Hi, I'm going to be going on an IN-DEPTH review of this course from the perspective of a student who is definitely a procrastinator and isn't very fond of reading, but arguably a decent test taker. If this sums you up, or hits even close to home, I would read this for an idea of whether or not you want to take this class. Also I took this course Fall of 2019, if that matters.

LECTURE:
First off, the professor says the lectures are mandatory, but she doesn't keep track so it's fine if you don't go to lecture. Most of her lectures are just her reading off the slide and is definitely not super useful for the only test in her class, the Final. Plus she BRUINCASTS all of her lectures, so bonus motivation to not go to lecture. By about week 3, half of the students stop attending lecture lol.

TA:
TAs are basically a massive chunk of your grade, so hopefully you get a good one. I had Erika Yagi, who was honestly amazing. If you do get a choice, I definitely do recommend her. I got lucky since our first TA dropped the course, so we got her.

DISCUSSION SECTIONS:
Discussion sections are a MUST as attendance is basically 10% of your overall course grade.

PAPERS:
There are 3 papers (Maybe 4 if you are unlucky). There are 2 response papers usually regarding books and movies you are SUPPOSED to read/ watch. PERSONALLY, I think you can get away with just reading sparknotes/ summaries of the book, because the prompts are usually based on broader themes and interrelations between multiple pieces of literature.
The only book I read was Maus I, which was a comic, and definitely an enjoyable short read.
The third paper is a memoir on a book by a specific Holocaust survivor, assigned by the professor. For this one I would recommend reading the book as I was unable to find any summaries online. However, based on your writing capabilities I would say you can still get by as I got a 100 on the paper by simply reading like 5 reviews about it (which was all that available lol)
AND if you ARE UNLUCKY, there is supposed to be a project which the TAs get to decide how it is going to work. It was supposed to be a paper for us, but the TAs changed it to a group presentation which definitely was much easier.

ALSO, The Prompts for the Essays don't come out till like week 7. So it's not like you can get ahead. The first one comes out in around week 7, the other two come out around Week 8/9.

BOOKS:
The books are marked Required, but honestly, just read the summaries if you are an above average writer. You should be fine. But otherwise, the books are necessary to do well on the final, so weigh your strengths (and how hard your TA grades too).

The book for the memoir is one I recommend you buy because there aren't any summaries online, at least for the book I had (All The Things I Never Told My Father)

MOVIES:
There are a good number of movies to watch, which are part of the final. They are PROVIDED on CCLE. Some of them are very interesting, while others not so much. Personally my favorite was Schindler's List by far. Rosenstrasse comes a close second. 1945 was also not too shabby if I remember correctly.

Triumph of the Will is very boring and is basically an hour long propaganda with almost no commentary. Shoah is by far the work, I couldn't even get through the first part of it (I believe there is 4?) It is a 9 hour long DOCUMENTARY.

MIDTERM:
There was no midterm for us. So YAY!

FINAL:
Honestly the single most hardest aspect of this class. The final single-handedly is the reason I did not get an A in this class because it dropped me practically 9.5% on its own, which effectively dropped me to the border between A- and B+. There is two long essay questions, you pick one to answer. Ten Paragraph length question, you pick 9 to answer. 5 One sentence answers, you do all. There are 2 Extra Credit questions, but they are VERY VERY Specific topic that I'm not even sure the professor goes over. Also not worth many points.
The questions are all analytical and require you to connect readings/movies throughout the course, as well as ideas covered in lecture/slides. There are some specific people you need to know about to a good degree. But again, the single most difficult aspect that keeps this course from being an "Easy A" class.

STUDY GUIDE: Yes. Provided a week before finals.

EXTRA CREDIT:
Yes. Upto 3% of your total class grade based on multiple different things you have to do.

GRADED ON A CURVE? No :( I know, I'm sad too.

PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION: ...yes? I mean workload-wise it was very easy. I'm not sure if I could've got more than A- though had I put in more effort. You weigh your ability based on how much you know yourself.

Hope this helped and that I covered all the necessary information regarding the course. Good luck to those who choose to take the course. ##

Professor Fuchs: A little bit condescending but honestly pretty fun. If you're taking German 5, you probably have about 10 people in your class which is a fun experience. Professor Fuchs won't make you learn German if you don't want to, but she'll help if you do. Recommend this class bc I had a good time and I spent a decent amount of time on it but you don't really have to if you don't want to

Easy class but won't noticeably improve your language skills as much as other profs in department. Would only recommend if taking for minor/major req, if looking to further language self study or waiting for different prof may be more efficient.

Took German 1,2,3 and Prof Fuchs was my least favourite teacher. You will still learn a lot and she is nice and encouraging but often did not understand exactly what the students were asking about before answering their questions. Which was very important when it comes to all the details concerning german grammar. The other teachers I took german language classes with, who were grad students in UCLA , took extra care in understanding what the students were asking. Difficulty of german classes are standardized across classes so i would recommend you to take another professor if possible.

Took German 1,2,3 and Prof Fuchs was my least favourite teacher. You will still learn a lot and she is nice and encouraging but often did not understand exactly what the students were asking about before answering their questions. Which was very important when it comes to all the details concerning german grammar. The other teachers I took german language classes with, who were grad students in UCLA , took extra care in understanding what the students were asking. Difficulty of german classes are standardized across classes so i would recommend you to take another professor if possible.

Lecture: Professor Fuchs was not the best lecturer. She was often very monotone and stuttered a lot. Her lectures were often just her going through powerpoints. Each slide had paragraphs of notes and she would go through it in just a minute or two, which made taking notes difficult. She would upload the slides and the audio of each lecture onto CCLE, causing many students to just stop attending the lecture. I also noticed that the organization of the lectures seemed to be a bit all over the place. I understand that it is hard to organize things since the topic is a big web of intertwining parts. However, I do believe that there had to have been a better way to organize things had it been more thought out.
Assignments/Exams: For this class, there were 4 papers and a final exam. One paper was a small research paper. The other 3 papers were based on the readings and films for the class. Overall they were pretty simple and straightforward. My advice is to avoid procrastination at all costs because this class didn't give many reminders about due dates. It was up to you to do your readings for the papers and get the paper done before its due date. The final exam was also very straightforward. A week before we were given a study guide and as long as you filled it out and studied it well, you were prepared for the final.
Discussion: Discussion section was very simple. There was a lot of discussions and breaking off into groups. Each week we had to provide 2 observations/questions from the lectures of the week. There isn't much else to say other than attendance was also factored into the section.
Content: The readings and films in this class were very very interesting. Some of the films were very old and slow, but they were all very important to the class. Make sure to stay on top of them!
Overall: The content of the class was amazing. I truly learned a lot from this class. However, if you could choose another professor, I would recommend doing that. This class wasn't terrible, but I have heard that it is more enjoyable with other professors.

I actually really enjoyed this class. The reading took a while, but there was very little required work and the material was interesting.

Lectures consisted of her just reading off the slides; really boring and tbh I fell asleep every lecture for a good 10-20 mins at least. She uploads the slides to CCLE so you don't even actually have to attend lecture. Slides were also a bit disorganized at times. Workload wasn't bad; one group project (20% of grade), two 4-pg papers on the assigned readings/films but w/multiple prompts (20%), and one 3-pg response paper on a memoir (10%). No midterm, final (40%) was a 1-pg essay and like 10 short response questions; just study the study guide and you'll be fine, it's pretty straight forward. She offers a good amount of extra credit too. The books were really interesting and so were the films, but I only watched like one of them all the way through, so I'd say watching them all isn't necessary, especially when she goes over the key ideas in her slides. Also don't bother doing the readings on the syllabus that aren't the required books; way too much to go through and totally unnecessary.

To sum it up, lectures were really boring but she posts the slides, and the work itself was pretty easy; easy GE overall.

There is very little work for this class other than the articles, books, and films that should be read & watched when assigned. However, I found that you don't really have to read/watch them as she goes over them in class so I did very little work for this class. All lectures are bruincasted and she posts the slides online so it's not really necessary to go to lecture, but discussions do take attendance. There was one group project, 3 papers, no midterm, and a simple final which she provides a study guide for (it was relatively straight forward). I found her lectures to be very boring and unorganized but it was an easy GE overall.

Professor Fuchs is very interested in the subject and you can tell she likes to teach about it , just the form she does so can get a tad boring and drawn out . Lectures aren’t mandatory as everything is posted online & workload is easy going . I stopped attending after week 4 and the final was still really easy as a study guide is given . Discussion mandatory . Overall grade was an A+