DO NOT TAKE M116 WITH THIS PROFESSOR!
My experience with this professor was terrible! I did not expect to be this miserable taking this class. I was very passionate about Chicano Music and cultural expression before this class, and now that it's all over with, I felt like I learned NOTHING. The professor is literally hard to understand, he has a thick accent and poor communication skills. He does not post any material on the class site and literally just reads off the extremely dull, boring PowerPoint presentations. You do not cover many different types of music that you would expect to cover. The music we did cover, the professor made sure to make it unappealing. The midterm was not that bad, but he does like to take random pieces of the readings and throw them into the exams. About the exams, they are horribly worded and very tricky. The questions are so specific its ridiculous. This class is not an easy A. If you want to pass, secretly take pictures of all the slides and memorize them. He asks questions that are super irrelevant on things he may have mentioned once. The paper isnt bad, he lets you pick whatever topic, but the exams are terrible. If Alexandro still TAs the class, take him. In my opinion, he should have taught the class. This Professor ruined Chicano Music for me, I was so excited to learn about this music, but I learned nothing, completely wasted a class, and lowered my GPA.

Selling course reader for this class. Course reader store seriously rips you off. $10 only. Not to mention, this class is an easy A. Definitely try to get Leon as your TA; Automatic A on your term paper.

Talk about a waste of a quater. This class was extremely boring, and it was hard to even understand what he was saying. He just reads off of the slides, and barely gives you enough time to copy them down. The tests were on such obscure things that it almost felt like he was nit picking on tiny little details rather than testing students on the huge major themes and ideas. The only people that were more useless than Crespo, were the TA's. Nothing was gained from going to discussion, and I mean NOTHING. They were hardly knowledgable on the subject, and didn't help one bit in regards to the tests.

Unfortunately, Loza was unable to teach the course and the Ethnomusicology department did a terrible job notifying the enrolled students (the didn't). Crespo literally said on the first day that he was teaching and not Loza.

Ethno should not be difficult and it should be mildly interesting, but Crespo manages to ruin the course and question the quality of UCLA education.

First, it is hard to believe this guy has a degree in anything. He is incompetent and presents himself like an idiot. He doesn't actually know anything and just reads off the slides.

Second, he doesn't post the slides and just reads off of them and since his tests are basically details from random readings or lecture, you have to just copy EVERYTHING down. He claims copyright infringement as an excuse since he has music and videos embedded in his presentation, but I pointed out to him that you can just made a PDF version as all other professors do. No response.

Third, he slurs worse and Sylvester Stallone. It is impossible to understand what he says and when you do understand, he says the dumbest things like "you can dance to this music." No shit...

This was my first ethnomusicology course and I don't really even know what it is, but if what Crespo "teaches" is consider part of the department, then I think this course and department is a waste of resources. Crespo is one of those professors that really makes you wonder why you pay so much money to go to UCLA just to sit and listen a sad excuse of a professor.

I had the misfortune to have Professor Crespo instead of Loza for this class (Crespo isn't listed on bruinwalk). Boy was this a bad decision. I need brain surgery from the number of times he made me beat myself over the head.

Crespo barely has a grasp of the english language. He mumbles his lecture directly off of the slides (that he doesn't post), which enlighten us with amazing insights like "Hip-Hop makes you want to dance" and "Mariachi music transformed identity". Every time he talks, it sounds like he's simultaneously farting and falling asleep.

On the off chance that you look up from facebook during class, you might be able to catch some of the documentaries that he shows. These feature chicano musicians who speak significantly better english than he does (despite the fact that they don't have a PhD). You can take this time to google the vocabulary that he posts at the beginning of lectures, even though they'll never show up on his tests.

His test questions are chosen by a third-grader with severe ADHD. He picks sentences at random from the reading (which is dense and packed with irrelevant information) and tests your critical thinking with brilliant questions like: "Which Chicano musician is a third-generation immigrant?"; "True or False: The Chicano identity is unpredictable, layered, and complex."; "This person was an ambassador of Chicano music."

The enrolled chicano students gobble up the majority of the A's in the class. If you want to scrape a top grade, expect to work investment banking hours typing the slides word-for-word and memorizing the readings.

You also have to squeeze an 8-page paper out of your ass. This was not the brown culture that I expected to analyze.

So if you're thinking of taking this as your arts GE, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are all the other arts GE's completely full?
2. Are you comfortable with sadomasochism?
3. Do you have the suicide prevention hotline on speed dial?

If you answered "yes" to all three, you're still not ready for this class. Buy some lube, it's gonna be worse than prison.