Took this class remotely to fulfill a GE requirement. Overall, workload is pretty light: 1 midterm (3 essay questions), final (3 essay questions), a few short quizzes, and 2 event reviews (basically entails you reviewing some sort of artistic/media event). He also offered extra credit on the final by giving us the option of answering one additional essay question. Discussion section is mandatory with the exception of two sessions.

Dr. Lunenfeld is very kind and strove to create a comfortable learning environment for his students. We were encouraged to come to OH once a week to ask questions or have discussions regarding course material and relavent topics. My TA Don Edler was also very helpful, and he created a space where students were comfortable sharing their opinions. Lectures were a bit dry, but overall this was a fairly easy GE to take remotely. While it is a history class, I did feel most of the material concerned topics still relevant today, including issues surrounding race/sexuality/gender.

TAKE THIS CLASS! Professor Lunenfeld is by far one of the sweetest professors I've ever had and he is so passionate about Media History. At first I was skeptical to take it bc I know history classes can sometimes be super heavy on the workload but this class wasn't at all. IT WAS SO EASY! Each week there was a super short multiple-choice quiz about the lecture material and the answers were literally in the slides so you can easily get a 100% on them if you download the slides. And the questions were super simple, nothing that was conceptual. He offers extra credit that's worth 5% and you get 10% just for showing up to discussion. We had one midterm and final paper that were each 1,750 words and it was super simple. It wasn't one long paper, each paper had a set of questions that you answered in under 500 words or something like that so it was very doable and I always did them the day they were due. The class content is super interesting because it talked a lot about pop culture, history of cameras and other media inventions, famous actors/actresses, and famous movies and tv shows. I never did any of the readings and had no difficulty writing the papers. Also he's overall a funny guy that actually cares about his students.

This class was easily the biggest joke I've ever laughed through at UCLA. I went to every single lecture and can say with pure honesty that I haven't learned a single thing. I was disappointed; as a Cinema/Media studies student, I was extremely excited about the class, but it was an utter waste of 3 hours per week.

I will say one thing: they go on and on about how crucial the readings are to pass; I didn't read a single page (I literally did not open any of the books or even glance at the online readings) and yet finished the class with a B+. If you want a ridiculous(ly easy) GE class where all you have to do is show up and sign your name on an attendance sheet, maybe take a few basic notes while silently giggling at the fact that this professor sounds like Stewie Griffin, and write the essays the night before they're do, then DesMA 8 is the class for you!

I would HIGHLY recommend this class for a GE. There is no discussion for this class. There is a three hour lecture once a week. You must check in but most people leave after they have checked in. His lectures are semi-interesting, but you can get the notes online. There is one assignment, 2 reviews on different lectures, a 1500 word paper for the midterm and a 2000 word paper for the final. The grading is VERY fair. This class is actually very interesting. Lunenfeld is a great professor, I really enjoyed his class.

If you are looking for a GE course that doesn't require much time in terms of attendance, this is the right class, because most people I know leave the class after signing up. However, if you are really interested in learning more about media history, I am afraid that from this class I learned least. Maybe it's because of the three-hour lecture in a dark and huge auditorium or maybe it's because of Prof. Lunenfeld's voice(which sounds very tired) and his lecture(which is very dry), I almost never managed to stay focused and took down any useful notes apart from copying his slide which he would post online(FYI, I am the kind of person who usually ends up with three pages or more notes after an one-hour lecture). No doubt Prof. Lunenfeld is really knowledgeable in this field and has made great preparation beforehand as his slides are usually neat and contain lots of information. However, I am afraid that he is simply not a good lecturer. I feel like he has put too many dense texts on his slides that he ends up spending a lot of time reading them without explaining much. Thus, I feel like I learnt most from reading his assigned reading and his notes by my self although I swear I went to every one of his lectures and at least tried very hard to stay focused. Sometimes, I feel he doesn't seem to care much about us, as his audience, because most of the time he is either looking down at his laptop reading sth. or staring blankly at an audience of absent-minded, shoe-shopping, facebooking students. The only interaction with the audience he invites and gets is "a quick show of hands." Sometimes I feel sorry for him because almost the only persons responding are his two TAs. In addition,he assigned tremendously dense and too much reading which he doesn't even cover much in class. Without a discussion session, the incentive to read is ever less. However, when you get the take-home midterm prompt, that's when you start to regret not keeping up with the readings cuz it asks you to reference, if I am not mistaken, five readings in each answer. Lastly, I don't really like his grading plan. You feel like you've written way too much for a GE class..... BTW, just a word of warning, this media history class satisfies SOCIAL ANALYSIS requirement which is really weird. I sincerely regret taking this class partly because of that.

I hate his phrasing in finals. Dont make much sense to me even if I've been attending all his lectures, managing to take a fair amount of notes, and keeping up with most of the reading he assigned. I am seriously thinking about dropping this class in tenth week after getting 4 A-s in the previous assignments. His take-home final gets in my way of studying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He seriously cares about his students and if you go to his office hours, he is really willing to help you in his class to understand his material and even help you with midterms. With that being said, this class is completely graded based on the teaching assistant, and you can't choose since it's based on your last names. The two papers (midterm and final) are fairly easy however the TA's give you no comments for your grade and it basically seems like an arbitrary grade.

Class grading:
2 quizzes (1 is dropped) - 5%
1 midterm- 30%
Paper about photography-15%
2 Reviews- 10% (5% each)
Final- 40%

Lunenfeld is a great guy, but never take DESMA 8 unless you want to waste 3 hours a week stuck in a lecture room listening about bullshit media history that makes absolutely no sense and is useless. Literally 90% of the students are at lectures because of mandatory attendance and do something else (e.g. working on their homework, watching movies on their laptops) in class. Plus your grade basically depends on which TA you get (which you don't even get to choose) and some kids work really hard on the assignments and end up with B or B+ while some get straight As from their TAs who don't even read their students' works. NEVER, NEVER TAKE THIS CLASS. Enrolling in this class is the worst decision that I made in my life so far.

The good thing about this class is that its only one three hour lecture per week, with no discussions. Most people leave after attendance is taken during the break. And you can do well in the class without paying attention at all during lecture. Your entire grade is based on whether your TA likes your writing.

Lunenfeld doesn't even care that most of the audience isn't paying attention. The class is used for promoting his book about stuff that nobody cares about. You can't google any of the topics because he made them up and gives them vague and arbitrary definitions in his book.

The photo assignment and reviews barely take any effort. You only have to read the readings once: when the professor tells you that there's a quiz the next week.

Although this class requires minimal effort, your grade is entirely dependent on whether your TA likes your writing. My friends who got the best grades were the ones who bullshitted their essays the night before. If you're good at that, this class should be an easy A for you.

After reading all of the previous reviews I still decided to take the class because of the fact that it had no discussion and a lot of people were getting A's. While that is true, you have to think about what you want. If you don't want to think about the class and want a lot of free time during the lecture to do other work, then it's probably worth it. This year it was 2 classes for an hour and 20 minutes . However, you have to understand that once finals roll around, you will be completely and utterly unprepared. The final is a take home final, featuring 3 short papers, which doesn't sound that bad. No. Wrong. You have to use quotes from all the readings that you will undoubtably not do, and the prompts are complicated, theoretical, and make little sense- much like Lunenfeld's teaching style. Most of the assignments in this class will have you thinking: why am I doing this. Also, the majority of the information is made up by Lunenfeld himself, along with the readings which are mostly written by him. If you actually want to learn something, this class is a bad idea. But if you are the type of person (which a lot of us are) who thinks a quarter of doing nothing is worth being completely and utterly lost for the final, then it's worth it. Also, your grade depends on your TA, so if you have a bitchy TA then you're screwed. If you have a nice TA, the class is a cake walk and you don't have to worry about the fact that nothing you write makes sense.