EVSC 1450

I don't know if Fitzsimmons was temporarily taking over for Lawrence, the prof that usually teaches the course, but it was clear that he was kinda thrown into the course at the last second. While it seemed like Fitzsimmons knew the content, his lectures were kinda scattered. Throughout the semester, we received email after email about clarifications and mistakes that were made with lectures, quizzes, or homework. Even though he was a little scattered, it still seemed like he was trying his best. It also probably didn't help that I am just not a science person at all so I didn't try that much in the class.

I will preface by saying that I signed up to take this class with Deborah Lawrence, only to fulfill a gen-ed requirement and since previous iterations of this class got good reviews and said it was easy, so although I wasn't exactly interested in the content, I thought it couldn't be too bad. Apparently she was on leave, so we got Fitzsimmons instead. While Fitzsimmons is well-intentioned and probably wasn't meant to teach this class this semester, this class was terrible. Fitzsimmons was a very disorganized, ineffective lecturer and I feel like this class was a complete waste of time. There were a ton of issues with technology (with tests, quizzes, emails, microphone in lecture, etc.) throughout the semester. The tests, while not difficult, were not as easy as expected, despite being online and open-note, due to very specific questions and math-based free-responses that were not explained well in lecture. I did get a A in the class anyway and it was almost no work, but if you want to take this class, I would wait til Lawrence teaches it again and save yourself a headache. #tCFfall22

This was an interesting course and Professor Fitzsimmons is a good professor! The course is more on the science-based part of environmental science but there is policy content at the end of the course. It is just a lecture-style class with no discussion, so you never have to speak in the lecture pretty much. You do a chapter reading before every class and the content from the chapter reading is what he lectures on in that class. I will say that he does go through the content quickly, so I highly encourage reading the chapters and taking notes on them before class. But even though he did go through content quickly, Professor Fitzsimmons was a great lecturer and you can tell he really loves and is passionate about the subject. The tests were online, open-note, and pretty easy. He has a lot of office hours too and his office hours were nice, even though I did no actual work during his office hours and we just talked about anything! Overall, he's a super nice professor and a good lecturer, would definitely recommend! #tCFfall22

This class was not a good fit for me. With the original professor, Deborah Lawrence, the class was supposed to be an easy A to fulfil some of the disciplines credits. However, with Ian Fitzsimmons, the tests did not often follow the lectures and provided textbook, and I had a hard time understanding the principles he was trying to explain, especially the math sections, which should have been very easy math. Lectures were also often dry, and he has a tendency to mumble when he speaks. All in all, the class was okay at best. I would not recommend this class to anyone not intending to do an environmental science major, as they would probably find it dry and difficult to follow.

I chose this course because it had good reviews, but they changed the instructor last minute and I think that was the problem. The content itself was interesting but the professor was poorly organized and almost incoherent in the structure of his lectures. I learned more from reading the textbook than going to class. The professor also seemed to have poor understanding or memory of what he actually taught/explained to the class, leading to one ridiculously hard test. Fortunately he offered extra credit and a curve after many complaints. I got an A in this course, but would choose to take something else if I knew the professor was going to change and cause the whole course to fall apart. On the plus side, the content itself was not hard and the tests were all open note. There was also no cumulative exam or any papers.