Professor Potts is amazing! This is honestly a great introduction course to Global Studies and is the right amount of work for a lower-division course. I had Jessica Pena as my TA and both her and Prof. Potts made it such a great experience. The class consists of the following:

Weekly discussion posts (worth 20%)
Film analysis paper (worth 20%)
Exam 1 (worth 20%)
Article response paper (worth 20%)
Exam 2 (worth 20%)

Each of the assignments is evenly spaced out, so I didn't find myself struggling to keep up. Professor Potts' lectures were very captivating. She explained the concepts perfectly and it tied into her PowerPoints well. She doesn't have many words on her slides, but that's okay because you'll understand the vocabulary and concepts nonetheless. Readings were very short with some long ones, but it's definitely not a heavy workload. She was also very accommodating to assignments and lectures: Prof. Potts offered live zoom lectures and posted the recordings up after in case we missed it or wanted to refer back to them. She is also very responsive to her emails and is lenient with accommodations. I had to turn in my film analysis paper late because of external circumstances. She understood my problems and granted me the extra time. I'm really thankful for that.

I'll admit, the papers are somewhat harshly graded. So definitely check in with Prof. Potts and your TA about the context of your paper (or even an initial review of what you've written). Both Prof. Potts and her TAs offer office hours, which I recommend going to for any clarification or discussion on the class material. The subject is really easy to understand as long as you keep up with the assignments and material.

Discussions were in person this quarter, which I highly recommend you go to. Jessica (my TA) was super helpful and accommodating, and offered an alternative assignment if I missed a discussion section. You could either go to her office hours and discuss the readings or write a 500 word paper on the readings. I found both options pretty easy and fair. Jessica is also very sweet and wants the best for her students! I definitely recommend her!

The class overall is a great introduction to globalization. I took it in order to apply for a Global Studies minor, which I definitely am still going to do! Professor Potts and her TAs make it such a great class. They're all very nice and helpful.

This class is recommended for sophomores because it's supposedly a weeder class for Global Studies, but I didn't find it that challenging and definitely think freshmen should take it to see if Global Studies is a good fit for them. We explored topics like big and little G globalization, neoliberalism, etc. We had two exams, but they were both online and open note with a 48 hour period to complete, so there was a lot of flexibility when it came to that.

We had two assignments, a Structured Film Analysis which gave us the option to watch one of three films and relate it to class concepts by answering questions (not an essay). We had a Structured Article analysis which was honestly SUPER easy and that was essay-style. Discussion was fun, my TA was Steven Ammerman and he's THE BEST TA!! Super friendly and understanding and a very fair grader. We also had weekly discussion posts where we had to come up with a question about the readings.

loved this class!! very content heavy but potts does a good job of making it digestable. midterm, final and a in class film analysis. attendance is mandatory.

Overall, this is an excellent class to take. My main complaint is that the grading scale for the papers was not great. A B paper had everything asked for in the rubric, while an A paper would have to go "above and beyond," this made getting an A on an essay assignment unnecessarily tricky. I feel like this class covers a lot of information that some people already know about, Colonialism and global interconnection, but it is still interesting. The tests in this class were straightforward since the professor provided a study guide, and the answers to the questions are off of the slides.

this class was super light - no homework or essays, there was 1 midterm which was super easy if you just paid attention during lecture and a film analysis exam which was also easy (you were allowed a cheat sheet). she is super strict about not using phones and also you kinda have to attend every lecture since she has an exit quiz every time, but for an easy ge, i'd say worth it. she does talk fast and it took some getting used to, but the material is kinda common sense. there are weekly readings which are kinda lengthy but you only really need them for discussion (a select few become main components of the class though). also, even as a stem major, i just enjoyed the material - very insightful on current events!

This class was mid-tier at best. The professor wasn't terrible but she wasn't good either. She read off her slides in such a monotone voice and at a very fast speed that made it difficult to follow along and take notes. She would drop so much information at once per slide and then proceed to say "oh but don't worry about that it's not really important" --- why did you just spend 20 minutes talking about it then?! So frustrating. She uploads the slides after and doesn't let you take pictures of the slides during lecture and will call you out if she catches you doing so. She claims she won't slow down lecture either claiming we can go look at the slides if we missed something. This is also extremely frustrating and inconsiderate because then lecture feels like a waste of time if we have to go relearn it on our own anyways -- but she makes it mandatory by having an exit quiz at the end of each lecture! Not to mention the exit quizzes significantly affect your grades even though they're only 2 questions. I missed 1 question on ONE quiz and it brought me from a 100% to a 95%! Ridiculous! The class itself consisted of a midterm, a final, and a film review. The midterm was and film review was manageable if you studied and she provides study guides for the midterm and final, but the final was graded way harsher than the others. I got a C on the final but yet A's on the midterm and film review, leaving me with a B+ overall. Explain how I got a C on the final but A's everywhere else! If you already know stuff about globalization and relating topics you'll do fine in the class but if not I recommend taking it at a later time if you can because there is just so much information in this class. I personally believe the professor wanted us to do bad based on the way she acted in lectures because to be a global studies major you have to get a B in the class, it seems like they want to weed some of us out.

Still one of my favorite classes I have taken at UCLA, and it reinforced why I have chosen to be a GS major. Professor Potts is great, and this class gives such an interesting and great overview of globalization. Grade is based primarily on midterm and final which are fair and she provides a good study guide for them. I highly suggest taking this class with Professor Potts!