I would like to start of by saying that Professor Macko has a great personality and a brilliant mind but with all that being said this was easily one of the most disorganized and disorienting classes I’ve ever taken in my educational career. The class is based of 4 unit tests along with a comprehensive final, multiple labs, and a final paper. The paper was originally posted in the syllabus to be 7-10 pages but a week before the due date the page count was changed to 15. The labs are not incredibly difficult but can be confusing as they are not necessarily covered in class. The lectures themselves are not helpful for note taking, you are better off reading the textbook and praying. The lecture slides themselves mostly consists of pictures, graphs, diagrams, and charts that Professor Macko does explain but it is incredibly difficult to take notes this way. The class has a strong curve which definitely makes up for the disorganization but it is still a troublesome class overall. I will not say I recommend or do not recommend this class, I would consider the information above and evaluate if you yourself would be willing to subjugate yourself to that.

Hate. Don't take. This man's lectures are the most useless of any professor I have ever had. The exams are completely unrelated to the content and its really hard to know what will be on them. He is super inconsistent with deadlines, and there is a final paper for 4050 that is like 15 pages (but some of it is references and stuff). There are labs that take forever and are so confusing. Do not take this course. If you do, you will definitely be fine, I am def getting an A, but it is not worth. You must read the textbook.

So first of all, I took this class in j-term (I don't know why the site won't let me put that down). This class seems like it suffered hugely from COVID - all of the trips we were scheduled to go on were cancelled, so the class mostly consisted of guest speakers and brief lectures across a wide range of topics. Macko is a strange guy, but he's really nice and he's clearly got good intentions. He was very forgiving on assignments and due dates, and the class was really really easy even if you're not an EVSC major. I've heard that this class is different in the main semester, but the assignments were extremely predictable and easily graded. There was a nightly write-up about the day's class each night, a small group project, and two small personal assignments, and I don't think I lost a point all semester.

This class is basically 3 50 question midterms, 100 question final, a research paper, and several labs. The labs are not terribly difficult, but can take a while. He scales the grades up on the tests. I would reccomend this class, but beware that Macko's lectures can get a little boring when he goes off topic (which happens pretty frequently). #‎tcf2016‬

easy class if you're looking for one - macko himself is not a pleasant person if you have to interact with him individually, rarely stays on topic, would rather talk about himself than teach

You don't really have to do the reading super closely and the homework assignments don't take too long. Tests aren't too difficult, they just tend to be very specific (50 multiple choice questions tests--2 -3 a semester). Macko, overall, is a pretty good professor. He tends to go on tangents and tells lots of stories, but he teaches well and is pretty interesting.

Macko is a good lecturer and loves to get the students involved, which keeps it entertaining. The material is pretty interesting though. The 4050 section is the same as the 2050 section except for 4-5 extra labs (which are busy work and not the most fun, but doable) and then a 7-10 page paper on a topic of your choice. Definitely recommend taking this class for an EVSC elective.

Macko is a good lecturer who is pretty enthusiastic about the topic. The labs for the class are a bunch of busy work and kind of difficult, but the rest of the class is fine. Macko lets off many people from the waitlist at the start of the semester, but even then the classroom isnt always full because many people dont go to class. There are 4 50 question multiple choice tests. Definitely recommended if you want an easy 4000 level class (its the same as the 2050 section)

Really fun and pretty easy. My only disappointment is that we didn't spend very much time on the biological aspects of oceans.

Prof. Macko is very enthusiastic about what he's teaching. He's awesome and very funny.
For the class, if you go classes and do readings, you will do great on exams.
I really recommend him.