A douche bag --- across the board. GPA dropper.

I took the Hist 19 Fiat lux on the Handmaid's Tale with Professor O'Brien. It was definitely a very engaging and relaxed class to take. We met 5 times throughout the quarter for two hours, totaling to 10 hours. We read parts of the novel at home and then came to class to discuss in a socratic style. Professor O'Brien would provide the historical context/background to help us understand certain certain parts of the novel. She also made sure to connect back some of the themes to the modern day. We even spent 1 and a half classes watching the movie "Children of Men" and then connecting it back to the novel. Overall its a super cill pass/fail fiat lux. Just come to class having read the assigned chapters and share your thoughts. Would definitely recommend taking a Fiat lux and other classes with O'Brien.

This was an amazing class!!! Definitely take it! This class is extremely easy! No exams! (The final was a 3 page reflection about the class, what you learned and focusing on one of the aspects of a historian and choosing one weekly assignment and Perusall reading to help explain it.)The weekly homework was to do some readings on Persuall, make a comment and respond to another comment. There were also weekly "Portfolio Assignments" the assignments varied but all were extremely easy (Venn diagrams, analyzing a news article, doing some drawing, watching video and answering some questions) these assignments definitely do not take long to complete. There was also one TA for everyone and she was super sweet and helpful if you reached out. I was not able to enter the class on my first or second pass so I reached out to the professor to see if she could give me a PTE number and she gladly responded that she would be more than able to. I also had some trouble attending my assigned discussion section but they allowed me to attend the one that fit with my schedule since we all had the same TA. This class offers so much flexibility and they are both super understanding. She is an amaing professor and even though I am a Sociology major, given that the contest was focused on the history of certain science events, the content was interesting and I loved learning about every single topic. This class counts as a GE and you will not regret it!

I was initially intimidated entering this class as a STEM major (I took this class as a global health minor) since my history knowledge is quite lacking, but I ended up really enjoying this class overall for its overall workload and the content! The class covered a good variety of Latin American medical experiments that I would have never learned about in any other class, and it was interesting to see different angles/approaches to analyzing these historical events. One important thing to note is that attendance is MANDATORY!

Professor O'Brien was seriously the BEST because she was more than well-versed in this area but also happily took discussion contributions from our class of ~40. While I didn't always have something to say in class, lots of other classmates did and it was intriguing to see everyone's contributions. It wasn't necessary to talk in class but it would definitely help your grade if you did make consistent contributions. Workload was VERY light in this class -- only some readings to do per class (that I skimmed) that required at least two annotations (I often did 5+ just to cover all my bases and because the readings were long), occasional assignments (graded VERY leniently and due at the end of the quarter), and a final paper (only 4-5 pages). She's a pretty easy and forgiving grader/instructor, and I wish I had gotten to talk to her more.

Overall, I HIGHLY recommend this class for every reason possible! :))

About the coursework/graded assignments: Homework each week included leaving 2 comments on each reading posted (I skimmed through a lot of the readings and I probably dedicated around 1.5 hours per week for it). We also had short activities due at our discussion sections (creating venn diagrams, writing short responses to videos/texts, annotating articles) which took 15-30 minutes each week. At the end of the course, we also had to write a 3 page essay about how one of our historian skills have improved due to this course. The final is just sharing the activities we did throughout the quarter and the 3 page essay with our peers. Overall, the workload is extremely light and manageable and if you try, it is impossible to not get an A.
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About the course material: Each week we covered a different topic: pre-modern medicine, slavery and medicine, germ theory, eugenics, the Flexner report, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, the Civil Rights Movement, The Cold War, Schizophrenia and homosexuality, ongoing healthcare disparities. All of the things we covered were genuinely interesting (and I’m not a STEM major) and changed my perspective on medicine greatly. I truly believe this class holds immense value, particularly to those looking to go into healthcare as you can really see how history has created health disparities that may not be obvious otherwise (just google race correction). No textbooks required.
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Lectures and Discussion: Attendance was mandatory in both and the professor used Arkaive to track attendance. However, the things we learned in lecture are not used in any of the graded assignments as the professor wanted us to learn and enjoy the topics.
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About the professor: Professor O’Brien was genuinely one of my favorite professors at UCLA so far. She has a clear passion for what she is teaching and is always excited to answer questions and discuss with her students. She is also one of those professors who wants to reward students for their efforts and wants to give her students As. You can also tell that she dedicates a lot of her time to the course (reading and responding to a lot of student’s comments on the homework despite not really having to).
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About the TA: Meg was the TA for all the discussion sections and I believe the professor has repeatedly kept her as TA in the past. She was good at facilitating discussion and creating a comfortable atmosphere (I’ve had other TAs make discussion a little awkward sometimes and uncomfortable to participate, but this wasn’t the case). She was also the person who grades the weekly activities and checks to make sure they are correct (99% of the time gives green check mark which means 100% or gives clear feedback of what your missing and allows you to fix them).
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Overall, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS CLASS, THIS PROFESSOR, and THIS TA!!