While the course material was fascinating, Dr. Barreto and his TAs made the experience kind of lackluster. My problems with this class are many.
1. The syllabus for the class required students to buy around five textbooks. We only used maybe half of them for the entire quarter.
2. There is a clear lack of unity, cohesiveness, and standardization among how the TAs graded. My TA, Claudia Rodriguez, was absolutely wonderful. Claudia was great at leading class discussions and was clear about what her expectations were. I had two friends who had an absolute nightmare TA. This TA was rude and condescending to them in emails. When receiving their final grades for a final project that required us to research Latinx populations in various cities across the US, my friends reached out to their TA to ask for an explanation. She gave them both Cs for their project because they didn't include "specific information" required by the professor. My friend emailed the professor back and forth; after re-grading her project, the professor gave her a B+. This lack of communication, cohesion, and standardization could have cost her an entire letter grade.
3. My final comment is about Dr. Barreto himself. His lectures were SO BORING. He would literally just make PowerPoint slides and read off of them the entire time. There were a few pictures here and there throughout the slides, but the majority of the slides were a text that had been copied and pasted from the book. Though a smart and accomplished man, I think he lacks the ability to make the information interesting in a teaching setting.

Though I have many complaints about this class, I will say that (with a good TA) the class was actually pretty easy. There were only three components of our grade, two of which were a final and a final project. The final was easy if you went to lectures, took notes, and made a mental timeline of the events he talked about. I would definitely be wary of taking this class. I say go for it if you want to roll the dice and risk getting a rude and unfair TA.

I'm personally not a fan of professor Barreto's teaching style as his lectures got boring very quickly but the material is pretty straightforward. Although this class is cross-listed as Chicano studies and political science, definitely don't expect to learn any chican@ theory, a majority of the lectures were spent looking at statistics about Latino voting trends. Grade is broken down into 3 parts: 25% participation in TA section, 25% research project, and 50% final exam. The final exam was 114 questions and had a few ambiguous questions in my opinion. You had to know very specific details that I couldn't recall learning in lecture, he also oddly didn't test much on statistics which I felt like he spent most of his time discussing. The final project is also very straightforward and involves minimal coding that the professor and TAs will walk you through, they use what seems like a simplified version of R on Stata for this project. Additional to the coding, you will also have to create a 10-slide presentation about your dataset and analysis. Every week we had assigned reading from the textbooks or supplementary articles that averaged about 100 pages per week. The readings are all pretty straightforward but they all seemed to repeat the same thing, especially those from the textbooks. He also allowed extra credit by attending political science-related events but you had to find those on your own.

Overall, if you really pay attention in lecture then this will be an easy A, but keep in mind that he does not post lecture slides and 75% of your grade is dependent on your final exam and project score.

Professor Barreto was a very understanding professor, which really meant a lot to me as we transitioned back to in-person classes. He made sure to have a working hybrid model for the class, and he made the final online. The content of this course is interesting (be warned there are a lot of statistics but its not scary!) The grade is broken down between 50% final 25% section participation and 25% final project. The exam was an 114 multiple choice question test, which for the most part was easy to accomplish if you went to the lectures. I found the readings helpful, but you could probably go without doing them. The final project is really not that bad, it uses STATA, a data program, but it is very minimal and Professor Barreto walks you through STATA. I would take this class again easily, the information is pertinent to the real world, making it a great class for me.

Barretto is one of those professors where you think they're good at first until they show their true colors. He is very arrogant and condescending. This is clear when trying to have a conversation with him outside of class hours. His lectures are pretty straightforward until you get to the final exam.

There are only three things you're graded on in this class: Participation, Final Project, and a Final exam. The project was easy if you did it in advance, although the wrong TA can send your grade down. My TA was putting critiques that didn't make sense, like why a graph was used in two slides (I was elaborating on a point made in the first slide using the same data). The final exam is horrendous. 114 questions on very specific things. My brain was scrambling to remember when we learned everything. Otherwise, it's easy to get a good grade in this class.

This course is really for those who really love to study voting rights - it is challenging, but a challenge that nerds like me really enjoyed. Professor Barreto (and Professor Dunn) were incredibly generous with their time and talents, and are some of the smartest folks around when it comes to this stuff. Very few folks get to take this course, and if you're invited and love to help advance equality while engaging in meaningful research, you should jump at the opportunity.

Whew Chile! This Class has great potential. However, this Professor is not helpful and when I asked for clarification he always responded with an attitude. If you don’t like helping students, please do not become a professor. Also, the final project should be changed to something more engaging and substantive. If you are stressed out don’t take this class.

This class is a relatively easy and interesting class but the professor is very difficult! Professor Barreto doesn’t use Canvas, post slides, or record lectures, and is overall not cooperative. He demands participation in class but is rude to the students who participate which didn’t make me want to raise my hand! He interrupts students and often picks apart what they say in a really harsh way. He is not understanding at all, so this class is great if everything goes smoothly for you but I imagine it would be a completely different experience if you needed any help or support. The content he presents is extremely interesting and engaging and I really enjoyed the class, just not him as a professor. Also TA Emily was the best TA I’ve had at UCLA! She is kind and makes an effort to help the students succeed and is very knowledgeable! Her sections were super engaging and I would highly recommend her. This class went well for me but I would be careful because you really have to attend almost every lecture and hope things go smoothly or you're in trouble.

This class is not as stressful as everyone makes it out to be. We don’t have any homework assignments (no discussion boards, quizzes, writing/essays) and no midterm. The only thing we have to do is read book chapters and articles. There are only two books, both of which are on inclusive access. Usually, we were assigned 2-4 readings a week, which may sound like a lot, but the book chapters were super short (never more than ten pages), although some articles were lengthy. Essentially, you just read the assigned readings and show up to the lecture.
That being said, Professor Barreto is not the best professor. It is very obvious that he does not love teaching. Barreto told the class to go to our TA first if we have any questions, and if our TA can absolutely not answer your questions, THEN you can go to him. Your TA does all the grading for the class, but Barreto is not involved in the grading aspect at all. He is basically there to just lecture and leave. He didn’t even show up to our final exam, which was a bit of an issue because there were some questions that required more than one answer on the final exam, but the directions did not say that there was more than one answer. He does not use Canvas, so I never found out my grade on the final exam or the final project. His lecture slides are just repeating what the assigned readings said, but it is very important that you take notes on every lecture slide. Everything that appears on the lecture slides is fair game for the final exam. Additionally, Barreto does not publish his lecture slides anywhere and does not allow the TAs to send them out. If you do not take notes on the lecture slides, you will never see them again, so take notes!!
Here is the grading breakdown:
PARTICIPATION: 25% of your grade. How your participation is graded depends on your TA. My TA, Kevin Kandamby (who was great), had our participation graded on attendance, group discussions, and short answer responses to a prompt. Again, this varies on your TA.
FINAL PROJECT: 25% of your grade. Professor Barreto provides five different data sets that we use to answer a proposed research question. We use Stata (which Barreto provides) and have to turn in a 12-slide presentation showing our data. This sounds difficult, but Barreto and the TAs walk you through this project. Barreto holds a “Stata Day” during Week 7, where he shows us how to use Stata instead of lecturing. During week 10, Barreto and the TAs hold workshops during class time where you can go in and work on your project and ask for help if you need it. Barreto said that if you do the assignment and show that you tried, you will get 100% on the project.
FINAL EXAM: 50% of your grade. Our final exam had 106 questions. My advice is to study all your lecture notes. As previously mentioned, everything mentioned in the lecture is fair game for the final. It’s entirely multiple-choice, and there are no essay or short-answer questions. A scantron is provided.
Overall, this class is not that bad. A lot of the content in this class is common knowledge and is often repeated multiple times throughout the course. Professor Barreto isn’t a very energetic professor and is not very involved with the course. Your grade is entirely dependent on your TA. In my opinion, this class is not very demanding. The only stressful part about this class was starting the final project, but if you attend the workshops, you will be completely fine. I would take this class again, but only if it was one of the few options left. So if this class is your only option, don’t worry, you will be fine! This class is not very difficult. The best way to succeed in this class is to attend lectures and take notes.

Professor Barreto is wicked smart, but seems aloof. He doesn't engage with students, and seems almost bothered by questions. The subject matter is something I'm passionate about, and I learned a lot from him and Professor Dunn who co-taught the course with him - but unless someone is independently interested in the subject, his disengagement with the students would likely make it a miserable course for most. In short, lectures are great, engagement with students is poor - so consider that when thinking of taking a class with Professor Baretto.

This class was interesting, but I felt like there were some flaws in the structure of the course and the way the professor engaged with the class. The professor does not post slides on his website, but because his lectures are literally the same material as the readings, it did not matter all too much. The professor also refused to use canvas, which led to a situation where many students were unaware they were charged for electronic textbooks they could not access until two weeks into the course (because of the “Inclusive Access” system). The project is not as bad as it seems; he spends a lot of time scaring students about it, but it's pretty easy. It is somewhat frustrating though that the only real assignments for the class are the project (25%) and an all-multiple choice final (50%). The rest was discussion points (25%). The subject was interesting, though, and if you're passionate about the subject, or U.S. politics in general (most of the class is about the most recent elections, 2004-present), you should take this class.