This quarter was Prof. Villarreal's first quarter here, and I wasn't sure what to expect. I went in thinking that there would be a lot of reading, but pretty easy tests and essays, but it actually turned out to be almost the opposite. The only homework was reading the textbook chapter for the week, watching the async lectures, answering an embedded lecture question, and taking a quiz. Overall, very light workload. Since this was my first async lecture, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, I felt that there was an overall lack of communication from the professor; he basically only sent emails for the midterm, essay, and final. As others have stated, there wasn't really a rubric that the TAs graded the essay on, which was unfair. I think prof will benefit to provide a TA for them to use next time to grade essays so students have a clearer understanding of what he wants. If he does not, make sure to attend TA office hours and figure out what your TA wants.
The weekly quizzes were fairly simple, although the midterm did not necessarily reflect those weekly quizzes. There were quite a few confusing questions (either worded strangely or otherwise), and some that you would not have known if you did not read the textbook thoroughly. I didn't think that the rule that you couldn't go back to your previous questions was too bad, although it did add some additional stress. Honestly, I think I stressed out about this GE more than needed, but he wasn't a terrible professor. If you can time manage for quizzes/tests and read the textbook thoroughly, it shouldn't be too bad.

Due to COVID, class was asynchronous, a huge hit especially for such a discussion based class. Villarreal really tries his best and I also took his honors seminar to get some sort of live class, but it really just isn’t the same watching lectures and reading the textbook alone. Not a hard class by any means, very simply structured with weekly quizzes, an essay, participation (group memos in discussion), and the two exams. I wish there was a bit more padding in the grade because some exam questions are quite tricky (pay attention to lecture and the book!) and the essay was pretty vague, so I’d suggest to try your best with the weekly quizzes. Villarreal is a sweet and kind professor and I wish I could have taken this class in person!

Overall I'd say that this class was fairly easy. Weekly quizzes were straight to the point and covered exactly what was in the previous week's chapter and lecture, each containing 5 mc questions and being timed for 5, but soon 6, minutes. As for discussions, we would be put into different breakout rooms where we worked together to write a memo also based on the previous week's topic. Additionally we were required to write a 5 page paper, and my TA did a great job of specifying what we needed to include in order to get a good grade as well as clearing up any further questions in her office hours. Lastly, we had a midterm and a final, both 25 mc questions and timed for 35 minutes. Although the professor’s lectures, the discussion sections, and assigned readings provided great insight into various sociological topics, it became somewhat difficult to fully enjoy due to the constant complaining of slight inconveniences by other students. One of the main things fellow peers would love to complain about is the timing of the quizzes and exams, which I would like to point out had been clearly set by the professor in the syllabus. Many believed that five minutes for five questions wasn't enough time, but as stated before, the quizzes were fairly easy and we're literally based off of stuff directly stated in the textbook. Had the student just came prepared by simply reading the chapter or even just bothered to look over the slides put up by the professor, there would be no reason for them to take up all of the time given for the quizzes. Due to the lingering entitlement, the professor was bombarded with emails asking for additional time which he eventually came through with, but students still found a way to complain even though he wasn't even obligated to give more time. As harsh as it is to say, many have failed to realize that college classes and professors won't always accommodate your wants, this is the real world afterall, and not everything is going to go your way. Another problem many people had was with the actual questions in the weekly quizzes, midterm, and final exam. Many believed they were hard to understand because of the wording, however many also failed to accept that had they read the answers more carefully, one could note the slight variation between the right answer and those that were wrong, therefore allowing them to pick the correct answer and getting the points. With this out of the way, I would recommend this class, as the workload is highly manageable and easy to complete and the topics discussed by Professor Villarreal and the textbook are clear, fascinating, and eye opening.