As we near the end of January and enter week 4 of classes, the winter quarter has well and truly begun. I can hardly believe that my year is over halfway done! As I discussed earlier, I want to benefit from the wide variety of courses available at UCLA in order to benefit my geographical knowledge, and also broader skills. My course choices for this winter quarter are therefore:
Geography 113: Humid Tropics (Thomas Gillespie)
Several of my friends had mentioned this class to me in the previous fall quarter as an excellent physical geography course for learning about the biodiversity of the global tropics region, with a specific focus on coral reefs and tropical rainforests. The coral reefs we see today represent a ‘developmental episode’ of around 5,000 years and provide a vast structural framework for an enormous number of marine organisms (Allen & Steene, 1996: 3). Having visited a few coral reefs myself in the Pacific, I’m enjoying learning about the scientific processes behind these landscapes, and also understanding how they are endangered by human activities.
Midterm: 30%, Final: 40%, Group Project: 30%
Geography M128: Global Environment and Development: Problems and Issues (Joel Miller)
So far, GeogM128 is focusing on the arrival of agriculture within pre-modern society and its impact upon human development, economic development and the contentious political nature of natural resources (such as the building of dams). This class seems to have quite strong links with the Human Ecology first year module back home in UCL, and uses several case studies to exemplify the contentious nature of development upon certain environments, such as Rwanda’s recovery after its genocide or the displacement of Tibetan communities due to mining (Andre & Plateau, 1996; WTO, 2015). As it is assessed mainly through essays, I’m hoping that this class will give me the opportunity to expand upon topics I’ve studied at UCL whilst writing these essays.
Writing Projects: 68%, Quizzes: 30%, Course Evaluation: 2%
Management 1A: Principles of Accounting (Julie Gardner)
Accounting is something that I’ve never really thought about, or considered learning about whilst at university. However, whilst I’m keen to ignore the fact that I’m graduating in a year, I thought that studying a module of management accounting could improve my business understanding whilst applying for jobs. With an eye-watering $80 course reader, it’s been a challenge for me to study something so out of my comfort zone, however I do think it will prove useful in the future (even if it reinforces the fact that, for now, Geography was the right choice as a degree!). Warren Buffet himself describes accounting as “the language of business“, therefore whether I use this within a graduate job or perhaps just to understand banking slightly more, I think it will have been a useful module to choose.
Midterm: 35%, Final: 45%, Assignments: 20%
References:
Colouring in Abroad 