EVSC 3300

This course was divided into two exams. The content in the second half was definitely more confusing than in the first half, but overall, this course was not too difficult. It does not offer a textbook—instead, the readings are a sort of cocktail of different sources, including web articles, textbook chapters, academic papers, and governmental reports. As such, the direction of the course can feel somewhat confusing and some of the readings, particularly the academic papers, can be difficult to get through. Going to lecture and reviewing the lecture notes Professor Pusede posts are both absolute necessities to stay on track.

Grades in this course were very simple: two exams worth 30 points each, and four problem sets with 10 points each for a total of 100 points. Problem sets should be an easy 9-10 / 10—as long as you go to office hours. Our TA provided extensive feedback on problem sets as long as we went to him and asked for it, so be sure you use this to your advantage to make your problem sets as pristine as possible. I can't speak for the second exam because it was changed to a final project this semester due to the shooting that occurred on Grounds, but the first exam was fairly easy—mostly short answer, but as long as you understood the core concepts in lecture, they were very fair and doable. Professor Pusede is very caring, fair, and passionate about atmospheric science, and I especially recommend this course with her if you're at all interested in environmental justice.

Ultimately, the class might not be an easy A, but it shouldn't stress you out too much.

I do not recommend this class. The entire grade is based solely on exams, with no homework or other assignments to help balance the course or reinforce the material. Although the professor does not require a textbook, she clearly uses one for her own notes and reads directly from them in class. Her whiteboard work is often confusing and unstructured, making it difficult to follow the concepts at times. Asking questions in class is also unhelpful. Rather than her giving clear expectations about atmospheric or weather topics, she tends to trail off or respond in ways that feel more like riddles than answers. While she does offer test corrections for half credit back, the exams are extremely frequent, and many questions cover material that is never addressed during lectures. Quantitative problems are especially frustrating, she provides answer keys but never shows how she arrived at the solutions, and asking for clarification leads to more vague responses. Overall, I would not recommend this course, at least with this professor.

I don't know what changed between the last time she taught this class and this fall, but this was by far the worst class I have ever taken at UVA.

Sally is obviously an intelligent person, but clearly has no idea how to teach. She is disorganized and lacks structure, she is inept with Canvas. First off, she scheduled our first midterm for the middle of September (two weeks after classes started) with a second midterm only 10 days later. She makes you revise your own exam, and if you revise it wrong then your entire exam grade might fall. I am not even kidding when I say that she would genuinely answer questions with "I don't really want to answer that" and NO elaboration. If she did answer a question, it was vague and often dodgy. She was practically useless.

Lectures were confusing and often contradicted the readings. I ended up doing better on the exams when I stopped going to lectures because of how horrible her teaching is. She mumbles, writes in tiny, messy writing on the board and acts annoyed when you ask her to rewrite it or explain something again. Multiple times, she would spend an entire lecture explaining a concept, then end the class with "Just forget that though you aren't going to ever need to know this for this course".

The exams are their own mess. First off, it was very clear she had no clue what she was doing making the exams. Not only could she not give us ANY guidance about what concepts are covered, it seems she would forget what she had already taught and what we hadn't learned. A student asked if our second midterm was going to be cumulative, only a day before we were supposed to take it, and she responded with "Oh I don't know yet I haven't made the exam. But maybe though!". The third exam had two questions about a concept that we did NOT learn about, and when I brought this up the response was essentially 'oh well oops'.

She mentioned to us in the first week that she would dock points for answers that were too messy to read or not elaborate enough. Which I would understand if she gave us ANY space to write. Each question was spaced about a fingertip from the next, and the expectation was that you fit 3-5 sentences. Some exams had printed color photo images, of which you needed to point out details, which is near impossible on a shrunken low-quality color print that just appears pixelated.

Not a single person I met in this course enjoyed it or was able to perform well. She was dodgy about whether the course is curved, but if it isn't she would probably be failing half her students with the other half barely scraping by.

Do not take this course if you can avoid it. I'm an EnviSci major, and even I hated it.

Professor Pusede is very intelligent and seems like a nice and genuine person. With that being said, never take this class if it can be avoided.

Lectures were slow and often included topics that would never be covered in exams. Every lecture was based on her lecture notes for that day, which sometimes would not be posted until the day before exams. Often these lecture notes would be between three and four pages of information for a single 50 minute lecture.

Exams were structured in the worst way possible. We took three throughout the semester, each one having an average so low that Professor Pusede needed to give test correction credit to increase scores. From those I've talked to in the class, people would regularly receive between 60-70% on these exams on average.

Professor Pusede decided that our fourth midterm would take place on the same day as our final cumulative exam. The final exam included information tested on the fourth midterm. We were given the standard 50 minutes to take the fourth midterm, a five minute break, and then given the rest of the exam block to complete the final.

There have been rumors about a potential curve for the grading scale, but Professor Pusede hasn't announced anything outside of office hours. The average of the class currently, from what I can tell, is between 70-80%.

If this is a required course for your major, wait until another semester with a different Professor. I've heard that it has actually been understandable and enjoyable in the past.