I have taken a few courses focused on diaspora, specifically indigenous and was therefore intrigued by this political science class. I really enjoyed the materials and the readings, as they were very general and not too specific for a 10-week course, which I liked. However, the class is very unorganized, as are the midterms and finals. The midterm was split into in person and take-home with the exact same format, which was odd. If you have to take this class, I hope the TA is great, because that is the only thing that saved this class for me. Vincent was great and provided as much as he could with the little information the professor gave. Attendance became mandatory because a lot of students would not show up, and it is probably due to the fact that it felt useless to the course as the professor spoke so slowly and incoherently. She seemed nice, but as it was her first time teaching ever, it makes sense. Also, the grading changed a lot throughout the weeks, which I think is unfair and not beneficial to the students (extra credit was decreased from 10% to much lower).

I am a senior at UCLA and after 4 years of this school, I have never had a professor as bad as Prof. Stein. First of all, the class is focused on diaspora politics and it is a new "Special Studies" class in the political science upper divs. She's not bad because her class is hard or boring, actually it is a pretty easy class. Prof. Stein is simply incapable of giving a good lecture. Every time she speaks, she will say two or three words, then pause for about 10 seconds, and then continue her thought, and leave you wondering wtf did she just say? Additionally, she does not provide any original thoughts or material about the class subject. All she does is present obscure research papers that seem to all say something trivial about diaspora politics and again leave you wondering wtf is going on. Her slides are terrible, mostly nonexistent. She also requires attendance to her terrible lectures so there is no getting around sitting in her class and painfully listening to her try to talk. If you like to laugh at your professors for being weird and incompetent, then this is a class for you, but I would strongly recommend not taking this class. Save yourself from the frustration.