I took this class during CSI (it was my first class before starting in the fall). It was 6-weeks and asynchronous, so take this review with a grain of salt. I took this class because I really want to be a communication major. Do not take this class as a GE. I took it the summer before school because I heard it was difficult, and I wanted to do the “easy” version of it. I feel like I was coming to this class with the pure motivation of starting a new academic journey, which certainly helped. This class is simply a lot of nonstop content. Content. Content. Content. We only had to cover 60% of the material, and my study guides for the midterm and final were 60 pages each of pure notes. Notes. Notes. Notes. You really need to take notes on everything: the lectures, the books, and the online readings. (Might I say this is the first time I read 2 whole books in a while). Despite the amount of work, I thoroughly enjoyed the lectures and content material. Suman’s voice (lectures were podcasted) grew on me by the end; he can be funny sometimes and add charming anecdotes to the lecture material. He made the extra effort to get to know us during office hours. He is still a no joke straightforward professor; you can tell he’s done this course a billion times and doesn’t have time for bullshit.

The structure of this course is noteworthy. The first half of the course covers interpersonal and small group communication. The second half covers the mass media, including a lot of news. All content comes from lectures, books, and online readings. Discussion groups are about the books.

The grading is also important in this course. There are only 3 assignments for this course: a midterm (45pts), paper (40pts), and final (50pts). The final is not cumulative.
The paper is quite interesting; you choose 1 of 4 prompts and write from your own perspective and observations. It’s almost fun to write. There are no other ways to earn points in this course.

The tests are hard. Expect short answer questions followed by essay questions. They are all open notes. They are very time-cramped. If you are not a fast typer or don’t have your notes typed up and organized well, it isn't easy to finish them on time. The questions are very straightforward, not too tricky.

I also want to add that the lectures are mostly good, except for the freedom of speech content. Suman does a good job organizing most of the lectures, but he gets carried away during the freedom of speech lecture, inappropriately imbuing his personal views. He claims that this is his favorite part of communication studies, but this particular lecture was messy.

I would recommend staying away from this class unless you absolutely have to take it. I had a 4.0 before I took this class and was taking it to fulfill a GE. My main issues with this class were the grading structure and the sheer amount of material covered in this course. There is a midterm, final, and paper, and those are the ONLY items in your grade, which I feel is very unfair. I think that there should also be homework and/or participation points contributing to our grade so that not everything rests on two exams and a big paper. Mess up one of those and you're doomed (which happened to me). Definitely make sure to review your paper with the TA, as they are the person grading it. Suman is very strict about rubrics/grade cutoffs so you want to make sure you're maximizing your chances of meeting everything on the rubric by meeting with the TA. On the midterm and the final, Suman will ask the most subtle of questions. Every WORD in his lectures or the (long) readings is fair game for the exam. Every. Word. I mean that. Not to mention that the lectures are SO BORING! This man is old and speaks with a very unengaging and monotone voice. I had a hard time not falling asleep while listening to the lecture podcasts. Additionally, I find the material of the class to be very boring. This class basically sheds light on things people do in their everyday lives, it felt like I was memorizing an unreasonably large number of facts rather than actually learning something insightful. Overall, this was probably my least favorite class I've taken at UCLA, and unless you absolutely must take this, stay away!

Overall Professor Suman is a mediocre professor. His lectures are quite boring and the workload is alot. If you are planning to take this class to get an easy A dont bother unless you think you will have a lot of time. The was he structures his classes is quite consistent. He will lecture for about 20 minutes and then you get through an episode of the show you are currently discussing, and then he will talk about it for the rest of the class. Make sure you write excellent and organized note. Although he doesnt give homework, the recommended work is essentially mandatory. Make sure you do work each week so it does not add up in the end. Some of the readings in the books are pretty hard to read.

I AM CURRENTLY SELLING THE TWO TEXT BOOKS FOR HIS CLASS (THE NEW ONES HE HAS ASSIGNED FOR HIS CLASS)
******I AM SELLING THEM BOTH FOR $30**** LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE INTERESTED OR HAVE ANY QUESTIONS
***CONTACT: ********** ***** THIS WILL REMAIN UP UNTIL THE BOOKS HAVE BEEN SOLD

TA's sucked when I took this course. All they did was grade the tests and papers. Open note exams, but the prof will give you about 200 questions for the two books total and ask you like 20 of them on the test, so you can't skip the reading if you want to pass. Tough grader, lectures were repetitive. Overall this class had too much work, uneasy grading scales and curves, and I DO NOT reccommend taking this class if you wish to have free time. This class had me sacrifice about 3 weekends total just to get thru the boring readings.

Only take this class if you are/want to be in the comm major. Suman is a very good lecturer, although he doesn't use powerpoints. Write down EVERYTHING he says. There is only a midterm, term paper, and final.

RUN AWAY FROM THIS CLASS!!!!!

The midterm was open note. The questions on the midterm were directly from lecture notes. Although I had all my notes and completed all readings and answering associated study questions, I still recieved a bad grade on the midterm. His grading scale seems easy, but nonetheless he's a hard grader. being open note I felt like I guaranteed an A on the midterm, but yet still managed to do poorly. Seems easy at a glance, but is a tough grader and doesn't grant enough time for the ludicrous amount of questions on tests and the detail required. Most of the class struggled to answer every question within the time period

start those cheat sheet notes early......

If you are looking for a fun, easy A, look for another class. Extremely heavy workload and a lot of the sitcoms you have to watch are not great.

SELLING ALL COMM ST BOOKS

Taking Sides 14th Edition: $30
I bought a brand new one and it is still in mint condition, it just has highlighter on two pages. If you try to buy a new one it'll be like $60-70 which is what I had to pay.

You Just Don't Understand by Tannen: $6
Originally bought this from Amazon for $10-11 as a new book, this has highlighter on only the few pages and creases on some pages. Mild use, but still in great condition.

Losing the News: $10
Originally bought this for $17 as a new book, no creases or highlights. Like it's brand new.

If you want to buy all of them I can make it a total of $43 for you.
Text me at **********!