Do NOT take this class. Under any circumstances. Just wait an extra quarter to take a different 96W. The requirements of the course are so unclear, most of the quarter the students just kind of had to make things up as they went. Yōu offers a grading contract designed to make things less arbitrary, but she then just gives you an arbitrary grade regardless of what was contracted — with no explanation or notification. The readings are long and pretty uninteresting, and the scope of the class isn’t defined at all. The class meetings are 3 hours long (she usually gives two 5 minute breaks) and they’re really poorly organized and rely almost completely on student engagement, but most students are either uninterested or just incredibly confused. Yōu is nice but fails to provide any sort of direction or help to make the class more understandable. I still have no idea what the class even was - I didn’t think it was possible to have a history course with no lectures or notes. If you take this class, you’ll learn nothing, be overwhelmed with the workload, and be confused the entire quarter until the professor gives you a grade that you don’t have any explanation for. Once again, do NOT take this class!!

This class was the most poorly structured, confusing class ive ever taken, and I don't recommend anyone to take it. everything makes no sense and its a ridiculous amount of work. Yoū is nice tho

This course as a whole was unrewarding and very difficult. Wang's class is frustrating because she gives unclear directions and assigns a ridiculous amount of busy work. A small few of the weekly assignments felt like a productive use of time, but most of them feel like a complete waste. There were a couple of interesting readings in the course, but overall I thought it was a better use of my time to skip the readings and just work on the final essay. Wang's directions on weekly assignments and even parts of the final essay are really confusing. It's a huge challenge just to try and decipher what she wants in an assignment with the wordy and unclear directions she gives. In class when students asked her for clarification, her responses just ended up making some of us even more confused! Wang does provide some resources to help alleviate the egregious workload, but the amount of time she expects us to spend on her class in relation to the amount of work/reading she assigns is outrageous.

TLDR: a frustrating class with way too much unnecessary work.

The best way I can describe this class is by saying it's a straight meme. There's a bunch of readings that you're supposed but literally nobody does them (You will ask people to summarize what they read and everyone will suddenly "forget" what they were gonna say lmao). You could do the readings, but they are 1. very long, 2. not interesting and 3. only tangentially related to the course, meaning that they are not very helpful in completing any of the writing assignments. In terms of grading, you will never know where you really stand. You can either make a grading contract - which, as we will see, is ironically intended to eliminate the "subjectivity of grading in essays/the humanities" - or just do traditional grading. Either way is pretty much the same, as You will decide your grade for your final essay at the end of the class and give you an overall final grade (based purely on how she feels about you from what I can tell) regardless of which path you choose. "Oh, so you met all the requirements for your grading contract and did everything you said you would do to which I agreed to give you the grade you asked for??? Lol nah imma just drop you a couple letter grades cuz you had your camera off that one time, hahah get rekt" is what I'm assuming the though process was. This is made even better by the fact that, in the 3ish weeks leading up to the deadline for the final, she promises that "she's a harsh grader for the rough draft of the paper, but is suuuuper chill on the final grade" lmao aight bet. Overall, how much should really be expected from students who have no real understanding of Chinese history and who certainly didn't learn anything in this course? The class format is kinda awful as well, as you pretty much just listen to groups of students (which are established on the first day) present questions that they inevitably made up 10 minutes before the start of class because nobody actually did the readings and then everyone skimed them to come up with a couple questions. Perhaps the memliest part of the whole class are the office hours. Do. Not. Do. It. These office hours were the least clear and least helpful I have ever attended. I would leave 10x more confused as compared to when I entered. You's explanations are convoluted and nonsensical and provide no real insight or direction. She's gonna tell you something and ask you if it made sense, to which you'll feel obligated to respond that it did, but at the end of the day, well, it didn't. Also, there's about a million surveys you have to take in this class. After class each week, you are asked to complete a survey. It's the middle of the quarter? Mid-Quarter survey! You just turned in any of the assignments? Complete this survey on it! End of the quarter? Take this post-class survey despite doing the one on MyUCLA!!! Just submitted your final survey?? Take a survey on the survey you just submitted!!! Additionally, you are asked to buy a $24 textbook for this class that is the biggest waste of money I have literally ever seen. The book is about how to write and seems like it is intended for an audience of 3rd graders. Yet, we are supposed to write summaries about how insightful the book is. Last but not least, I have to mention the best part of the course: The obsession with citations. I swear to god I spent more time during this course learning the Chicago manual of citation than I did learning about Chinese history. I swear You does not even read your essays, but just checks your citations off which she bases your whole grade. We literally spent an entire 2 hour class period just talking about citations. There is an assignment worth a large portion of your grade meant to see how well you can cite. No, using CitationMachine/EasyBib isn't enough, students must have the Chicago Manual of Citation Burned into their skulls!! It's so whack. Anyways, if any of this sounds appealing to you, go for it, otherwise, just find a different writing course.

This class is one of the most confusing classes I've taken. There is no clear direction and most of the readings/assignments are tedious. You are required to make a grading contract or use a traditional grading structure. The problem is that Wang You is such a harsh grader that you have to use your own grading contract. Even with the grading contract, your grade is still unclear because the final essay is all up to Wang You who decides what grade you get. I wouldn't recommend this class because the teacher is just so unorganized and a lot of the assignments create confusion.

This was the most confusing course I have ever taken anywhere, ever. Information was strung across CCLE, emails, Slack, Google Docs, Google Drive -- literally any way you can store information on the internet, You would find some way to tuck an assignment into it, as though finding the assignment was in and of itself a scavenger hunt. This course is hard, not because it's engaging, but because it's structured like a mind puzzle. The lectures are confusing, too.

Overall, I would give this class a big fat NEGATORY. Do not do this to yourself. It's not worth it. The 90-series history courses can be very interesting and rewarding; this one was not.