His lectures are entertaining, informative and to-the-point.

Montello is an absolute prick of a man. He's arrogant, insensitive and completely driven by a superiority complex centered around Geography. His jokes are almost as awful as they are frequent. He quizzes you on how to cook chiles. And he looks like Wayne Knight in a slightly nicer suit. In other words hes completely amazing. Take him & sit up front

write down every idiotic and anachronistic story/recipe/joke he says because he puts them on tests... he rushes through the lecture very quickly and does not have power-point... there are better classes out there!

Your lucky if you can make it half way through his lecture and its only once a week. I would usually leave early wanting to rip my hair out. He talks fast and rambles on so much that you have absolutely no idea what to write down, and all of the stuff you do write down isn't even on the test. My first C at UCSB! Horrible...spare yourself.

the prof is an arrogant ass and gives u no slack at all... but the class is only once a week with a midterm and final but he tests on every picky detail... STUDY

Always animated, cheesy sense of humor but it makes you laugh. He is very well-spoken, articulate, educated, omniscient in his field(i've read about theories and studies of his in other classes). Overall good, he actually attempts to make class fun.

Great class! I loved the music, recipes, videos, slides and the guest speakers. I learned a lot about our country. Montello has a good sense of humor even if he is rather arrogant. This class is one of the reasons why I'm changing my major to geography.

Very easy class. Very helpful. Some things are shady on explanation. Good prof.

This class is a real challenge - the exams are extremely difficult, with trick questions and very broad study guides. However, Unstuck study has been a lifesaver for preparing. Definitely take this course seriously and be ready to put in the work.

The slides were not very helpful and the test questions were pretty difficult. Def not an easy A but if you study the super long study guides u should be ok

I never knew that I would be in a position where I would need to withdraw a class to save my GPA, but this course has proved me wrong. There are few assignments (other than exams) and the exams are extremely significant for the grade. The exams are very detailed with trick questions and the study guide is very broad.

Im going to copy paste this profs study guide below. You can see for yourself what type of prof this guy is. This is THE ONLY THING we get to study by the way, besides his lecture outlines which are just short 1-2 page overviews of what he said in class.

This is the first class I ever failed lol. The test was extremely hard, the study guide for the test was only terms. I would say he was a clear speaker and it was easy to follow his lectures. In the section, we had assignments due every other week. Overall, I would not take the class if its for your general ed.

Montello seems like a nice guy but his lectures were terrible. He refused to use a mic even in a huge LH so no-one could hear anything, and even though the material was actually pretty interesting, the way he presented it made it really tedious. The section assignment instructions were super vague but they graded them very harshly. RIP my gpa...

Lectures are boring and minimal content is presented in his slides. The content was interesting, but bc of the way the class is structured I did not enjoy learning it. Grade based on tests. You must be ready to read the textbook, and even then test questions are ridiculous. Study guides are outdated and do not help. Will tank your gpa, do not take.

TERRIBLE. ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. IF YOU KNOW ME, YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE THIS CLASS AND PROFESSOR. VERY BAD EXPERIENCE. DO NOT RECOMMEND. SO HARD TO GRASP MATERIAL BECAUSE THERE ISN'T MUCH MATERIAL AT ALL. BARELY SLIDES, NO NOTES. LITERALLY JUST OUTLINES FOR HIMSELF. STUDY GUIDES ARE PARAGRAPHS OF TERMS THAT ARE NOT EVEN DISCUSSED IN LECTURE.

Montello is a good speaker, which makes pretty bland material interesting. Lectures are very well organized and test material is directly from the lectures. Main negative of the class is that it is difficult to make up for missed lectures since he doesn't post notes or slides and lectures only partially follow the textbook.

Montello gets to the point. His lectures are informative if not interesting, and although the material comes from a book it definitely helps to be in lecture and take notes. He definitely didn't get me interested in geography but he made the class very straight-forward which I respect. You'll do well if you pay attention and take tests seriously.

don't take this glass for GE

his class is so boring and the test are actually hard unless you study so much...

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS UNLESS YOU ARE A GENIUS .

Absolute worst class ever. Content is soooo boring and useless. Professor is arrogant and annoying af and goes off on tangents during lectures that make them super confusing. Studying for the midterm is memorizing hundreds of terms and random facts. This class sucks. I want to cry. Help.

I always tell friends who don't know Dan, that he is the Peter Griffin of the department - something is always other's fault, they are perfect such and such... The only 2 things I'm confused about our department: why they hired Pete, why they keep hiring Pete, sorry Dan. His total pay from the University is 200k+ every year and it's wasting money.

He doesn't care about your future, he just wants to see you fail. Be prepared to memorize every single word of his lecture because it will be on the midterm and the final. He once joked that he will resign from UCSB, i actually hope he does so that everyone else wouldn't have to go through the pain I did.