NEVER EVER TAKE PLATE'S CLASSES! he comes across as a fun, upbeat professor who wants his students to do well. I am an A student, and got a C in his class; some GPA helper as he puts it. His lectures have nothing to do with anything, and his tests have nothing to do with overall concepts of the course; instead there are questions about what color car was involved and other random things that would never benefit a student. Further, he assigns a project giving the most broad explanation of what he is looking for. You have no idea what it is you are supposed to do. Also, I have never had worse experience during office hours. Professors are supposed to be there to encourage and teach their students. Professors are mentors. Plate talked down to me in a very condescending way, insulting my intelligence. I am an excellent, hardworking student or else I would not be at UCLA. I have never been treated like that by a professor in my life. NEVER EVER EVER TAKE THIS PROFESSOR!

I do not suggest taking any of Professor Plate's comm classes. I took this class because I thought the material would be interesting and the class would boost my GPA, but the class is structured very unfairly. He does not teach anything substantial during lecture and rambles on about random topics. I struggled to get through each one and found it hard to follow his teaching. Then you are expected to write down every little ridiculous detail. He had a strict TA who created absurdly detailed quizzes and tests, which did not test the overall topics of the material. He claims he is a "softy" about grades but his class is unfair, and the TA does all the grading anyway, and she was really harsh. The class was supposed to be on "media ethics" but I took away very little that will be useful. The only useful thing about this class was the plus one assignment Lecture Series where we got to listen to real people in the Journalism field speak (but these were outside of class and optional. Do not take a class with Plate unless you want to memorize extraneous details.

The readings were interesting, lectures always kept my attention, the term project was FUN, and the guest lecturer (Robert Shapiro) was swift but sweet. But the tests were REDICULOUS!!! They didn't test anything valuable or worth retaining!! It was like he'd pick any random sentence in the readings and test us on it. And he didn't mind pointing out his favorites in the class. He gave the impression that he was deeply concerned with our learning the material but he insisted on testing us on worthless stuff. If grades didn't count, this class might be cool...

Com 187 (media ethics....yes, there IS such a thing as media ethics) was VERY INTERESTING. I actually enjoyed going to lecture. We had intriguing guest lecturers (ex: Robert Shapiro)and Prof. Plate treated us to coffee at the faculty center (or beer at Maloney's) after class. There are 3 exams, multiple choice, ace-able. But beware: carefully read your readings twice before taking the exam. Questions on the test are very specific, (ex. Who said,"....."?). Overall, a great class for comm majors.