Cities Past and Present was the best class I have ever taken at UCLA. She is so chill. There were 20 people in the class and we sat around each day and talked about cities- what we thought of them, how they made us feel, why people moved into and out of them, etc etc. We only had two small ethnographies to write, a two question midterm, and a final paper (plus three 10pt, 1 page ec summary papers that would bump your entire grade up by a whole letter grade). The reading was very interesting and the discussions were great. We all laughed a lot and shared our personal feelings. She has a great way of sparking converstaion and asking you to look deeper. Keep in mind, classes are laidback but you still have to do the reading for the exam. Not intensively, but you MUST cite author's names and fieldsites to support your arguments (which she gives to you- along with a study guide). I got an A+ and it's almost impossible not to. One day Prof Smith even brought in Japanese HipHop for us to listen to. Great Professor and very nice lady!

Dr. Smith is by far the most engaging lecturer I've ever seen. I took it asynchronous so all the lectures were uploaded. Her lectures are so fun and interesting, and she always relates it to current/modern life. As with a lot of anthro classes, she uploads PDF articles on CCLE. Every class day you have 1 reading (except for one week where we had 2 per day). Also, she worked super hard to find really up to date material. We had quite a few readings from 2020-2021 so it was relatable.

The grading was 4 essays at 20% each and discussion participation which was another 20%. She offered a no harm extra credit paper half way through. The final was also like a no harm paper, and it was optional, so it's really easy to get a good grade. At the worst, you could write 6 essays, but it's worth the bump. They're 750 words per paper however, so you have to have all your info in a compact space. The TA did the grading and the first paper was pretty harshly critiqued, I got 75% on it, but on the rest I got 95-100%. They were graded so harshly the first time so we know what they expect from us. It may be jarring but I think it's worth it, especially with essentially 2 extra credit opportunities.

The discussions were always a fun and interesting conversation as well. Though she did say this class doesn't usually have a discussion section, so I don't know how well this may relate to future classes.

Overall, I highly highly recommend this class and Dr. Smith in general. She is an amazing person, professor, and academic. Every reading we had was incredibly interesting and her corresponding lectures were amazing. I cannot recommend this enough!!