This class is poorly structured. She has an overall structure in that she splits up the class in 3 eras, but in terms of her lectures, there is no structure. She just has written notes she reads off of (she never even finishes everything she writes down because of all the tangents). But then, she will create obscure "select all that apply" questions that recall on stuff she barely talked about/didn't talk about for the quizzes. She barely spends time reviewing the readings (btw there are way too many, dense, and overly theoretical).

TA (Jonathan) grades unfairly. The reflections are supposed to be engaging assignments, but he just picks them apart for no reason. Too subjective. I have been doing really well on quizzes due to luck (solid As), but I got a bad grade on the first reflection (super short maybe 4 paragraphs total for two different prompts). Took this class hoping it would fulfill a GE and also be something interesting to learn but I regret it. Not an easy GE compared to others. At least with the other classes that may have more material you will know what to study and how to do well in the class. This class is all subjectivity and luck. Class is not worth the GPA drop. Interesting subject though, too bad the professor and TA screwed it up for everyone

Professor Leah Lievrouw is a really nice person, but I personally did not enjoy this class, nor did I find it engaging. General remarks: I felt that the class was just too opaque (a lot of details weren't clear, I never saw the rubrics for the essays, we never knew the averages for the quizzes, never knew what to study for, etc.). I understand that this is a class redesign and it's being reformatted, but I still feel that's no excuse for the lack of transparency (like I still have no clue how I escaped with my grade, but whatever).
Professor Lievrouw doesn't use slides during lecture, and prefers to give her own talk about the readings and the important topics for that week. While it certainly doesn't help that we had morning lecture, but I was trying very hard not to fall asleep in class most of the time. I get it, she does try, she really does, but it's just not engaging. Outside of lecture, there's a bunch of readings to do (I never did any of them, because frankly, reading all of the passages in full would be a full time job in and of itself), and she usually goes over the important concepts from the readings in lecture. I do acknowledge there was at least a general structure to the class, but the distinction is just too vague and often left me grasping for concepts at times.
There are three essays throughout the quarter, and honestly I feel they're graded pretty arbitrarily. The word limit is supposed to make things easier for everyone, but in reality it's much harder to connect topics with the binding word limit, and in order to do well, you usually need to do an analysis beyond what's required in order to snag that A. What I did, and my best advice, would be to seek out Jonathan (the TA who grades all your essays) and ask A LOT of questions about what's actually required, what you should be focusing on, and try to bounce some ideas off of him and see if he's receptive. I didn't do this for the first essay, and as a result I did pretty poorly (I got a C even though he didn't give any feedback, another instance of opaqueness in this class). This is critical, especially since there is NO rubric to see how you should be doing the essay, so best to get the advice of the person who will be grading it. We also had a group debate assignment, where we were assigned groups and had to do a debate on a set resolution, but for people that haven't done debate, you don't need to worry, as the format is incredibly simple (each team presents a 4 minute opening speech and 3 minute rebuttal) and usually all the teams do well on them. The class votes on which team was more persuasive, but rest assured this has no impact on your grade (evident since my team didn't win but we did really well on the debate assignment). Another peculiar instance was that we got our grade on the debate pretty quickly, which is strange since the document is typically longer than the essays we write (another instance of "I have no clue how I got this grade").
There are three in class quizzes (held on CCLE) spaced out throughout the quarter, each testing you on the overarching topics after a "section" of the course has been finished. Given that there are only 5 questions, missing one question can really ruin your grade, but honestly it won't matter since most of the questions have this absurd wording or having "select all that apply", but literally you could make a case for any choice, so it's very confusing. She does curve however, giving out letter grades based off of the class average (I did not experience any downcurving). The grading scheme is 5% Participation, 25% Debate, 13.33% Each Essay (3 of them), 10% Each Quiz (3 of them), with no midterms or finals.
Overall, I think this class could've been a really interesting class, but there's such a lack of transparency that I could not call this class enjoyable, nor would I recommend this class to anyone else. If you must take this class, my best advice would be to get on good terms with the TA and go to his office hours, as that's the best chance you'll get for the essays. Quite frankly, that's 5 credits I'm never going to get back, and I regret not taking another more fulfilling class in its place for this quarter.

I would not recommend taking this class. I took this class because the content seemed interesting and it seemed like an 'easy' GE - this was not the case. The prof is very disorganized, has an unclear grading scheme and was not very engaging. In addition, the TA was not helpful and graded in a very unclear and arbitrary manner. The low word count for writing projects was designed to encourage brevity, but this made writing confusing and vague. The quizzes/tests were extremely vague - each question seemed like it had multiple answers.

TLDR: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. Lievrouw is a very nice person, but this class is a waste of your time. I should've been smarter and dropped while I still could have.

Do NOT take this class. The professor has ZERO structure to her class. She does timed quizzes only available during lecture online. They are not multiple choice. They are only 5 questions. Most ask you to select more than one option. She says the class does well on them, but the average is low. Lectures are optional, which is good because she rambles about everything. No structure, she doesn't clarify readings, nothing.

The TA she has, Jonathan Calazar, is incompetent and unfair. He does ALL the grading for the three reflective assignments, and it is so subjective. He just gives the grades randomly. The reflective assignments have a low word count and they are about stupid topics like apps. It should be easy and it should encourage you to learn more. I got a C. On two separate 250 word paragraphs. 250 words is barely a paragraph. It was horrible grading schema and doesn't encourage students to develop an interest in the course. If anything, it steers away everyone from the course. Last, the TA is condescending. In lecture after the reflective grades were due, he said he wouldn't read "a word over the word limit" for the next assignment because there are "so many". It's 250-500 words. There are not even 70 kids in the class because everyone dropped. How is that even "too much"? Are you really that busy? He was so condescending, saying some people went too vague, and some people made too many assumptions. Keep in mind, the prompt was about your apps and how they represented you and how you organize them.

Both the professor and TA try to make their subject matter so relevant, when in reality it isn't at all. The grade distribution for this class was great with the old TA, but with this new TA and her new online quiz system (her old one used to be very easy), this class will not be worth it. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE. YOU CANNOT TURN THIS CLASS INTO P/NP.

I'm frankly rather shocked to see just how upset people are at this class. It's not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be. The professor told people in class that the new assignments were experimental, and asked people in class for feedback as to what could be made better. This was a relatively new and re-made course. Let's go over some of these claims from other reviews:

- "The class is hard and too much work". No. The workload is manageable. It's definitely not a "no-work class" like from the review from 2013, so don't take it if you're expecting a no-work class. But it's nothing out of the ordinary for a G.E. There is now a debate assignment (25% of the grade), 3 quizzes (10% each), 3 essays (13.3% each), and overall engagement in class (5%). For those who are scared of debate or speech-related assignments, don't even fret over this. You do it as a group (3-4 people), each group gets 7 minutes of speech time total (you don't even need to be the one speaking), and all she expects is that you research well and turn in a copy of what you say afterwards on CCLE. Don't sweat it.

I'll say more on essays in a second, but when it comes to the quizzes, they were rather difficult to deal with, since you have a mix of multiple choice and multiple-selection type questions on the quiz. And since you only have 5 questions on the quiz, there's a significant penalty for getting one wrong. I studied the most out of all of them for quiz 3 but ended up doing the worst on that one. BUT, once again, the professor asked us for feedback on this, because it's an EXPERIMENTAL assignment. She's actively changing the course material and updating the class at this point. I feel like the other reviews don't set their expectations accordingly. She told us in class she would take that feedback and make the quizzes better. I can't guarantee those quizzes will be easier in a future quarter, but she was reasonable with us.

- "The class has ZERO structure." No. We knew the exact structure of the course on day 1. Week 1 is introduction. Weeks 2-4 focus on artifacts and periods of internet history. Weeks 5-7 focus on practices. Weeks 8-10 focus on arrangements of internet institutions and governance. Each quiz focuses on those specific periods. They are organized, and she has specific guest speakers (most of whom were quite great, btw) that come speak on specific topics in their area of expertise. Honestly, I feel like the only people who didn't pick up on this were the people who didn't at least skim through the reading for each week. She lifts everything she says from that reading, so it's clear what she focuses on and what she wants us to know for the quizzes. If there's anything I'd complain about in this side of things, it's that the reading is a bit excessive (all online articles, btw, no textbook). There seems to be quite a bit of unnecessary information to sift through to get to the root of the main points she elaborates on in class. Hopefully she'll improve that as well.

The professor herself doesn't have lecture slides, but she doesn't need them. If you take notes well, and listen carefully and pay attention (she writes down outlines and key points on the board), you'll be able to write down everything you need to do well on the quizzes and essays. This means attendance is important (especially for that 5% of your grade), so if you were expecting to just skip class and read lecture slides, well, I'm sorry to say you're out of luck.

- "Jonathan (the TA) is incompetent, unfair, and grades things arbitrarily." Anyone who had the patience to actually go and ask Jonathan about these grades during his office hours would know that he is a very reasonable and intelligent TA (one of the best I've had at UCLA so far). I too had a very low grade for my first essay, and when I asked him about it during office hours, he was very reasonable and gave me a boost in the grade when he realized he made a mistake, and he gave me feedback about future essays that helped me get A's easily. I do agree the grading rubrics were somewhat strict, but not as much as the other reviews make it out to be.

Was this the best class I've ever taken? No. Was it the easiest G.E. I've ever taken? No. But if you are even remotely interested in this subject area and you want a reasonable, albeit slightly more work-heavy course, I'd recommend you take it. If you're looking for a no-work G.E., don't take it. I took the class expecting it to be easier, but it certainly didn't disappoint me, all things considered.

TL;DR I don't think the other reviews are being reasonable. Give Leah a chance if you're interested in this subject material.

She only taught one lecture. The person teaching was a pH. D student named Colin Doty.

My grade: A

I got mostly A's on my paper but my friends who got A- got A's in the class. You don't need to be smart to ace the class. The work for the class might be annoying (i.e. blogging about the reading twice a week) but they are easy points. The papers are very doable. I recommend this class for it is interesting and you learn a lot from these doctoral students. I classify this as an easy GE.