I took Sociology 156 with Professor Michael Calderón-Zaks during Spring of 2020. Given that it was the beginning of the full-time online learning experience, the Professor really gave it his all to ensure that the class was accessible to all students regardless of time zone. Each week, a short quiz based on the essays was due which reviewed the main ideas of the assigned passages. The quizzes were relatively easy, but were a great way to motivate students to actually do the assigned readings. In all of my years as a UCLA student, I believe that Professor Calderón-Zaks has employed assigned readings the most effectively out of all of my previous Professors. Each article was extremely engaging and eye-opening and I still find myself referencing the topics that I learned from these readings as well as his lectures in my day-to-day life. I believe truly that Sociology 156 with Professor Calderón-Zaks was the best class of my Undergraduate experience and highly recommend it to anyone looking for an accessible way to learn more about the racial disparities in our country.

This class was super easy! Professor Calderon-Zaks is super chill and accomodating. The class consists of weekly quizzes (which are super doable as long as you pay some sort of attention in class lol), a final paper (you get to come up with your own prompt) and a final exam. He showed so much compassion to his students that he cancelled the final exam and made the final essay a no-harm one. Even though the lectures were pretty disorganized sometimes and sometimes he gets distracted, overall I would say this is a very easy class to take to clear one of the soc upper divs.