Professor
Gabriel Rossman
4 of 6
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - I know that there are some pretty negative reviews for Rossman (especially for Fall 2020), but I wanted to jump in and give my opinion because I completely disagree with them. Hear me out before you decide that Rossman is someone you don't want to take a class with. Sociology 173 is my favorite sociology course that I have taken at UCLA and Professor Rossman is among the best instructors that I have had the pleasure of learning from. He created an incredibly engaging course that was well-paced and provided me with a thorough overview of economic sociology. I seriously enjoyed every week of material and his lectures are so good. They were all pre-recorded, which made it really easy to follow along with the transcript while he was talking. He doesn't use slides, but he has so many examples from real life and pop culture that it's easy to follow along. All of the material is so useful for understanding our world and is immediately applicable to so much of what I see around me. The readings were very relevant to the course material and enhanced my understanding by providing examples of the course concepts in action. They were not excessively long, and there was approximately 40 pages of reading from journal articles per week. For two of the weeks one of the readings was replaced by a This American Life podcast that was super interesting. Here's the grade breakdown: 25% midterm, 25% final, 30% book report, and 20% for the memos Memos are 900-1500 words that summarize all of the readings for that week and then apply them to your experiences or anything else outside of the readings (basically summary and your own examples). Some people thought they were too long, but honestly by the time you get done with a summary you only need to come up with like 2 examples and you've reaches the word count. For that reason, I thought the memos were a reasonable length and truly did help me work through the ideas presented in the readings. The fact that we only had to do memos for 5 out of the 10 weeks also provided a huge amount of flexibility, which was very helpful in managing online learning. The midterm and final were 3 short answer questions that we had 1 hour to complete. They were very fair and came directly from the lectures - there were no tricks, you basically just had to summarize the lectures so taking detailed notes really helps here. For the book report we chose one of two books to read and wrote a 5,000 word paper with a partner (so about 2,500 words per person). You just had to apply 4 weeks worth of lecture material to the book you read, so it's basically 4 mini essays of 1,250 words each. It was not bad at all, and my partner and I got a great grade after working on it for only 1.5-2 weeks. Professor Rossman himself was very knowledgeable, kind, and approachable. The optional Q and A that he offered each week in addition to his regular office hours was extremely helpful for me as he was able to clear any confusion that I had about the material. He also made himself available to talk about connections to our own lives and personal interests, which proved to me how much he cares about his students as human beings. I was also in the honors section for this class, so I got to speak with Rossman frequently (even though lectures were pre-recorded), and anybody who takes the time to speak to him outside of class can see what an excellent instructor and person he is. I will agree with the other reviewers that this class is a lot of work. To truly understand the course concepts, you have to be willing to dive deeply into the readings and set aside extra time to really understand the lectures by going to office hours or the Q and A session. If your other classes aren't too demanding and you're up for a bit of a challenge, though, this class with Rossman is one of the most interesting and rewarding experiences that the UCLA Sociology department offers.
Fall 2020 - I know that there are some pretty negative reviews for Rossman (especially for Fall 2020), but I wanted to jump in and give my opinion because I completely disagree with them. Hear me out before you decide that Rossman is someone you don't want to take a class with. Sociology 173 is my favorite sociology course that I have taken at UCLA and Professor Rossman is among the best instructors that I have had the pleasure of learning from. He created an incredibly engaging course that was well-paced and provided me with a thorough overview of economic sociology. I seriously enjoyed every week of material and his lectures are so good. They were all pre-recorded, which made it really easy to follow along with the transcript while he was talking. He doesn't use slides, but he has so many examples from real life and pop culture that it's easy to follow along. All of the material is so useful for understanding our world and is immediately applicable to so much of what I see around me. The readings were very relevant to the course material and enhanced my understanding by providing examples of the course concepts in action. They were not excessively long, and there was approximately 40 pages of reading from journal articles per week. For two of the weeks one of the readings was replaced by a This American Life podcast that was super interesting. Here's the grade breakdown: 25% midterm, 25% final, 30% book report, and 20% for the memos Memos are 900-1500 words that summarize all of the readings for that week and then apply them to your experiences or anything else outside of the readings (basically summary and your own examples). Some people thought they were too long, but honestly by the time you get done with a summary you only need to come up with like 2 examples and you've reaches the word count. For that reason, I thought the memos were a reasonable length and truly did help me work through the ideas presented in the readings. The fact that we only had to do memos for 5 out of the 10 weeks also provided a huge amount of flexibility, which was very helpful in managing online learning. The midterm and final were 3 short answer questions that we had 1 hour to complete. They were very fair and came directly from the lectures - there were no tricks, you basically just had to summarize the lectures so taking detailed notes really helps here. For the book report we chose one of two books to read and wrote a 5,000 word paper with a partner (so about 2,500 words per person). You just had to apply 4 weeks worth of lecture material to the book you read, so it's basically 4 mini essays of 1,250 words each. It was not bad at all, and my partner and I got a great grade after working on it for only 1.5-2 weeks. Professor Rossman himself was very knowledgeable, kind, and approachable. The optional Q and A that he offered each week in addition to his regular office hours was extremely helpful for me as he was able to clear any confusion that I had about the material. He also made himself available to talk about connections to our own lives and personal interests, which proved to me how much he cares about his students as human beings. I was also in the honors section for this class, so I got to speak with Rossman frequently (even though lectures were pre-recorded), and anybody who takes the time to speak to him outside of class can see what an excellent instructor and person he is. I will agree with the other reviewers that this class is a lot of work. To truly understand the course concepts, you have to be willing to dive deeply into the readings and set aside extra time to really understand the lectures by going to office hours or the Q and A session. If your other classes aren't too demanding and you're up for a bit of a challenge, though, this class with Rossman is one of the most interesting and rewarding experiences that the UCLA Sociology department offers.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - This was my absolute FAVORITE comms class (it's double listed) I've ever taken, even though it was taught asynchronously. The professor talks about the origins and structure of the music, movie, and radio industries, how getting popular in each of these industries works, how something becomes culturally important, etc etc. The course heavily relies on your understanding of the weekly readings and lectures. Prof will check your understanding by asking you to write five 1200 word memos throughout the quarter with your impressions of that week's content. I recommend to do these early to save your future self some stress. There are 3 exams with 2-3 multiple choice and 2-3 free response. The free response focus on the lectures while the MCQ focus on the readings. These exams are easy if you've just watched the lecture once, but be warned that because the exam is shorter, small mistakes like missing one MCQ will cause your overall grade to face a pretty sizable penalty. To my knowledge, no extra credit is offered. Office hours are extremely helpful. Professor has a lot of interesting stories to tell if you want to know a little more about lecture topics or if you are confused about how to prepare for exams. Overall, in my opinion Professor Rossman is one of the best comm/soc professors at UCLA!
Winter 2024 - This was my absolute FAVORITE comms class (it's double listed) I've ever taken, even though it was taught asynchronously. The professor talks about the origins and structure of the music, movie, and radio industries, how getting popular in each of these industries works, how something becomes culturally important, etc etc. The course heavily relies on your understanding of the weekly readings and lectures. Prof will check your understanding by asking you to write five 1200 word memos throughout the quarter with your impressions of that week's content. I recommend to do these early to save your future self some stress. There are 3 exams with 2-3 multiple choice and 2-3 free response. The free response focus on the lectures while the MCQ focus on the readings. These exams are easy if you've just watched the lecture once, but be warned that because the exam is shorter, small mistakes like missing one MCQ will cause your overall grade to face a pretty sizable penalty. To my knowledge, no extra credit is offered. Office hours are extremely helpful. Professor has a lot of interesting stories to tell if you want to know a little more about lecture topics or if you are confused about how to prepare for exams. Overall, in my opinion Professor Rossman is one of the best comm/soc professors at UCLA!
4 of 6
