Professor Potts is absolutely amazing and the most passionate professor I've had at UCLA. She confirmed my interest in adding Global Studies as my second major, and I have so much respect for her. The lectures are very organized and engaging, and you can really tell how intelligent and kind she is. I was blown away. The tests are fair because if you study, you can do well. Don't spend too much time on the short response questions because some people felt there wasn't enough time on the essay portion, but Potts compensated for that by adding extra points. The TAs care a lot and provide feedback on your papers, so the key to doing well is by running your ideas through them before writing the whole thing. Your writing should be comprehensive because this is a Global Studies class where most people are good at writing. This is a class where about half get an A/A-, but you can "easily" get an A IF you put in the work to study and write strong papers. Effort is the key, and it is more than fair considering how much Potts and the TAs care about your learning. I wished the slides had more in-depth information, but I think Potts structures it this way to encourage people to come to class and participate. Discussion is mandatory, but they were productive and allowed me to understand the material better. Potts balances empathy and logic very well; she wants to be fair but is also willing to accommodate you. Take this class with an amazing professor!

Professor Potts is great! She doesn't use that many words in her powerpoint but I think that helps her lectures be more engaging because it forces you to listen. Not everything she says is going to be on the tests but a lot of it is. She gives study guides which are just a list of key terms, but if you took good notes in lecture it's not that big of a deal to piece it together. The tests were all free-response. Your TA grades pretty much everything you turn in, so you better hope they like you. Overall, I think the class was great and very interesting and Potts is a great professor for it; I highly recommend taking her class!

Spotts is amazing! Her lectures are very clear. This is obviously a very general class that covers a lot of different concepts, but everything is super relevant and interesting. Tests are relatively easy and paper is also pretty simple. I would recommend recording lectures to go back and listen to everything she says because she does a really good job of summarizing the readings in lecture. Will totally take Spotts again if I have the chance! This women KNOWS.

Overall, this is an excellent class to take. My main complaint is that the grading scale for the papers was not great. A B paper had everything asked for in the rubric, while an A paper would have to go "above and beyond," this made getting an A on an essay assignment unnecessarily tricky. I feel like this class covers a lot of information that some people already know about, Colonialism and global interconnection, but it is still interesting. The tests in this class were straightforward since the professor provided a study guide, and the answers to the questions are off of the slides.

This class is recommended for sophomores because it's supposedly a weeder class for Global Studies, but I didn't find it that challenging and definitely think freshmen should take it to see if Global Studies is a good fit for them. We explored topics like big and little G globalization, neoliberalism, etc. We had two exams, but they were both online and open note with a 48 hour period to complete, so there was a lot of flexibility when it came to that.

We had two assignments, a Structured Film Analysis which gave us the option to watch one of three films and relate it to class concepts by answering questions (not an essay). We had a Structured Article analysis which was honestly SUPER easy and that was essay-style. Discussion was fun, my TA was Steven Ammerman and he's THE BEST TA!! Super friendly and understanding and a very fair grader. We also had weekly discussion posts where we had to come up with a question about the readings.

Professor Potts is amazing! This is honestly a great introduction course to Global Studies and is the right amount of work for a lower-division course. I had Jessica Pena as my TA and both her and Prof. Potts made it such a great experience. The class consists of the following:

Weekly discussion posts (worth 20%)
Film analysis paper (worth 20%)
Exam 1 (worth 20%)
Article response paper (worth 20%)
Exam 2 (worth 20%)

Each of the assignments is evenly spaced out, so I didn't find myself struggling to keep up. Professor Potts' lectures were very captivating. She explained the concepts perfectly and it tied into her PowerPoints well. She doesn't have many words on her slides, but that's okay because you'll understand the vocabulary and concepts nonetheless. Readings were very short with some long ones, but it's definitely not a heavy workload. She was also very accommodating to assignments and lectures: Prof. Potts offered live zoom lectures and posted the recordings up after in case we missed it or wanted to refer back to them. She is also very responsive to her emails and is lenient with accommodations. I had to turn in my film analysis paper late because of external circumstances. She understood my problems and granted me the extra time. I'm really thankful for that.

I'll admit, the papers are somewhat harshly graded. So definitely check in with Prof. Potts and your TA about the context of your paper (or even an initial review of what you've written). Both Prof. Potts and her TAs offer office hours, which I recommend going to for any clarification or discussion on the class material. The subject is really easy to understand as long as you keep up with the assignments and material.

Discussions were in person this quarter, which I highly recommend you go to. Jessica (my TA) was super helpful and accommodating, and offered an alternative assignment if I missed a discussion section. You could either go to her office hours and discuss the readings or write a 500 word paper on the readings. I found both options pretty easy and fair. Jessica is also very sweet and wants the best for her students! I definitely recommend her!

The class overall is a great introduction to globalization. I took it in order to apply for a Global Studies minor, which I definitely am still going to do! Professor Potts and her TAs make it such a great class. They're all very nice and helpful.

Aside from the weekly discussion post (that were graded on completion I believe), there was a film analysis paper, 2 exams and an article response paper. These assignments all weighed the same. Overall, not hard, just make sure you know ur material and pay attention to the key concepts.

Writing this years later but I remember really enjoying this class and that it genuinely changed my thinking. Would recommend!

I had Professor Potts and TA Andrew this past fall quarter (online). She is very clear, composed, and compassionate, as well as extremely knowledgeable in geography and global studies. I found her class very thought-provoking and interesting, and I would definitely recommend this class to determine if you want global studies as your major/minor or as a GE. Lectures frequently let out early, but were definitely long. I usually took 6 pages of notes in about an hour, although I knew people who didn't take notes at all and still did fine. Notes will only work in your favor on quizzes/essays/exams though, and my notes were really useful later on in the course, so I would personally recommend taking notes. There are weekly readings (~60 pages) that usually took me 3-4 hours to get through. I would recommend doing the readings before the week's lectures and discussions. Don't do them too far in advance, though, because depending on current events or class pace, some may be removed or altered. The weekly quizzes are easy, the midterm was straight off the study guide, and the group project final was definitely doable (while a bit tricky depending on your group, but that's expected lol). The class also includes two papers, one based on the international institute's lectures (this quarter they were on Black Lives Matter) and one based on a documentary/movie out of an assigned list of 3-4. I found the prompts very interesting, and doing well on these essays will be a huge leg up in the class and make you much more relaxed and confident (put some time in). The discussion is also graded on participation, but that's easy points. If you have an insightful and helpful TA like I did, it will be a breeze. Other points: go to discussion, go to office hours or stay after lecture if you have questions, pay attention to the author's perspective in assigned readings/podcasts, and be sure you clearly know the difference between similar concepts. Have fun, and good luck!

I found this class extremely easy. Professor Potts is very clear in her lectures. You can get away with just solely watching the lecture rather than doing the readings since she goes over the most important ones. I'm not going to lie, some of the lectures were very boring while others were very interesting. The class grade itself consisted of weekly reading quizzes, a midterm (mix of MC questions and short answer, a paper, and a group podcast project. The podcast was a pain in the ass. I much would've preferred a final exam since Professor Potts doesn't ask questions about the little details, but rather the overarching themes. I would retake this class again. I had John as a TA and he was extremely helpful in clarifying any readings/concepts that were confusing!