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.

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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.

Do not take Suman if you don’t have to. He is not clear about his expectations for essays and tests, and punishes you greatly for things that were not even discussed in the prompt. He has also not adjusted well to online learning, he posts podcast with no powerpoint or video, and they are impossible to learn from. The title of this class seems really fun, but I promise you he will ruin your interest in this topic.

Ready to take the final for this class? Hope your plan involves a lot of guessing as the tests are scattershot and not at all representative of what the lectures and h/w covered. Best of luck!

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.

I honestly really enjoyed this class! Throughout the class you examine American culture through a bunch of sitcoms. A few of the sitcoms are dated but for the most part I really enjoyed them. The homework is to watch 7 episodes of each, so a lot of your time is spent just watching TV and taking notes.

The midterm and final are open note, the only catch is your notes have to be handwritten. Suman gives all the questions that can be possibly asked on the exam, although it is a lot of work if you pace yourself it is very manageable.

The other aspect of the class is one paper, analyzing a current sitcom of your choosing. You do have to put some time into it, but the papers aren't graded too harshly as long as you follow instructions.

The format of class would usually be a lecture about one of the shows, followed by a viewing of the pilot. I personally didn't feel like I needed to use my computer to take notes but I know that is one critique of the class.

All that being said, I know Suman's style is not meant for everyone. I really did find a lot of the content interesting and Suman is a very knowledgeable professor who's willing to help if you reach out.

I personally love Suman, and I've taken three classes with him. This one is the easiest one. The readings are less intense, and the classes cover much less material than the others (because you watch TV during half of them). If you can tolerate his difficulty, I would recommend COMM 145.

Absolutely avoid at all costs. This is not a fun class. As a student who writes a lot of essays and engages in subjects similar to this, this professor and his terrible TA, sanjali, do not make anything accessible, understandable, straightforward or fun. The grading system is obscene, the classes are boring and the professor seems to care more about his ego trip regarding what “the right format of education” is above actually caring about the students. No one gave straightforward instructions, the classes were useless and incredibly boring, and no one gave a shit about the students. As someone with a good record regarding essays, this class does not reflect this experience. The TA, who wasn’t even a communications studies or genuine liberal arts major, graded incredibly harshly for no reason. People were getting back single digits despite having done the research and shown extensive effort. This course is horrible please do not torture yourself. AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID!! This should have been fun but it was the worst class I have ever taken at UCLA.

This was a surprisingly tough class. Suman tells you on the first day of class to get started on the reading questions and he isn't kidding. For the midterm and the final, you have until the test to handwrite the answers to over 250+ questions total, with only about 20 of them making it onto the actual test each time and then you just copy down the answers directly. Doing the questions was extremely time consuming, with each chapter taking me an hour minimum, and there were 27 chapters total across 2 books. There is also one 5 page essay on any currently airing sitcom of your choice, which was graded fairly I think.

You also have to watch 7 episodes of each sitcom (5 for the midterm and 6 for the final) and take notes, because he picks one of the sitcoms and asks you to write an essay about it for the test, but you don't know which until you see it on the day of the test. My advice is to take really detailed notes about each episode, and pick your episodes carefully based on the themes he talks about. I did this and I still struggled to come up with enough evidence from my episodes on the test. In total you are watching 77 episodes so I would advise starting as early as possible, it can be torture sitting through some of these shows for hours on end if you don't pace yourself.

This class took up the majority of my time this quarter, so I would not take this if you are just taking it to have fun watching shows or if you have other classes with a heavy workload. But I liked Suman as a professor and you can really tell he is interested in this subject. Despite not having any powerpoint slides I thought his lectures were pretty organized and easy to follow. I just wish he would restructure the class so it wasn't so demanding and you didn't spend countless hours doing work that won't be on the test at all.

HEAR ME OUT
I absolutely loved this class and I found that Suman was my favorite professor that I've had so far at UCLA. But, I ended up dropping the class for two reasons. One, I dropped comm as a double major and two, I procrastinated on the study guide and it was too much.
His midterm and final are open notes and he gives you a study guide with all of the possible questions that might be on the exam so you could answer all of the questions and if they were on the test, just transfer them straight from your notes. There are about 18 questions on the test but over 250 questions on the study guide so MAKE SURE you divide the questions evenly among the weeks and you'll be fine. Otherwise, Suman is such a charming professor who absolutely loves his job. I was genuinely bummed out that I dropped the class but it was what was best for me.