THERE ARE IN-CLASS QUIZZES NOW. AT 8 AM. NO MAKE UPS. One of the worst courses and professor I have taken at UCLA, as a senior with only one quarter left. Professor Browne is uncommunicative and puts little effort into running the class. First off, he has no syllabus for the class on BruinLearn, so students are left with little to no expectations for the class and nothing to refer back to. His main problem is that he lies to students constantly and never responds to emails. He claims over and over again to email him if you have any problems and he will get back to you, yet despite my many emails to him this quarter, he has never responded to a single one. My section had problems with a missing TA our first section and he said he would email us that night and later in the week with information on what was happening, yet he never emailed us once about it, and the only way I knew what was happening with our section was by having to talk to him in person after class. He has the most boring and bare lecture slides, and his voice is quiet yet he doesn't use a microphone so you can't even hear it. Try not to fall asleep in class challenge, impossible. For this being a class about ethics, he only discussed case studies and almost every time blamed it on the management not the engineers. In a class that's supposed to teach ethics to engineers it feels wrong to just always say its never the engineer at fault and always the management. One time in the quarter, he switched to zoom due to the storms, but posted the wrong zoom link so no students could join the lecture and never addressed the problem. He also promised to post the recording for that lecture and never did. And of course, since he never responded to any emails, I couldn't contact him about the course problems. Another problem with the course this year were the in class quizzes. This was the first quarter with in class quizzes and they went terribly. He said there would be 10 quizzes, and you literally have to bring paper every class for them, he is too lazy to even print them out. By week 7 there had only been 3 quizzes so far, so he basically lied about the number of quizzes and every time you came to class without a quiz you felt like you just wasted your time. Overall the class needs major improvements and the professor needs to put in more effort. Don't know why this class is ever a requirement as I likely lost braincells taking this class.

Don't get me wrong: the lectures were boring and the subject probably not super interesting to most people. But when compared to the reviews of the other ethics/writing engineering courses, this seems much, much less painful. The grade was just midterm/final and two papers. The papers were graded pretty generously, and had a lot of time to write them. The tests were incredibly easy because the questions weren't adjusted for the COVID open-book policy, so without ever watching any of the lectures, you could get a decent score just by CTRL-F-ing the textbook or just googling. All-in-all, one of the easiest and lightest courses of the quarter. I advise you take it: the alternates suck worse.

Ethics could probably be more interesting, but a large part is that most people don't want to be there, so the class ends up being a drag. More of a history class than anything. Lots of writing, but the bar is low.

Do yourself a favor and take a different ethics class. We had two individual papers and a group paper, which was a mess to coordinate and write. The tests were a mix of multiple choice (which was a joke, you can control+F the answers since it’s open book) and short essays. Other ethics classes just had the multiple choice. You also have to present on one of your essays in discussion. We had to stay the whole 3 hours every week in discussion even though there was nothing to do. The professor is extraordinarily dull and thinks he knows the perfect solution to every problem. This will be the most boring class you will take at UCLA and it won’t be close.

In the first lecture he asks if you want 2 midterms or 1 midterm and 1 final, the 2midterm option is easier bc theyre not cummulative, and are open book/note on canvas. Theyre fairly easier if u know how to search ur book. Other than that we had 2 essays, pretty easy if ur TA helps. I would recommend Mattie Greene bc she helps alot with leaving feedback and has 1:1 meetings. You should also have peer review during section. Also sections doesnt go more than 2 hrs. Yes lecture can get boring but the slides dont rly give a lot of info that will get tested on so its worth it to watch them.