This was the easiest most interesting class I took at UCLA. I did not try much on the midterm and final and got over 100% on both. Take Gregorio if you can he is the best TA. If you can take this GE I recommend I thought it was the easiest and most interesting class I ever took.

Class Taken: Music History 68: “The Beatles”

Overall Professor Upton seemed to be a good person. She was very enthusiastic coming into lecture and seemed to have a real passion and obsession for The Beatles (especially Paul). Although she did come across a few technical difficulties (every lecture) – they weren't all her fault and still delivered a great lecture overall. She plays a lot of songs in class and shows really cool and interesting video clips you wouldn't see anywhere else. Although she did take a bit too much time reviewing what was going to happen in a video or what we were going to hear in a song she overall won me over and I loved the entire presentation.

This class is solely based off of your Teaching Assistant. I had Gillian Gower; she was a bit too harsh on grading at times but knew her stuff and had great section presentations. Overall Gillian did respond promptly to emails and tried to help her 60 students with the confusing paper.

Now here is what you really want to know. Class Breakdown:

The class is composed of weekly lectures Mondays & Wednesdays with discussion on Fridays. Discussion is mandatory and attendance is taken. TA’s review over what the professor didn't have enough time to discuss in lecture. Discussion counts as your “Professionalism” grade which is 10% of your grade.

You have weekly online forum posts. The professor posts a question – typically on Friday and you have to respond to the question before Tuesday at 5pm. You are then to comment on a peers post before Thursday at 5pm. This counts as 25% of your grade and is graded on a pass/fail scale. So basically JUST DO IT! They are fairly easy and could possibly be done 20 minutes before the due time.

The Midterm consisted of 4 listening samples, 4 multiple choice short answer questions and an extra credit question (10 points each with EC being up to 5 pts.) The midterm is graded solely on your TA. My TA graded on the harsher side as she expected us to basically write things that weren't asked in the prompts. For the listening samples you have to include The Artist, Album, Year and write 2 sentences for each.

You have a 5 page music paper to write. You are to choose a song by The Beatles (of course) and write about the experience of the composer, performer and listener. Talk to your TA about the format and what they are expecting. To be honest the guidelines do not help much. Just talk to your TA. This is graded on a 0-100 pt scale and no explanation of your grade is given.

The Final Exam is composed of 5 listening samples (5 pts. each), 5 short answer responses (5 pts. each) and 2 essays (25 pts. each with a 3-4 page length requirement). She gives you 5 essay questions before hand and picks 2. She chose the question on Paul McCartney as well as the one on how have the Beatles music making techniques changed over the years. Both prompts sucked and you have to basically bull-crap your way through the 3-4 page minimum for both. For the short answers you are expected to write a paragraph and the listening samples is the identification of the song alongside a paragraph response for each.

Actual breakdown:
Professionalism/Section: 10%
Midterm: 15%
Online Writing: 25%
Paper: 25%
Final Exam: 25%

*There are 2 required books for the class - I didn't read them and lots of my friends in the class didn't either. Although, you do use the Gould book for the paper!!*

I ended up getting a B in the class. I am happy with it seeing as though I never read and I missed quite a few lectures! Just glad the class is over. I came in not knowing so much about The Beatles and left a fan although sick of them the day of the final.

Elizabeth Upton is a great professor, very enthusiastic but can get distracted very very easily. I remember a girl brought her dog to class one day, the professor saw it and went on to rant and compare the dog to Paul McCartney for about 5 minutes (nuts!). Overall a great class that I would recommend to anyone.