Prof MacDonald was very engaging and passionate despite video length given my course's asynchronous format (not preferred if you have the option to be in front of this top notch professor). Weekly 10-point TIMED quizzes were the vast majority of grade which I found surprisingly tricky in some cases (fill in blank, multi word fill in sentence). Quizzes were based on key learnings in slides and a multitude of examples provided in lectures so pay close attention. The timed final was based on cumulative and similar to quizzes but longer. My biggest complaint was that Prof MacDonald did not always share quiz result specifics so I did not know what I got right or wrong which was especially frustrating going into the final. I also never got a response to my email requesting results to quiz results which all my other UCLA classes provided.

Prof Macdonald is so passionate about the class and really loves teaching it, which is shown through his engaging and fun lectures. Each week there's 3 or 4 15-20 minute lecture videos and a 10 question quiz based on that week's material. The quiz questions were VERY specific though so be aware of that. For example, one of the questions asked what the professor's favorite book was that he mentioned in the lectures. Other questions would show a diagram that was on the lecture slides and you had to fill in the blanks, so it was super easy. There was no midterm. There was 1 op-ed style paper due in week 10 and the final was 2 short essays. For the final he gave us 3 prompts and we could pick 2 to answer. These were not very difficult, it just required you to draw on a few different topics that we learned throughout the course. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and would definitely recommend.

Absolutely loved the material for this course! Professor is incredibly passionate about the subject and seems really nice, wish it was in-person. For the final he basically wants you to summarize the entire course in two essays, which is a daunting task but it really helps cement the timeline into your memory and understand the relationships. Quizzes often have questions asking about random details so write everything down even if you don't think it's that important. Really hope to take more of his classes.