Lecture is disorganized, unexciting, and really quite useless. The class is redeemed by great TAs, great readings, and fair, interesting assignments. Just go to discussion, and do the readings, and this is a great class.

As for the grading, it's pretty easy but beware of great discrepancies in difficulty among TAs.

He is very easy going and very concerned about his students. By his own admission, he is more afraid of you than you are of him. He gives no midterms nor finals. You final grade is based on 3 very easy papers. Neither section nor class is mandatory.

Jonathan is the best TA ever. He puts up notes for section. Even people from other sections looked at his notes.

he is literally the most boring lecturer ive had the displeasure of listening to. on the other hand, this class is ridiculously easy. two essays on three readings each and a final. you dont need to and should NOT attend lecture. you dont have to go to section but you should to find out what your ta wants in your papers. the class is totally up to your ta and the overall grades are not curved with the other sections. so if you get a shitty ta like i did, tony, you and the rest in your section will average a C on all your papers while your classmates all get As for writing the same EXACT thing. i know because i had friends with other tas who i worked on my papers with and had the same arguments as, and in my opinion, my papers were better written than theirs. also, you dont get your first paper back til 7th week which is too late to switch to pass/no pass so make sure to get a good ta and its a superrr easy A.

Hands down, the WORST professor I ever had the displeasure of having at UCLA.

He is literally the most incompetent lecturer I ever heard. He severely lacks the confidence, charisma, and clarity required of any lecturer. He mutters everything he says, and says "um" every other word.

He also reads straight from his dense notes, without any accompanying powerpoint or commentary. No one goes to class because it's so pointless. He and his TAs even know it.

The grades depend straight on the TAs. TAs grade VERY differently, so good luck in finding the right one. They don't normalize the overall class grading.

Overall, not to be mean, but Prof. Julius should not be teaching at UCLA. He's not meant to be a lecturer.

yeah the grade is totally up to the TAs
i had Coolidge too
and she was AWESOME i mean i ended up with a B+ too but i hardly ever read or anything
she went over the answers to the midterms and final in disc so we knew just want to write down
i thought she was an awesome TA and i dont like people saying that shes hard, she only had one disc section and only like 5 people showed up, if they showed up they would have had the answers too and gotten an easy A

Class can be the easiest class you ever take at ucla or the hardest class you take. The grading comes down to the ta's. I went to julius to discuss my grade and he told me that he does not make any decisions when it comes to a students grade, the ta's do everything in this class. I had Coolidge who was the worst ta ever. She was probably the hardest grader out of all ta's. I ended up with a B+ in the class. Just get a good ta and its an easy A. Otherwise its still a light workload but suck up to your ta to get that A.

EASIEST CLASS EVER TAKEN AT UCLA. Professor Julius is a straight boss. If you ever go to lecture, which you definitely don't need to, you will see that Julius is a pretty funny professor. Lectures are pretty boring, so basically just don't go unless you are going to get your homework back. Contrary to the previous review, office hours and discussion are useless. My TA was alright, the only purpose of going to discussion was to get a little insight on how your TA grades and what you should base your homework on. The two homework assignments are simple, you don't need to go to lecture to do them, just print out the notes and answer the questions as simply as you can directly from the notes. You will get an A on these if you give examples that are relevant. The "example" final is given to you a week in advance and he says that he will change the questions, but in reality, the only thing he changed was one short answer question by adding to the end of it "and provide an example". Also, you get to bring in a page of typed notes front and back to the final. My TA encouraged that we did the practice final and just typed it out and brought it in for our notes. I finished the final in 30 min. and ended up getting an A on both homework assignments and the final. Also, he has an awesome beard. TAKE HIM

SO as a previous post said, the lectures are pretty much optional, if you read his lecture notes and go to one of his lectures you will notice that he reads off the lecture notes almost completely word for word. Your TA's discussions and office hours; however, are definitely not optional. As your TAs are the ones grading your 2 papers, its very important you go over your paper with them. I also had Brian Hutler I think he was an excellent TA. The TAs will go over everything they're looking for on your papers and basically hand out A's. The final exams was incredibly easy as Julius sent a practice study guide with practice questions/prompts. The final exam was the exact same thing, and even better, you get a one page (front and back)notes sheet which you can take in. Overall, the material is quite interesting and the class is probably one of the easiest ways to finish that philosophy GE.

so lets talk about julius here.
so i had him winter quarter 2010 and it was his first time teaching after not teaching for an year.

ill just get to the basics of the class and his teaching style.
the class is a semi-easy ge/prereq class but that doesnt mean its super easy.
the work load is light but its heavy on the weeks the assignments are due.

this class is all about utilizing your ta's.
i had brian hutler. he is the best. he was so nice, kind, helpful in office hours and discussion.
brian>professor

the onto the professor.
yea he is smart but hes a horrible teacher. but granted, philosophy is not an easy class to teach but granted, he is not a good teacher. i think he is more of a one on one guy. What i hated most about him is that he read straight off his notes (which are given in beginning of the first week), and he says uhhh and ummmm like every other word. my friends and i, as well as other people i saw were tallying how many times he says uhh and umm.

my final advice,
not a bad class. highly interesting readings. i didnt like learning about rawls. i went to class about 6 of the 20 lectures when the professor "explained" the hhomework assignments and even then, i didnt really listen. just read the notes in your room like twice, go to discussion, utilize office hours and you will have a good semester.

Great professor! He really tries hard to get the class interested and occasionally cracks a good joke. Has a tendency to make lecture awkward by making sexual innuendos but they're still pretty hilarious. Sometimes even ask his students during lecture for our opinions.

There were no textbooks, all readings were online, he even gives you notes for the readings, and class almost always ended an hour earlier then it's supposed to. There were two take home midterm and an in-class essay which he and his TA well prepares you for. The class was in general an easy workload. I recommend this class for anyone looking to fulfill the Social Analysis/Philosophical Analysis GE.