Nick Shapiro is a KING. Take any and every class you can with him. He cares a lot about student learning and makes lectures interesting. Honestly, I wasn't a *huge* fan of the curriculum of this course as I thought it sometimes went completely over my head, but I really loved all of his lectures. He did a great job of keeping the course flexible, accommodating, and engaging during virtual learning.

Shapiro is a very easygoing and understanding professor, I would absolutely recommend him! The course involved:
- 15%: 2 readings per week, with at least 5 annotations each on Perusall
- 5%: 6 quizzes throughout the quarter, based on lecture (5 questions, very easy)
- 40%: open book, take home midterm and final essays (500 words, 20% each)
- 20%: self selected assignment (basically up to you to do a short presentation/video/paper on a topic related to course ideas)
- 20%: participation in discussion (depending on TA, you could get away with like 1 comment every now and then)
Overall, the workload wasn't too demanding, but the readings could get pretty long. Lectures could be a little dry, but they were still interesting (and podcasted anyway). The essay prompts were a little open ended or vague, but ultimately it was to encourage individual creativity. Lectures ended in week 8 and we just watched presentations/did review for the rest of the quarter. Honestly, a fun time if you simply enjoy what you learn and understand the major ideas.

Dr. Shapiro is such a gem of an instructor and he is incredibly approachable. He is such a great lecturer and has a great way of phrasing and describing some incredibly engaging topics. Participation matters in discussion sections (show up and engage) but this professor clearly wants to help everyone pass and succeed in this course by giving quizzes, reading assignments, and taking questions throughout lecture. He livestreamed zooms which was useful for those who got ill or couldn't show up for class and he posts slides. TA's were also great. If you get the chance, take this professor! I highly recommend him, he's one of the best I have had at UCLA.