Unless you really like the subject matter and aren't JUST looking to fill a GE, don't take this class—at least not with Dr. Kahng. The level of work required is out of proportion for a GE.

The lecture slides just have pictures and the professor wouldn't even post them, nor record the lectures (students had to do it themselves). The only thing posted was a PDF at the end of each week with some terms and about a dozen paintings we had to memorize. The terms weren't even defined, which isn't so bad except for the fact that professors often have particular wording when defining terms; Googling only gets you so far.

The professor reads off a script—a script she also wouldn't share with us. She also reads off of it pretty quickly, so it was really hard to keep up with what she was saying. Of course, since lectures weren't recorded (unless you did it yourself or got it from someone else) or slides posted, if you didn't hear/understand her, there's not much you can do.

The readings each week were often well over 100 pages. That isn't necessarily outrageous for a class like this, but having that almost every week was overwhelming.

We had two papers to do before our midterm and final. The one before the midterm had to be revised and was only 2 pages, so not too bad. However, the one before the final was 7-8 pages with Chicago style footnotes and bibliography; it also required us to physically go to the Getty and have a brochure or picture of us as proof we actually went. It also required at least 4 sources to be journals/books that were published in print; so, if it was published online but not in print, it didn't count (although my TA let it slide). Essentially, it was difficult to study for the exams because we were instead spending our time writing papers.

Both exams were mostly essay based. The midterm was 4 essay questions and the final was 6 essays that got progressively longer. For the final, we were given 10 minutes to write the first three, 20 minutes for the next two, and 10 for the last one. The last one required that we memorized 5 paintings—2 from the first half of the quarter and 3 from the second— that were not already shown during the first 5 essays. Basically, both exams required us to memorize the artists and titles of like 50 paintings. We also had to reference the 100 page readings, some of which we had read well over 5 weeks prior.

All in all, most people in the class group chat often talked about their suffering (rightfully so, and I was one of them).

I understand that this was Dr. Kahng's first class and that she can't possibly be super experienced so quickly. However, I don't think the problem was that she wasn't experienced. I think the problem is that several students did try to tell her what would be helpful for us to learn and she blew them all off. People sent her emails and asked during class. Her excuse for not recording lectures or posting slides was that she didn't want us to "zone out" or not attend lecture (I have never seen so many people walk out mid lecture like in this class).

I also saw someone playing Papa's Freezeria during a few lectures, and honestly, mood.

I'm sure Dr. Kahng will adjust her curriculum in the future. At the same time, I still wish the curriculum hadn't been so hard to begin with. And I especially wish for Dr. Kahng to learn how to listen to student feedback.

Professor Kahng is amazing, and her modern art class was by far the best class I have taken at UCLA. She details the content in a way that is both concise but very thorough. She holds the most engaging lectures, and is an extremely fair grader. I loved piecing together the readings, which were carefully selected to compliment the course content. Additionally, she was more than willing to offer a helping hand in office hours.

You SHOULD take this class if:
- You are REALLY interested in art history and want to learn an (expedited version) of modern art over 10 weeks. This was my situation so I perhaps found the material more compelling (it's also a major requirement for me) than other people who took this for a GE. Also, since I'm an art history major I can tell that although the class's content could be overwhelming sometimes it will help me a lot in coming classes because it was really informative. So if you're a AH major or minor you should take this as a prerequisite.
- You are capable of writing compelling essays under pressure (anywhere from 10 to 30 mins) on a Blue Book, maybe you have some background of hand-writing essays from AP Comp in high school (although I did and I still struggled but maybe I was rusty)
- You are willing to keep up with the readings (like the other reviews said, anywhere from 20 to 100 pages a week). You might even have to print them out and highlight if possible, but it is necessary that you do the readings!! I know for some other humanities classes they're just a side so I didn't take them that seriously at first which was a big mistake.
- You are able to attend EVERY LECTURE and stay attentive and take notes on what she's saying. Like the other reviews said, she will not post them online, and even when she posted the artworks we needed to memorize, none of the concepts were written so it is imperative that you pay attention and go to class. Maybe record it if you have to.

Overall, I hope Prof Kahng / the TA's take the constructive feedback that is undoubtedly in our course evaluations. Hopefully there will be a switch up in a few things (ridiculous expectations for Final Exam considering it is a lower division class, big differences in TA's as far as the A's they handed out, etc). I learned a lot from this class which I'm grateful for, but a little peeved that some people in this class enjoyed the GPA boost because they lucked out from a nicer TA and I will probably end up with a lower one because mine was tougher.