Villarreal will definitely get some mixed and contradicting reviews, but they're all completely valid! I'll try to elaborate.

If this is way too long, here's the abridged version: Workload is light. Asynchronous lectures. Weekly quizzes are simple. The 2 weekly assignments count towards participation–please do them. Exams can be difficult and can make or break your grade. Run your essay ideas and thesis by your TA to gauge what they want/how they're gonna grade. Or else things will get confusing. EVERYTHING COUNTS.

I think the workload was pretty light. Lectures were asynchronous, so you had an entire week to watch them. Villarreal's mic kinda sucks, though, so it was a little difficult to understand him at times. Something that I didn't like was that he gave lectures nearly word for word out of the textbook. I took detailed notes on the text, so lectures could drag on for me. If I took this class again, I wouldn't rely so heavily on the text and wouldn't treat the lectures as supplementary.

There was a question posed in each of the recorded lectures, and we had to write a discussion post that was at least 4-5 sentences. (Students often wrote more just to make their point clear). Additionally, there was a group memo that we completed in groups of 3-4 during discussion section. Most of the time was spent on discussing the question and possible answers. These two assignments count towards your participation grade, so do them to get some free points!

Then there were also the weekly quizzes, which I found pretty simple. The questions were multiple choice and strongly vocabulary based. I think a quick skim through the text is enough to do well.

The midterm was definitely a little out of left field after the fairly simple quizzes. Others here mentioned that Villarreal purposely made it more difficult last minute. (But he did give back points on a few questions—these points helped my grade tremendously.) With the final, students knew what to expect, so some kind people shared some great study guides with the class! I thought the final was written so much more clearly and with less desire to throw students off. However, some students didn't share my opinion. I think the fact that we couldn't go back to look over our previous questions and had 35 mins for 25 questions took a toll on people.

If you aren't a strong test taker or don't do too well under pressure (especially if you're in an environment where it's hard to focus), I think you can find a GE that's a better fit for you. If you need this class as a Soc major, try not to take it with Villarreal if you can. Or at least don't take it online as this was his first time teaching a course at UCLA, so we don't know how he runs an in-person class.

We also had to write a 4.5-5 page essay, and the prompt was quite vague. Again, Villarreal wanted TAs to grade harshly, so the average was a B. (But from a poll conducted, many got higher grades!! Don't be too scared.) Due to the vagueness of the prompt, many students were lost during the writing process. I don't think the TAs had a standard grading system for the essays either, so asking clarifying questions to people with a different TA probably wasn't the best idea. Regardless of your writing ability, take advantage of office hours, so you can talk to your TA about your thesis and ideas and get a feel of exactly what THEY are looking for. I think anyone can do well on the essay as long as they don't go in completely blind. (I and many others decided to wing it. Don't make the same mistake.)

I don't think my grade was even near an A, but I aced the final and got a great participation grade. This class is definitely one of those where literally EVERYTHING COUNTS! Not doing too well in one area can hurt you a lot. But if you do "okay" on the midterm and essay, the final and how well you keep up with assignments can give you can extra push.

I'm not a Sociology major, but I'm very interested in the subject. I enjoyed what I learned and a lot connected to another one of my GEs. Someone else said that students were complaining too much, but I think it built community. And even with the complaining, we were always cheering each other on and helping each other out with the material. So the kinds of people in the class/chat will also affect your overall experience.

Overall I'd say that this class was fairly easy. Weekly quizzes were straight to the point and covered exactly what was in the previous week's chapter and lecture, each containing 5 mc questions and being timed for 5, but soon 6, minutes. As for discussions, we would be put into different breakout rooms where we worked together to write a memo also based on the previous week's topic. Additionally we were required to write a 5 page paper, and my TA did a great job of specifying what we needed to include in order to get a good grade as well as clearing up any further questions in her office hours. Lastly, we had a midterm and a final, both 25 mc questions and timed for 35 minutes. Although the professor’s lectures, the discussion sections, and assigned readings provided great insight into various sociological topics, it became somewhat difficult to fully enjoy due to the constant complaining of slight inconveniences by other students. One of the main things fellow peers would love to complain about is the timing of the quizzes and exams, which I would like to point out had been clearly set by the professor in the syllabus. Many believed that five minutes for five questions wasn't enough time, but as stated before, the quizzes were fairly easy and we're literally based off of stuff directly stated in the textbook. Had the student just came prepared by simply reading the chapter or even just bothered to look over the slides put up by the professor, there would be no reason for them to take up all of the time given for the quizzes. Due to the lingering entitlement, the professor was bombarded with emails asking for additional time which he eventually came through with, but students still found a way to complain even though he wasn't even obligated to give more time. As harsh as it is to say, many have failed to realize that college classes and professors won't always accommodate your wants, this is the real world afterall, and not everything is going to go your way. Another problem many people had was with the actual questions in the weekly quizzes, midterm, and final exam. Many believed they were hard to understand because of the wording, however many also failed to accept that had they read the answers more carefully, one could note the slight variation between the right answer and those that were wrong, therefore allowing them to pick the correct answer and getting the points. With this out of the way, I would recommend this class, as the workload is highly manageable and easy to complete and the topics discussed by Professor Villarreal and the textbook are clear, fascinating, and eye opening.