I enjoyed this class but would have enjoyed it a lot more if the workload was cut in half. Anderson is an amazing lecturer - she's very engaging and I really liked going to class. I was scared to take this class because of the bad reviews below but it honestly was a lot better than I thought it'd be. That said, this class really does require more work than other classes. There's a lot of readings to do and 5 essays which are basically due every other week. You have to do the readings because there are 5 pop quizzes - a lot of people I know failed them, but honestly they're manageable and if you do the readings and actually pay attention to them (don't skim) you'll be good. Reading definitely took a decent amount of time but it wasn't the worst thing ever because the material was usually interesting, albeit a little redundant at times. Essays were frequent but not hard, they had rubrics that told you exactly what to do, and it's not too difficult to get good grades on them. You have to go to discussion bc participation is part of your grade, which is fine bc the TA's were all pretty cool. I loved my TA Ashton, he always facilitated great conversations and was super helpful for the essays. Aside from the workload, I really enjoyed this class. If you put in the effort it's not impossible to get an A or even an A+ so don't let the other reviews scare you. You basically just have to go into class knowing it's not gonna be an "easy a" GE.

This was a great class! I really enjoyed the material and content in this class. The professor is VERY organized and makes it very easy to follow along and understand the material. The readings are heavy for this class though, but she goes over them in class so it is easy to catch up if you fall behind. There are pop quizzes in this class, but she drops the lowest score and if you study your notes before each class, you will pass the quizzes and learn the material better.

I hate this evil rat. Accused more than half of the class for using AI using her own app. Newsflash dumbass, there isn’t a single AI detection service that is 100% accurate.

Anderson’s class this summer was conducted in an asynchronous, online manner, which provided a lot of flexibility. However, this class has a dense workload that made taking it feel exhausting. Each week, we had a few hours of lectures to get through, two readings that we needed to leave comments on, and two 500-word discussion posts (which drew from the readings/lectures). The readings, in my opinion, were painfully boring. She also gave us a midterm that was pretty easy if you kept up with her lectures, and assigned two papers. In following her rubric for the papers, I was able to do pretty well on them. I also did pretty well on the exam just from taking extensive notes in her class. It was hard to get a perfect score on the discussion posts; the TAs were nitpicky and I often would receive less than full credit (a 3.8 or 3.6 out of 4 points, etc), so they expect a high standard of writing within them. This was a constant source of stress for me as each point in her class is worth 1%, and I was losing points to these discussion posts twice a week.

Anderson herself was okay, and the content of her lectures was somewhat interesting, but though I found her class interesting, she was immensely unaccommodating to students. She is not the type to grant accommodation without documentation. Again, given how often we had assignments in her class, this became a constant source of stress. I took her class alongside two others at the same time, and hers easily had double the workload of my other classes. I was spending upwards of 10-20 hours a week on her class alone at times. Perhaps in a regular term quarter this would have felt less dense.

Overall, I just wouldn’t take her again. The actual content was somewhat interesting, and I came out of the class feeling like I learned a lot of valuable information, but her grading structure left me in a constant state of worry. I do think if she offered even a little bit of extra credit, that would be nice.

Highly recommend taking this GE and it's super easy to get an A. My class was asynchronous except for zoom discussion. The points were based on weekly discussion posts, weekly readings, a few quizzes, zoom participation, one midterm essay, and one final essay. As long as you did the work and followed the rubric for the essays it seemed like you could get an A.
As for the professor, she wasn't the greatest. Her essays/rubrics were very unorganized, which was surprising for a class where she reused the content every year. I took advantage of my TA most of the time since she was the one grading everything. Also, some of the content was super outdated and a lot of the work was busy work that had nothing to do with quizzes or essays or even the discussion for that week.
I would recommended this class if you're looking for a 5-unit GPA boost, but beware that it is time consuming!!

Honestly top 3 worst professors at UCLA. Do not listen to any of the good reviews for her, she is inconsiderate and disrespectful. I caught COVID and had a fever for 3 days straight and she refused to give me any sort of extension. I can only assume she does not care about her students at all. I underestimated the amount of work she would give for a summer course. We had 2 discussion posts (500-600 words each), 2 quizzes, and had to annotate 2 readings each week. We also had 2 papers with both of them being 8-10 pages. AVOID HER AT ALL COSTS. You’re better off taking another class. -100/10 rating

Avoid this professor at all costs. She is extremely not understanding, I had a medical emergency and was not given any sort of extension or help when my other two professors were kind enough to set up a meeting with me and allow me proper extensions/resources. For a summer session class there's way too much, we are expected to submit discussions that are basically asking for a mini essay and having to cite work where unnecessary. Weekly what is due is that discussion post that require you to read 2-3 materials and even watch a long documentary or movie, 2 or more replies, annotating 5 + comments on perusall, a quiz that often has unnecessarily tricky questions on it, and throughout the course we have two 8-10 page essays. This is OVERKILL for a summer class that's 4 units, understandable for a normal quarter. She also doesn't properly upload some of the material and its annoying to have to email her to fix all of it (had maybe 2-3 instances of this happening). Don't recommend, only take if its last resort.

The essays were not too difficult, but showing that you had done the numerous readings was essential. However, reading every single one was unnecessary, as the main ideas were sufficient. Good writing skills were a must to succeed in this class. The lectures were informative and covered the essential concepts well. Professor Anderson was one of the best professors that I've taken. She curated impeccable readings for the class, which were interesting and engaging. Discussions are also not mandatory but very insightful. I have Murphy, and he is super knowledgeable. I also took it ONLINE.

WOULD RECOMMEND!

I have now taken 2 classes with Dr. Anderson and I can say she is hands down one of the best professors I have taken during my UCLA career. The readings she curates for classes are impeccable. Not only are they incredibly interesting to read, they also introduce you to new ideas and make the learning process fun. When it comes to online classes, no body makes a classes as well as Dr. Anderson. She really is a master at the art of the online class. I’m a fan!

Every week this class had a reading that blew my mind. I never thought about how interesting the body could be to study sociologically! And its an experience we all have as human beings so its incredibly applicable