Professor
Mary Corey
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2026 - TL;DR: I recommend this class as an easy upper div. Professor Corey is SUPER funny and has really engaging lectures. No assignments other than the final, which is a combined midterm and final (3-4 pages for each one). Only drawback is she goes on tangents during her lectures, but the material is not hard to understand. She CAN come across as rude, but to be fair she is quite old and from a different era. This was the first class I took at UCLA after transferring, and it was quite the introduction! Long review: Syllabus/assignments: There are no assignments other than the combined midterm and final. She will give you one prompt for the midterm and one prompt for the final, and both of those essays had to be 3-4 pages long. She does NOT care about format at all. For most prompts, you must draw from information from the lectures, books, and films (if applicable to your prompt) The only readings are two books: The Bread Givers and Only Yesterday. I did not read a single page of Only Yesterday and only read The Bread Givers. You can get away with only reading one as long as you pick a prompt that has to do with the book you read, but you should read at least one. There are no textbooks or articles to read. There were also 2 films (maybe 3? but probably 2) that you had to watch. Not too bad and you can just put them on 2x speed. One was The Italian, and I don't remember the other. Her criteria for the essay was mostly just "to prove you took the class." If you go to her office hours, she will personally grade your paper herself as opposed to the TA/assistant grading it. While this might seem intimidating or somehow worse, I believe she is a very easy grader because my essay was not good at all and she still gave me an A. However, she does not provide any feedback. You basically email your essay to her because she hates Canvas, and you won't even know if she received it because she does not email you anything back. I did not even know if she received it for a whole month until I checked my unofficial transcript and saw I got an A in the class. To get a good grade though, make sure to align your argument in your essay with how she presents her opinion on a certain topic in the lectures. She has very OBVIOUS opinions on parts of American history which she makes VERY clear in her office hours and lectures. I would not recommend writing your essay AGAINST her perspective of that topic. She gives a ton of choices for the prompts and they are very straightforward. The lectures are very informative, so I felt that I had sufficient information to go off of. You actually might not even have to watch any of the lectures until the prompts are posted, pick a prompt, and just watch the lecture for that topic. Although, I did watch all the lectures simply because they were fun to watch. Lecture style: She is super funny, engaging, and has incredible wit. In my opinion, she explains topics in a simple manner and I don't think anything was hard to understand. However, like many other reviews note, she birdwalks quite frequently and goes on tangents about random historical figures who you probably won't know and are irrelevant to the class or final essay. She will also go off on random side tangents in general. Her slides are also 99% pictures, but she gets confused on the order of her own slideshows and jumps around from one slide to another -- so they can be quite disorganized (bare in mind she is quite old). It can be a bit annoying as a student, but I honestly I did not care that much. Her lectures, when she's on track, are really engaging. Sometimes she is not completely clear, but overall the topics themselves were not dense or complicated at all. Again, this was my very first course at UCLA, so when I say it was not dense—it really wasn't. Trust when I say I am NOT an academic weapon. Communication: She responded to all my emails within 24 hours, and answered my questions pretty well. If she had updates or announcements, she was also pretty communicative on Canvas. Although, she types in all caps and without proper punctuation, but it gave me a good laugh. Office hours: She makes herself pretty available and lets you set up private appointments with her in case you cannot make the regular hours. HOWEVER: She is a bit...interesting. You will ask her one, short and straightforward question and she will go on a 20 minute coke rant with maybe 2-3 sentences that actually answer your question. This happened to me and everyone else in the office hours appointments I went to. She might answer you in a pretty rude manner, but you MUST hold back your tears and prevail. She mostly values the fact that, in her words, "give a shit" enough to get help and come to the office hours. Just prepare 1 question about the lectures, readings, or your essay and shut up and nod for the rest of her coke rant. I only went to two office hours and she still gave me an A. Don't get offended if she seems to treat you like you asked the dumbest question in human history—again, just hold back the tears. It's okay. Also, she will be pretty pleased if you say something that proves you watched her lectures. She would get pretty visibly and verbally frustrated when someone would ask her a technical question about the final as opposed to an academic one, so DON'T do that. I kind of understand her frustration though because she reiterates it 20 times and it's written in the syllabus. But overall her office hours were pretty interesting. Conclusion: Overall, I would highly recommend taking this class if you want an easy upper div. Yes, there is probably something wrong with her and godspeed to any retail worker that has to deal with her, but she gave me an A so I really don't care at this point. Her lectures are hilarious and I honestly enjoyed this course! If you like American history and funny, unique professors I highly recommend this course.
Summer 2026 - TL;DR: I recommend this class as an easy upper div. Professor Corey is SUPER funny and has really engaging lectures. No assignments other than the final, which is a combined midterm and final (3-4 pages for each one). Only drawback is she goes on tangents during her lectures, but the material is not hard to understand. She CAN come across as rude, but to be fair she is quite old and from a different era. This was the first class I took at UCLA after transferring, and it was quite the introduction! Long review: Syllabus/assignments: There are no assignments other than the combined midterm and final. She will give you one prompt for the midterm and one prompt for the final, and both of those essays had to be 3-4 pages long. She does NOT care about format at all. For most prompts, you must draw from information from the lectures, books, and films (if applicable to your prompt) The only readings are two books: The Bread Givers and Only Yesterday. I did not read a single page of Only Yesterday and only read The Bread Givers. You can get away with only reading one as long as you pick a prompt that has to do with the book you read, but you should read at least one. There are no textbooks or articles to read. There were also 2 films (maybe 3? but probably 2) that you had to watch. Not too bad and you can just put them on 2x speed. One was The Italian, and I don't remember the other. Her criteria for the essay was mostly just "to prove you took the class." If you go to her office hours, she will personally grade your paper herself as opposed to the TA/assistant grading it. While this might seem intimidating or somehow worse, I believe she is a very easy grader because my essay was not good at all and she still gave me an A. However, she does not provide any feedback. You basically email your essay to her because she hates Canvas, and you won't even know if she received it because she does not email you anything back. I did not even know if she received it for a whole month until I checked my unofficial transcript and saw I got an A in the class. To get a good grade though, make sure to align your argument in your essay with how she presents her opinion on a certain topic in the lectures. She has very OBVIOUS opinions on parts of American history which she makes VERY clear in her office hours and lectures. I would not recommend writing your essay AGAINST her perspective of that topic. She gives a ton of choices for the prompts and they are very straightforward. The lectures are very informative, so I felt that I had sufficient information to go off of. You actually might not even have to watch any of the lectures until the prompts are posted, pick a prompt, and just watch the lecture for that topic. Although, I did watch all the lectures simply because they were fun to watch. Lecture style: She is super funny, engaging, and has incredible wit. In my opinion, she explains topics in a simple manner and I don't think anything was hard to understand. However, like many other reviews note, she birdwalks quite frequently and goes on tangents about random historical figures who you probably won't know and are irrelevant to the class or final essay. She will also go off on random side tangents in general. Her slides are also 99% pictures, but she gets confused on the order of her own slideshows and jumps around from one slide to another -- so they can be quite disorganized (bare in mind she is quite old). It can be a bit annoying as a student, but I honestly I did not care that much. Her lectures, when she's on track, are really engaging. Sometimes she is not completely clear, but overall the topics themselves were not dense or complicated at all. Again, this was my very first course at UCLA, so when I say it was not dense—it really wasn't. Trust when I say I am NOT an academic weapon. Communication: She responded to all my emails within 24 hours, and answered my questions pretty well. If she had updates or announcements, she was also pretty communicative on Canvas. Although, she types in all caps and without proper punctuation, but it gave me a good laugh. Office hours: She makes herself pretty available and lets you set up private appointments with her in case you cannot make the regular hours. HOWEVER: She is a bit...interesting. You will ask her one, short and straightforward question and she will go on a 20 minute coke rant with maybe 2-3 sentences that actually answer your question. This happened to me and everyone else in the office hours appointments I went to. She might answer you in a pretty rude manner, but you MUST hold back your tears and prevail. She mostly values the fact that, in her words, "give a shit" enough to get help and come to the office hours. Just prepare 1 question about the lectures, readings, or your essay and shut up and nod for the rest of her coke rant. I only went to two office hours and she still gave me an A. Don't get offended if she seems to treat you like you asked the dumbest question in human history—again, just hold back the tears. It's okay. Also, she will be pretty pleased if you say something that proves you watched her lectures. She would get pretty visibly and verbally frustrated when someone would ask her a technical question about the final as opposed to an academic one, so DON'T do that. I kind of understand her frustration though because she reiterates it 20 times and it's written in the syllabus. But overall her office hours were pretty interesting. Conclusion: Overall, I would highly recommend taking this class if you want an easy upper div. Yes, there is probably something wrong with her and godspeed to any retail worker that has to deal with her, but she gave me an A so I really don't care at this point. Her lectures are hilarious and I honestly enjoyed this course! If you like American history and funny, unique professors I highly recommend this course.
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2018 - You can tell Mary Corey wishes she was black as she walks around in her Rihanna Puma's using the N word every other sentence. Well that was in her class from Spring quarter. In this class she complained about the sensitive students who couldn't handle history (black people are getting called the N word and being shot almost everyday. This isn't just history, this is the present struggle of many Americans, and there are consequences to using words like this.) and then managed to refer to everything as "retarded," and complain about "trigger warnings" saying she does not believe in them for her classes despite the fact that two veterans with PTSD once ended up hospitalized from a book she forced them to read. Apart from that, her lectures make little sense and it really makes me wonder what this schools standards are. Pathetic. Mary Corey you've aged too badly to ever be black. Just accept it. You're the whitest person I've met in my life. If you need a history course take Teo Ruiz before he retires- he is a brilliant professor who fought for his education. Or take Nile Green whose passion is contagious and expertise shines through in his lectures. Or take Geoffrey Robinson whose lectures are more engrossing than any action movie I've ever watched and will make you want to join the peace corps tomorrow. Well maybe she's here to even things out a little bit because there's still some brilliant minds in this department.
Summer 2018 - You can tell Mary Corey wishes she was black as she walks around in her Rihanna Puma's using the N word every other sentence. Well that was in her class from Spring quarter. In this class she complained about the sensitive students who couldn't handle history (black people are getting called the N word and being shot almost everyday. This isn't just history, this is the present struggle of many Americans, and there are consequences to using words like this.) and then managed to refer to everything as "retarded," and complain about "trigger warnings" saying she does not believe in them for her classes despite the fact that two veterans with PTSD once ended up hospitalized from a book she forced them to read. Apart from that, her lectures make little sense and it really makes me wonder what this schools standards are. Pathetic. Mary Corey you've aged too badly to ever be black. Just accept it. You're the whitest person I've met in my life. If you need a history course take Teo Ruiz before he retires- he is a brilliant professor who fought for his education. Or take Nile Green whose passion is contagious and expertise shines through in his lectures. Or take Geoffrey Robinson whose lectures are more engrossing than any action movie I've ever watched and will make you want to join the peace corps tomorrow. Well maybe she's here to even things out a little bit because there's still some brilliant minds in this department.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Mary Corey is the most hilarious professor I have met in my 3 years at UCLA. I always recommend people (history majors or not) to take something with her just because of how fun her lectures can be! I think that I have taken all of the upper division classes she teaches, and this one was the easiest as far as content and workload go.
Fall 2022 - Mary Corey is the most hilarious professor I have met in my 3 years at UCLA. I always recommend people (history majors or not) to take something with her just because of how fun her lectures can be! I think that I have taken all of the upper division classes she teaches, and this one was the easiest as far as content and workload go.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - Her lectures are disorganized and messy but really funny! She is entertaining and makes jokes. It's a take-home midterm and final. The prompts are usually posted a week before they're due. The final has a ten-page Intellectual Autobiography but it's credit/no credit. Try to go to office hours (usually on Zoom) and EMAIL HER TO GRADE YOUR PAPERS!!! The TAs/readers destroy the papers, but she's a chill grader. Also, she is chill with late work. I submitted my final the next day it was due and it was good. Just email her and talk to her if you need help, she is very understanding. Honestly, you don't have to do all the weekly readings. Just pick a few to focus on for the midterm/final. You do need to read a book and write about it as part of your final. I didn't read mine and did fine. Also, you can miss lectures every now and then. If you attend class and have a general idea of what the readings are you should be fine. This was a low-effort history class and it was pretty fun. I would take it again!
Fall 2024 - Her lectures are disorganized and messy but really funny! She is entertaining and makes jokes. It's a take-home midterm and final. The prompts are usually posted a week before they're due. The final has a ten-page Intellectual Autobiography but it's credit/no credit. Try to go to office hours (usually on Zoom) and EMAIL HER TO GRADE YOUR PAPERS!!! The TAs/readers destroy the papers, but she's a chill grader. Also, she is chill with late work. I submitted my final the next day it was due and it was good. Just email her and talk to her if you need help, she is very understanding. Honestly, you don't have to do all the weekly readings. Just pick a few to focus on for the midterm/final. You do need to read a book and write about it as part of your final. I didn't read mine and did fine. Also, you can miss lectures every now and then. If you attend class and have a general idea of what the readings are you should be fine. This was a low-effort history class and it was pretty fun. I would take it again!
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Please disregard any positive reviews about this Professor. If you want to save your grades, do not take this class. Just don’t do it. I don’t know how her grade distribution looks good when in reality you will be crying due to stress. If you want to ask her a question, get ready to be called a moron or yelled at. I honestly think Corey has mental issues. Not only are her lectures unbelievably grim to watch, but they do not help you answer the prompts on the midterm/final. Because it is so unclear as to what tf is actually going on, even if you write a perfect essay, her readers or even Corey herself will nitpick the living day-lights out of your paper. So, if I could save even one person from taking this class, don’t do it. Just don’t.
Winter 2021 - Please disregard any positive reviews about this Professor. If you want to save your grades, do not take this class. Just don’t do it. I don’t know how her grade distribution looks good when in reality you will be crying due to stress. If you want to ask her a question, get ready to be called a moron or yelled at. I honestly think Corey has mental issues. Not only are her lectures unbelievably grim to watch, but they do not help you answer the prompts on the midterm/final. Because it is so unclear as to what tf is actually going on, even if you write a perfect essay, her readers or even Corey herself will nitpick the living day-lights out of your paper. So, if I could save even one person from taking this class, don’t do it. Just don’t.
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Most Helpful Review
Prof. Corey is a wonderful lecturer. Her lectures are more like stories told by a campfire. You're absolutely captivated. I took Corey this past summer. There was no midterm due to time constraints so for the final (which was take home) she had us write up two five page papers (double-spaced)!! This is a no-stress class people. Didn't do much reading. Just take a look at the questions for the final and read what you need to read to answer those specific questions.
Prof. Corey is a wonderful lecturer. Her lectures are more like stories told by a campfire. You're absolutely captivated. I took Corey this past summer. There was no midterm due to time constraints so for the final (which was take home) she had us write up two five page papers (double-spaced)!! This is a no-stress class people. Didn't do much reading. Just take a look at the questions for the final and read what you need to read to answer those specific questions.
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