The grading breakdown for this class is as follows: Essay 1 (20%), Essay 2 (15%), Essay 3 (20%), Essay 4 (15%), Discussion Participation (15%), Weekly Journals on the readings (15%). The weekly journals are very easy, they're between 1-2 pages. Some of the topics are very broad & the TAs were looking for very specific examples from the readings (at least mine did). The essay topics were as follows: Essay 1 (What is good parenting?), Essay 2 (Secrets within the family), Essay 3 (Gender, work, and power within families), Essay 4 (What's love got to do with it? Basically about love within families AND abortion??? yes you have to tie it in). I don't know if she uses the same topics every time, but these are the ones we had. If Shabnam is one of the TAs, DONT TAKE HER!!! She's super strict. Professor Anderson is very nice & her lectures are mostly discussions among the entire class, which are very interesting.

I took Soc 130 and M174 with Professor Anderson, and found both courses to be interesting, thought-provoking, and well worth my time. Professor Anderson is an extremely interesting lecturer, and really wants to make sure her students are "getting it". She doesn't believe in tests because then we're just studying to pass a test rather than thinking critically and reflecting, which is why she only assigns papers. While there is a lot of reading, it's usually pretty interesting, and you don't need to read everything throughly. Her classes allow for a lot of student input and discussion, and she knows many of the students by name. In all honesty, if you put in the work for the class, which is not painful, your grade will reflect that. In short, Anderson is by far one of the best professors I've had at UCLA, take her if you get a chance!