Class and assignments were pretty straightforward. Also I didn't have the same experience as the other person :/, I say I definitely did not put in 20hrs a week all throughout the whole quarter. I really loved my discussion section if you have the chance I'd take Judy as a TA she was so helpful and her discussion slides were so helpful leading up to the final project. The community partner was slightly time consuming but expected. Also I think the lectures were easy to follow and I really liked when we had guest speakers. Attendance mandatory for discussion/lecture but you were allowed to miss two max I think.

tldr; Very time consuming. Do not take Courtney Taylor as the TA. Professor Staub is uncooperative and not very helpful.

The class material was okay. The volunteering portion of the class was actually fun but super time consuming considering commute times. Attendance mandatory for all lectures and discussions. You will need a minimum of 20 hours per week to dedicate to this class including weekly reflection essays, a 5-7 page research paper, and an 6-8 page final paper

The professor is uncooperative and unreasonable when I tried to talk to him about my concerns. He just kept saying that he will not go against anything his TA says.

DO NOT CHOOSE COURTNEY TAYLOR AS YOUR TA. Her presentations are detailed, but thats the only positive I can list. Courtney Taylor is one of the worst TA's I've ever had at UCLA. No matter how many meetings I had with the TA and with the professor, the TA would always give me a grade that was way below the average grade for the class as I could see on canvas. I met the TA outside of class at least once a week. I had my friends help review my papers, I talked to library research assistants and I even booked appointments with the undergraduate writing center. I felt like I was going crazy. She marked me down for ridiculous things like not indenting my paragraphs. I spoke to some of the other people in my discussion and a lot of people were having the same issue.

Overall, this class was not worth my time or my effort. I would not recommend this class to anyone I know. I would especially recommend avoiding Courtney Taylor, who is an impossibly harsh grader. I have had straight A’s at my time at UCLA, this is one of two B’s that I’ve gotten- seems ridiculous for a GE.

I took this class Spring of freshman year. Going into winter of my sophomore year, this class is still my favorite one I've taken at UCLA. If you don't read the rest of this, tldr: passionate professor, attendance is graded, you get an internship.
Staub is so passionate about what he teaches and the lectures were very engaging. I had Sidrono Jacobo as a TA and he was also amazing. Not sure if he's still TA'ing for this course, but I highly recommend him if you have the opportunity. As an FYI, lecture and discussion attendance were both recorded and factored into your grade, but there was only one lecture and one discussion a week and I honestly looked forward to going. (This is coming from someone who has attended 19 total lectures across all of my classes this entire quarter). There were opportunities for class discussion/brainstorming during the lecture and he also brought in a few very informative speakers. One of the best things about the course was that you get an internship out of it. Essentially you're given a list of a bunch of LA based nonprofits and you rank your top 3 choices. I personally got lucky enough to get my first choice and I learned a lot while at the LA LGBT Center. It is somewhat of a time commitment but I considered it very manageable given there is only one lecture a week.

Will you get an A in this class? Yes if you put absolutely any effort in and complete all the assignments. However, you will have to write a paper/multi-page reflection every single week, which can be annoying after a while. This course does also require you to complete work with a local charity. It will require a lot more time than most other GEs, but it is worth it for the almost guaranteed A, as well as the extremely interesting lens through which to view LA. As an out of state student, it was very interesting to actually explore the city. Would recommend as a GE!

Professor Staub is a great and caring professor. While this class has many road bumps, know that he will be understanding and only serve as your advocate through the quarter. This course has no exams, so grades consists of section participation, weekly 2 page written reflections, a research paper, and a final project mainly. The course is divided into two areas - your community engagement project, in which you basically work with a local nonprofit for 24 hours to learn about social inequality in LA, and then the academic portion, where you learn about such topics and write a research paper exploring one of the social inequalities in LA. The research paper is pretty straightforward, and does not have too many requirements. It can be difficult working and communicating with an outside community nonprofit, so if you keep your TA and Professor aware of any challenges which arise they will be lenient if you do not hit the 24 hour requirement. Lectures are very engaging and informative, with many guests speakers brought in. There is a final project, in which you are asked to take the social inequality you learned about in your research paper and brainstorm the best strategies to reform the issue in LA (you don’t actually have to implement the solution yourself, just come to a conclusion on what would work best). Due to the TA strike, our final project was shortened. Professor Staub is incredibly accommodating, wants to get to know his students and works around students needs. Definitely take this course!

Loved loved loved this class. So far, this is my favorite class I have taken at UCLA. It is incredibly engaging and rewarding. No exams, almost weekly reflection papers, one big paper (don't stress it, easy to do), and one final project (also easy). You have to volunteer with a nonprofit organization and collect a total of 16 hours. This is really fun. TA's and professors are very accommodating to your needs. Lectures weren't mandatory to attend, but they were incredibly eye opening and I loved to attend. You have to attend discussion, but honestly with my TA discussions were a treat. Natalie would dedicate the first 20 minutes or so of discussion to do mediation exercises and catch up with late work.Highly highly recommend this class.

This class absolutely changed my mentality on education. to begin, TAKE THIS CLASS. i rate it a 11/10. first of all the professor was so engaging, compassionate, and understanding of all types of student problems and he was also just a G. I was waitlisted into the class but he let me in, and anyone else who was waitlisted, in very easily. He genuinely loves teaching students and wants to emphasize learning outside the classroom and learning to learn as much as possible. This was my favorite class at UCLA hands down. It consisted of a few weekly critical write-ups that were relatively easy, one midterm research paper and a final project. Very do-able and a good grade is guaranteed if you do all the work. The community engagement requirement is very easy to do, it may seem overwhelming at first with all the forms but once you get into it, its extremely rewarding and simple. This class taught me how to learn to just learn.

i really enjoyed this class, it helped to give a good insight to LA and the problems it has and how we can fix them and contribute our time to making solutions. i had nathalie for my ta and she was the best ta I've ever had here at UCLA, she was super accommodating and helpful with everything. there were no tests, only projects and papers which were not bad at all. the community service was nice to do too and you get fully compensated for any expenses you had to make to get to your center (like bus/uber fees). 10/10 would retake this class

I really enjoyed this class. Please don't shy away just because of the Community Engagement requirement -- I think it was a really valuable experience and it was worth it. I volunteered with Food Forward once a week, every Wednesday, 12:30-2:00 and I looked forward to it every week! They say that you need 24 volunteer hours throughout the quarter, but you really don't I only got like 16 I think. My volunteering was in Santa Monica and sometimes I'd stick around and get lunch out there afterward, like at a noodles place and at Sweet Greens. The bus activity to Downtown for this course was great. We had weekly assignments, like two pages, and one of them was to bus downtown to this mural in a museum and write about the mural and your bus trip. I went with a group of four random students from my class and we had a really good time Downtown. We ate in the Central Market, had some great vegan donuts at Donut Friend, saw a car chase scene from The Rookie being shot, went by the Disney Concert hall, saw people doing Parkour, and tried Mochi from Little Japan. It was probably one of my favorite days at UCLA so far. You really don't have to attend lecture but you probably should, and my discussions at least were always cut short (with Aron) and he's the most chill professor I've ever had. Highly recommend this class.

UPDATE: Hi it's two years later and I am a junior now and I am still volunteering with Food Forward, as a Team Leader! :)

The lectures and discussions were both 2 hours long each which was VERY long at times. I went to lecture twice and never took notes but got an A on the project and paper. I had to spend a lot of my time volunteering at my partner organization though but it was an interesting and rewarding experience. The paper and project were fairly straightforward and easy. Lectures were long and boring at times so I didn't go after week two or read any of the assigned readings (you can read them out of interest though). Volunteering was a fun experience.

My TA was Aaron and he was amazing though. I went to discussions because his class format was very interesting and you get to have very insightful conversations with classmates. He was very accommodating and helpful. A great TA.