You can tell Mary Corey wishes she was black as she walks around in her Rihanna Puma's using the N word every other sentence. Well that was in her class from Spring quarter. In this class she complained about the sensitive students who couldn't handle history (black people are getting called the N word and being shot almost everyday. This isn't just history, this is the present struggle of many Americans, and there are consequences to using words like this.) and then managed to refer to everything as "retarded," and complain about "trigger warnings" saying she does not believe in them for her classes despite the fact that two veterans with PTSD once ended up hospitalized from a book she forced them to read. Apart from that, her lectures make little sense and it really makes me wonder what this schools standards are. Pathetic.

Mary Corey you've aged too badly to ever be black. Just accept it. You're the whitest person I've met in my life.

If you need a history course take Teo Ruiz before he retires- he is a brilliant professor who fought for his education. Or take Nile Green whose passion is contagious and expertise shines through in his lectures. Or take Geoffrey Robinson whose lectures are more engrossing than any action movie I've ever watched and will make you want to join the peace corps tomorrow.

Well maybe she's here to even things out a little bit because there's still some brilliant minds in this department.

Do not recommend taking this class. You cannot have a professor with a class of over 200 people with no TA's and get upset when students want them to hold more office hours. She is very funny, blunt, and comical during her lectures. She would use at least 10 minutes at the beginning of each lecture to figure out how to use a microphone. Class is very simple, she knows the history of the time period and does not use any slides with the information she gives. The class is 50% midterm paper and 50% final paper. The questions are literally formed to echo chamber what she believes. What if you do not necessarily agree with her views? Well, your grade might suffer. She is getting old and even though she still enjoys being a professor that knows a lot about US History, its either time to get people (TA's) to help her or its time to throw in the towel.

I really enjoyed Mary's class. She is an old school type of professor and does not use slides. Instead she uses pure lecture to get the material across. She's been around UCLA since the 60s and has a lot of interesting tidbits about her time here as it relates to U.S. History, e.g. her meeting Malcolm X at Ackerman in the early 60s. She is also hilarious. She does not care about trigger warnings and it is the first thing she says at the beginning of her class. The class was pretty straight forward. There was one take home midterm and one final. They were composed of three mini-essays: 8 pages (minimum) total for both the midterm and final. Listen, if you are offended by her language the problem lies with you. This is college, get over it. I love the fact that she doesn't tailor the lecture to the soft-snowflake crowd. And I say this as someone who's liberal, which she is as well but acknowledges other points of view, too.

The books are all available on reserve at the library. You are also expected to show up to office hours twice and one midterm and one final review session: that makes up your participation grade. The TAs are pretty helpful in that they give you a rubric on how to write a good paper.

Mary Corey is the Liberal Colleen Donaghy from 30 Rock

I loved this class. Content was always fascinating, but you NEED to go to almost every single lecture or you will be screwed for the midterm/final. 50% midterm, 50% final, both are take-home multi-question papers. They are pretty much a regurgitation of the points she makes during lecture so if you don't agree with her on some things and don't want to cater to that, this might not be for you. Her TA grades pretty harshly so you need to be a strong writer to take this course.

Quite literally one of the most enlightening and hilarious classes I've taken in my history as a student. I saw her previous reviews and gathered that I might conflict with her views, but on day one that quickly changed. She's very progressive and enjoys retelling history through a critical lens, critical of systemic malpractice. I really liked learning about our history from that perspective because we often don't get to learn about certain events or the truth about our political figures. That being said, her midterm and final are the same format, required prompt 2 pages (book or documentary related), part a. and part b. 3-4 pages each. The final was a bit tougher to complete, but also allows for a lot of creativity if you're up to it. Overall, a great class and wish I could be her best friend low key.

Corey teaches largely through generalizations and anecdotes, which is challenging to academic notions of a serious study of the subject. However, her tests, though slightly eccentric in setup, are thoroughly approachable even with poor lecture attendance and a skimmed reading of the textbook.

Overall, the class was excellent. However, during lectures, the professor would occasionally jump around from topic to topic, and the prompts for the midterm and final exams were disorganized and even difficult to understand.

Just note that you are required (you're grade depends on it) to attend 3 (1 hour) TA office hours, 2 (1 hour) midterm and final review sessions, and 1 (1 hour) writing workshop, including lecture. The class spends the first 2 weeks talking about the post war era, and then 5 weeks discussing the '60s. You'll get one (very brief) lecture on: Nixon/the '70s and one lecture on Rondal Reagan/ the '80s. Midterm and final are both 10 page essays. If you're interested in modern American history sans the '60s, then this class isn't for you.

Do what I didn't do. Save your time and energy. Take Professor Aron if you need a GE requirement for US history.