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 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.

This class was kind of all over the place. It was not necessarily difficult in terms of material BUT the structure was really odd and invoked a lot of stress. Also the title is very misleading. This class should be called US Latino Voting Behaviors. We really just talked about various factors that influence how Latinos engage in the US political system, did not adrdess the sociological or more nuanced elements of Latino identity.

Breaking down the class structure and grading:
- no midterm
- participation in discussions kind of mattered, depended on the TA
- final exam worth 50% (I think) of your grade
- final project worth something like 40% of grade

The final project requires A LOT OF ENERGY, especially if you are unfamiliar with using R or stata. It is basically a data analysis of latino voting behaviors and opinions using HUGE datasets. There is very little support from the professor and TA's in tackling this project.

I did fine in this class, but it was honestly really stressful. Not worth it.

Start your final project early, and ask your TA for help/guidance. If you do well on that project, you're likely to do well in the course, it's 25% of the grade, and section participation is 25%, so actively engage your TA. The professor is incredibly interesting, but it's unfortunate that there's not more room for engagement, but rather just regurgitation of polling information he's acquired over years. This was the least engaging course I've taken in school - and if I wasn't interested in the subject matter, it would have been a total bore.

I think you should take this class. Every Extra Credit assignment you do adds 1% to your overall grade. And you can do as many Extra Credit assignments as you want....I'll let you do the math on that.

However, the exam was actually pretty hard and this is me saying that after I studied 3 straight days for it and only left my room to eat. He said in class that "the exam is super easy and don't worry about it" and so I worried about it, and rightfully so. If any professor tells you that the exam that they wrote, on a topic they spent years researching, and has an answer key for is easy, it probably is not. I would recommend going to ~all~ his lectures because he does not post the slides. I repeat, he does not post the slides. He doesn't even give his slides to his TAs. To prepare for the exam, I would recommend writing down every word that leaves his mouth. Anything and everything he says is fair game to the exam. Every video he shows in class, make sure to write the title down and a summary of what you watched. Every guest speaker he invites, make sure to take notes on what they say and on what he says. If you are an excellent note taker, this is the class for you.

I highly recommend some background in R before taking this class. Please listen to me. LISTEN TO ME. Take POL SCI 6 or STATS 10 before this class otherwise you may struggle on the Final Project. I had to help a lot of my classmates because they had zero experience in R and had I not taken those two classes in the past I know I would have struggled. I am honestly surprised this is not a requirement.

Breakdown:
- Participation: 25%
- Final Exam: 50%
- No midterms
- Research Project with R: 25%

Additional notes if you care to read:
- He is funny and actually quite nice. Just approach him respectfully. He is authoritative.
- I went in on the first day of class with every intention to drop it, but thought, hey I’ll go to one class just to see, and thank goodness I did because I loved this class. The content is so fascinating. You analyze the political behavior of Latinos and their voting pattern and behaviors throughout the century -- if you like statistics, graphs, and data, this is the class for you.
- How to do well in class: Do readings after each lecture, not before. Show up to all discussions because this is a free "A+" in participation. Do as much EC opportunity as possible. Take extensive notes in class because no slides are given.
- Textbooks are hella pricey so maybe find a friend a split cost.

I dropped this course after week 2
psa: this is not going to be about US-latino politics in the international relations way!! This class doesn't examine dif. countries and thier foreign relations w the US. it is about voting patterns, census data, coding, and statistics. I thought it would be dif, so thats why i enrolled. the slides are all data we cant even see clearly (small lecture screen, lots of students) and he does not post the slides or bruincast

in my opinion, dont take this heavy-one exam based class when the slides arent posted. missing one class runs you a risk of falling behind, and focusing is hard because its boring to look at data, analyze it, and do it again for over an hour.

the class might be fine, but just beware if its something in ur interests! Also textbook is mandatory and costs 50 bucks if that matters to any of u

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.