Professor
Lauren Derby
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Most Helpful Review
Derby is passionate and well-intentioned, but overall a very poor professor. Unfortunately, Derby's love for Latin America and the Caribbean does not translate into anything comprehensible in lecture- her lectures are random and extremely unorganized, often with Powerpoints of only keyterms and a picture or two. Fortunately, TA's are understanding of Derby's terrible lecture skills and really help the students to understand the material, which spans many countries and several hundred years. An interest in Latin America before Hist. 8C helped me to get through the class, but others were not as fortunate. The class consists of three essays (two for the midterm), which are all doable, and one broad final on the hundreds of keyterms throughout the quarter. Not the worst class I've taken, but certainly not the best.
Derby is passionate and well-intentioned, but overall a very poor professor. Unfortunately, Derby's love for Latin America and the Caribbean does not translate into anything comprehensible in lecture- her lectures are random and extremely unorganized, often with Powerpoints of only keyterms and a picture or two. Fortunately, TA's are understanding of Derby's terrible lecture skills and really help the students to understand the material, which spans many countries and several hundred years. An interest in Latin America before Hist. 8C helped me to get through the class, but others were not as fortunate. The class consists of three essays (two for the midterm), which are all doable, and one broad final on the hundreds of keyterms throughout the quarter. Not the worst class I've taken, but certainly not the best.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - I signed up for this class, both for my historical analysis GE requirement and out of interest as a history enthusiast (being an area of history I wasn't as familiar with). Grade consisted of 25% section participation, 5% map quizzes, 10% quizzes, 25% midterm essay, and 35% final essay (easy 2% extra credit to get at the end of the quarter as well). This class was thoroughly disappointing and probably one of the worst classes I've taken at UCLA. Professor Derby was quite nice and generous, and it was apparent that she cares deeply about her students and their learning. However, this did not translate at all to her lectures, which were extremely disorganized and difficult to understand/follow. I appreciated her attempts to tie in the cultural and artistic aspects of modern Latin American history to the class, but many times they felt extraneous and added to the disorganized/cluttered feel of the class, which also lacked any clear central themes. As such, it was very difficult to gauge her expectations for the essays. I think the worst part of the class was the TA, Mandie Nuanes. She would constantly complain about our discussion section's participation, and would spend half of the class complaining about it and being upset. This was ironic considering she would be absent from half of the sections throughout the quarter, and would notify us only last minute about it being moved onto zoom. At the end, she gave a very unreasonable participation score that was responsible for bumping my grade down, despite my participation and attendance. Don't take this class.
Winter 2025 - I signed up for this class, both for my historical analysis GE requirement and out of interest as a history enthusiast (being an area of history I wasn't as familiar with). Grade consisted of 25% section participation, 5% map quizzes, 10% quizzes, 25% midterm essay, and 35% final essay (easy 2% extra credit to get at the end of the quarter as well). This class was thoroughly disappointing and probably one of the worst classes I've taken at UCLA. Professor Derby was quite nice and generous, and it was apparent that she cares deeply about her students and their learning. However, this did not translate at all to her lectures, which were extremely disorganized and difficult to understand/follow. I appreciated her attempts to tie in the cultural and artistic aspects of modern Latin American history to the class, but many times they felt extraneous and added to the disorganized/cluttered feel of the class, which also lacked any clear central themes. As such, it was very difficult to gauge her expectations for the essays. I think the worst part of the class was the TA, Mandie Nuanes. She would constantly complain about our discussion section's participation, and would spend half of the class complaining about it and being upset. This was ironic considering she would be absent from half of the sections throughout the quarter, and would notify us only last minute about it being moved onto zoom. At the end, she gave a very unreasonable participation score that was responsible for bumping my grade down, despite my participation and attendance. Don't take this class.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - Well a lot has changed from the past couple of reviews lol. I would recommend this class to anyone who loves reading and is good at analyzing. If you're not someone who is, don't take this. For me, it was the easiest GE I've taken because of that fact. I love analyzing work so I got by simple. Her lectures have DEFINITELY improved from what the past people have been saying. However, it still has the feeling that she's trying to cram every little information about everything in her lectures. Also, they're pretty long so I found myself skipping to the future slides and doing other class work before the required film starts (she plays them in lectures in the last 1 hour 30 mins or so). There's one 3-page midterm and one 6-8 page final. Discussion sections are mandatory, but other than that theres not else to be graded. If you're able to write well, you'll be in good hands. It's just that the TA's don't really check your work so you'll find yourself going to the UCLA writing center a lot. Nonetheless, regardless of how weird Spring 24 was, highly recommend this class if you like that kinda stuff.
Spring 2024 - Well a lot has changed from the past couple of reviews lol. I would recommend this class to anyone who loves reading and is good at analyzing. If you're not someone who is, don't take this. For me, it was the easiest GE I've taken because of that fact. I love analyzing work so I got by simple. Her lectures have DEFINITELY improved from what the past people have been saying. However, it still has the feeling that she's trying to cram every little information about everything in her lectures. Also, they're pretty long so I found myself skipping to the future slides and doing other class work before the required film starts (she plays them in lectures in the last 1 hour 30 mins or so). There's one 3-page midterm and one 6-8 page final. Discussion sections are mandatory, but other than that theres not else to be graded. If you're able to write well, you'll be in good hands. It's just that the TA's don't really check your work so you'll find yourself going to the UCLA writing center a lot. Nonetheless, regardless of how weird Spring 24 was, highly recommend this class if you like that kinda stuff.
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