I took this class as a GE credit and unfortunately this class was not the easiest for me. During lectures and TA discussions, I felt confident with the material at hand, but unfortunately, my exam scores did not reflect my knowledge on the subject. While both the midterm and final were very short, the questions were very oddly worded, and left me and many of my peers receiving low outcomes for our final grade in the class. I would not say this is a challenging GE overall, as the course work was light, however if you do not have a "sociology brain" and have a hard time thinking in this way, I would not recommend this class as the exam questions will likely trip you up. However, the material provided during class time was very straight forward, and did not find attending lectures a requirement for this course as Prof. Villarreal puts most if not all required information directly on the slides which are shared on Canvas.

Sociology 1 with Professor Villarreal is straightforward. Homework is reading the assigned textbook sections and lecture is the professor taking the parts from the textbook that will be shown in the midterms. Professor Villarreal's lectures are him reading his presentation slides with him elaborating on the charts and graphs. His presentations are sufficient so much so that I had friends who did well on this class without doing the readings and just taking the notes during lecture. You will want to attend the lectures or make a friend who does because there are questions that he asks during lecture that are NOT on the presentations for your discussion posts. But half the time, he didn't remember to mention them during lectures and you can guess the question if you see the discussion posts of the other students who wrote their responses. Professor Villarreal's Sociology 1 isn't mind blowing but it's simple enough to get your GE/major credit with enough ease. When you talk to him, he is very eager to answer your questions, especially when the questions are about data and graphs. You can tell he is someone who is very passionate about the field.

This class was super easy and the least of my worries. Just 2 midterms, no final on finals week, 2nd midterm not cumulative. Very easy to do well as long as you do the weekly textbook readings, which aren't unreasonably long and fairly interesting. 1 paper about 4-5 pages which was pretty easy as well. Discussion attendance is based on participation and a weekly question to answer. Professor Villarreal was sweet but mostly read off the slides that came from the textbook which was kind of annoying. Overall very easy to do well, just do the work.

I enjoyed this class a lot. The workload is very manageable (2 midterms, a 5-page essay, and brief weekly discussion posts). The midterms were very reasonable, especially if you already have an understanding of social issues and concepts. I studied off of the list of key terms that he gives you and managed to get a 92 on the first midterm and a 95 on the second. The lectures and textbook readings are very closely related to eachother and it is probably not necessary to read the textbook. Slides are uploaded online.

the slides and content were literally copy and pasted from the textbook, but for some reason the exams were harder than expected. He seems like a super cool dude, he's very passionate about sociology, but I wish that the midterms were easier to understand when it came to the question phrasing. My TA was phenomenal, Joseph Weigner, he was fantastic and super knowledgeable about the material. Sometimes I felt like the class was just him asking questions and I'd answer them which would be funny but participation is quite vital in this class, especially in the discussions. I was told this class would be easy, but then I ended up studying until 3am the night before the exam, if that tells you anything.

The professor is super genuine guy, he is just slightly boring when he lectures. I would definitely recommend this class, it is a super easy GE! No homework, tests are multiple choice, one essay that you can have your TA basically outline for you.

Professor is a nice and smart guy. However, he is very soft-spoken and monotonous which makes it hard to be engaged. I would recommend watching the posted pre-recorded lectures rather than attending in person. The pre-recorded lectures are often much shorter too. The average on the first midterm was like an 80%, and it was relatively easy (just 32 multiple choice questions) but had confusing wording. The weekly reading is entirely summed up in the slideshows, so it's not super necessary to do it. In section, we do a lot of busy work and don't really expand on the ideas, but it's fine. We had a short paper which helped salvage my grade since the mean grade was an A. Overall, not a very interesting class, but not bad either if you need to knock off a GE.

This class is so easy, I read the textbook just because I am always anxious that, if I don't read, then I'll fail the exams. But I got an A on the midterm and final. The class content was so easy ... it was like "what is racism?". The TAs across UCLA went on strike in the second half of the course, but the effect was nonexistent. Prof Villarreal is intelligent, but his microphone is so weak and he mumbles sometimes so its really hard to understand/hear him sometimes. Most classes I would just take notes on the lectures and not pay attention to what he was saying. ALSO. Oh my god. The WiFi in that lecture hall was so horrendous people would be rage quitting left and right because they couldn't connect to their Google Docs to take notes and he would move on to the next slide. Overall, so so easy. Take it if you need it.

Super easy class if you actually go to lectures and do the readings, and the prof is a really great guy

This class is a solid, if basic, introductory course for sociology. Also consider taking the companion seminar (SOCIOL 89), if offered.

The format of this class is very traditional - two in-person lectures and a discussion section (attendance required). Professor Villarreal's lectures adhere very strictly to his slides, and the slides adhere very strictly to the textbook; as such, I know many found them pretty dry. Notably, the lecture slides and recordings from previous years were all posted on BruinLearn. Discussion sections typically went as follows: the TA would review/re-present parts of the lecture material in class for the first 30 minutes, and then have students write one-page reflections (graded for completion) on a provided question for the last 20 minutes of discussion.

In terms of homework, the only homework for the semester was responding to weekly discussion questions posted on Canvas (usually asking about lecture topics in a modern context). We also had one paper (5 pages max) due around week 8, asking students to write about an example of inequality they have experienced, witnessed, or read about. Due to *extraordinary circumstances*, our papers were ultimately never graded, so I can't speak to how they would be normally evaluated.

We had two exams for the quarter - a midterm during week 5, and a "midterm 2" during week 10. Both exams were multiple choice only, consisting of ~32 questions over 75 minutes, and midterm 2 was non-cumulative. The exam questions stuck pretty closely to the material taught in the textbook/lectures, and were generally very straightforward; few people used the full time.

PS: In addition to the primary SOCIOL 1 class, Professor Villarreal also had a companion seminar (SOCIOL 89) during the same quarter.