Professor
Andrés Villarreal
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Alright, let me get this straight. This man is so mad that students at UCLA are doing better on his weekly quizzes than the other community college he teaches at that he PURPOSEFULLY makes the midterm exam more difficult. (BTW, he changed his midterm the night before giving it out, so there were numerous typos that made it difficult to understand questions, and had a few questions that had multiple answers that were correct when only 1 was marked as the correct answer). Also, he REFUSES to accommodate other students when we simply asked for a little bit more time than 5 minutes on weekly quizzes (he eventually FINALLY caved halfway through the quarter and gave us 1 extra minute to answer even more vague questions he puts on his quizzes). He instructed his TAs to grade our final paper on a strict grading rubric that was EXTREMELY vague since the beginning as it was supposed to give us "creative freedom," yet he enforces a strict grading policy??? Let's talk about the final I just took. He claims that due to his fears of students cheating during online teaching, that he puts in place sequential testing (where you can't go back to check answers after you click to go to the next question, and you can't skip ahead to another question). This was an okay policy, personally; I can deal with that. Yet while he says he's afraid of students cheating, he puts a question on the final that requires you to look at your notes for the graph or just straight up guess because it's such a random detail from one of his lectures. There is also no graph to go alongside the question to help you answer it, so you either guess, or quickly look through your notes on a closed-book exam. I guessed and probably got it wrong. The interesting topics that this course goes over were completely ruined by this professor's weird test-taking policies and strange stubbornness to accommodate students DURING A PANDEMIC. I actually really like sociology, but it is not my major and I took this class as a GE. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS FOR A GE. It's not worth it unless you take P/NP. I would actually rather write 5 papers like the other sociology professor does than take this class again with Villarreal. This class was STUPIDLY hard for no reason when the topics were actually interesting. I know the core concepts for this course (as stated by the learning objectives in the rubric), yet what is actually tested are random, fleeting details from lecture. Awful all around. Class grade breakdown: Midterm: 25% Final: 25% Weekly quizzes (lowest 2 dropped): 20% Essay: 20% Participation: 10%
Fall 2020 - Alright, let me get this straight. This man is so mad that students at UCLA are doing better on his weekly quizzes than the other community college he teaches at that he PURPOSEFULLY makes the midterm exam more difficult. (BTW, he changed his midterm the night before giving it out, so there were numerous typos that made it difficult to understand questions, and had a few questions that had multiple answers that were correct when only 1 was marked as the correct answer). Also, he REFUSES to accommodate other students when we simply asked for a little bit more time than 5 minutes on weekly quizzes (he eventually FINALLY caved halfway through the quarter and gave us 1 extra minute to answer even more vague questions he puts on his quizzes). He instructed his TAs to grade our final paper on a strict grading rubric that was EXTREMELY vague since the beginning as it was supposed to give us "creative freedom," yet he enforces a strict grading policy??? Let's talk about the final I just took. He claims that due to his fears of students cheating during online teaching, that he puts in place sequential testing (where you can't go back to check answers after you click to go to the next question, and you can't skip ahead to another question). This was an okay policy, personally; I can deal with that. Yet while he says he's afraid of students cheating, he puts a question on the final that requires you to look at your notes for the graph or just straight up guess because it's such a random detail from one of his lectures. There is also no graph to go alongside the question to help you answer it, so you either guess, or quickly look through your notes on a closed-book exam. I guessed and probably got it wrong. The interesting topics that this course goes over were completely ruined by this professor's weird test-taking policies and strange stubbornness to accommodate students DURING A PANDEMIC. I actually really like sociology, but it is not my major and I took this class as a GE. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS FOR A GE. It's not worth it unless you take P/NP. I would actually rather write 5 papers like the other sociology professor does than take this class again with Villarreal. This class was STUPIDLY hard for no reason when the topics were actually interesting. I know the core concepts for this course (as stated by the learning objectives in the rubric), yet what is actually tested are random, fleeting details from lecture. Awful all around. Class grade breakdown: Midterm: 25% Final: 25% Weekly quizzes (lowest 2 dropped): 20% Essay: 20% Participation: 10%
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - The seminar requires you to read a research paper or other source material each week and then write a reflection memo for it. The memo is due the morning of the Sunday before your seminar class. This has sometimes led to late last minute reading and writing for this 1 unit seminar. Be better than me. That said, if you're not familiar with reading academic papers, it might take you a while to get through the papers and understanding them. Some of these academic papers took me 3+ hours getting through them. But that could just be me. Don't expect to get 100s easily from the memos. Professor Villarreal is very particular with the 100s he gives. So normally, the highest grade you'll get is 90. Don't worry if you don't get a 90 for each memo. I couldn't consistently get 90s but I still got an A. But sometimes, it got really stressful thinking about it, especially since the syllabus didn't include a numerical grade to alphabetical grading scale. As for the seminar part of the class, it didn't really feel like a seminar. Most of the time, it was Professor Villarreal sharing an overview of the reading of the week then him talking with the occasional student who voluntarily shares. Professor Villarreal does try to encourage people to share their memos and thoughts, but most of the time people talk because Villarreal mentions their memo. I think if seminar participation was part of the grade, then more people would be motivated to speak during the seminars. I think this seminar could meet its full seminar-potential if people spoke more and if there were sources that would help understand the readings if you weren't familiar with comprehending research papers.
Fall 2023 - The seminar requires you to read a research paper or other source material each week and then write a reflection memo for it. The memo is due the morning of the Sunday before your seminar class. This has sometimes led to late last minute reading and writing for this 1 unit seminar. Be better than me. That said, if you're not familiar with reading academic papers, it might take you a while to get through the papers and understanding them. Some of these academic papers took me 3+ hours getting through them. But that could just be me. Don't expect to get 100s easily from the memos. Professor Villarreal is very particular with the 100s he gives. So normally, the highest grade you'll get is 90. Don't worry if you don't get a 90 for each memo. I couldn't consistently get 90s but I still got an A. But sometimes, it got really stressful thinking about it, especially since the syllabus didn't include a numerical grade to alphabetical grading scale. As for the seminar part of the class, it didn't really feel like a seminar. Most of the time, it was Professor Villarreal sharing an overview of the reading of the week then him talking with the occasional student who voluntarily shares. Professor Villarreal does try to encourage people to share their memos and thoughts, but most of the time people talk because Villarreal mentions their memo. I think if seminar participation was part of the grade, then more people would be motivated to speak during the seminars. I think this seminar could meet its full seminar-potential if people spoke more and if there were sources that would help understand the readings if you weren't familiar with comprehending research papers.
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