Professor
Melissa Sharpe
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - So I actually wanted to write my first review for any class I have taken in my four years here since I just feel like people won't trust some Bruinwalk reviews because the reasoning behind a review could have been just because a student didn't receive the grade they hoped for entering in. I got an A in this class but the amount of studying and honestly unnecessary tactics to get that grade felt like it wasn't me showing that I learned something from this class at the end of the day. Taking this class felt like I was just trying to avoid all the stupid obstacles she placed on her tests just to get by. I want to attest that everything that is said in the 20+ reviews is all true (except for the positive review). Her fault as a teacher is being very ingenuine and superficial in the way she says she is "helping" or "concerned" about students. This was largely seen on the second exam where she made a remark in a lecture saying that she was surprised that students in her office hours knew so much of the material that was covered in the second exam. That wasn't because the majority of students who complained didn't study well or not understand the material. She was blind to the fact that there could be a fault in the way she was testing the concepts. It felt like she couldn't be at fault, especially when she kept uttering that the average of the second test was higher than the first as a claim to support herself in justifying the test. While grades do matter for people's GPAs, that's not a reason to say that your tests are actually good in any sense. The amount of ambiguity and the number of questions from previous exam materials on the tests made it so hard for absolutely no reason (for somehow ensuring that student learning is " priority #1"). If a test was supposed to test you on integral concepts that were covered in the exam's lectures, then how is it justifiable that testing previous material and creating weird application questions is a good measure of student learning? My final remark is just the language and unprofessionalism she displayed in the emails she would send to the class. Students who get angry will make comments on forums or emails that will not be as professional as they ideally should be (especially during unprecedented events like the coronavirus), but that doesn't mean that the professor should reciprocate that same level of unprofessionality in her replies. When she tweeted things about her students being entitled (and the appropriate effect of students reporting this to the Deans), her language thereafter completely showed disregard to the level where her twitter apology was forced, her emails about exams showed an unprecedented level of passive-aggressiveness I had ever seen from any professor, and finally the total disregard for student's situations by saying that it's "good for student learning" to not adhere what Academic Senate suggested about finals in the wake of the coronavirus. She always backed her statements saying that the averages of the class were good just to show the impression to the department that she ran an effective class. Numbers don't lie, but in this case, they really do and these reviews don't lie at all. I don't think most students in the class were able to learn having to deal with an obstacle known as this professor to have to prove that their studying felt worth it to try to succeed in class. I may have gotten the grade I got but I did look forward to this class and its material when I first enrolled. It really left a bitter taste that this was the way this whole class (and one of my last classes at UCLA) was handled. Shoutout to TA Nancy and Mary though. They carried the team on their back in making sense of a lot of the concepts in class and actually being really nice and approachable. Even when a question in one of the section quizzes seemed to trip a lot of students, Nancy really tried to understand the students to help understand a quiz question. It's a sad thought that the TAs were much more successful in being better teachers than the actual professor of the class.
Winter 2020 - So I actually wanted to write my first review for any class I have taken in my four years here since I just feel like people won't trust some Bruinwalk reviews because the reasoning behind a review could have been just because a student didn't receive the grade they hoped for entering in. I got an A in this class but the amount of studying and honestly unnecessary tactics to get that grade felt like it wasn't me showing that I learned something from this class at the end of the day. Taking this class felt like I was just trying to avoid all the stupid obstacles she placed on her tests just to get by. I want to attest that everything that is said in the 20+ reviews is all true (except for the positive review). Her fault as a teacher is being very ingenuine and superficial in the way she says she is "helping" or "concerned" about students. This was largely seen on the second exam where she made a remark in a lecture saying that she was surprised that students in her office hours knew so much of the material that was covered in the second exam. That wasn't because the majority of students who complained didn't study well or not understand the material. She was blind to the fact that there could be a fault in the way she was testing the concepts. It felt like she couldn't be at fault, especially when she kept uttering that the average of the second test was higher than the first as a claim to support herself in justifying the test. While grades do matter for people's GPAs, that's not a reason to say that your tests are actually good in any sense. The amount of ambiguity and the number of questions from previous exam materials on the tests made it so hard for absolutely no reason (for somehow ensuring that student learning is " priority #1"). If a test was supposed to test you on integral concepts that were covered in the exam's lectures, then how is it justifiable that testing previous material and creating weird application questions is a good measure of student learning? My final remark is just the language and unprofessionalism she displayed in the emails she would send to the class. Students who get angry will make comments on forums or emails that will not be as professional as they ideally should be (especially during unprecedented events like the coronavirus), but that doesn't mean that the professor should reciprocate that same level of unprofessionality in her replies. When she tweeted things about her students being entitled (and the appropriate effect of students reporting this to the Deans), her language thereafter completely showed disregard to the level where her twitter apology was forced, her emails about exams showed an unprecedented level of passive-aggressiveness I had ever seen from any professor, and finally the total disregard for student's situations by saying that it's "good for student learning" to not adhere what Academic Senate suggested about finals in the wake of the coronavirus. She always backed her statements saying that the averages of the class were good just to show the impression to the department that she ran an effective class. Numbers don't lie, but in this case, they really do and these reviews don't lie at all. I don't think most students in the class were able to learn having to deal with an obstacle known as this professor to have to prove that their studying felt worth it to try to succeed in class. I may have gotten the grade I got but I did look forward to this class and its material when I first enrolled. It really left a bitter taste that this was the way this whole class (and one of my last classes at UCLA) was handled. Shoutout to TA Nancy and Mary though. They carried the team on their back in making sense of a lot of the concepts in class and actually being really nice and approachable. Even when a question in one of the section quizzes seemed to trip a lot of students, Nancy really tried to understand the students to help understand a quiz question. It's a sad thought that the TAs were much more successful in being better teachers than the actual professor of the class.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Professor Sharpe was very kind. She really put effort into her lectures and made the information we're learning very interesting. The course was made up of Quizzes that were 40%, and commentary 1 (20%), and commentary 2 (40%). The quizzes were based on lectures and were easy if you paid attention in class. She dropped the lowest of 5. I got 5/5 on all of them except 1. The only issue I had w/ this class was getting through the papers. They were dense and hard to read. But she really breaks them down in lecture. The commentaries were 2 pages each, and she gives you pointers on how to write them. You can even be a little creative w/ it (she wants you to).
Fall 2020 - Professor Sharpe was very kind. She really put effort into her lectures and made the information we're learning very interesting. The course was made up of Quizzes that were 40%, and commentary 1 (20%), and commentary 2 (40%). The quizzes were based on lectures and were easy if you paid attention in class. She dropped the lowest of 5. I got 5/5 on all of them except 1. The only issue I had w/ this class was getting through the papers. They were dense and hard to read. But she really breaks them down in lecture. The commentaries were 2 pages each, and she gives you pointers on how to write them. You can even be a little creative w/ it (she wants you to).
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