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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Sustainability by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

4.8
stars
2,548 ratings

About the Course

This course introduces the academic approach of Sustainability and explores how today’s human societies can endure in the face of global change, ecosystem degradation and resource limitations. The course focuses on key knowledge areas of sustainability theory and practice, including population, ecosystems, global change, energy, agriculture, water, environmental economics and policy, ethics, and cultural history. This subject is of vital importance, seeking as it does to uncover the principles of the long-term welfare of all the peoples of the planet. As sustainability is a cross-disciplinary field of study, this foundation requires intellectual breadth: as I describe it in the class text, understanding our motivations requires the humanities, measuring the challenges of sustainability requires knowledge of the sciences (both natural and social), and building solutions requires technical insight into systems (such as provided by engineering, planning, and management)....

Top reviews

KF

Dec 18, 2016

It is a well prepared course. Contents are carefully organized and plenty of concepts and examples are included and analyzed. Overall, it is a excellent course to get an overview of sustainability.

MT

Sep 23, 2020

This course helps me to learn many things about sustainability. By this course, I am more interested in sustainable developments. I expect to learn more about this provided by Dr Johnathan Tomkin.

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51 - 75 of 792 Reviews for Introduction to Sustainability

By Arthur G

Sep 2, 2022

It's a great course for learning about sustainability for people who are new to the topic or for someone who is looking to get a refresher. The instructor is great and the content is very comprehensive and interesting. There is a ton of extra reading to dive deeper into any of the topics. The only drawback is that the course was created around 10 years ago, so there have been some developments in some of the topics after that. Overall, highly recommend this course.

By Manuel E P L

Oct 18, 2015

My congratulations for this course. Was a great experience to learn about this topic and the important for our future.

Additionally, i would like to make some suggestions especially related with approach on developed countries, developing countries and the data stat.

Inside these aspects should be included examples related with Latin America, Asia and another regions that not been included between the classics examples of developed countries.

Thanks for this course.

By Wendy Y

Oct 1, 2023

This course was incredibly informative and thought provoking. It covered a broad range of issues and I learned so much to supplement my prior research in this topic. It was an academically rigorous course, very challenging, but I looked forward to learning more material each day. It also changed a lot of my preconceived notions and gave me a more balanced view on sustainability. I found it compelling and motivating, a great way to dive into this field.

By 2K20_EE_140 K J

Sep 18, 2021

An excellent course. This course should be enrolled into by every student, esp. engineers, because the world is taking a sly turn towards sustainable methods. This course helps relate us the present and the upcoming future with the past. I want to thank Dr. Jonathan Tomkin to put so much efforts to provide us such an analytical data and stats. Also, I want to thank Coursera to involve such a wonderful course into the catalogue.

By Eduardo F

Jun 14, 2021

I fully agree with the main message of the course:  climate change is real.; it is a worldwide problem that is affecting our wellbeing as well as future generations’   that needs to be faced. Fortunately, we humanity have the technical and economic means to face and manage it. Still, we have to build up the political consensus and tools to do so.

Many thanks for your efforts hope there is a follow up in the near future

By Karen M

Sep 10, 2017

This was an amazing course. I learned so much about sustainability and feel that I now have the tools to be critical about media news pieces about the environment. Prof. Tomkin explains his topics clearly and concisely. I found his lectures easy to follow without being "dumbed down". I highly recommend taking this course if you want to learn more about the issues affecting the environment and sustainable development.

By Fatima A O

May 24, 2018

Great course. I learned so much and the course was the right place to start to learn about environmental policy and sustainability. It explains population, consumption, energy, water, touching on many inaccurate assumptions about the environment and sustainability. most of all, I enjoyed the sections that focused on policy options, which is the main reason I have been looking for that kind of courses.

By Inggrit I

Mar 28, 2023

I learn this course with no background in sustainability or environmental issues. By taking this course, it is not only making me completely understand new insights easily but at the same time giving abundance of information that i never though before. this is one of the best course i have taken in Coursera. eyeopening, easy to discern even though it is complex. Well done course and great material!!

By Monica

Oct 26, 2015

I've been a supporter of environmental sustainability efforts for a long time, however, I lacked training/knowledge (as my undergraduate studies are in Business). Passion is great, but in the real world, you need skills to back up that passion. I am proud to say that can now engage in active conversations with people who are working in sustainability related fields! This is a very empowering course!

By Parivesh B

Oct 13, 2020

I loved how the course progresses while explaining the most important issues in sustainability.

The course curriculum is really insightful and helps in building a strong foundation in the field of sustainable development.

I will highly recommend the course to people looking forward to build their knowledge base in the field of sustainability and environmental sciences.

I loved every bit of the course!

By Muhammad H

May 6, 2020

This course is a very beginning of an important concept of sustainability. The videos are just more than excellent at communicating useful knowledge to the seeker. The quizzes are designed to take full advantage of one's abilities. The most interesting work in this course is Peer graded assignments. I have learned and enjoyed this course. Hope everyone else who opt it will likewise too. Thumbs up!

By Deborah L

May 17, 2020

I really enjoyed the instructor and the class. I am taking Intro to Sustainability at another university and it is completely different than what we learned here. I am not saying it is better or worse but it is interesting the amount of diversity that an intro class can have. I would be very interested to see/hear what Professor Tomkins would have to say about the current pandemic crisis.

By Paul A

May 18, 2020

Bast online course I have ever taken. Professor Tomkins did a fantastic job giving a broad and comprehensive overview on sustainability. The reading were excellent, the supplementary videos and case studies were enlightening, and he pushed a little bit with the quizzes, enough to make you feel like your earned the certificate. A great entry point to the entire field of sustainability.

By Ramanan S

Feb 7, 2016

Really awesome course! Especially the peer review assignments. They give an overall view of what are the problems being faced by everyone around the world! The course structure is really good and is optimal for learning. After the course, one really has a changed perspective towards the earth and you would be inspired with purpose! A purpose to work for the betterment of humankind!

By E.

Sep 28, 2020

This is a very serious course of high academic quality. It takes time to follow the lectures, read additional material, make homework and tests, but it is worth it.

The instructor makes the lessons easy to understand, although it sometimes deals with quite complicated topics.

It would be great to hear about an updated course (this is a few years old) or a continuation of this one.

By Ethan C

Sep 11, 2021

I throughouly enjoyed this course as it was very relevant and had exteremely interesting assignments to do and topics to learn about. Jonathan Tomkin was also a brilliant narrator, and the videos were great quality. I would recommend this course to anyone interested in the environment, sustainability or just if they would like to find out something new. Thank you very much!

By David M

May 28, 2020

I have both my B.S and J.D. , but it has been years since I have taken a college level course. This was one of the most interesting and engaging I have ever taken. Dr. Tomkins presents the content in a relatable manner that is easy to understand. The information provided has ignited my interest to learn more and continue my education on Sustainability. Highly reccomend!

By Camelia K

Jul 2, 2020

A great introductory course about sustainability that is informative and not too basic that is worthwhile your time if you are interested to more about the statistics, proper concepts and terminology in this field. The information is well-packed and not to difficult to understand but still requires some effort to properly digest the knowledge. Thanks Dr. Jonathan Tomkins!

By Kathleen P

Dec 30, 2020

Very insightful! Though I have taken AP environmental science course and it has some overlap with this course, I still learned a lot! For me the exam is a little bit difficult, and the video quality is high. I highly recommend everyone to take this course, and I really found myself broadening my horizen and learning to argue from different perspectives. Thank you UIUC!

By Taina S M

Apr 13, 2021

I am so impressed about the quality of this course, the readings and lectures are super interesting and exciting you want to learn all the time. The Instructor Dr. Tomkin is great, the way he speaks and the data he presents make everything easier to understand the topics. My understanding on sustainability completely changed during the course. Thank you very much.

By Grace M

Feb 10, 2022

One of the best courses I've done! Covers a huge range of topic, thoroughly explains all the concepts, so easy to follow but it is demanding when it comes to assignments—which is something that I liked. I've learnt a great deal, I understand so much more now, and I do believe that it did help me get into a Master's programme in Environmental Management!

By Chukwunonso O

May 14, 2021

This course introduced me to a refined way of thinking about sustainability. Sustainability is not limited to just green movements (i.e. propaganda) but actually analysing the lifecycle of so-called sustainable technology, environmental laws, preventive measures to ascertain that they create a net benefit on the grand scale. I highly recommend it!!!!

By Eleftherios K

May 21, 2020

An exceptional course that introduces an abundance of new concepts and points of view. It's engaging and thought-provoking, with very interesting assignments. The workload is considerable but at the end it's worthwhile. I totally feel that I've gained a sense of the current global situation on sustainability for the 21st century! Thank you very much!

By Luis G

Mar 29, 2021

The course is to recommend to everyone as this is very interesting, well structured, well prepared, well explained and also demanding. I not just learned but I did enjoy it a lot. The course helped me a lot to a better understanding of my day to day work with Funding Agencies like World Bank and its expectations for sustainable development issues.

By Arav D

Aug 14, 2020

I really liked learning the course material. As an aspiring environmental engineer, I wanted to explore more environmental concepts before applying to colleges, and this course allowed me to decide that I enjoyed learning about environmental concepts, especially sustainability, and made me excited to take more sustainability classes in the future.