Take this class if you want an EASY A+ in a GE. Don't take this class if you want to actually learn something. Fall 2019, Professor Mendoza-Denton reorganized the class, so old reviews are not applicable anymore. Basically, this is a linguistic anthropology class now.

The entire quarter, Professor Mendoza-Denton had no idea what was going on in the class. Lectures were unorganized, and there was little to no communication with TA's. My TA, Yanina, was very sweet and helpful, and all the TA's want to help you succeed in the class. Your grade in the class is based on a few homework assignments and a group project. The group project is pretty time consuming, because you have to do research and actually go out somewhere in Los Angeles and interview two people. So choose your group mates wisely. But, even if you have a bad group, the grading on the project is so lenient that as long as you follow the TA's guidelines and work with them during office hours, you will get an A+ in the class.

I thought what we discussed in class had potential to be really interesting, and the group project seemed fun, but the lack of organization and clarity in the class really destroyed any interest I had in the class.

This class was a disaster from start to finish. As my first class as a transfer to UCLA, I had high expectations. I was quickly met with disappointment in the course and professor. First, I want to make it clear that the professor is a sweet person and this is not a personal criticism. However, there is no reason for her to be a professor. It is so evident that she only cares about her research, and that's why she's here. The lectures are extremely disorganized, even the TA's have no idea what is going on, which even led to some of them arguing with her during lecture about her offering extra credit opportunities to some students but not others. She made it seem like we would need to know IPA, and made us take assessments that didn't end up counting towards our grade. The class consists of one huge group research project, which is such a recipe for disaster. We were supposed to find people in LA to analyze the speech patterns of different neighborhoods, but it was such a high expectation for people to coordinate with each other that a majority of the groups falsified their data to get an A. Overall, the only thing I learned from her class is to check reviews of professors first, if I knew what a disaster it would be I would never have taken it. Also that big group project I mentioned, they didn't grade it!!! They ended up just submitting final grades and not entering in the individual grades. I would not be surprised if she gave people A's to cover up for the fact that the class was a disaster. Also she wanted us to read parts of her own book and review it, which is SUCH a turnoff for me from professors, and it plays into that anthropologist stereotype where all they want to do is brag about their research and have students stroke their ego for them. Overall, if you want an A take the class (I didn't go for four weeks and still got an A.) But if you want stimulating material and a professor who cares about teaching, this class is not for you. What a poor introduction to UCLA.

I believe that my class with Professor Mendoza-Denton was a special exception, as our focus was doing her research. It was defintely more work than I expected, but only towards the end of the course. In the beginning of the course, there was basically no work. I probably should've dropped it when I discovered how much work there would be later, but I stuck with it. She occasionally took attendance in class by having us write on a piece of paper or something like that, but I seriously doubt that it effected my grade, or if she even looked at it again. The lectures are super all over the place, but that in itself was kind of interesting. I almost never took notes. We had 3 homeworks, 2 of which were later absorbed by our final project. I often got really stressed out about this class, as she originally wanted us to do more work for our projects than we ended up doing. The amount of work we had to do for her research/our projects was lowered nearly every time we had lecture, thanks to the TAs. I did not like that we had to travel to another neighborhood in LA for one homework, as it took up a lot of time and was expensive to do so, and some members of the group would have to travel to interview people. The final project was a lot of work, even with it being shortened by the TAs, so my group met nearly twice a week for about 3 weeks. The bulk of the work was monitored by my TA, Hannah, during discussion. She often seemed very annoyed at how much work the professor was trying to give us, and sometimes even with the material that she was teaching. One part of our project was to give a small presentation about our neighborhood and its accent during discussion, which was probably the most stressful and least guided part of the project. I was super concerned when handing in our project, because some of the guidelines were unclear, and it was about 52 pages (this does include all of our previous homeworks and the work was divided into 5). However, they graded it super quickly and gave us an A+, which makes me believe that they didn't end up actually reading our papers, but instead just took our interviews to use in Norma's research. I can't say that I would take this class again, even though my group ended up doing well. It was way too much work for me, especially since I was taking it as a GE, and it kind of scared me off of Anthropology completely. However, I don't think that she would use Anthro 4 to do this same research again, since we provided so much data for her through our projects. She is generally a nice person, but she expected too much from us in this class, and was often unclear/confusing during lecture.

I would highly recommend taking this class with a different professor. For a popular GE, I had pretty high expectations. This professor flaunts how this class does not have any midterm/final examinations, just a quarter-long project. However, it seems this group project is really just having students carry out her own LA Speaks research. Prepare to choose a specific location in LA and analyze how people from this area speak - you will need to travel there at least once (if not multiple times) and include photographic evidence. A majority of the class will focus on IPA and linguistics, and she will not talk about the project extensively until the last few weeks (in which she is very vague). About 20 people (out of a 300-person lecture) would show up towards the end of the quarter because lectures were not at all essential. The professor would constantly talk about her own research (one lecture was specifically dedicated to showing us her graphic novel artwork).

This class is not impossible! But I would not recommend taking it with Mendoza-Denton if you can help it.

Easy A but not the most engaging class or professor. Some in class quizzes used only for attendance : the grade won't matter. No real need to do the reading. Grade is mostly based on a final group project that's kind of tedious but fairly graded.

Very fun class. I learned a lot about culture and language. Professor was sometimes all over the place during lecture, but still good to go. The final project is one of the most interesting I've done at UCLA.

This class is super manageable and stress-free. There is no midterm or final, which is really nice when other classes you're taking have larger work loads. The professor was super sweet and accommodating. There is a final project where you interview someone to learn about speech patterns in the LA area. It's interesting and not much work.

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This class is centered around the final group project. This project is basically collecting data for the LA Speaks Project. Do not expect to delve deep into Anthropology in this course. Instead, expect to complete a lot of research where its significance is not necessarily explained. Additionally, it is not always clear what is expected of you or when it is due (as many of the due dates were changed frequently). Overall, this course was an easy A and is manageable. However, expect to have to Uber to different parts of LA several times to complete research and to be a bit on edge as due dates and specific assignments weren't always clear.