Professor
John Dagenais
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - When I tell you this is the worst mistake I have made as a UCLA student, I am speaking nothing but the truth. This class is extremely difficult. If you are trying to take this class as a GE, DONT! It will ruin your life, I am a STEM major and I find my Pre Reqs easier than this class. This class covers so much information that I find it impossible to learn everything. Bi-weekly quizzes are given and they are graded extremely hard. The midterm covered SIX weeks of information that I felt like was impossible to learn everything. No study guide is given for any exam and the TA's are very stingy and inconsisent with the information about the exams. The professor is so boring, he lectures for the entire 1 hour and 50 minutes in a monotone voice that makes it impossible not to fall asleep in this class. The organization of his class is lacking in a lot of ways and I feel like he needs to restructure his whole lesson plan. Many of the information he makes us learn is unneccasary and to top it off it doesnt show up on exams. After reading this and you still decide to take the class, just remember week 6 before entering the midterm, you will remember this post and regret your decision.
Winter 2018 - When I tell you this is the worst mistake I have made as a UCLA student, I am speaking nothing but the truth. This class is extremely difficult. If you are trying to take this class as a GE, DONT! It will ruin your life, I am a STEM major and I find my Pre Reqs easier than this class. This class covers so much information that I find it impossible to learn everything. Bi-weekly quizzes are given and they are graded extremely hard. The midterm covered SIX weeks of information that I felt like was impossible to learn everything. No study guide is given for any exam and the TA's are very stingy and inconsisent with the information about the exams. The professor is so boring, he lectures for the entire 1 hour and 50 minutes in a monotone voice that makes it impossible not to fall asleep in this class. The organization of his class is lacking in a lot of ways and I feel like he needs to restructure his whole lesson plan. Many of the information he makes us learn is unneccasary and to top it off it doesnt show up on exams. After reading this and you still decide to take the class, just remember week 6 before entering the midterm, you will remember this post and regret your decision.
Most Helpful Review
This is quite possibly one of the easiest classes that I've taken. The grading is consisted of: 25% midterm, 15 % quizzes during discussions (4 quizzes in total, but you get to drop the lowest one), 10 % film critique (kinda unnecessary IMO and does not necessarily pertain to the class), 15 % participation points during discussions, and 35 % final. Both the midterm and the final were very easy but I guess we had lenient TAs (I had Paula). Basically participation points are pretty easy to get as you only need to skim through the internet articles (which by the end gets really redundant. For example, there were articles about 'Laws of Historical Memory' or 'ETA' for three weeks but I guess that's good since you don't have to do the readings the second or third time around and the material really sinks in by the end). Pro: So easy. Midterm asked the easy stuff for most part (the TAs wrote the midterm). Also for both the midterm and the final you have to identify some slides (15 slides out of about 30 slides that you have to study from) but this part is basically free points. The same thing goes for the final. There are some matching and multiple choice but were also fairly easy. The huge part is the short answer part (which is like half of your for the midterm/ final) but they are nothing tricky; it just requires minimal thinking. Also there is no textbook so that's definitely a huge plus. Con: going to class is not necessary as the lecture notes are posted online and Prof. Dagenais basically just reads from his powerpoint presentation anyway. Also he does not seem to care much about students (after all, he is the chairman of the department what do you expect?) Overall, I'd definitely recommend this class as a GPA booster. Plus Spanish History is actually quite fun and interesting. Grade Received: A+ although I only got a B- on the paper (which is only 10% of your grade so it is okay to bomb the paper completely).
This is quite possibly one of the easiest classes that I've taken. The grading is consisted of: 25% midterm, 15 % quizzes during discussions (4 quizzes in total, but you get to drop the lowest one), 10 % film critique (kinda unnecessary IMO and does not necessarily pertain to the class), 15 % participation points during discussions, and 35 % final. Both the midterm and the final were very easy but I guess we had lenient TAs (I had Paula). Basically participation points are pretty easy to get as you only need to skim through the internet articles (which by the end gets really redundant. For example, there were articles about 'Laws of Historical Memory' or 'ETA' for three weeks but I guess that's good since you don't have to do the readings the second or third time around and the material really sinks in by the end). Pro: So easy. Midterm asked the easy stuff for most part (the TAs wrote the midterm). Also for both the midterm and the final you have to identify some slides (15 slides out of about 30 slides that you have to study from) but this part is basically free points. The same thing goes for the final. There are some matching and multiple choice but were also fairly easy. The huge part is the short answer part (which is like half of your for the midterm/ final) but they are nothing tricky; it just requires minimal thinking. Also there is no textbook so that's definitely a huge plus. Con: going to class is not necessary as the lecture notes are posted online and Prof. Dagenais basically just reads from his powerpoint presentation anyway. Also he does not seem to care much about students (after all, he is the chairman of the department what do you expect?) Overall, I'd definitely recommend this class as a GPA booster. Plus Spanish History is actually quite fun and interesting. Grade Received: A+ although I only got a B- on the paper (which is only 10% of your grade so it is okay to bomb the paper completely).
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