I really liked Professor Nasiali and her class. This was my first class with her and I took a different class with her again after this class as well. This isn't an easy A but she is a very helpful professor and the class was interesting. This was an online class due to covid and it was structured as a hybrid class. She posted recorded lectures every week (they weren't too long and very engaging with powerpoint slides). It was pretty easy to follow along with her lectures and pay attention. Then on Thursday mornings we would have a zoom discussion about the assigned reading for that week (and she also used that time to talk about the midterm/final and for people to ask questions). You do get graded on participation and you should try to participate on Thursdays but on her syllabus it said if you could not make to to the Thursday discussions to email her and she could work something out for you to still be able to get a good participation grade. The readings were pretty long and dense but usually interesting. The midterm and final were both papers (I think the midterm was 5-6 pages and the final was 7-8) and you had to use the readings and lectures to answer the question. She does grade them kinda tough but if you go to office hours before they are due she will definitely help you form ideas. She really likes it when your writing is polished and likes it when you revise your essay a lot. There was also a project that was due toward the end of the quarter and you had to submit a paragraph about your project topic at the beginning of the quarter. The project was on a product (such as chocolate or soap) and you had to research its colonial history (find outside sources) and then either make a blog post or a podcast about it.

Professor Nasiali is by far my favorite teacher at UCLA! Her midterms and finals were both take-home papers, which relieved a lot of the stress of them being in-class, and as long as you attended class, it would be difficult to do poorly. She is extremely engaging and I truly looked forward to attending her class each week. The readings are not overwhelming for the class, and although a couple of them were a bit difficult to understand, as long as you get the gist of them, you'll do just fine.