What can I say? Mehdizadeh is awesome! She presents engaging topics during class and just let's the students really discuss and flesh them out. She provided us with topics before class and made us turn in a 250-word reflection journal on the topic, allowing us to get some thoughts stirring before we came in to discuss. The workload was kind of heavy, but it never felt like work for me. Don't take this class if you can't adapt to new ideas or respectfully debate with your peers, as that's the entire premise of this course.

Professor Mehdizadeh is definitely one of the most helpful professors I have had at UCLA, and she definitely shows that she cares more about student learning than assigning grades. She is willing to help you with literally anything about writing (and helping you emotionally when you are absolutely freaking out about writing, haha). While she is really empathetic and uplifting, she is always absolutely honest with her opinions and has HIGH expectations for her students and heightens those expectations over the course of the quarter.

Another word of warning, the workload, as many reviewers suggest below, is intense. While the workload is generally consistent throughout the quarter, the first two weeks are the most difficult since you are getting used to her assignments and the amount of work she assigns. A few of my classmates and I definitely spent three-four hours every other day doing homework for the class because there is a bit of a learning curve to the assignments. Despite the workload and readings, you never feel like you're necessarily wasting your time because you definitely improve as a result.

I'd definitely recommend Professor Mehdizadeh's class! While the class is undoubtedly tough, you learn quite a bit, and even though I was stressed out for a lot of my quarter with her class, I wouldn't have it any other way.

She's a really amazing professor. She actually wants you to learn and I feel in one quarter she managed to improve my writing a lot. There is a lot of work in this class with weekly submissions; however it is worth it and she is also considerably lenient on grading as long as you do your work regularly. Strongly recommend taking this class

I recommend this class. :)

Not only is Mehdizadeh a mediocre English professor at best, but she is also a terrible human being. Extremely unhelpful and, lacks a single compassionate bone in her body I sincerely hope she does not have kids, and if she does I feel extremely bad for them. Class isn't necessarily difficult and the workload isn't excessive but having to see such a condescending professor twice a week takes a toll on you in itself.

Dr. Mehdizadeh was amazing! She was accommodating and always available for writing help. Just be aware that it is a writing II class so you do have short like 400 word journal entries due about twice a week on the readings. This quarter's theme was love and Dr. Mehdizadeh chose a variety of interesting texts that we had to use in a final essay. Would hundred percent recommend taking her!

Good class to take as a first-year for a G.E.. Very similar to high-level high school English classes but Dr. Mehdizadeh is engaging and good enough that it doesn't feel like a total waste of time. You will build good skills for writing that will help you throughout many different classes. The diversity aspect promotes interesting conversations without seeming shoe-horned in or overly forced. The weekly posts can be long, as you often have to read many articles and create lengthy posts. But if you stay on top of it, you should be good and you should have enough time to work on them.

Dr. Mehdizadeh is a great teacher. She is willing to help you and if you follow the instructions and complete all your work putting enough effort, then you should not have much difficulty getting an A in this class. You have two assignments per week which I thought wasn't bad at all but If you are not a strong advocate for social justice, some of the readings might feel boring. I personally don't think I was compatible with her but I still recommend people to take this class because everything was reasonable in terms of difficulty, workload and content.

Super kind professor! The class is easy and engaging, with grades based entirely on weekly assignments due before each class (Monday & Wednesday) and one final essay (no midterm). She cancels class in weeks 5 and 10, giving students time to study for midterms and finals. Instead, she holds 20 minute one-on-one Zoom checkins. During the week 10 check-in, she reviews your final essay, which is the only essay required for the class.

Grade Breakdown:
Community Engagement 20 points

Peer Review 10 points

Weekly Homework 45 points

Final Project 25 points

Community engagement: Rather than provide guidelines for “participation” or “attendance,” this class centers on a Community Engagement framework. For more information about Community Engagement, please visit the “Course Resources” module in Bruin Learn and read the document “Community Engagement,” which outlines best practices for being an engaged member of a learning community.

I love professor Mehdizadeh. She is pretty nice in grading and holding all the in-class discussions. The only problem is that the homework (weekly post) workload is somehow heavy. However, I would say as long as you put enough effort into this class (do all the homework, get engaged...) it is very likely that you can get an easy A.