TLDR: One of the best + easiest classes at UCLA. Take Steve Cucharo as TA.
Breakdown:
20%: Response Papers
25%: Participation
25%: Final
30%: Social Science Paper

The class is new thus workload and grading is light, hardly 2-3h of work per week.

Response Papers: simple 400 word papers commenting on specific interesting lines or paragraphs from the readings (stuff you find interesting, confusing, or just disagree with - anything). Super easy to get full (specially with Steve)

Participation: show up to discussion, talk for a few minutes and you'll get full on this (at least with Steve Cucharo)

Final: Keyword definitions (30pts) and 2 essays (35 pts each). Probably the only challenging bit of the class, but needs max 1 week of work for an A.

Social Science Paper: 5pg paper with EXTREMELY CLEAR guidelines on the format, structure, content etc. Easy to get an A on this too. I worked on it for a week and got a 93%

Super straight forward class, easy A, AND covers 4 GEs + Writing 2 + Diversity.
PS: Steve Cucharo is a fucking godsend. Amazing man, wants you to do well, extremely helpful throughout, and a fucking gem.

Text me on **********, giving away notes and study guides, more than enough to get you an A on the class.

This class is one of the best classes I've ever taken so far. All the professors are tremendous and their lectures are always interesting. Stephen Cucharo was my TA and he was extraordinarily helpful. He, as well as all the other professors like Prof. McBride, made sure that we knew that they were always available to help. Not only are the topics interesting but the discussions themselves don't feel like you have to participate because you end up wanting to. Professor McBride is a really great professor and his lectures always go in-depth because of how passionate he is to teach. Overall, I don't regret taking this class at all. Professor McBride is truly an amazing professor.

The class itself was my favorite one this quarter. For this year, we studied the Indonesian Mass Killings (Prof. Robinson), the Armenian Genocide (Prof. Sengel), and the Holocaust (Prof. McBride and Rothberg). I had Alexis Coopersmith as my TA. The grade breakdown was section participation (20%), active reading-Perusall (10%), 4 response papers (20%), history paper (25%), and final essays (25%).

My favorite lecturer was Prof. Robinson. I think his were very succinct and engaging. Additionally, the readings for his portion were mostly from the book he wrote, and he labels each section clearly ie "who were the victims" "the army's role", etc. It was so helpful when writing the history paper and final essays. The Armenian Genocide was harder to comprehend for me. The readings, especially the Suny and Bloxham ones, were just huge chunks of text. I ended up spending two days re-watched all the lectures (on 2x speed) and in hindsight, reviewing after everything helped to filter out the extra information included.

This year's history paper was focused on the Indonesian Mass Killings and the US's role. There was more than enough guidance on this. With the final essays as well, the profs released a study guide with possible prompts. In our last section, we were able to brainstorm relevant info to conclude.

Alexis was an awesome TA. For response papers, you could run your topic and structure with her at her office hour. The only con would be that she tend to release grades late. We were suppose to receive feedback from our history paper before we submitted our final essays, but she didn't release them until a few days after. She also grades pretty well; I think she went pretty easy on the history paper and final essays.

DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE UNLESS YOU ARE SKILLED AT WRITING AND YOU ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE A GOOD TA. Lectures and assignments are totally unrelated. Your grades are entirely based on your TA. My TA, Rebecca Glassberg, is totally a piece of shit. You have no idea about her standard. Even you have written tens of versions and met her several times she would still give a shit score and say "this is a solid work" when meeting. Reading materials were fun, but this won't change my view on this course as a shit. If you want to take it, cross your finger that you will have a good TA and avoid to get in Glassberg's class. You will die without knowing the reason.

I love Professor McBride! He seems like a cool guy that genuinely cares about his students and the cluster. He is very knowledgeable about the Holocaust and his lectures were always so interesting. His slides and lectures were always very easy to follow along. I think his assigned readings were usually on the shorter end out of all the professors, but all readings for this cluster are usually lengthy.
In general, I would definitely recommend this cluster! Regardless of the professor teaching, you do not need to attend lecture for this cluster since they are recorded and you are not tested on any of the information. Your grade depends on essays and discussion participation; there are no exams. The essays are relatively easy and usually ask you to use the assigned readings. There is also extra credit offered which is usually just a cool movie followed by a very short write-up. Your grade will depend on your TA since they grade your essays and participation. I definitely recommend Yair Agmon! He is a very understanding and kind TA and a fair grader! I took his photography seminar for 48c and it was so much fun!

this class depends a lot on what TA you had. my TA (bradley) graded papers super easily and was in general very nice. during discussion section, we were expected to talk in small groups about one assigned reading and then say one thing we found interesting. generally super easy to get by and skim the readings without much effort. the lectures varied a lot on how interesting they were but they ultimately weren't mandatory and not particularly relevant to the visual studies paper (basically a film analysis) or final essays (i attended one review session and reread a couple assigned readings and wrote the final essays on that).

my easiest class by far this quarter, plus it was pretty nice that it was on the hill (not sure if this is always the case though)

Most of the reviews for this class seem quite unfair to me. This was without a doubt the best class I have taken at UCLA and I recommend the Cluster program to any new students. I'll note that a large amout of the students are disinterested, unenthusiastic, and sometimes downright hostile towards teaching staff. To my understanding, this is a consequence of a humanties class being dominated by stem-oriented students, a vocal portion of whom lamment the idea of even the shortest writing assignment or the mere thought of openeing a book. Here's a rude awakening: there isn't a humanties GE that requires zero work. The Cluster is by far one of the best ways to fullfil GEs and university requirments. If you still with it, for the prize of three classes (quarters) you will knock out 4 GE requirmens, your college diversity requirments, and your writing II requirment. 6 requirments for the price of 3? Its a pretty good deal. Professor McBride servs two roles in Cluster 48. Firstly as an actual lecturer and secondly as the overall administrator of the course and the teaching team. In both these roles, he excelled. As a professor, he created informative yet engaging slides that compelling conveyed class concepts in a digestible manner. As an administrator, he put much effort into organizing out-of-class events for the Cluster class. Despite their lower-than-expected attendance, these were great events that I encourage people to attend. The Cluster is ultimately a year-long class and getting to know some fellow students and interacting in a more cordial setting with the professors and TAs can be a huge help. Developing these relationships is one of the most rewarding aspects of the Cluster program. Sharon was an exceptional TA who tried her hardest to accommodate the needs of a class of mainly unenthusiastic students taking a course outside their major. Of course, this lack of enthusiasm is natural and expected, but a lot of students were actively hostile towards Sharon and the course in general, making it hard for her to work with everyone at times. However, Sharon nonetheless went to great lengths to ensure we were never alone when it came to course content. Sections were dominated by class discussions where we unpacked weekly readings in-depth. This way, even if you didn't read a page of the assigned weakly readings you would walk away from section with a sufficient understanding of the concepts, themes, and essential information within each reading. Her grading of papers was, in my view, balanced. I wouldn't say it was easy per se but it surely was not unfair or harsh and you essentially got the grade you deserved. She is incredibly understanding and sympathetic to circumstances and will generously grant exentions if you have at least some reason. For the people I knew in the class everyone had positive expirences with their TAs, but I have heard the best things about Steve and Yair. I highly recomend this class.

The reviews prior to fall 2021 are very deceiving. This was BY FAR my least favorite class this quarter. In fact I hated it. Everyone said this cluster was lightwork/easy but this was not the case for me at all. There was a ton of work in the form of weekly readings, although theoretically you could skip them and BS your section participation (I am not good at doing this so this wasn't an option for me). Also, Sharon (my TA, who is new this year) graded my essays pretty hard and her suggestions to improve them were not helpful. I would seriously spend so much time on my response papers and would still not get an improving grade. Her discussions were hell--almost 2 hours every Wednesday of boring group activities and awkward silence. She was also a slow grader. We were supposed to receive grades for our visual studies paper a few days before our final was due, but I never even received mine at all lmao (I only saw my final overall grade of A-).

The bad parts of this class had all to do with my TA and discussion section. The lectures themselves were pretty interesting for the most part. I was especially engaged in Rothberg's lectures on the Holocaust. Nevertheless, the bad parts far outweighed the good.

I think your experience in this class is entirely dependent on which TA you have. Take someone like Cucharo if you can as I have heard great things about him.

Please do not take this class if you are thinking of taking a cluster. I walked into this class thinking it was easy and light as stated by previous bruinwalk reviews but it is an actual pain in the ass. They keep changing the syllabus but the case studies we did for fall 2021 were: Holocaust, French colonialism and the Armenian genocide and the Armenian case study is the most difficult one to comprehend. During the first quarter, you write a response paper each week for 4 weeks based on readings you've been assigned, then you work on a visual studies paper which is a 6-7 page paper (not the easiest thing to write just btw) and then on top of that you have 2 final essays that are supposed to be 3-4 pages each. They don't think before they assign the readings, there were weeks where we were assigned over 100 pages of reading and some weeks where we'd have to watch 2 hour-long documentaries along with reading the material assigned for the week. This material was not only disturbing to read but also so so so hard to understand because most of it was aimed towards an expert audience and ofc I am nowhere near an expert. And oh, don't even think about missing a discussion section because you get participation points by attending AND being active and if you don't, they dock a few points off your participation grade total. The grading is the worst part, I still don't understand how they grade, each TA has different requirements and grading patterns. If you can, take Steve, Bradley or Yair. I had Yair first quarter, loved him but I hate my current TA. She gave me an 88 on my first paper this quarter but her comments were "really strong analysis, great job". I hate this class with a burning passion pls don't take it if your writing skills arent the best. take some cluster like the interracial dynamics or biotech and save yourself from this misery

I never really went to lecture or thoroughly read the readings, but I found that I was still able to get the information as the discussion section really gets into the course material. I took Danielle Hanzalik as a TA, and if you have a chance to take her, then I really recommend her. She was super understanding of my situation and kept my attention, especially since discussion sections were two hours. The final exam has you defining 6 terms and writing 2 essays, but the study guide prepares you really well.