Leitner is sometimes difficult to understand and is very intense in class -- she will walk up and down the rows, making eye contact with each student as she passes by, and makes sure nobody is sitting in the back of the class. The content, however, is pretty interesting. If you are interested in population geography, it's a worthwhile course to take. A substantial portion of the grade is a research paper, which will take a good deal of time. I started working on it the day before, which was a really bad idea. Just be sure to come to class every week and prepare for her to be rather intense.

Do not take this class, I believed the positive reviews for this professor and took this class. This is one of my worst class I had in UCLA. The professor couldn't organize all her materials for class, and three of her TAs were always have different options about the assignments of this class, and the TA named Ryland Lu did not even understand the course materials when I ask him the question from class. This class has two field trips and you have to write two reports regard to the trip, but the professor and TAs always have different opinions about the requirements of the reports. Some of them will tells you to add photos and video in the word document, some of them will tells you to add the photos in wiki(ccle), and some of them will tells you to do whatever you like. They are extremely annoying because they will send you 10-15 emails in a week to repeat same thing, sometimes you will get 5 emails in half hour from the professor. The professor is a mess, do not take this class.

Classic nutty professor, but nice if you show up and try. Easy tests, multiple choice midterm and final, and slightly harder papers.

Professor Leitner is the highlight of this class. She is honestly so engaging and entertaining I loved going to her lectures. The first half of this course is also really interesting and the subject material is engaging and well supported by the readings. The readings are all uploaded online so you don't have to buy anything which is amazing. However, the second half of the course went down hill for me. There was the almost singular use of the Jakarta case study and so I didn't feel that I learnt any where near as much as I did in the first half.
Overall, if it wasn't taught by Prof. Leitner I don't know if I would do it again.

Professor Leitner is extremely experienced and good at whatever she does. She can teach extremely well; the same cannot be said for many other professors at UCLA. She takes a genuine interest in your opinions, thoughts and feedback. Her office hours are extremely helpful and she almost always insists on a private meeting so it is okay to go and ask questions without the fear of embarrassing yourself of others.
This class involves two field trips which are easy to do if you start early and pay attention in class. Her tests are rather easy if you read the readings assigned. She also assigns plenty of extra credit assignments from visiting a museum (like seriously) to reading and reflecting on newspaper articles and simply presenting on your fieldwork in class.
Overall, it is a great class to take because you feel like you have learnt some skills, if not content.