This class was definitely not worth taking as just a social analysis GE. There was way too much writing to not even get writing II credit (comes out to 23 pages of writing, plus 8 pages of debate notes that can be bullet points but still have to be in sentence/paragraph form); I had multiple friends in different writing II classes that said they did much less writing than me, and even if the TA strike didn't happen they would've still done less (I think a typical writing II class is about 15-20 pages total). The professor barely matches her syllabus schedule and is very bad with navigating Canvas, so there were at least 3 assignments where we were approaching the due date and yet the instructions were locked or unpublished on the website. I switched into this class because the topic seemed very interesting to me and I wanted to avoid taking a history class, but I deeply wish I had stuck with the history class because this class is just not worth it.
Grading breakdown:
15% 3 1-page reflective journals based in part on a community engagement assignment where we have to spend at least 6 hours throughout the quarter
15% policy paper (about 2 pages)
10% group debate and notes (8 pages)
20% elder life review project (10-page paper detailing an older adult's entire life and connecting it to a theory from the class; because of her disorganization we didn't learn the theories until the very last class so we had to rush the essay in the last week of the quarter despite being assigned it in week 5)
30% midterm and final (each one is 2 2-page essays, so total 4 2-page essays; midterm is 15% and final is 15%; they are usually timed in-person but they were take-home for us)
10% participation/small group exercises in class