This cluster teaches from many different perspectives, which makes the topic of aging much more interesting. However, at times, I feel as though the perspectives weren't easily balanced all the time during the different midterms. The class does involve a lot of assigned reading, but if you attend lectures, they clarify everything you need to know.

This review is for the entire cluster. Honestly, when I was at orientation I was a bit unsure about taking a cluster because all the NSAs were really pushing the cluster program which kinda made me not want to take a cluster. But having taken this class, everyone should take this cluster, ONLY if you are genuinely interested in the course. As a pre-med, the material is very interesting and very applicable to real life. I really enjoy Dr. Hsu's lectures as they are very engaging. The class is a lot is you procrastinate the papers at the end of the quarter-- but overall, workload is not bad for what you are getting out of this. Also, winter quarter you do service learning at a nursing home or senior center which takes up some time but is worth it. Honestly... TAKE THIS CLUSTER! it is not as much work as the others are-- especially the philosophy heavy ones! and I am very glad I took this course. So if you are a freshman at orientation like I was, and if you are interested in learning about aging, then i 100% recommend!

Dr. Hsu is a really great Professor! I thought he did a great job at covering the important and relevant topics of Public Health. He is very engaging, even with the course online this quarter. Dr. Hsu is also very willing to help if you have any questions. The class can be challenging so I wouldn't say its an easy A for everyone, but if you are paying attention you will definitely do fine. He does not use a textbook so as long as you are focused during class and review his slides, you can do great on tests and quizzes. Highly recommend this class!

Do not take this GE unless you're really interested in the subject. I took this course for all 3 quarters and it was the worst time of my life. Although it fulfills a lot of requirements, it was not worth my time and I could have taken other courses that I was actually interested in. Clusters are usually a scam though since they are a lot of work. Textbook is not really needed: I never read it since there are only like 2 questions on the multiple choice part of the test. Also, your TA matters since mine was a harsh grader.

Dr. Hsu is an amazing professor. I genuinely enjoyed every single lecture (which I cannot say for most of my other UCLA classes). He covers a little bit of everything you need to know for a broad understanding of public health. He even included two whole lectures on the coronavirus pandemic which was really cool. We had to watch Contagion as a part of the class which was kinda awesome:) I took it during Spring 2020 so everything was online, but it was still an amazing course. There is one midterm and a final and about 5 quizzes. A lot of people complained about harsh grading because many did really poorly on the quizzes which were weighted a lot. They really brought down people's grades in the class especially if you didn't study the material or take detailed notes. There are two "assignments" which you basically answer about 10-15 questions that are really simple if you took notes during lecture. I didn't take the final because it was optional but the midterm was really straightforward if you studied at least an hour or two and took good notes. I got a 99% and all I did was take detailed notes during lecture and studied for a couple hours. It helps if you're actually interested in the material. I really really enjoyed this class because Dr. Hsu was really knowledgable and had a lot of experiences to share. He was really passionate about the subject which made lecture really fun and engaging. I would highly recommend this class to anyone even slightly interested in public health, you get exposed to a lot. 10/10 recommend!!

This class was fine. It was really easy to understand and follow, but I would say this class has a whole lot of information to memorize. Our midterm/finals were open note in person (mcq + fr questions), so not too bad but still hard. I think the only problem was that the class was like 2 hours and that's a long time. I feel like around 30 minutes, I zoned out. All the professors are super nice and good with communication (Soroosh, Hsu, and Hahm).

My biggest advice to anyone considering taking a cluster is DO NOT do it unless you are extremely interested in the subject matter. For this class, the grade was 2 papers at 5% each, a group presentation at 5%, discussion posts at 5%, attendance at 5%, 2 midterms (open note this quarter) at 25% each, and a 13 page paper at the end of the course at 25%. The TAs are extremely slow graders and you really won't have a good idea of your grade until you actually get it. I'm not dropping the cluster because I'm afraid of how that will look on my transcript and I got an A, but this class is tedious and boring. The professors are ok, I never went to office hours or anything but they were never amazing lecturers or super approachable. They got the job done, though and most of the content made sense to me. I was not close with my TA either but she did a good job reviewing the lectures. I do think that they grade fairly and the exams aren't too bad if you have good notes from lecture and the PDF readings and have skimmed the textbook readings. Also, there are a lot of biology concepts and as a business econ major it felt like I was already expected to know them and I did not. Getting an A shouldn't be too bad if you put in the work and meet the requirements on papers.

The biggest parts of the grade are the exams and the life review, which is a story of the life of an elder + essay connecting their life to an aging concept you learned in class. For exams: ours were open notes and honestly as long as you had a good general understanding of the content and can use ctrl f you would do decent. Life review: make sure you get feedback from previous essays you write for this class and apply those lessons learned to this essay because it was 25% of our grade. I got an A+ on the life review even though I literally spent like a few days on it but DON'T PROCRASTINATE THE ESSAYS FOR THIS CLASS. You get them assigned early, and please do them ASAP! So you can ask for feedback and aren't literally writing them minutes before submitting them. For example, you get the life review assignment more than 5 weeks before it's due. So start working on it asap so you aren't stressed asf because of it. I barely did any of the reading and only a few questions on the exams were about the reading, but you should still do it just in case they add more reading questions on the exams + it's good for deepening your understanding of the class.

Would recommend taking this class if you're interested in the topic! Laidback and chill class. Show up to lecture + discussion and take notes and you're gonna learn by osmosis basically for most of the content. Some of the physiological science parts of the class may be hard if you don't have a background in it. Basically, don't procrastinate on assignments for this class and try to go to all lectures + discussions. There are also socials for this class where you get to know classmates + profs. Was p fun!

Grading Scale:
2 two-page papers - 5% each
life review paper (13 pages max) - 25%
2 exams - 25% each
discussion - 5% attendance & 5% posts
film review - 5%

Class:
I honestly just wanted a cluster and didn’t even pay attention to what the class was about when I enrolled. I was not too thrilled to find out it was about older people. However, this class is fairly interesting, at least more than I thought it was. This quarter was really biology heavy and I have no experience with biology, but I crammed before the test and did fine. It definitely changes your perspective a little on older adults, though I would say that, being in LA, the older adults here are less representative of most older adults that may be on the news or even in our own communities/towns. With that, I will say that this class is politically charged. There is a lot of content on policy and such, which I personally have no problem with. Other more close-minded individuals (ahem someone else in these reviews) have difficulty hearing other perspectives, so keep that in mind when enrolling. Overall, I don’t regret enrolling in this course (but this may weigh heavily on the fact that I did well grade-wise). However, it does mean this class is not difficult to pass if you study!

Workload:
There were two short and easy papers. The first one was less formal (since it had some reflection) so it was very easy. The second was very similar except it was more formal and about policy. These two were spaced out and we were given the assignments early on, so you have a lot of time. The bulk of the life review is an informal biography, and we are given this project early on too so just space out your assignments. Life review we were only given one week, and it was a group project so it was complicated finding times for everyone to work together, but it is graded extremely easily. Exams were online for us, but we had to be in class. They were very fair and not difficult if you studied—however, there are a lot of questions so that you cannot cheat. You are allowed three absences in discussion and must make 5 posts, but you cannot post multiple in a week.

Lectures:
Hsu - Funny guy, interesting content. No complaints with his lectures.

Soroosh - Biology lecturer; lectured the most this quarter. Good at keeping lectures interesting. He can talk very fast at times, and it can be difficult with no biology background. However, if you pay attention and review the slides or pay attention to the lecture summaries in discussion, the material isn’t too bad. He’s also great at answering questions.

Hahm - Social/Policy lecturer; lectured a lot at the end of the quarter. Often very monotone/quiet and does not follow slides as strictly. Material, however, was easy to follow. Again, just a little boring.

Grading:
This class takes foreverrr to grade. When the class ended the only thing in the gradebook were the two papers, life review (which is just graded on presentation and that grading is done on the spot but they still took weeks to upload the scores), and one exam. Everything else was only uploaded like the day before grades were due. For discussions, you can email your TAs to find out if you got full credit for posts. You can also email them for the rubrics from your papers. Exams were graded with a curve for us; for the first exam they took out two questions that were difficult but kept the points for students who got them right. Not sure about the final.

Textbook:
It can be found online, but because the textbook is interactive and the online one is a pdf, sometimes there are sections that can’t be read. However, the exams are not textbook heavy. There are maybe like 5 questions on the textbook. If anything, focus on the lectures and any other required readings that are not the textbook.

Exams:
We had one midterm and one final. However, the final was more like a second midterm (same weight and not cumulative). There were multiple choice, T/F, and short answer. The short answer questions were graded pretty easy.

Extra Credit:
We were given extra credit at the end of the quarter for completing surveys for each lecturer, our TA, and the course. There was also extra credit for answering a google form from the service learning coordinator.

The aging cluster is very interesting, but not the easiest cluster amongst them all. The topics themselves are very science and bio focused with a special focus on aging hence the name. The readings are optional and not super helpful, but the tests are awfully specific, so make sure you take notes in the lectures.