Professor
Bonnie Taub
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - Bonnie is by far one the best professors I've had at UCLA. This class is very easy and the topic is interesting. The midterm was easy as long as you read the assigned book, skimmed the textbook and went to class regularly. The paper assignment is long, but relatively easy and pretty much everyone in the class got an A on it. Bonnie is clearly passionate about Latin America and makes this class applicable to all majors by including political, medical, anthropological (etc) topics to the class.
Winter 2020 - Bonnie is by far one the best professors I've had at UCLA. This class is very easy and the topic is interesting. The midterm was easy as long as you read the assigned book, skimmed the textbook and went to class regularly. The paper assignment is long, but relatively easy and pretty much everyone in the class got an A on it. Bonnie is clearly passionate about Latin America and makes this class applicable to all majors by including political, medical, anthropological (etc) topics to the class.
Most Helpful Review
IA STD 50 B+ Worst. She is nice. But she was gone for 3 weeks and gave us midterm on week 6 saying "not all the things we covered in the class will be on the midterm." One thing we did do in class a lot was watch documentaries which we were tested on. WTF She is extremely unorganized. Her powerpoints slides are just sad. She didn't even let us know our midterm grades until the final grades came out... so we didn't know how well we did on the midterm until we got our final grade. Don't take any class with Bonnie.
IA STD 50 B+ Worst. She is nice. But she was gone for 3 weeks and gave us midterm on week 6 saying "not all the things we covered in the class will be on the midterm." One thing we did do in class a lot was watch documentaries which we were tested on. WTF She is extremely unorganized. Her powerpoints slides are just sad. She didn't even let us know our midterm grades until the final grades came out... so we didn't know how well we did on the midterm until we got our final grade. Don't take any class with Bonnie.
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Most Helpful Review
cant say that it was the most interesting class ive taken, but it was definitely one of the most laid back classes i have had. i never really stressed out about it. the material was easy if u just memorize all the slides and slightly pay attention in lecture, mostly to her lectures since the guest lecturers were sometimes boring and we werent as heavily tested on them. this class can either get u a really good grade or a really bad one. dont think its easy enough to just not study because u MUST memorize everything if u want to tackle her test, which isnt hard since the material itself is easy and very understandable. much of it is common sense just talking about poverty and how it affects peoples health. u do need the books because she will ask some questions about specific studies from the books but she will tell you what they are on her study guides..etc.
cant say that it was the most interesting class ive taken, but it was definitely one of the most laid back classes i have had. i never really stressed out about it. the material was easy if u just memorize all the slides and slightly pay attention in lecture, mostly to her lectures since the guest lecturers were sometimes boring and we werent as heavily tested on them. this class can either get u a really good grade or a really bad one. dont think its easy enough to just not study because u MUST memorize everything if u want to tackle her test, which isnt hard since the material itself is easy and very understandable. much of it is common sense just talking about poverty and how it affects peoples health. u do need the books because she will ask some questions about specific studies from the books but she will tell you what they are on her study guides..etc.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - Grade breakdown: 40% midterm paper 40% final exam 10% attendance 10% presentation on midterm paper I found the class and content really interesting as someone who has taken previous courses about Latin America. I think giving us the space to explore Latin American countries and focus on the demographic and health issues and healthcare was a great part of the class. However, I found the structure of the class a bit unfair. The exam holding 40% of our grade meant an emphasis on testing. However, the exam's longest portion was an essay worth 24% of the entire exam which was broken up into parts that called for multiple pages of writing and a longer focus on the essay. However, the multiple choice took less time and held a larger portion of the points. We were also told it would be a lot of matching & multiple choice. However, the "matching" section was more fill in the blank without options or a wordbank and it held almost the same amount of weight as the essay portion. I think it would have been more fair to separate the essay to a separate assignment and hold a larger weight than the exam with multiple choices/"fill in the blank" portions. It also felt unhelpful that the exam was focused on small details that didn't focus on our understanding of the actual content. The explanation of the exam felt unfair as it was stated our understanding would be tested, not our ability to memorize small details and population numbers within different Latin American countries. We were also told that the slides wouldn't be much help or give us much direction and the exam was focused on lecture rather than the slides, but it was difficult since each session was 3 hours long and the lectures went unrecorded. We also were not given permission to take pictures or record which made it difficult to review lecture content.
Fall 2024 - Grade breakdown: 40% midterm paper 40% final exam 10% attendance 10% presentation on midterm paper I found the class and content really interesting as someone who has taken previous courses about Latin America. I think giving us the space to explore Latin American countries and focus on the demographic and health issues and healthcare was a great part of the class. However, I found the structure of the class a bit unfair. The exam holding 40% of our grade meant an emphasis on testing. However, the exam's longest portion was an essay worth 24% of the entire exam which was broken up into parts that called for multiple pages of writing and a longer focus on the essay. However, the multiple choice took less time and held a larger portion of the points. We were also told it would be a lot of matching & multiple choice. However, the "matching" section was more fill in the blank without options or a wordbank and it held almost the same amount of weight as the essay portion. I think it would have been more fair to separate the essay to a separate assignment and hold a larger weight than the exam with multiple choices/"fill in the blank" portions. It also felt unhelpful that the exam was focused on small details that didn't focus on our understanding of the actual content. The explanation of the exam felt unfair as it was stated our understanding would be tested, not our ability to memorize small details and population numbers within different Latin American countries. We were also told that the slides wouldn't be much help or give us much direction and the exam was focused on lecture rather than the slides, but it was difficult since each session was 3 hours long and the lectures went unrecorded. We also were not given permission to take pictures or record which made it difficult to review lecture content.
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