Whatever you do not take this class with Harris. He is the biggest a hole! He is a smart ass and literally believes he is smarter than everyone and will make you feel like you are nothing compared to him. Evade at all costs. You will suffer and wish you never took him.

One of the best lecturers I have had in any IDS class and overall felt like the professor was sharing worthwhile research and everything seemed very relevant/necessary in our discussions throughout the quarter. Definitely an added plus that the TA (Rohan) was great and helped to synthesize the information presented in readings. Tests were curved and generally quite easy if you did the readings.

Kevan is an amazing professor! The best I've had in the IDS department at UCLA. His lectures are engaging and interesting. The content is super relevant for IDS in the modern day (some of the other classes focus too much on historical IDS).
Kevan will stare at you if you're late. But if you read the material, participate in lecture and in Section, and study a ton for the final, you'll do fine. It's definitely the hardest IDS class I took, but also the most worthwhile.

Professor Harris is a phenomenal professor and knows politics, world economy, and development studies very, very well. His lectures were super engaging, informative, well-structured, and overall very enjoyable. The course includes a midterm, final, and discussion section participation/attendance/news posts. His course is split into 2 parts, with the first part of the course focusing on learning about the economy, vocabulary about development, trade, and world affairs, etc. The second part of the course splits up the world regions (Africa, Latin America, Asia) such that you study each region for about a week relating to what you learned in the first part of the course. These lectures make you really understand the history and economy about many, many countries and fully comprehend how they came to reach the development status they experience now. Professor Harris is very clear in his lectures and he truly cares about students learning the material. That being said this class is very difficult. As an IDS major, this was the only class I got anything less than an A- in (including both lower and upper divs). Harris really makes you work for a good grade, since his exams are not at all regurgitating information. He really wants to make sure you can apply the concepts and know what the main points of the readings are. Make sure you know the study guide terms front and back, do all the readings, and review each single bullet point in his lectures. Professor Harris' class is difficult for sure but you learn a lot more than in most classes. Also, he is VERY easy on the eyes so there's that.

So I took this professor during the corona virus crisis and he was VERY INCONSIDERATE. all my classmates have emailed him asking to make the final optional; he refused to (even he got emailed by the department). He said that the final will be short and simple due to the pertaining circumstances, but it turns out to be 20 PAGES LONG and it was very hard I can't even finish it. Very unhelpful and do not think about our mental health AT ALL.

This class was decent and pretty interesting, the lectures were clear and at times I found him funny. I think you will learn a lot from this class if you don't know it from past knowledge, cause also the IDS major is very repetitive. Overall a good lecturer, and not too hard of a class.

I couldn’t find another way to review him other than putting this class but I worked with Dr. Harris in a research context. Dr. Harris is tough love. He makes you earn your grade, but he makes you so, SO much better. It is beyond worth it. He’s given me a thick skin as a writer. I always think his graduate students must be so fortunate to work with him. Really great professor. Super knowledgeable about the field and all the common mistakes new researchers make. Knows so much about how to WRITE WELL. I feel like I owe him so much from all he has taught me. If you’re in a class with him, consider yourself lucky!! He really invests time in his students that want to learn. He’s great, but DO NOT think it’ll be an easy A. No professor has ever invested so much effort in me, and I’ve never worked harder in any other educational context. Even among other advisors, he goes above and beyond. I’m extremely grateful. TAKE HIS CLASS. Don’t let the bad reviews scare ya!! He’s AMAZING!!!!

Took the class during covid-19 pandemic. If I'm being honest, it was not an easy class. He gave a lot of readings, and you really need to read all of them to pass the exams. And he would give 50-100 page readings each lecture. His lectures were very helpful, though. Very clear, and you can definitely see that he's a qualified and talented sociologist. If you don't mind reading a lot, then you should definitely take his class. Make sure you get a good TA, too. Overall a great professor.

I also took this class when campus was shut down Week 10 because of COVID-19 and he was pretty unclear about what the final would be like. A lot of people tried to get him to cancel it or reduce the questions but he was super vague and just said that everything would be fine. It was honestly pretty hard considering the situation and I don't think I did well at all, but I ended up with an A in the class. I therefore think they were VERY lenient on grading the final!! I definitely would have failed if we had to take the final in person LOL. I did ok on the midterm. I got a B- and it was curved. A lot of the questions on the midterm were the same as previous years' exams so definitely go to the test bank and study those! I only saw them right before the midterm so if I had real time to look at them and make sure my responses were more detailed, I probably would have done better. We had weekly memos to turn in for discussion and we had to answer two questions about the previous week's readings. That was pretty straightforward and you had to be concise since it was supposed to be less than 250 words total or something like that. Attendance in discussion was also counted. The midterm was 20% of our final grade, attendance and weekly memos were 40%, and the final was 40%.

avoid this teacher at all costs. Clearly does not care about students' mental health. Significantly harder than other IDS teachers. Is not helpful when you ask questions, makes you feel stupid. Harsh grader and 10x more work and assignments than other teachers assign.