The first response was a bit too dramatic and inconsistent with the actual methods and expectations of professor Kernell.

First of all the iClicker grade was primarily based on attendance and only 5% of that 17% went to class performance, (the in class quiz) which she drops two of them. You can also rent the clicker free of charge for the entire quarter at the library.

The course reader was only 70 dollars along with the textbook, totaling out to about 100 dollars and some change. That's not exactly breaking the bank. I've definitely spent way more money on other classes.

She doesn't force you to buy a $1200 dollar MacBook. That's your own doing. Again, You can rent a mbp from the library for up to eight hours a day. It's not that bad. Besides, the commercial project was the funnest part of this course.
The iMovie tutorial was optional and not mandatory. You just need to email her, she was very accommodating.

Yes I do agree about not using a laptop was a bit cumbersome, however she did post the slides on ccle so I don't see the problem. Yes, there was a lot of reading, but it's UCLA, what else do you expect?

Overall this course was freaking awesome! You really understand party division in the media and how that division plays in media and public choice. In addition, she had awesome speakers who came in like the former VP of marketing for Microsoft, a political strategies from RALLY who worked on the Marriage Equality campaign during the Supreme Court, and a director of new media who worked on the 2008 Obama campaign. This class, and Kernell in general is such a great opportunity. Yes she's a new professor, but I think she's doing a phenomenal job and if the opportunity is presented, then I would take another course with Kernell.

The long evaluation preceding mine is just plain wrong. Is this a time-consuming course? Yes. If you cannot handle it, shame on you. Maybe you shouldn't have chosen UCLA.

The 3 hour iMovie thing could have been avoided by a.) simply emailing the Prof. Kernell and saying "I do not need training for iMovie; I am proficient in it." (I know how incredibly difficult that must be) or b0 fast-forwarding until you get the completion.

To say she doesn't care about students with disabilities or those with children/commuters is just plain ridiculous. She was one of the most caring professors. How many do you know that take the time to learn almost EVERY SINGLE PERSON'S NAME?????? She is the only Professor I have ever had to care to do this. Also, I have had SEVERAL courses that do not allow computers and if you are a Comm major, you will need to take Comm10 and Suman doesn't allow electronics either. Some professors due this based on RESEARCH that PROVES that students learn better by handwriting notes. Sorry that you cant go on facebook for a damn hour and 15 minutes.

She DOES NOT force you to buy a Mac.. LOL That is just insane to say. My specific group used iMovie, but she that if you are proficient on another platformt hat you could use that instead. Plus, it was a 3 person group and, at least in my group, only ONE person had a Mac and used it for iMovie.

You could have rented an iClicker and if not she gave you the option of taking the quizzes at the front of the class. Does that sounds like someone who does not accommodate her students? NO. Plus, one should be thankful that JUST CLICKING IN GIVES YOU 12 FREE PERCENTAGE POINTS. THAT IS GENEROUS. Most of the quizzes were easy enough to guess right even f you had not done the readings. Lastly, on this topic, she gives you plenty of time and even makes sure that each student has their clicker out before she starts the quiz. Then she READS THE QUESTION AND OPTIONS THROUGH FOR US TWICE. If you didn't have enough time, you deserve to lose those points. Again, these clickers are NOT mandatory if you for 2 minutes sit in front of class and take a paper quiz.

She was an excellent professor with excellent material and engaging lectures. She continuously allotted time for us to break into discussion groups and collaborate with our peers, another refreshing rarity on this campus. She had several videos that were fun and relevant to the material, which made class that much better.

I went to her after class, or in Office Hours a few times and felt she was genuinely helpful and caring! To say otherwise baffles me. She even cares to ask about your personal life and is encouraging and helpful if youa re at all confused. NEVER would she belittle someone.

Though, at times, the workload was a lot I would recommend this class because I think you will learn A LOT and be forced to think in a new way.

If you don't want to do the work and read a lot, then don't take this class. You don't deserve to. However, if you come to UCLA to get, oh, I don't know, an EDUCATION, then I urge you to take this engaging course with an AMAZING, CARING Professor.

Georgia Kernell should be placed under review by the Academic Senate Committee and considered for an AWARD. :) BAM!

This professor never once considered the needs of the students. It began with basing 17% of our grades on the mandatory purchasing of iClickers and quizzes on nitpicky, minute details about the reading. Then she had us purchase an expensive course reader from a private company (it was not available at the bookstore), without consideration of where we may purchase books according to our financial aid packages, college funds, and scholarships.

She then decided that students would not be allowed to take notes on laptops and justified her decision on two articles she had read that show handwritten notes result in better information processing; maybe she believes this, but students have different learning styles and should be allowed to take notes in the way that best suits them. Not to mention, student note-takers for OSD could not take and submit effective notes, which directly disadvantaged disabled students.

Until student outrage changed her mind, Kernell mandated that we take a three hour course on iMovie, then use iMovie to complete a group video project, forcing students who are not Mac users to either purchase a $1200-2000 Mac computer or spend many hours stuck on campus, which may not be possible for parenting students or commuter students who are subject to bus schedules and traffic hours.

Time and time again, we saw her disregard the special needs of disabled students, parenting students, and ill students. Students who missed exams with medical documentation were given an additional essay to write for 10% of the midterm grades. Exams were unnecessarily fast paced. iClicker quizzes were conducted in approximately 20 seconds or less, so students could not think through the questions and had to hastily submit answers.

I, and several other students I spoke to, never felt comfortable approaching Kernell or the TA. She belittled our questions about grading styles and exam responses. She made us feel as though our input was unwelcome.

Assignments were expected to be completed in an unreasonably short amount of time. For a portion of our grade, when we had to spend three hours watching videos and taking short surveys, this professor gave us less than thirty hours between the time the assignment was assigned to the time it was due.

The amount of time this course consumed far exceeded the amount of hours a four unit course should take. The overbearing workload kept me from completing the work for my other classes effectively.

Overall, students were disgruntled and upset with this instructor for the whole quarter. It was incredibly frustrating to try to learn under a prof who expected so much of the students, but was so disorganized herself and just read from the slides during lectures.

Georgia Kernell should be placed under review by the Academic Senate Committee for failure to consider the needs and learning styles of our diverse student body.

Kernell is a really nice professor and she's very passionate and knowledgable about political science. Her lectures are really just based off of the slides; the majority of the material on the tests are from the readings. The tests, I thought, were super straight forward.

Yes, there are a ton of readings that you HAVE to do, especially for a 4 unit class. Keep in mind she inherited this class from the previous professor, so the structure/demands are not her fault; she follows the exact same format as he taught it.

Overall the class was very time consuming, but it really did get me more interested in politics and news, when prior I zero interest.

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I feel like some of these reviews are very harsh and not reflective of Kernell. I think this class was interesting and useful, and the projects were fun. When we had a group member drop out, she was very accommodating in trying to give us extra feedback on our project. That being said, the tests are graded incredibly harshly. You are expected to memorize verbatim lots of small details from readings and be able to cite them, and some questions are pulled out of very minute parts of the reading that were not mentioned in class. I would get an 100% on one question and a 20% on the next question because she was not flexible with partial credit.

However, Kernell is very accommodating if you put in the effort. After sitting in the front, actively participating, and going to extra events that she organized, I was very disappointed with my grade because it was on the cusp of two grades. Although she did not agree to round, she did agree to meet with me months later to discuss the grade and she even went back on a mark I was given about a paper that she authored. I think she really is a kind and good professor who just has a high bar for her students.,which should not take away from her ability as a teacher.

As a political science major, I believe this class was more comprehensive of American government and media affects than any class offered by the political science department. Every lecture was super interesting, although it can be a lot of information to digest at once. There are quizzes due before each class on Bruin Learn, but they were only 3 questions based on the readings assigned for the upcoming lecture. I'd say they were pretty manageable to complete, and honestly helped me comprehend the readings more which really helps for exams! We had a midterm and a final that covered readings, lectures, guest speakers, and supplemental videos/movies. It takes a bit of time to study for the exams, but if you know the information you can finish them pretty quickly, considering they are mainly short answer questions (8-10) that range in length. Additionally, there was a group commercial project which was fun to complete, but just know that the grades for your commercials are split 50% student input/20% TA/30% Professor, so outcomes were interesting. Overall, this class is a decent amount of work but I feel like I am coming away with more knowledge for my major and possibly new career options that I didn't know I had before.

Personally I loved this class because I found the subject matter to be fascinating, but it was a crazy amount of work. The nice thing is that it was only once a week on Mondays, but I think I spent every Sunday trying to finish the absurd amount of readings there were and preparing for the iClicker questions. I didn't mind the workload because the readings were interesting, but if you're not interested in campaigns and other forms of political comm it might be a lot. Overall, I found the class to be very inspiring and it made me want to pursue a career in political communication.

This was one of my very first upper div comm courses i took and i loved prof kernell. She is super relatable, down to earth and really passionate about her material as well as teaches it in a way we can all retain. Never thought about politics much before this class but it was very insightful and i was way more interested than i thought. Tests are based of lectures and readings so i would make bullet notes of key points for each reading bc they were a lot and then GO TO CLASS. Also, just because kernell is cool but it will help a lot. There is also a group project where you are assigned a real time two candidate and you have to make a pro campaign and an anti campaign. A bit more work than anticipated but still fine

Really hard class, very unfair grader. Recommend against taking this with her. She's really strict too, not an engaging lecturer either

Unfortunately, this class was not taught very well at all. It often seemed like Kernell had no idea what she was teaching, and the only things I learned were from the reading we read, she had nothing new to offer. You have to get to class on time every day because she starts class with a one question iclicker quiz that only lasts a few minutes. Her lectures are not engaging, there are way too many readings and the tests require memorizing the author's name rather than what they wrote about. I would not recommend this class.