Professor
Linda Garro
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Professor Garro is a very knowledgable scholar, but an absolutely terrible lecturer. Her lectures are mostly explanations of readings for that week, but her explanations were hard to follow due to her constant stuttering, lack of proper wording, and confusing use of quotes from readings. This accompanied with uninformative slides which often do not pertain to what she is saying, made listening to her feel more like a headache than a relief from understanding the class material. The lack of coherent structure in her lectures made it confusing to take lecture notes due to the frequent rubber banding between going back and going forward on content and concepts. As for the material itself, there's 1 to 3 readings of 6 to 30 pages required per week from her own work published in the early 2000s or from older medical anthropologists' publications from the 1970s to 1990s. The contents of the material were not too hard to follow, but most of them included complex themes and concepts were often confusing and needed further explanation are severely lacking, as previously stated. Lastly her attitude towards the class was supposedly very supportive and positive, according to the TA, but Garro's interaction with the class has mostly been absent or otherwise negative. In the earlier weeks of the class she used to ask questions but as the students answered her question, she would reply with an uninterested "Ok" until one student barely scratches the "right" answer which no one but her seemed to have been able to guess correctly. Other times, she would outright tell the student they are wrong or give a sarcastic answer of 'Is it?' while trying to speak over them without letting them finish their thought/answer. Unsurprisingly the students stopped participating in fear they would just be dismissed for attempting. Overall, I would not recommend Garro. Her class has been the most unenjoyable experience I've had in my 4 years in UCLA. The content I've consumed from this class seemed to just turn me further towards disgust and annoyance about a topic that initially interested me due to its premise of understanding cultures' approach to medicine. Garro's teaching seemed to have entirely dismissed the objective truths we know about biomedicine while exoticising the non-Western approaches to medicine.
Fall 2019 - Professor Garro is a very knowledgable scholar, but an absolutely terrible lecturer. Her lectures are mostly explanations of readings for that week, but her explanations were hard to follow due to her constant stuttering, lack of proper wording, and confusing use of quotes from readings. This accompanied with uninformative slides which often do not pertain to what she is saying, made listening to her feel more like a headache than a relief from understanding the class material. The lack of coherent structure in her lectures made it confusing to take lecture notes due to the frequent rubber banding between going back and going forward on content and concepts. As for the material itself, there's 1 to 3 readings of 6 to 30 pages required per week from her own work published in the early 2000s or from older medical anthropologists' publications from the 1970s to 1990s. The contents of the material were not too hard to follow, but most of them included complex themes and concepts were often confusing and needed further explanation are severely lacking, as previously stated. Lastly her attitude towards the class was supposedly very supportive and positive, according to the TA, but Garro's interaction with the class has mostly been absent or otherwise negative. In the earlier weeks of the class she used to ask questions but as the students answered her question, she would reply with an uninterested "Ok" until one student barely scratches the "right" answer which no one but her seemed to have been able to guess correctly. Other times, she would outright tell the student they are wrong or give a sarcastic answer of 'Is it?' while trying to speak over them without letting them finish their thought/answer. Unsurprisingly the students stopped participating in fear they would just be dismissed for attempting. Overall, I would not recommend Garro. Her class has been the most unenjoyable experience I've had in my 4 years in UCLA. The content I've consumed from this class seemed to just turn me further towards disgust and annoyance about a topic that initially interested me due to its premise of understanding cultures' approach to medicine. Garro's teaching seemed to have entirely dismissed the objective truths we know about biomedicine while exoticising the non-Western approaches to medicine.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - The lectures feel pointless. It’s just slides with random quotes that aren’t even part in the assigned readings. She spent the first few weeks complaining about being online. Repetitive and unorganized. Not even the TA knew what was going on. I’m not sure what I was supposed to take from this class…Don’t recommend
Fall 2021 - The lectures feel pointless. It’s just slides with random quotes that aren’t even part in the assigned readings. She spent the first few weeks complaining about being online. Repetitive and unorganized. Not even the TA knew what was going on. I’m not sure what I was supposed to take from this class…Don’t recommend
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - Professor Garro was, at least for my honors project, entirely unhelpful. She gave advice that directly contradicted that of my better-informed faculty advisors. I was one of her favorite students because I turned all of my assignments in on time, because almost every other student fell gravely behind. This put her in a sour mood (she is already a cranky person), and while she didn’t act rude towards me, she said many inappropriate and downright nasty things to other students about their work. However, if you are in the Lemelson program, you will get out of this class what you pout into it, because it’s pretty much entirely independent work. Just placate her and submit everything on time and you will be fine. Also in class she constantly plays with her own feet in front of everyone and touches her feet with her fingers or swings her bare feet around.
Winter 2025 - Professor Garro was, at least for my honors project, entirely unhelpful. She gave advice that directly contradicted that of my better-informed faculty advisors. I was one of her favorite students because I turned all of my assignments in on time, because almost every other student fell gravely behind. This put her in a sour mood (she is already a cranky person), and while she didn’t act rude towards me, she said many inappropriate and downright nasty things to other students about their work. However, if you are in the Lemelson program, you will get out of this class what you pout into it, because it’s pretty much entirely independent work. Just placate her and submit everything on time and you will be fine. Also in class she constantly plays with her own feet in front of everyone and touches her feet with her fingers or swings her bare feet around.
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