Professor Ayala reads pretty much verbatim off of the same slides that he's been reusing the past nine years that he's been teaching this class. He is neither an engaging or accommodating professor, and it's clear that he's looking forward to retirement. He is rather apathetic when it comes to responding to emails, and I didn't really get the sense that he wanted his students to succeed in his class. The TA's 100% carried when it came to picking apart the readings and lectures, and giving us the materials in a study-able format. The only good thing about him is that he inputted final grades in quickly, and was somewhat nice in the last week. I would recommend taking this class from another teacher if you can.

Overall, Ayala is a super great professor and is incredibly smart about the topics he covers. The work definitely isn't easy, and you have to put in the effort to watch the lectures and take notes. The exam and midterm aren't bad at all and most of the questions are well-prepared for during the study guide. Some options will be answers like "the dodgers suck" or something hilarious. I took this class during COVID-19 so all of his lectures were recorded online, while he also gave a live lecture in person. Participation is required for discussion and lecture participation is done through weekly quizzes. The quizzes aren't bad either but you definitely need to pay attention. It's an easy A, as long as you put in the work, and there aren't many tricky questions compared to Sigmon's exams. I'd definitely recommend taking this class with Professor Ayala if you can keep up with the work. He's very underrated and IMO, he's not as bad as the other reviews say he is. If you're able to attend office hours or honors sections, he's incredibly knowledgeable and insightful.

I hope you have a qualified therapist when taking this class because oh, my. Starting with the good things, he is sometimes funny (which doesn't make up for much of anything) and you get to trauma bond with other classmates as you suffer together.
Like others have said, this professor has been tenured FOREVER, makes $230,000 a year, and does not care about you. He was often mean and dismissive to students, and not willing to answer questions. He moved the test date forward once because he messed up the syllabus and refused to own up to it or apologize. His teaching style is SO boring. He just reads off of slides that are mainly just long quotes of theory and does a terrible job explaining them (if he even tries to). His tests are also written poorly (both the hard questions and actual formatting errors) and 1/3 of our class failed the second midterm AFTER THE CURVE.
If you are lucky and get a good TA (shout out Joelle) they will carry you through it and that is pretty much the only place you will learn.

Grade breakdown
Midterm 1, 2, and 3 were each 20% (the final was midterm 3; none were cumulative)
Discussion attendance and participation 20%
Lecture attendance and participation 20%

We also had an issue this quarter where many students are getting reported. He requires attendance and uses Iclicker both to take attendance and sometimes do quiz questions (even though he can't work tech to save his life). Students quickly realized he hadn't turned the location checker on, so they'd just stay home and click in for attendance. It wasn't until weeks in, when 60 people showed up and 100 people clicked in that he noticed. After this he then changed the syllabus (which I don't think is allowed) and stated those students that did this would forfeit all of their prior attendance points (10% of the grade). Once grades came in, it became clear that he did not properly figure out who had cheated as many people were wrongly reported for cheating and he also made grading errors that he refused to change. His responses in emails often felt a bit abusive, with students not being able to stand up for themselves for fear of a bad grade. There is an ongoing investigation for many students in this class and I know many people are also reporting him to the dean, emailing the department heads, and trying to contact anyone who can help.
So like others said, obviously avoid him if you can. I don't think any of us took this class willingly.

Bro's a miserable hater that wants to see everyone suffer. Please don't even think about enrolling in this man's class for even a split second. He ruins lives.

Ayala has a reputation for his power trips due to his willingness to change the structure of the syllabus at random. This can mess up the flow of the class, but as long as you do not ruffle his feathers too much and attend every lecture, you can manage this class easily. I attribute difficulty in classes based on whether you do poorly despite studying a good amount. Based on that, I would say that this class was surprisingly easy, at least for me. All you need to do is answer the weekly discussion questions tied to each reading, and you should at least get a C minimum. His lectures are not that engaging, but the TAs were very helpful. Do not be too scared of the negative reviews. They do reflect some truth about some strange decision-making, but it should not bother you too much, so long as you have a solid understanding of the content. There was an incident with attendance this quarter in which he reported some students for fraudulent behavior despite having perfect attendance. I was never absent, so I was cleared, but some students claim they were wrongfully reported. Everything considered, I would still say that this class was a breeze, albeit a turbulent breeze.

While the material and readings themselves are not the most difficult to understand, his expectations for your understanding are difficult to meet. His slides consist of block quotes from the readings, and rather than expanding on why the quote is important, he reads it in its entirety and tests you on your understanding of the quote (without noting the relevance of it to the theories you're trying to learn). For commuters, he often ends lecture early, the earliest being by 45 minutes, but he still requires you show up to answer iClicker questions and mark your attendance. His attendance requirements would not be outrageous if not for the uselessness of his lectures and the amount of time it takes to finish them. If you want to do well in this class, I cannot stress enough that the TAs will be a major crutch. Their discussions are 100% more helpful than his lectures, and, unlike him, they actually want you to succeed in the class. Best of luck if you take this professor.

Things have definitely changed since previous reviews - exams are now in person, and he does not post recorded lectures. Very unclear on class expectations, exams, grading etc and not to mention he just reads off the slides. I would not have survived this class without my TA Joelle, who really explained the concepts and what we needed to know 200% better than Ayala did. His exams are multiple choice and out of 40 points so one mistake will put you down by a lot. I got an A in the end but would not have survived at all without my TA. Overall, would not recommend - take 101 with another professor if you can.

Just know he is a tenured professor who's been on the UCLA Sociology department for a long time. He is old, out-dated and boring, he also makes 6 figures and is a Princeton graduate (he's entitled, an elitist, does not care about his teaching or well-being of his students.). His slides are way too compact with just quotes from different sociology theories, not useful at all and do not force your self to try to understand the quotes or theories on your own because he does not know how to teach at all. I mostly learned everything from the helpful resources and links given out by my TA Joelle, she is very nice, approachable and can explain these complex theories very well so I would recommend making a good connection with your TA for this course. He wants to mandate in person lecture, for me it was mandated twice a week for his stupid 8am-9:15am lecture. He will give online weekly 5-6 multiple choice quizzes based on lecture material aka theories he doesn't even teach well.(you can find the answers on Quizlet for every quiz). There was one page short essay based on old black and white short/films in which you will compare the labor to the labor in a capitalistic economy. The midterm and final is 40-50 multiple choice test, broken off by theorist, weeks 1-5 and 5-10 final not cumulative. I would recommend looking over the previous exams he lets you look at as some of the questions are reused, but just make sure you understand the theories and the specific terms related with each one. He is an asshole and makes some of the mc questions fill in the blank words, so you have to memorize what specific vocabulary words mean to fit the sentence correctly. This is a manageable mandatory Course for Soc majors, I for one did not read all 50 pages of the communist manifesto so you do not need to do all the readings. I also had a migraine during the midterm and got a D, got an A on the paper, full points for the quizzes and B on the Final. So just make sure you get your full participation points through the quizzes & attending mandatory discussion, get a good grade on the short paper and passing grade for the midterm and final and you will pass. Fuck all those readings absolutely not even on top of other readings for other courses I would have never been able to complete them within a week just for Soc 101.

-Participation/quizzes
-1Short Essay
-Midterm/Final

Although Professor Ayala is very knowledgeable, his lectures are a snooze and class expectations change throughout the quarter. Also, not at all flexible or personable with curving, extra credit, etc. The TAs for the class were amazing though and my source of understanding. Overall would not recommend him.

The class was alright in my experience. There was a lot of readings which made it a bit hard for me to keep up BUT I had Wisam as a TA and he was the best!! I also heard good things about the other TA Jorge! Having a good TA matters! There were weekly online multiple choice quizzes that counted as class participation and you had a week to do them. There was a 40 question multiple choice midterm and final (non cumulative) that were online open book, open note. There was also a short paper due week 2/3 and make sure to answer all the questions even if it's an "or" question because people got points off if they didn't answer all the questions. The quizzes were worded weirdly but you get the hang of it. Take notes during lecture as that will help when completing the quizzes. He ended up posting previous recorded lectures online because people who missed class would email him to ask for a recorded lecture to get caught up. He tried to avoid posting the recorded lectures because he knew that less and less people would show up to class and it did happen. The quiz questions came up on the midterm and final which was nice because those were easy points. After each quiz you can see what question you got wrong and the correct answer to them. He provides a midterm and final sample which were helpful in a way when taking the midterm and final. Some of the questions on the sample appeared on the midterm and final. On the exams he has a few quotes that he wants you to interpret to select the correct answer. Some of the readings were very dense and confusing so I would try to search up a summary online and it did help sometimes, other times my TA would summarize the argument, talk more about who the theorist was, and provided real-life examples which made it easier to understand and remember.