I don't really recommend this class to anybody.

I have never received anything lower than an A- during my time at UCLA (over 7 quarters). However, I somehow received a B+ in this class.

Based on the syllabus, this class seems fascinating and great. However, it really is not.

Professor Tamanoi is not a great lecturer. She reads from the powerpoint and can be fairly funny- both are fine. However, the meat of the course is her just presenting her arguments on things. They somewhat connect to the hefty amount of readings that are assigned. This class does not really teach students to think critically and to analyze, because they aren't really given the tools or practice to do that.

This class does have section. I had a terrible TA experience. If Misa Dayson is one of the TA's, do NOT take her. She is unreliable- she missed 4 sections because she missed her bus. Therefore, we all showed up to our 9 am Friday section, only to sit there until somebody from the Anthro dept came to tell us that Misa wouldn't be coming to section. Additionally, she was never at office hours, and when she was, she was never on time. Misa never answers her e-mail either. Finally, when we did have section, it was less than great. She is not a great communicator, and doesn't do a great job of synthesizing what we learn in class with the readings- an unfortunate reality seeing as how Professor Tamanoi mainly uses lecture to present her own arguments about various topics.

Your grade in the class is based on section participation, a midterm, project, and take home final.

The project is alright. You're supposed to find one article a week that relates to the general themes of the class and analyze it. However, this can be problematic. Sometimes, I would find an article and analyze/ critique it, only to find out that we would later cover issues more directly related to the article in say 8th week. Apparently, we were then supposed to rewrite our critique? The whole point of the project seemed to eat a lot of time (especially since I did one article a week) and failed to really help us. I would have rather had to write just a paper.

The final was alright. We basically had to write a 6 page (max) paper that was a research proposal- it had to include a lot of elements we talked about in class. However, whenever I went to get feedback during office hours, I felt like I left more confused than focused. It seemed like neither Professor Tamanoi nor Misa could really explain what they wanted, and weren't really able to help me.

In the end, this class seems fairly disorganized. There is a lack of unity and connection between lecture, reading, section, and the assignments/ exams. I don't recommend this class. I did not really enjoy it, and I am frankly quite shocked and confused by the grade that I "earned."

This class is not what you sign up to take. The schedule of classes says: "Twentieth-century elaboration and development of concept of culture. Examination of five major paradigms: etc. " What you are actually taking is a class on the anthropology of children, and Tamanoi's idea of something she calls "the cultural." This bothered me a lot, because while it was interesting for a minute, I did not sign up to take a full quarter on this random subject that Prof. Tamanoi arbitrarily decided to pursue.

I was also very frustrated when the "take-home final" turned out to be a 6 page paper consisting of a theoretical anthropological research project proposal, for which we received no in-class preparation.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we were also assigned a final project, and the examples from past years that my TA gave us looked like they came from an elementary school. One was printed up on lined binder paper, and another on stationery that had children holding hands on the borders. REALLY? In an upper division class??

But don't make the mistake of procrastinating on it. As brainless as the project is, it is VERY time consuming.

Prof. Tamanoi is a nice person, and well-meaning but I found this class on the whole to be uninspiring. Her lectures were dull and her thought processes are half-baked at best. When I pointed out a self-contradiction in her power point, she couldn't understand until one of the TAs spoke up to support me. And even then she glossed over the contradiction. Again, she is a very sweet woman, but I was unable to respect her as a professor and had little use for this class, despite the fact that it's my major.

Professor Tamanoi is really concerned about her students understanding the material. Her lectures are a tad bit dry, reading straight off power points, but she's a kind and funny woman. Her main concern is that students learn something new, and stresses that. Midterm wasn't that bad- final project was easy. She's pretty chill and understanding of students.

oright, here was the breakdown. there is a midterm, easy project, and final. the midterm, just memorize the study guide and you'll get an A. the project was BS. you find 7 articles and write one free essay on each. and the final which is a 5 pg paper. there is absolutely no point in going to classother than finding out when exams are and stuff. She repeats powerpoint presentations word for word. every morning i would fall asleep within 20 min of class. Coffee doesnt even work. She is hella boring. I ultimately got a B in the class by pulling an all nighter for the midterm, straight up BS on the projects, and i wrote the final paper in a day. Also, it would be a good idea to get the midterms from the previous quarters cuz a couple questions are the same. Anyways, good luck.

All right, she's an okay teacher. I absolutely do NOT recommend her to ANYONE. Lectures are word for word her slides, the readings aren't all that interesting (and rather useless for the class as a whole), and her midterm exam was ESCRCIATING! The midterm was filled with vague "critique this passage as an anthropologist" questions... seems easy right? Imagine my surprise when my coherent, cogent, well thought out critique of Margaret Mead and was met with 7 points taken off with NO comments!

OH! If you take this class do whatever you can to NOT have Camila as your TA. She is absolutely TERRIBLE! Not only was she useless (she wouldn't answer questions if we didn't participate), she also LAUGHED AT US when we DID ask questions! I would leave every discussion feeling like a child who had just been sent to time out. She was no help at all!

Really, the woman is sweet. She\355s always emailing about new lecture slides being posted online and about how far along she is in grading things. She really tries to keep you on top of things.

Aside from that, the class is pretty easy. The lectures are a little dull and she seems to repeat herself a lot, but all the lecture slides get posted online. She gave us a pretty thorough study guide for the midterm and the TA\355s and her explained it during sections and lecture. The readings aren\355t too heavy and there aren\355t that many of them. For the final we had to write a proposal for an anthropological study which didn\355t really seem related to what we\355d been studying all quarter but it wasn\355t too difficult.

She seems to be a pretty easy grader and she\355s really approachable. However, she does have this tendency to schedule her classes really early in the morning, but I\355d recommend her.