Professor
Carol Bakhos
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Most Helpful Review
Such a great professor! I only had her for a Fiat Lux (Religion 19) but had a blast. She but so much time into getting to know us individually and was always very insightful. She is very well-versed in all of the Abrahamic religions, not just Judaism. Whereas most highly intelligent professors don't care much about interacting with the class, Professor Bakhos invited us to dinner and would stay for usually 1-2 hours talking about the class, current events, and life in general. I definitely recommend taking her for any class.
Such a great professor! I only had her for a Fiat Lux (Religion 19) but had a blast. She but so much time into getting to know us individually and was always very insightful. She is very well-versed in all of the Abrahamic religions, not just Judaism. Whereas most highly intelligent professors don't care much about interacting with the class, Professor Bakhos invited us to dinner and would stay for usually 1-2 hours talking about the class, current events, and life in general. I definitely recommend taking her for any class.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - this class is manageable~ meaning if you put in enough time to study the material of the three religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, you'll be fine. know that your grade is basically a midterm, a final, and the final paper, though. though, it gets tricky at times because Professor Bakhos is not clear at times, but if you ask her on your own time, that would be helpful. she does use slides, but most of the content is in lectures where it's NOT recorded, so you should definitely come to class! also, professor bakhos is a very interactive professor; she'll remember you after the first or second lecture.
Winter 2023 - this class is manageable~ meaning if you put in enough time to study the material of the three religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, you'll be fine. know that your grade is basically a midterm, a final, and the final paper, though. though, it gets tricky at times because Professor Bakhos is not clear at times, but if you ask her on your own time, that would be helpful. she does use slides, but most of the content is in lectures where it's NOT recorded, so you should definitely come to class! also, professor bakhos is a very interactive professor; she'll remember you after the first or second lecture.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - Overall, this topic was quite enjoyable to learn about. If you don't have prior knowledge in any of the three religions you may struggle a bit. The class is mainly dependent on two exams and a final paper. The exams are at fairly random dates in the quarter and the prof refrains from calling them midterms or finals. You have a few fill in the blank, some short answers, and then an essay with multiple choices. Professor Bakhos is a personable professor and really REALLY takes time to answer questions, which definitely drags lecture along a bit. She said she'd take attendance often but I really can only count three times she took attendance during the quarter. She does not like technology in her class so she has a technology ban. You can only take notes on paper/in a notebook, however I have seen some students use their laptops occasionally. I found Bakhos to be a much better teacher and helper than any of the two TAs. I had Morgan Hartshorn as my TA, and if you have the option I would say do not choose her. IMO, she was very much a "square" and not a friendly TA. Sections are mandatory, as she takes attendance, and at the beginning of each section is a 2-3 question quiz. With these quizzes however, you will never be able to see your grade unless you go to her office hours. We hardly even discuss the questions from the quiz in section and mostly focus on pretty small details or parts of readings or concepts. This makes it hard to judge how well you are doing in the class overall, as the only grade you receive back are your exams on paper. Nothing is graded in BruinLearn. I will also say that the TA spoke and came off as very condescending to students, especially when we had to go on zoom during the wildfires. She spoke as if you should know concepts already and came off very accusatory. I don't know if this was on purpose but it definitely made discussions harder. The discussions were also in a very socratic seminar style and often times unorganized. She would throw out a broad question and only students who seem to already have knowledge on these subjects would answer. The discussion certainly gave off an intimidating mood and often long periods of silence went on. Morgan Hartshorn did not seem open to creating an environment where discussing in a free-flowing style was possible. I felt like I gathered more in a 57 minute high school class than this 50 minute discussion section. Probably my worst discussion section I've had at my time at UCLA. I think professor Bakhos would make a better discussion leader haha as she really encouraged a friendly environment for learning and discussing.
Winter 2025 - Overall, this topic was quite enjoyable to learn about. If you don't have prior knowledge in any of the three religions you may struggle a bit. The class is mainly dependent on two exams and a final paper. The exams are at fairly random dates in the quarter and the prof refrains from calling them midterms or finals. You have a few fill in the blank, some short answers, and then an essay with multiple choices. Professor Bakhos is a personable professor and really REALLY takes time to answer questions, which definitely drags lecture along a bit. She said she'd take attendance often but I really can only count three times she took attendance during the quarter. She does not like technology in her class so she has a technology ban. You can only take notes on paper/in a notebook, however I have seen some students use their laptops occasionally. I found Bakhos to be a much better teacher and helper than any of the two TAs. I had Morgan Hartshorn as my TA, and if you have the option I would say do not choose her. IMO, she was very much a "square" and not a friendly TA. Sections are mandatory, as she takes attendance, and at the beginning of each section is a 2-3 question quiz. With these quizzes however, you will never be able to see your grade unless you go to her office hours. We hardly even discuss the questions from the quiz in section and mostly focus on pretty small details or parts of readings or concepts. This makes it hard to judge how well you are doing in the class overall, as the only grade you receive back are your exams on paper. Nothing is graded in BruinLearn. I will also say that the TA spoke and came off as very condescending to students, especially when we had to go on zoom during the wildfires. She spoke as if you should know concepts already and came off very accusatory. I don't know if this was on purpose but it definitely made discussions harder. The discussions were also in a very socratic seminar style and often times unorganized. She would throw out a broad question and only students who seem to already have knowledge on these subjects would answer. The discussion certainly gave off an intimidating mood and often long periods of silence went on. Morgan Hartshorn did not seem open to creating an environment where discussing in a free-flowing style was possible. I felt like I gathered more in a 57 minute high school class than this 50 minute discussion section. Probably my worst discussion section I've had at my time at UCLA. I think professor Bakhos would make a better discussion leader haha as she really encouraged a friendly environment for learning and discussing.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Not sure if Professor Bakhos changed her curriculum during Covid or if I’m taking the wrong class, because the class I took is MUCH more difficult than the class all the other reviewers were talking about. I took this class as a GE thinking it would be fun and interesting like everyone said, but boy was I wrong. This course's grade was mostly comprised of 3 different sets of take-home essays throughout the quarter, each of which had you writing at least 7 essays (5 short and 2 long). On top of that, you also had an additional paper to write in week 9. There is SO much writing, this class should've honestly qualified for a Writing II class (except it's not, so lose-lose). Furthermore, it seems like she was looking for very specific answers for these essays, but also didn't want to "give away the answers". I honestly felt that she wasn't that helpful during office hours or Q&A sessions, but considering these essays are basically our midterm and final, I can somewhat understand why she might not be too keen on handing out answers to people. However, her lecture style (which mostly involves talking/getting sidetracked on people's questions while flipping through a handful of slides with scarce information) has not held up well over zoom and imo wasn't very helpful when it came to writing the actual essays. Which means that, in order to find the answers for each essay, you're going to have to be re-reading the textbook thrice over, scanning your minimal lecture "notes", and deep-searching Google for more information. Is this an interesting class? Certainly some parts are fascinating to learn about. But the biggest flaw with this class is that there is too much information and not enough time to learn it all, which made the take-home essays a wonderful, "on-your-own" experience for me. Before you take this class, ask yourself: Am I willing to sacrifice my entire sleep schedule over the course of 4 separate weeks for a GE? If the answer's no, then maybe avoid it and get some sleep. Sidenote: Participation is MANDATORY in this class. They had some policy where if you missed 2 or more discussion sections, you couldn't pass the course, which I felt was kind of unforgiving, especially during Covid.
Winter 2021 - Not sure if Professor Bakhos changed her curriculum during Covid or if I’m taking the wrong class, because the class I took is MUCH more difficult than the class all the other reviewers were talking about. I took this class as a GE thinking it would be fun and interesting like everyone said, but boy was I wrong. This course's grade was mostly comprised of 3 different sets of take-home essays throughout the quarter, each of which had you writing at least 7 essays (5 short and 2 long). On top of that, you also had an additional paper to write in week 9. There is SO much writing, this class should've honestly qualified for a Writing II class (except it's not, so lose-lose). Furthermore, it seems like she was looking for very specific answers for these essays, but also didn't want to "give away the answers". I honestly felt that she wasn't that helpful during office hours or Q&A sessions, but considering these essays are basically our midterm and final, I can somewhat understand why she might not be too keen on handing out answers to people. However, her lecture style (which mostly involves talking/getting sidetracked on people's questions while flipping through a handful of slides with scarce information) has not held up well over zoom and imo wasn't very helpful when it came to writing the actual essays. Which means that, in order to find the answers for each essay, you're going to have to be re-reading the textbook thrice over, scanning your minimal lecture "notes", and deep-searching Google for more information. Is this an interesting class? Certainly some parts are fascinating to learn about. But the biggest flaw with this class is that there is too much information and not enough time to learn it all, which made the take-home essays a wonderful, "on-your-own" experience for me. Before you take this class, ask yourself: Am I willing to sacrifice my entire sleep schedule over the course of 4 separate weeks for a GE? If the answer's no, then maybe avoid it and get some sleep. Sidenote: Participation is MANDATORY in this class. They had some policy where if you missed 2 or more discussion sections, you couldn't pass the course, which I felt was kind of unforgiving, especially during Covid.
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