Robin could improve a lot on helping me learn effectively. Due to a pre-existing health condition, I could not go to class in person. After going back to in-person, the lectures only recorded the audio, not the slide show. Although he provided the slide show, it was very hard to follow along. I eventually gave up listening to lectures because they were not helpful.
The grade is based on two things and two things only: one midterm essay and one group project. Each was worth fifty percent of the grade. If I needed to do the final essay, each part would be worth 33.3 percent of the grade. The essay question was thought provoking, but the grading was wildly inconsistent and seemingly arbitrary. In other words, it seemed like students earned their essay grade based on the mood of the TA, the person grading the essays. However, the group project is a completely different story. It was so much worse! The group project consisted of seven members that Robin randomly assigned. There was no clear rubric for the group project, so it seemed very open ended. Robin even said that the group project would only help, not harm, everyone's grade. Well, this was a blatant lie! Since there was no clear rubric, we turned in a pamphlet, something recommended on the syllabus. According to google, a pamphlet is usually only a page, front and back. However, he said my group's project was "thin" and gave us a B+! Thankfully my midterm essay was good enough so that I do not have to write the final, but still! Please provide a clear rubric if you are going to be so critical.
The professor was not accommodating in any way. Just no, no way in hell. He was FORCED to be flexible during the beginning of the quarter because everything was online. However, his decision to go back in person, along with recording the lectures in such a poor way, made me feel like I was being punished. I would either have to risk my health and possibly my life to attend class, or just rely on poor audio recordings. He tried blaming this on the room's technology for only allowing audio recordings. But come on, that excuse will not work on me! He could have been more forceful about choosing a different room with better technology. If this did not work, he could have continued lecturing online. But obviously he did not care enough to do this. So sad.
He did put students in groups for the group project, but half the group did nothing at all. I am not a snitch, so I will not say which group I am in. However, I will say I contributed more than I should have. He removed the participation grade from the grading rubric, something I really do not understand why. He should have left it because half the students in my group did nothing! According to the TA, if we report a group member for doing nothing, that team member's grade would be lowered. But what about the remaining students in the group! Nothing! We made a "thin" project ("thin" is from Robin) because half the members did nothing. Were we supposed to do just as much as groups with seven contributing members? So damn infuriating.
I would never take a class with Robin ever again. Everything seems so arbitrary and performance in this class is only based on the personalities of the TA that grades the essays and the group members who work on the group project. My traumatic experience in this class is even making me hesitant to take another history class at UCLA. Before this class, I was seriously considering getting a minor in history.
I did not really care for this TA. I have had better. In my opinion, Rory's saving grace is that she is a very slow grader. It took Rory around a month to finish grading everyone's midterm. Everyone turned in the essay around week 6 and everyone got it back around week 10. Ridiculous, am I right? However, this was actually a good thing because I am pretty sure Rory's grading habits made the final essay optional. This totally saved me because I stopped reading the required texts and going to lectures after the first midterm. I would have done so poorly if I had to write the final essay, but now I got an A. I have to thank God for this. It was truly a miracle. God is good. God is great. Amen!

I loved this class and Prof. Kelley! This class is super interesting and provides a great look into neoliberalism and I learned a ton of stuff I didn't know before. Even if you disagree with Kelley's ideology (he is very leftist), you will still get a lot out of this class. The class isn't too difficult. The readings can be a bit heavy and tough at times, but as long as you participate a bit in discussion you'll be okay. And there are two papers, graded pretty easily, and a group project with your section at the end. As long as you put a decent amount of work in and get through most of the readings you should be okay with this class. It may be a bit much for a history GE for non-history majors, but if you are a history pre-major looking for lower-divisions classes I'd definitely recommend this one.

Where do I begin (I know its cliche), Professor Kelley is a smart and knowledgeable guy, but he is an awful professor. Not only is he severely underprepared for every single lecture (he often times works on his presentation slides 5 minutes before class and admits it), but he does not promote any kind of logistical and interpretative thinking whatsoever. He simply tells you what to think, and provides information about it. He is also a self proclaimed Communist—which isn't inherently wrong, everyone has the right to believe in what they choose, however he frames his lectures to look at history through a purely communist infatuated lens. Kelley wants you to think like a Marxist.

For very heavy political and economic issues that have a variety of nuance to it, Kelly doesn't ever mention the capitalist or conservative viewpoints of these problems in a fair way. So what ends up happening is that a deep, ultra liberal echo chamber is created inside the classroom where nobody is able to think for themselves. As a professor he should not have the right to push political ideologies onto his students; instead, he should remain neutral and cover both sides of history. He even goes to the extent of TELLING STUDENTS, to go support anti-ice raids and has openly said in lecture that trump should go f#*^@ himself.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as Kellys assignment system is also TERRIBLY flawed. He often signs 200 page readings in a single week where when I'm telling you nobody reads them, nobody reads them. Why? Because there is absolutely no academic incentive to read them. You can easily pass this class by just citing notes from lectures and doing his biweekly quizzes which are the only kind of form of grading assignment besides attendance and the end of the quarter project. And let me tell you, the bi-weekly quiz system is also INCREDIBLY flawed because the quizzes only test material from the week prior. Which means you never have to attend Kellys lectures the week of a quiz since none of that material will ever be tested. Again, this is still just the tip of the ice-berg since Kelly's lectures are again...TERRIBLE and incredibly flawed again. For one he does not define political terms and expects his student to already know the ins and outs of heavy politics. I understand this is not an introductory history course but he often goes on tangents where he loses the majority of the class. It has gotten so bad that the classroom is nearly empty. Out of the 200 and something students that are enrolled, only around 50 actually attend these lectures. And why would you? Kelley goes through his slides incredibly fast and talks and presents in a way that is not note taker friendly. He doesn't even take breaks to have students ask questions until the very end of the lecture when most have probably already forgotten their question by the end of it.

But by far the biggest and possibly scariest problem about this class has to be the professors rating on bruin walk. Why is he at a 4.2? My biggest hypothesis is that he has a high rating because people align with his political ideology. Which really goes to show what has happened to some of us. Some have become so brainwashed that we cannot see a horrible, irresponsible, and unprofessional teacher, even if its right in front of us.

LOVE this class and LOVE this professor. Best class at UCLA by far. highly highly recommend.

By far my favorite class I've taken throughout the entire year. Prof Kelley delivers his lectures in a manner where you usually have to pay attention because certain comments or opinions are not necessarily reflected on the PPT (as expected). Information and generally-hard concepts are presented in a super digestible manner. This class has a flight resonance with economic theory (you do not need prior knowledge whatsoever) and is extremely relevant to the current political state of our world. This class behaves as an exposé of everything-political from big corporations to major political figures. Super eye-opening, no final just a take-home essay, no homework only 3 assignments for the entire quarter and an appreciation for students that participate during discussions. My TA was Annie Powers, amazing teacher and super friendly!

This class was super easy and the Professor is very nice about rounding grades. There aren't any tests so your grade is pretty much made up of the two essays that you write. I had no interest in the topic of this class so it was hard for me to pay attention and write the papers, but it was worth the A. I also did not like how the Professor and my TA would constantly bring up their political and personal beliefs during class- very unprofessional.

extremely free only 2 assignments are midterm paper and final paper plus a group project and all are graded very easily - can just chatgpt all the readings before writing the paper

If I could take this class every quarter I would!! Prof Kelley is an amazing man and a great teacher who is extremely passionate and knowledgable about the subject. This class genuinely changed my worldview and gave me an incredible understanding of so many historical and contemporary issues in just one quarter. It was definitely a reading heavy class but I know people who only ever read an article or two right before the papers and were fine. I would say this class is definitely a you get out of it what you put in to it kind of thing. I personally am a polisci major and very interested in the topic so I put a lot of heart into my papers, which weren't easy to write but seriously pushed me to think critically in ways I never have before. On the other hand, I had friends who didn't care one bit about the class and still did well, just weren't moved by any of the ideas introduced. I would definitely recommend either way, Prof Kelley will be your favorite prof either way.

This class was really easy and interesting, if you actually do the reading. Lectures were not super relevant to the reading which was discussed in section, but were still very interesting. Dr. Kelley is passionate and knows what he's talking about, so I still recommend going. Section consists of an open discussion with the class in which you must speak a couple of times to get participation points (not my favorite thing to do but it was alright). Our discussion section got surprisingly close with one another, though, because of this and the group project that is completed with your entire section. It's in the form of a website which you don't have to present, but Dr. Kelley goes through it during the last lecture for everyone to see. Definitely take this for a GE if you can!

To succeed in this class you MUST attend lecture and discussions. The professor's lectures can oftentimes be confusing and he does not include all information on slides. The readings are difficult to navigate without prior knowledge on the subject matter. This class consists of two essays (which were graded VERY harshly), a group project (done with your entire discussion section), and a participation grade (done at the discretion of your TA). This class is heavily dependent on your TA, and you MUST cater your essays and commentary to the TA, otherwise you will not score well. This class has certainly changed from its previous format, the professor wants more likeminded people to take the class, which makes this a tougher GE. Take a look at his wikipedia and if you are really interested in his work, he's the prof for you, otherwise this is a challenging class with a heavy reading workload.