Bryant tries hard to make the class interesting, but the material just isn't engaging unless you really love science. Some of the material is easy, but the vast majority of it is pretty technical and difficult to apply. He tried to explain how the material was communication related, but it was difficult to see how everything tied together. I would recommend going to lecture and section because the class will make zero sense if you can't comprehend the readings (research articles in course reader).

Your grade is comprised of 2 P/NP 3 page papers and a Midterm (50%) and Final (50%). Section isn't mandatory to attend, but I feel like it helped. I feel like he should just make the papers 10% of the grade because they feel like a drag to complete, since they're not even graded. They're just extra work that doesn't really make a difference in your grade (unless you don't do them of course).

The midterm wasn't hard, but one of the TA's who graded mine (I think his name was Tim) took off a huge amount of points on one of my answers for not including one word, which significantly dropped my grade. I talked to him about the question at his office hours in a respectful manner to see why I got such a large number of points off. After figuring out why I had lost so many points, I displayed to him that I did in fact answer the part of the question that he took points off for in my first paragraph. He didn't consider giving me any points back at all, which I felt like was unfair, especially after studying 2 weeks for the midterm.

Our final ended up being a 6-8 page take home paper because of COVID-19, and it was probably much harder than the in class final would've been. I don't know my grade yet, but even if I get a perfect score, I probably won't get an A because of that midterm grade.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend the class unless you have to take it for your major.

Bryant is an outstanding professor. I came into this thinking "ah just gotta do the requirement" and came out thinking "wow I love these topics and these topics are exactly what made me choose my major." It just really matched up with what I'm interested in and it was very engaging. The slides were very clear and organized, and the readings were also super duper organized. I did all the readings and lectures really matched up with the readings, so you definitely are surefire going to succeed if you do all the readings. I also get the feeling that you could get away with not reading and do pretty well just from paying attention in lecture and studying slides. Bryant also wants you to get a good grade and is sympathetic toward the student. The grade was made of midterm and final tests (not cumulative) for 50% each with two papers to prove you read that only detract from your grade if you don't do them.
In terms of discussion, I scored a pretty easy TA and also participation is not graded so I almost never went.
Totally a great class. Probably going to be top 10 (not the best of the best but up there) for me in my time at UCLA.

If you go to the lecture, he prepares you very well for the exams. The reading is dry at times, but again lecture helps and you can get by not doing all the reading and still getting an A. He's nice and understanding, just some topics are complex and dry. The class was okay/pretty easy.

Bryant is a great lecturer. Although his topics/lectures might be confusing at times, he tries his best to re-iterate his points, and will go further into detail if possible.

Message me for the course reader, I'm selling it for cheap! **********)
Willing to ship out/meet up in Westwood!

Selling Course Reader, **********.