This is probably one of the most interesting classes I've taken so far at UCLA. Lamberson is an amazing professor and takes time at the beginning of each class to answer questions and engage with students. He says he teaches the course as a modified MBA class so there's a heavy focus on marketing and how social network structures can inform marketing strategies, which was really cool. There's a midterm, final, and three homework assignments (no required readings). The software you have to use for the homeworks can be buggy and difficult, but is overall interesting to use. Would definitely recommend taking this class as the technology and digital systems core requirement!

I think overall Professor Lamberson was pretty understanding and reasonable, which was nice. However, he also made our weekly homework unnecessarily hard and half the time covered concepts he never talked about in his lecture. I also felt that a lot of his quiz questions were designed to trick you rather than actually testing your understanding. As well, the class was listed as synchronous but he actually gives asynchronous recorded lectures and then holds office hours once a week in the scheduled class time. This class is meant to be around 2 hours, but he intentionally kept his lectures short so they were generally 20-30 minutes. I didn’t mind this and I appreciated that he realized it’s hard to sit through long recorded lectures, but at the same time he barely covered the topics which made doing the homework difficult. His tests were fine, we were allowed to use calculators unlike some of the previous times he taught this class. The one issue was since the test was on CCLE, he made it so that you could not move throughout the test and as soon as you submitted an answer it was locked in and you couldn’t go back which was stressful. There was also a group project which he gave very little guidance on and basically completely relied on his TA to work with us on it. The TA Andrea was AMAZING - so helpful and kind and she made section pretty fun. Without her help and her review sessions I think the whole class would’ve been a lot more confused as she was way more hands on than the professor. Overall the class was ok, I think it’s dumb that it’s one of the mandatory classes for the Comm major but since we all have to take it I think Lamberson is fine for getting this requirement out of the way as it wasn’t too hard to get an A.

I took this course fully online, so it may be different than in-person. Professor Lamberson seems like a really nice guy and he is pretty good at teaching. He made the material pretty easy to understand and kept his lectures short and to the point. There is one textbook that is assigned and it is pretty helpful for tests, especially when you want to understand concepts in more detail; however, you can definitely be fine in the class without even touching the textbook. There is a three-question quiz after each lecture, and these points add up! I did not take the quizzes as seriously as I should have, which is the cause of my B+. There were also about five homework assignments, a midterm, a final, and a group project. The homework is really simple and straightforward, the tests were pretty tricky and made you really think, and the group project was quite easy to do. I would recommend taking this course with Lamberson.

I personally had a breeze in this class and really enjoyed it. I thought Prof. Lamberson was very reasonable, clear, and trying to help us out. I also really appreciated Andrew's efforts as TA to help us out as well. Even though I didn't really have a hard time with this class, I made the effort to go to all the discussions and the coffee talks on Wednesday, and it was nice to just chat with the instructors.

I didn't open the textbook ever, all you need to do is take really good notes on the lectures and you'll be set. For the online recorded lectures, he had mini quizzes just to prove you watched them (super duper easy) and one mini problemset each week for homework. One midterm, one final exam, and one mini group project which wasn't too bad (shoutout to my amazing group).

I thought this class was great. I was really scared going in because of some of these reviews, but I ended up finishing the class strong. I took this class online and he held it as an asynchronous course (posted lectures) with weekly "coffee talks" that would serve as office hours. There is just one weekly assignment that is pulled from the textbook that sometimes didn't line up with his lectures, but he would answer any questions about them (and they weren't very hard or long at all). There are two tests: the midterm was very lengthy and difficult because it was so open ended, but being able to review this test before the final helped a ton. The final incorporated similar questions from the midterm and some VERY BASIC stats that we learned in the 2nd half of the class. We could use Excel on our final for the stats portion. We also had ample time to complete the group project, and he only required that we present a PowerPoint, no paper needed. Easiest group project ever. Overall I think everything was pretty clear and very doable as long as you ask questions. Don't be afraid to take this class!

Class should be called "Science of Social Networks" to avoid sounding misleading. It is a highly intersectional and involves concepts covered in statistics, mathematics, and economics. The science is of networks is actually quite fascinating (even for someone not interested in COMM but that has a background in or appreciation for one of the aforementioned subjects). You must attend lecture because he publishes slides but you will gain absolutely no meaning from them without context. Huge emphasis on understanding concepts to do well on midterm and final. There are only 3 assignments over the quarter involving a software called Gephi that helps you construct and make sense of social networks. You can gain 1% extra credit by completing course evaluation at the end of the quarter. Very reasonable professor and I recommend engaging with him during office hours.

The first half of the class was great and taught practical material on social science research, then the second half was predominantly statistics based. It was difficult but definitely doable thanks to Professor Lamberson. His recorded lectures were useful for studying and he was always available for help during office hours. Most of the statistics he taught how to do from Excel, which also helped. Overall I think Professor Lamberson did his best to help us understand material he knows many of us find to be challenging.

The final exam was pretty difficult but he curved it and also our final overall grade. The group project was my favorite part of the quarter and helped boost my grade lol. Would definitely recommend taking Professor Lamberson for this required class if you find stats difficult like I do!