EVSC 2800

I was looking forward to taking this class as a first-year, intended Environmental Science major. Unfortunately, the professor for this course ruined my enjoyment of a topic that I hold great interest for. Ian Fitzsimmons was incredibly unorganized during lectures, and mumbled most of the time. I attended every lecture, took all textbook notes, and went to office hours before each test. I would typically go to office hours the day before each test, where he'd be playing chess on his computer. When I'd ask a question about something I was unsure about (and ask if I needed to know it for the test), he'd tell me he hadn't finished the test. All exams were short response, and you would get marked off if it wasn't exactly what he wanted. The questions were unclear and often broad, so it wasn't hard to misinterpret questions. I would not recommend taking a class with this professor, but I did find the information in the class interesting.

I am writing this as a forth year about to graduate, and who has taken multiple EVSC courses in the past. Fitzsimmons is the worst professor I had at UVA. Lectures were regularly 80+ slides slotted for a 50 minute period, and so he spent most of the time speeding through as quickly as he could and often didn't finish at all. He told us that "any material" from the 100s of pages long textbook was fair game for exams, and so could not give any sort of guidelines (beyond an 80+ slide "comprehensive review," which he said himself was not comprehensive) for what we should be studying. He was often extremely rude to students, and yet he complained when people didn't want to come to his office hours. On top of everything else, he was disrespectful of our time, regularly having class run over the 50 minute block- this was especially inconvenient, as I had to choose between hearing the rest of the material and getting to my next class on time.

I do believe he was trying his best, and I also have heard that he has not taught this course very many times (can't confirm this though), but I believe that there were MANY ways that he could have managed his time and class structure better. He would offer points back on exams afterwards if you asked for partial credit on missed questions, so I guess that was nice.

Amazing instructor, really cool class, highly recommend for any E-Schoolers trying to get their Technical Elective out of the way. I learned a ton and it was a great experience.