Suman gets so much hate for no reason. I understand the complaints for those expecting a GE, but if you come in prepared to listen, take diligent notes during lectures, do the readings (and really read them), and study hard for the midterm and final you will be successful. If you're interested in the topic and are willing to put in time, take this class.
I found Suman funny and engaging, and found the content relevant and applicable to my own life. I honestly loved him as a person and enjoyed going to class most of the time. I really enjoyed both of the textbooks as well, and would recommend taking notes on them chapter by chapter so that you don't have to go back and re-read when you make your 10 pages of notes (have fun with that..).
This class does take up A TON of time. I spent more time studying for this class than any other class I've taken at UCLA thus far, which is saying something. You deadass just have to know everything he says. Memorize it all. The readings and making your note pages do take a long time, but if you commit to getting it all done and doing it well it will help you on the exams. I spent days writing and rewriting info so that I could remember it all, but I crammed that into 2 days before the midterm and final and still did well enough on both to get a solid A in the class.
Grade is made up of 30% ish midterm, 30% ish final, and 30% ish a paper. Exams are a mix of short answer and essay questions, so you really do have to memorize all of the lecture content since there's no multiple choice.
I took this class fall quarter freshman year and still got an A. If I can do it, you can too.

Yes, this class is difficult. However, if you've read reviews, you know what you're getting into and how to prepare for exams. Make sure to memorize all of the "lists" of material he will lecture on. Readings are long and time-consuming, but you can use reading notes on the exam, so you only need to worry about lectures for exams. Suman grades essays very harshly, and even though I got A's on both the midterm and final, the grade he gave me on the essay tanked my grade to a B+. I would recommend emailing him/talking to him during office hours about your essay ideas.

Don't take unless you have to, but if you do, you will be ok!

People antagonize Professor Suman on here but I think he was a really fair professor, if a little old fashioned, but I appreciated that. He doesn't let you use technology in his class but it just makes you learn the material better, and the tests are manageable if you actually study. The content is super interesting, and I liked the class overall.

Taking this class online over the summer was the best decision I made. It was super easy and i was able to actually have fun with the class. The topics are super interesting and fun to learn about. From what my friends tell me the stress of the in person tests made the class less enjoyable meanwhile I had an amazing time online

If you've read the other reviews, they're right. Don't take this class unless you're set on being a comm major. If you're not a comm major, there is no reason for you to take this class like you should not be taking it just for the social analysis GE bc there are way easier GE's. You can't just not do the readings for this class and you need to take notes for your own benefit bc trust me, they will come in clutch since you can use them on the tests and you can spend the rest of your time studying the lecture material since you can't have notes on lecture content, only readings. The readings are a lot and lectures too. You can't fall asleep tho and you should record the lectures, especially with an AI voice recording app or something since he doesn't use slides or post anything for the lectures so you have to go to class. What makes this class hard is the amount of content bc there is so much like this class is worth 2 classes of content but if you were to only take this class for the whole quarter, that would be enough bc it really is that much.

How to succeed in this class:
OK honestly even tho there is a lot of content, he is pretty reasonable and you can definitely get a good grade in this class. Biggest tip is to start early and I cannot stress that enough. There are quizlets online and Kahoots that Brett, one of the TA's made which I found helpful so study those even tho they are like 200 cards. I did learn and spaced repetition. Also, I wish I knew and did this so much earlier but he posted this lecture content guide which is just an outline of a bunch of different points that he talks about so I would print that out and take notes on it and review your notes/transcript/audio recording to answer and give examples of each of the terms and stuff on that outline. To start early, review your notes before the next class and when he presents a list of information, make a mnemonic device or something to memorize everything in that list and prepare examples. You kinda have to know like everything and it's a lot, but there shouldn't be many surprises or terms he never covered, but some stuff could be things that he only briefly mentioned or even at the end of class. Make sure to take notes on everything like this isn't the class where you can synthesize and choose what to take notes on or not like just take note of everything and get a notebook just for this class. Go to office hours too.

Easily one of the worst classes I have taken at UCLA. Profesor Suman is incredibly nice and a good lecturer, but the way the class is structured makes it insanely difficult to want to do good or be able to do good. The material is long and confusing, with lectures having a "no technology policy" to which he cites articles that are over a decade old for wanting to do this and stops class and calls students out if they have a phone on their lap. Additionally, the tests require incredibly specific pieces of knowledge, and if you even forget one thing, you're absolutely screwed out of a bunch of points. On top of that, his TA Brett is a mess. I went to his office hours to see my midterm and I found multiple questions he marked wrong, that were directly where they wanted the answer from, but were marked wrong for no reason. He ended up giving me points back, but I had to fight incredibly hard to admit he made a mistake Furthermore, he encouraged me to not speak up again when it comes to grading, emailing me saying "I hope you will not do the same for the paper and final" in regards to him not wanting me to talk to him if I am upset about my grades in the future. I had no choice but to take this class because I needed the units, but absolutely, and I mean absolutely, do not take this class unless you want to spend hours studying meaningless material, dealing with unfair grading, and suffering for 10 weeks.

This is definitely a tough class just based off of the amount of information that you have to know. I took this in the spring and the midterm got moved online because of the encampment so that made it easier since we were allowed to have notes. My biggest advice would be to go to your discussions and interact with your TA cause ultimately they are the ones grading your exams and papers. You want them to know that you are putting in a lot of effort to the class. DO NOT get behind on the readings because that will come back to bite you especially in the second half of class with the longer readings. Overall, don't take this class if your don't have to, but if you do, stay on top of all your readings and learn the lecture content early.

Dear God, I should've read the reviews on Comms 10 with Suman before I took it. As a STEM major, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN THE COMMUNICATIONS MAJOR.

This is like weeder course 1A. The titan of weeder courses. And here I was, a naive little stem major looking to get a GE requirement fulfilled. It took me a few weeks to realize I had made a grave error.

Suman himself is a good lecturer and is very clear about his expectations, although I got the feeling that he doesn't have much patience for silly questions and he isn't someone you should try to get to know. The content is actually super interesting. I learned more about myself and the people closest to me during this class than I probably will in any other class at UCLA. But it's not worth it for the end result.

The class has just three grades to make up your total score. A midterm, an essay, and the final, in that order. You're expected to memorize every little thing Suman says in lecture, since you're only allowed notes from your readings on the tests. Oh, the readings! That's right. You'll probably read 200-300 pages of dense material for the midterm, and ~300 pages of dense material for the final, that you need to condense into 20 (only handwritten) notes for these tests. Discussion section may help you to compact the notes, but that's only if the TA knows what he/she is doing. I think my Quizlet for the final had close to 400 terms/concepts on there.

It's a miracle I escaped with a B+, because I don't think many people did better than that. If you're a STEM major, particularly an engineer, you will not be able to handle this class along with the rest of your workload. Do not take it. Otherwise, good luck and start praying for your mental health.

period pooh (i wanted to die but if i can get an a, you can too, just prepare to not have a life for a quarter it's fine i'm fine)

Comms 10 is def the hardest class I've taken so far. First off, I'll start off by saying that no one should be in this class unless they are interested in the Communications major or/and are passionate about studying Communications. Taking this class as a GE thinking it would be a very chill class is a mistake. Please do not do it.

Personally, I found the content of the class very interesting. The first half of the class is the study of intra and interpersonal communication. We learned about the different ways men and women communicate with one another, flirting, and how people receive or say information based on personal circumstances (culture, language, etc). We read 6 chapters of a book called "You Just Don't Understand" by Deborah Tannen and I personally found this book extremely fascinating. There were around 10 other outside readings that varied in length (some were 3 pages while others were 30 pages). The second half of the class was about mass communication (through books, movies, newspapers, magazines, etc) and the First Amendment. We read 2 books for this second half of the quarter and 10 more outside readings. The lecture content was interesting but the readings were extremely long and dry. I definitely preferred the first half of the class, but that's beside the point.

I'll start with some of the positives that I got from the class. Professor Suman is friendly and always leaves room in his lecture for questions. Some students go up to him after class and ask clarifying questions about lecture content + potential test material, and he is always open to answering them. During his lectures, he'll go through long lists of key terms we should know. He did a good job of letting us know what lists to memorize in its entirety versus those where you only needed to know 3-4 terms out of 12. Another positive was the TA led discussion that happened once a week. I'd HIGHLY recommend always going to those because they do a great job at explaining so many topics in lectures and readings. Also, it never hurts to befriend your TA (since they grade everything). Lastly, the final was NOT cumulative. And thank god it wasn't because the sheer amount of content you learn within the first and last 5 weeks of this course is near impossible to memorize in its entirety.

There are some beige flags about this class. First off, there is absolutely NO technology in the lecture room. This means you HAVE to take handwritten notes at all times. This was an adjustment at first, but it honestly really helped me remember the content because I was engaged for the whole duration of the lecture. There are also no recordings or use of visual aid in the class. You could leave your phone on the podium next to him and record the lecture using voice memos, but most people just relied on their friends around them in case something was missed. Next, you get 10 pages of notes for the midterm + final exam but ONLY on the outside readings. You can't have a cheat sheet for the lecture content (TA's check these notes while you're taking the exam and collect them when you turn in your tests). Lastly, your final grade is dependent on three things: midterm, final paper, and final exam. It is off a point system, with the midterm being worth 45 points, paper worth 40 points, and the final worth 50 points (the class has a total of 135 points). His curve def saved a lot of grades...without it, students would be averaging a C- in the class. 108 points and up counts as an A, 107 to 81 points is a B, 80 to 54 points is a C, and so forth. So, it's not exactly hard to pass the class with a C, but it is def tricky to get a high grade. However, we are all told in the beginning of the course that you should not expect to get an A in the class because an A means that you exceeded expectations.

Onto the not so great things about this class. As all the other reviews state, the workload in this class is no joke. I dedicated HOURS to this class every single day, so try to take easier classes if you want to do well in Comms 10. The midterm was online for my quarter because of the protests, so many people did well on it because they were allowed to use lecture notes (and most of the questions were about lecture content). However, the final exam was honestly terrible. There are 26ish short answer questions and 3 essay questions, and nearly ALL of the questions were about outside readings...I spent SO LONG memorizing all of the lecture content only for there to be maybe 5 questions total about them. Most of the short answer questions asked the most irrelevant and insignificant details about the outside reading content. The essay questions were straightforward though, and Suman gave us hints about what they were going to be about beforehand so I do appreciate that. Next, the final paper is NOT fun to write. There is absolutely NO rubric or structure to this 5-7 paged paper, so you're honestly just blindly hoping that you hit the targets and get a decent score. If you get a 28/50 on the paper, you did a decent job (which tells you A LOT about how harsh the grading is in the class). Anything above a 28 meant that you did a good job (I think). There were four topics we can choose from, and it was honestly so difficult to craft a nuanced thesis statement around imo. 0/10 experience.

This class is indeed a weeder for the Communications major and you should NOT underestimate the amount of work you're going to have to put into this class. For the people taking this class because they need it is a pre-req, it's doable as long as you're motivated to become a comms major and you put in genuine effort to understand the concepts. Although I enjoyed learning the content and think Professor Suman is very nice, I am so glad to be finished with this class.