really wants us to do well, and thats all anyone can hope for in a professor. Take him or Amanda Hall and you'll be fine with your lab requirement.
Laura Duncanson GEOG201 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/19/2022	The lecture slides itself are a bit vague, but when you pair it with her speaking throughout, they make perfect sense. Laura Duncanson has experience in this field, so she is able to answer our questions in a way that is easy for us to understand. About midterms/finals, most of it tests our knowledge on the concepts and process of how something happens, so make sure that you pay attention during in-person/video lectures
Laura Duncanson GEOG201 Anonymous 05/18/2022	She is a nice professor but the structure of the class does not set you up for success. The mid term is 30% of your grade. The final is 40%. So two exams that are very very content heavy are collectively worth 70% of your grade. If you mess up on one, you’re basically screwed. Take another lab. There are definitely easier options.
Laura Duncanson GEOG201 Anonymous 05/17/2022	She seems like a nice person and cares about the subject. I only took this class because I needed to fulfill a Natural Science with a lab as Gen Ed requirement. Since I am not really a science person I obviously did not want to take classes like Chemistry, Physics or Biology, so I was looking for an simpler science course. Out of all of the ones left that seemed somewhat interesting and easier than hard sciences, I chose this. The lectures were either in person or online and were mostly easy to follow. However, the information being presented was both boring and there was just a lot of information that seemed pointless or just not important. For grades there was a midterm and a final as well as little quizzes during the lectures both in person and online. The grading system was very unbalanced as the final was 40% and the midterm was 30% of your grade and the other 30% was the video quizes. Since the midterm and final made up 70% of the grade this required an abundance of information for the exams. For both exams you would essentially have to memorize the information from each half of the semester, so you would be tested on seven weeks of material for each exam, the first and second half respectively. If you ask me these kinds of classes based on memorization are way outdated as why would I need to know why rivers form v-shaped valleys and glaciers form u-shaped valleys or the different layers of dirt. If you're looking for an easier Gen Ed for DSNL and you can't find another one I'd say go ahead and take this one but only at the last resort.
Laura Duncanson GEOG201 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/17/2022	Not really sure why the person below this is such a hater... professor Duncanson was a really nice and knowledgeable teacher who was extremely understanding of the impact that covid has on students even 2 years after it began. She provided students the choice to come to class and/or watch Panopto recordings of lectures for whoever didn't want to come or just needed to hear the lectures again and because of these recordings I never even opened my textbook. She explained all of the materials extremely well and it was my impression that people were doing fairly well in the course based on the Kahoots we did in class. This course encompasses the entire Earth system (not just rocks) and I learned some interesting things. I would say that I spent like 2 hours a week on this class just because I watched and took notes on the recordings, and obviously a little more for the midterm and final. I think most people expect the exams to be easy and don't properly prepare for them because she didn't hardly expect anything from students throughout the rest of the semester, but if you just read the slides and understand the concepts I think it's a really easy A.
Laura Duncanson GEOG201 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/16/2022	everything is easy and resources accessible, until you get to the midterm and the final. also, because of the heavy weighting of the exams improving grade from midterm to final is nearly impossible. most of info instructed covers basics you learn in middle school and high school.
Laura Duncanson GEOG201 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/11/2022	Laura Duncanson...where to begin? I have many mixed emotions about this course. The lab itself is a pretty easy A. Everything is online and does not require much effort. The lectures are also online which is a bonus but it also may have led to my downfall. You can easily find the answers for the clicker questions without actually watching the lectures. But when the time comes to take the mid term and final, everyone in the class will be screwed. My class curve was 10 points. It was one of the hardest, most confusing, content heavy tests I have ever taken. Half the things I studied were not on the test and half the questions that WERE on the test, I had never seen before. She also blamed the class for this, which is ridiculous because HALF OF US LITERALLY FAILED. That's on you Laura. I thought this was going to be an easy lab because everyone said it was, but the class you have to take with it honestly makes it not worth it. You are better off sticking with plant sciences. Unless you are a lover of rocks (which i know you are not if you are reading this), the "lithosphere" and whatever other useless things we learned in this class, save yourself the time, stress and failing grade! You're welcome in advance.
Laura Duncanson GEOG201 Expecting a B akl2025 04/27/2022	Laura Duncanson is an awesome professor. The lectures are very informative and the exams are not terribly difficult, but you have to study regularly and it is heavily weighed (30% for the midterm and 40% for the final). I have her for Spring 2022 and it is hybrid class. I recommend taking in-person (the class is normally around 40 to 60 students out of 240 total because most takes online lectures) since it just makes you feel in the mood to study and she makes Kahoot, which is fun to play and good to review contents. She mentioned at the beginning that if you just want to pass her class, watch her lectures would be enough. The textbook is not necessary, unless you wanna know deeper. Pros: - Good lectures (informative and engaging) - Easy TurningPoint quizzes (she will drop low scores) Cons: - 2 stressful exams: they decide your final grade, just fail one and you're screwed. Interestingly, many people failed the midterm and she had to curve up the grade. I don't think it was super difficult. It's just fair: you need to read the lecture slides and understand the concepts. Nevertheless, I prepare myself to get a B as my final grade in case of a low grade on final exam, even though I'm having an A in the class now.
Amanda Hall GEOG201 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/19/2021	Professor Hall was amazing! She really cares about her students and tries to offer as many opportunities as possible to do well in her class. Tests were straightforward, and only one homework assignment per week (none during test weeks). She's really a great person and I enjoyed her class a lot.
Amanda Hall GEOG201 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/09/2021	Super nice professor, not a very interesting class but perfect for a gen ed requirement. The grading structure is VERY lenient. There are 3 exams that make up 30% of your final grade but the lowest exam grade is dropped (and they're all open notes/internet take home exams). 20% of your grade is from doing packback questions which is basically a discussion board so you can get a 100 on that pretty easily, but if you forget you're all set because she drops 2 out of the 8. The final is a project/paper worth 30% of your grade so you can either write a 1000-word paper or do a group project, both of which are pretty easy options. The last 20% of your grade is for turning point questions which you do during class time, so you get a 100 on that if you go to all the lectures. But if you don't want to go to lecture for whatever reason she posts the lectures online with questions you can answer to get that credit back. Overall, a very easy class with a great professor. Would highly recommend taking this for your science requirement. Also, the lab it is associated with is just as easy. It's completely asynchronous, you just submit weekly labs and if you bomb/forget to do a couple of them there are up to two make up labs available.
Amanda Hall GEOG201 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/09/2021	Super nice professor, not a very interesting class but perfect for a gen ed requirement. The grading structure is VERY lenient. There are 3 exams that make up 30% of your final grade but the lowest exam grade is dropped (and they're all open notes/internet take home exams). 20% of your grade is from doing packback questions which is basically a discussion board so you can get a 100 on that pretty easily, but if you forget you're all set because she drops 2 out of the 8. The final is a project/paper worth 30% of your grade so you can either write a 1000-word paper or do a group project, both of which are pretty easy options. The last 20% of your grade is for turning point questions which you do during class time, so you get a 100 on that if you go to all the lectures. But if you don't want to go to lecture for whatever reason she posts the lectures online with questions you can answer to get that credit back. Overall, a very easy class with a great professor. Would highly recommend taking this for your science requirement. Also, the lab it is associated with is just as easy. It's completely asynchronous, you just submit weekly labs and if you bomb/forget to do a couple of them there are up to two make up labs available.
Amanda Hall GEOG201 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/06/2021	Professor Hoffman-Hall is an amazing professor, and honestly, she makes the class super easy to get an A in. She lectures a little fast, however, all her exams are open everything so it's not really a big deal.
Amanda Hall GEOG201 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/17/2020	Amanda is amazing!! Literally so sweet and kind. She is extremely organized and makes everything clear and straightforward. Her lectures weren't the best, but they were still helpful considering the class was online! As long as you do all your work you should get an A. She also lets you drop a decent amount of assignments including one exam.
Keith Yearwood GEOG201 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/28/2019	Please avoid him at ALL COST!!! There are only 3 exams that account for 85% of your total grade (the rest are from reading assignments online) and if you screw one up, you are doomed. The material itself is really not that hard, but his exams are extremely confusing because of the way he worded certain questions and answer. Definitely study his study guide before the exams AND the details about the topics he specifically mentioned because they will show up on them for sure. Also, go to his lectures because he gives out questions he might ask on the exams or answers to specific questions. Although he sometimes complains about students' absences and/or how easy and straightforward his exams are(which is not true), just hang on there. Just a final note, sit closer to the front on the day of exams so you can get the test paper earlier (He hands them out ONE BY ONE and still missed some of us...)
Keith Yearwood GEOG201 Anonymous 01/17/2019	There were only three exams and several online assignments. The online assignments were spaced out oddly, as sometimes we would have 2-3 quizzes due on Monday and Wednesday and other weeks we wouldn't have anything due. This threw me off quite often: he doesn't give late credit so if you miss one assignment, you get a zero and it will hurt your grade a ton. I also didn't like how he taught the course. The lectures would be anywhere from 60-300+ slides long, with some pictures and walls of text. It almost looked as if he copied and pasted information from an essay or a textbook and put them in bullet points. Usually, professors try to cover the important information - not every little tiny tiny detail. A 300+ slide long lecture is way too long. The textbook is useless and I would advise to not waste your money on it. You will still have to buy an access code for the online exercises. His exam reviews were helpful and fair. Most of the information in the exam reviews wound up being on the exams, although he occasionally put bizarre questions on the exams anyways. Also as a warning, it seems that Dr. Yearwood didn't know how to enter grade weights into ELMS, meaning that people's grades appeared to be inflated for the entire semester. He had several months to fix this issue and kept refusing to fix the grade weights (or does not know how to), as he kept telling students to just calculate the grades themselves. I admit that I should've noticed earlier, but considering that all my other professors always enter the grade weights correctly at the beginning of the year, I wrongly assumed that he would do the same.
Keith Yearwood GEOG201 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/22/2018	Boring professor. Will test you on little details that he barely covers in class. Class is not organized
Keith Yearwood GEOG201 Anonymous 05/22/2018	The class is easy but he is the worst professor possible. Really hated how he taught the class. Exams questions are so confusing. Multiple choice questions will have more than one choice, and because of this a lot of people fail the exams. He makes a lot of mistakes when he grades the exams.
Ralph Dubayah GEOG201 Expecting a B- terpschik202 02/01/2012	DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. Dubayah makes Geog201 MUCH harder than it needs to be. I'm easily an A/B student and I had a 62% in the class after the final. Because everyone did so poorly in the class, he put a 20% curve on the tests. He's pretentious and very hard to contact. I emailed him almost a week before the exam seeking help and he never emailed back. I even went to his office during the time I had requested to meet with him (to see if maybe I had missed the email or he had forgotten to email back) and he wasn't there. If you're a non-science major, don't waste your time on this class.
Ralph Dubayah GEOG201 recjra 02/07/2011	Dubayah was an okay lecturer, but I didn't feel like I really learned much from the course at the end of the semester. There is a lot of information to cover on the tests (though nothing is challenging) but it often felt like we were being tested on minutiae, especially on the multiple choice sections of the exams. There was a very generous curve built into the exams and the course, so it would be nearly impossible to fail. There were problems nearly every class with getting the clickers to work, which was really annoying after awhile. Dubayah wasn't particularly interesting and was kind of aloof.
Ralph Dubayah GEOG201 Expecting a B Jacob Harrer 01/17/2011	I scored B's on all the exams but got an A after the curve. The professor is polite, but he does not make his expectations clear for the exams. You have to study too much material, and the study guides and tests to not marry up. Just be prepared to be able to diagram and explain many concepts. The worst part of the exam is that obscure knowledge will come up and "headshot" you out of nowhere. Passing the class is not difficult, and you can actually pull an A if you do better than the other students, which is not difficult because it is full of frosh/soph who use it to fulfill CORE requirements but didn't have the confidence to take a more difficult or useful course like chem or physics.
Ralph Dubayah GEOG201 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/23/2010	TO EVERYONE: READ THIS BEFORE U CHOOSE THIS COURSE This is not a Geography class This is geology, biology, physics, and environmental science class. This class had nothing to do with geography. I am writing this with 100% seriousness. I am not joking about anything. This class is hard. Dubayah is not a bad guy, but he is really boring. I mean he makes few jokes here and there. It is not really his fault, but the topic that he is teaching is so boring that you just fall asleep. There is a clicker quiz every lecture that is graded to check if you are in class or not. IT IS NOT ON THE STUFF THAT YOU LEARNED. IT IS A QUIZ ON THE CHAPTER WE ARE GOING TO LEARN SO IF YOU WANT TO GET A GOOD GRADE ON IT, YOU HAVE TO READ AHEAD. This really messes ur grade up if you don't read ahead. Also he teaches stuff that is not in the book. So to get points and learn stuff, you HAVE TO COME TO THE LECTURE. There is no hw, but there is online quizzes you have to do. This can screw your grade up too because it is not easy and there is a deadline for each chapter. The quizzes combined are 15% of our grade. 20% for the first test. 25% for the second test. 40% for the final. One thing I like about Dubayah is that he is really fair. He gives nice curve depending on the class average. He is a guy enthusiastic about researching rather than teaching. He is one of those research type professors who leaves almost everything up to the TAs so he can just do the research. This is where the problem begins. The TAs are really bad and they do not care about the students AT ALL. They are lazy and messed up. Only ok TA is Steve. but they grade everything together so you basically have like 3 TAs. The Lab for this class is really easy. GEOG211. Easiest A you will get but the class was 9am in the morning for me. The first test average was like 63. The second test average was like 68. The final exam average was like 55. Just long as you get the average, attend every lecture, do the clicker quizzes and online quizzes with everything you got. You will get a B. To get an A, you have to do above and beyond. Get like 20 points better than the avg. And actually work really hard and always review and preview. I got a B in this class. I attended every lecture but I was not able to read ahead every time. I got like 83% for the quiz category. I got above the class average for every test. I did not pay attention at all. I just crammed everything in one day. I do not recommend this method because it is really hard. You have to pull all niter starting from 3pm to 12pm. Then you might get around the class average. Otherwise you have to study all lot. The tests are essays and MC. To be 100% truthful. The tests are pretty fair, but there is so much information and little details to remember that it is really hard to get a good grade. To do well on the test, preview every chapter, review every chapter, pay attention in the lecture, study one week before the exam. Easier said than done. And the study guide is pretty good source to study from but for the final exam study guide, he put 28 questions on the old stuff and 5 questions on the easy stuff. But the 90% of the test was on the new stuff. So the study guide is not right all the time. If the study guide was more like the test, I would have got 90% on the test without the curve. I was a person who took this as a core, thinking that I would avoid biology, physics, and chemistry because I hate science. I hate science and that is why i took this course but by taking this course, I basically took biology and physics plus geology and environmental science. So do not take this class unless you have to. UNLESS U R SMART. UNLESS U already took physics, biology, and environmental science in high school. And if you were good at it, then take it. If you like geology then rake this class. This is probably the best review you will find in ourumd.com
Ralph Dubayah GEOG201 Expecting a B rose11 01/08/2010	Not my favorite professor, but he is willing to answer questions. He doesn't seem as approachable as other professors, and his remarks during lecture sometimes seemed condescending. This course is not terribly difficult, but there is a lot of information to remember. There are three tests throughout the semester, which consist of multiple choice and diagram/short answer questions, plus the final. The diagrams can be complicated and hard to remember. The TAs didn't seem very helpful. You do not have to be a science major to understand the concepts, and many students taking the course take it for CORE, not their major. Don't take this class if you don't need to, or if you're not interested in the subject.
Ralph Dubayah GEOG201 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/08/2009	Professor Dubayah is a okay teacher. He does not make his class particularly interesting but it is not horribly dull. The lab is very easy but boring. The test in this class are extremely hard but they get curved. If you need a lab it's easier then traditional bio, or chem labs. Overall it's a mediocre class with a mediocre teacher.