Professor
Jessica Schwartz
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - weird format online, and everything is due at like 12 pm, in the middle of the day. felt a lot of the assignments were unnecessary and many of her prerecorded lectures had 0 sound in them. this course could really be 5 weeks but somehow it extends into 10. the midterm requires you to write a song and write a paper about it, oh and perform it. final is a video, a book, a paper, and a presentation. be warned. it lowkey is a lot
Winter 2024 - weird format online, and everything is due at like 12 pm, in the middle of the day. felt a lot of the assignments were unnecessary and many of her prerecorded lectures had 0 sound in them. this course could really be 5 weeks but somehow it extends into 10. the midterm requires you to write a song and write a paper about it, oh and perform it. final is a video, a book, a paper, and a presentation. be warned. it lowkey is a lot
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - This GE is honestly the worst class I've taken at UCLA. I actually made an account on Bruinwalk just to warn people about this class. I thought this would be a good GE to broaden my interests and learn about something new, but Prof Schwartz has singlehandedly ruined the genre for me. The class went from learning about different scenes in Punk history to the professor literally spewing random words and talking about hip hop and rap. The professor completely changed the plan of the course during 6th week - she changed the midterm, final and said she was no longer going off the syllabus. It's almost completely pointless to go to lectures because Professor Schwartz doesn't give us any information about what we're talking about, she just goes deep into her theoretical analysis of songs and artists and makes references most of the class doesn't get. She says she doesn't want to just teach a "survey course", but doesn't give us enough background information to actually form our own ideas. To add onto that, she makes class into this really hostile environment by guilting students into answering questions when most people don't even know what's going on since she makes no sense. Even the TAs say they have no idea what's going on most of the time. tldr; worst class at UCLA. avoid at all costs.
Winter 2018 - This GE is honestly the worst class I've taken at UCLA. I actually made an account on Bruinwalk just to warn people about this class. I thought this would be a good GE to broaden my interests and learn about something new, but Prof Schwartz has singlehandedly ruined the genre for me. The class went from learning about different scenes in Punk history to the professor literally spewing random words and talking about hip hop and rap. The professor completely changed the plan of the course during 6th week - she changed the midterm, final and said she was no longer going off the syllabus. It's almost completely pointless to go to lectures because Professor Schwartz doesn't give us any information about what we're talking about, she just goes deep into her theoretical analysis of songs and artists and makes references most of the class doesn't get. She says she doesn't want to just teach a "survey course", but doesn't give us enough background information to actually form our own ideas. To add onto that, she makes class into this really hostile environment by guilting students into answering questions when most people don't even know what's going on since she makes no sense. Even the TAs say they have no idea what's going on most of the time. tldr; worst class at UCLA. avoid at all costs.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - This class was such a drag. The professor seems cool, but man is this class not really taught well. It's an easy A if you put in the effort and have some baseline knowledge of music, but the assignments and ESPECIALLY the midterm/final projects were soo much work mostly because of the lack of direction you have. Expect to spend alot of time researching super obscure topics that you don't really know how they connect to anything at all. nothing against the tas and prof and stuff though, they seem like good people and the class has a good message behind it at least. The "lecture" videos are funny as helllll to be honest you never know what to expect. but really don't bother to go through all the links and videos and whatever if you don't have to its just not worth stressing about.
Fall 2025 - This class was such a drag. The professor seems cool, but man is this class not really taught well. It's an easy A if you put in the effort and have some baseline knowledge of music, but the assignments and ESPECIALLY the midterm/final projects were soo much work mostly because of the lack of direction you have. Expect to spend alot of time researching super obscure topics that you don't really know how they connect to anything at all. nothing against the tas and prof and stuff though, they seem like good people and the class has a good message behind it at least. The "lecture" videos are funny as helllll to be honest you never know what to expect. but really don't bother to go through all the links and videos and whatever if you don't have to its just not worth stressing about.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2017 - This is probably the easiest class I have ever taken at UCLA. I literally just showed up and breathed. We talked about Punk music, did a mini group project, and talked about our experiences with punk. The readings were optional, there was no paper, no final. We were suppose to go to this music festival, but you didn't even need to go that. Easiest Pass/No pass class I have taken at UCLA. 10/10 would recommend.
Winter 2017 - This is probably the easiest class I have ever taken at UCLA. I literally just showed up and breathed. We talked about Punk music, did a mini group project, and talked about our experiences with punk. The readings were optional, there was no paper, no final. We were suppose to go to this music festival, but you didn't even need to go that. Easiest Pass/No pass class I have taken at UCLA. 10/10 would recommend.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - I didn't love Schwartz, but I didn't hate her either. She just tries really hard to be funny and it just gets really awkward. Her slides are also super unhelpful when you go back to study because its usually just a picture with the name of a song and the band that performed it. She also moves quickly so you can't always get all the info for a particular slide, so when you go back to study you're kinda screwed. The winter quarter is mostly her show because basically every other lecture is about a musical genre. She also writes the prompts for an essay thats 25% of your grade, and the prompts are super convoluted and confusing. She is also terrible at explaining musical sounds because she assumes we can all pick up on the nuances in the differences in sounds from an amplifier. The lectures she gave never lived up to my expectation of the topic. Some people liked her style, but it wasn't really my thing.
Winter 2016 - I didn't love Schwartz, but I didn't hate her either. She just tries really hard to be funny and it just gets really awkward. Her slides are also super unhelpful when you go back to study because its usually just a picture with the name of a song and the band that performed it. She also moves quickly so you can't always get all the info for a particular slide, so when you go back to study you're kinda screwed. The winter quarter is mostly her show because basically every other lecture is about a musical genre. She also writes the prompts for an essay thats 25% of your grade, and the prompts are super convoluted and confusing. She is also terrible at explaining musical sounds because she assumes we can all pick up on the nuances in the differences in sounds from an amplifier. The lectures she gave never lived up to my expectation of the topic. Some people liked her style, but it wasn't really my thing.
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