Theory classes are inherently dry but I thought this was relatively painless. Section points were easy to get (you have to answer homework questions, but my TA and Prof Emigh the day she filled in for him both just scrolled through it without even reading it). For the midterm, I just memorized key points for each author and did well; I would recommend reading the short extra credit articles for easy extra credit on the test too. Emigh rescheduled the final due to the fires at the end of the year and I opted to skip it and take my midterm score, so the class ended up being even easier but obviously that's an extreme circumstance. My main complaint is that slides aren't posted, so you'll want to make friends with someone who can send you notes if you're absent. Overall a fine option for Soc 102.

She is a paranoid professor who is not gifted at teaching. I didn't learn much and would not recommend her to anyone else I genuinely care about.

I hold nothing against the professor, she is a nice lady but just know that I will never ever take a class with this professor. There was a ton of readings assigned (too much for me to keep up) and I felt like I wasn't learning anything in her class so i switched my grade type to pass/no pass to protect my G.P.A.

First thing is that she uses an overhead to write her notes. It is 2015 and she refuses to post notes online and writes in scrawled handwriting as she jumps back and forth between overhead sheets. If you pay attention in class you are still behind because she doesn't really elaborate on concepts.

She is a smart professor and you can tell she knows her stuff, but it takes another to teach it. I think the most common word used between my discussion section was "disorganized". A jumble of thoughts, theories, and stories are convoluted into one class and it is hard to decipher what to listen for.

Discussion sections really helped, although every week without fail the TAs failed to cover all the material. There is no review sheet, no review session, except for the last 15 minutes of the previous lecture to answer any current questions.

My advice is to do all the readings as the midterm and final are based a lot of the concepts in them and not lecture. Skim them all, as there is no way to read everything and choose one sentence you can quote. Know your theorists.

My REAL advice is to wait for another professor who is more direct and organized like Jepson to take this course.

As a soc major, this was my hardest class at UCLA. Emigh is a nice lady, but extremely neurotic and paranoid. She's absolutely paranoid that all students are cheaters. This seems to run pretty deep because during exams, everyone in the lecture hall has to place EVERYTHING in the front of the room (backpacks, jackets, phones, EVERYTHING)before the testing begins. You must also sign in BEFORE you take the test, and sign out AFTERWARDS. This is so over-kill, and honestly, it doesnt feel very good to know that your professor has such little faith and trust in you. It sucks. Still, you are allowed to have several pages of notes, which is weird because she makes you put everything in the front of the room. On top of all these precautions, she has the TAs walk up and down the aisles like hawks looking for the slightest evidence of cheating. Her fear of cheaters is so great that all of these precautions she takes actually ENCOURAGES cheating. For example, during our final, at the beginning of the class, some dude actually came into the room and STOLE her final exam and ran out! Her TAs were sprinting after the guy like the county sheriffs. Again, I believe its a manifestation of her paranoia and mistrust, because I've never seen anything like that. I felt so mistrusted by this professor that I can seriously understand WHY someone would pull such a stunt.
If her mistrust of students isnt bad enough, her exams are among the MOST difficult I've encountered at UCLA, and thats coming from an A student. There's ALOT of content and a VERY short amount of time to complete her exams. You have to REALLY be good at writing as well as psychic, because she knows exactly what kind of answer she's looking for and if its not worded in the correct way, it will be marked off. SHE thinks her exams are very straightforward (because she already knows the freakin answer), but they are not.
Readings of contemporary theorists are interesting, but still very difficult to wrap your mind around.
Theory classes are hard enough, but Emigh really takes the cake. She teaches and grades as if it were a graduate-level class. Challenging is fine (after all, this IS UCLA), but Emigh just really goes the extra mile to be as difficult as possible, and she simply isnt very fair. Again, she's a pleasant person, but she makes an already hard class nearly impossible to excel in. I would never take another of her classes. So unrewarding, despite the difficult readings and excessive studying that this course requires.

TA's were told to grade extremely hard in order to fit the students along a designated grade distribution. The material is dry. I think Emigh was pretty amusing, quirky and neurotic, which made the class a little more tolerable. She tended to scream with excitement (literally) when she told jokes. I think the grading method was a little unfair. She basically gave us 1:15 minutes to write 4 essays (each having around 5 sub-questions) that each should be around 2-3 pages long. It was open book and she wanted us to use examples from the readings. I think this does not really test us on our knowledge of the material, but rather a person's ability to take tests, organize their notes, and writes REALLY fast. During midterms, I can cut the tension with a knife. Everyone struggled to fit enough material in.

I got a C- on the midterm, but since I did well on the final, I got a B+. I think this is her way to force students to try super hard by scaring the crap out of them during midterms by grading a little harder... then give them a fairer grade for finals. If you do well on the finals, your grade is your final's grade.