I feel like this Professor is OK but not my favorite so far. So this is the grading rubric for the class:

Quizzes: 8

Each Quiz worth: 12.5%

That's it...

Basically whatever score you get in the quizzes will then be calculated for your final grade. It sucks because you either may not do well and it weighs down your grade or you may do well throughout the quarter. There is lots of reading so take note of that. Find people who will be your study buddy. If you cannot take the quiz, he will offer you an assignment instead. Go to the Writing Center because he is a harsh grader. LIKE REALLY HARSH. FYI, the quizzes are timed and open-notes but in reality, you may not have a lot of time to go back to the assigned reading to find the answer. The quizzes are 30-minutes long. Questions range from 18-21. Like I said, if you are a good test-taker, take his class. I had to switch my grade type because I screwed up on the first quiz. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend him because I get extreme anxiety during timed tests. I would recommend Professor Leslie Johns (123 International Law) with TA Abigail or Kye Barker (116B Continental Political Thought) or 149 with Sasha Issenberg (Presidency). These are the best professors I've taken and lenient with gradings.

Really nice guy, lectures were kind of dull although some stuff was interesting, and the workload was manageable. The worst thing about this class was the online midterms. Some of the questions were about weird small things he mentioned for a brief second in a lecture and the way some questions were worded was strange.

Under normal circumstances, this would probably be a great class. The material is, for the most part, fairly interesting. However, I absolutely HATE when lectures are pre-recorded and that is it. Every single lecture was posted during the time of class, so why not just have class? I understand it is tough for international students to attend because of timezones, but there is no need to punish everyone for that. He offered office hours for 2 hours when class would be, but I don't pay for a glorified Rosetta Stone. I want to actually engage with the professor and there was no chance to do this here except for office hours. The quizzes were for the most part a decent difficulty. They were difficult at first, but you learn that it is all Command+F for the readings and lectures. This made it very difficult to get motivated to learn, because I knew exactly how to do well.

There was also some issues with him being the least accommodating professor ive ever had. If you miss a quiz, you have to write a 2000 (!!!) word essay. That isn't inherently awful, but 8 2000 word essays is insane. There was a girl who had a family member die, and he made her write that essay within 2 days and apparently graded it ridiculously hard. For this alone, I would not take him again. Lack of accommodation in these difficult times is the best way to show lack of respect for students. Overall, I am just disappointed in this class. I was really looking forward to it. If you can deal with the online structure, then you'll like this class. But if you like engagement, then stay away.

Professor Chatterjee is one of the best professors I have had at UCLA. His lectures were interesting and thorough. The one thing that may turn people away is the 16-20 page final paper (half of your grade), but there isn't a midterm or a final exam. There are unit quizzes on ccle which account for the other half of your grade- if you pay enough attention in class, you can skim the readings.

No opportunity for extra credit, there are weekly quizzes with a very short time limit and a lot of multiple choice questions. You pretty much have to memorize the readings to get all the answers right. He does not offer make ups or extra credit of any kind. Very strict and inflexible.

This class was as straightforward as it gets. If you take detailed notes from lecture and the readings, you'll do well on the quizzes and get an A in the class.

Judging from the reviews before me, this seems to be a polarizing class. I feel horrible for the person who had to write a paper when her family member died. That is not okay that Professor Chatterjee did that. 2000 words is not a realistic amount to be written in the span of a few days. It's true that the quizzes are the make or break, and it is completely true the lectures are 100% recorded. If that isn't your thing, I do not recommend you take this class for how ever long COVID continues to force us to be online. I managed to get an A in this class by reading every single assigned reading (seriously, every single one, sometimes twice) and by watching every single lecture. I'd take notes and reverse engineer an outline for each piece we read, trying to emulate what it may have looked like for the author to have drafted it. If you do that, chances are you'll be okay, but the workload will become significantly heavier. The quiz questions aren't bad, but he'll always throw in a "curve-breaker" or two (metaphorically speaking because the course was *not* curved). I'd say 75% of the questions forced you to think critically, 25% of them had you recall weird details nobody remembered. That said, he was really good about dropping frequently missed questions. I'd certainly take his class again because I really love the asynchronous format and the content; but, if asynchronous lectures and increased workload because of the online format is not your thing, seriously don't risk it. The stakes were ridiculously high in this class.

I can not say enough about how good of a professor Chatterjee was. In the midst of all the covid-19 scare, he reached out and constantly made sure that we as students were doing okay, and was always available. The concepts of this class were a bit difficult, and some of the readings were pretty unwieldy, but going to office hours really helps since he's so knowledgeable and willing to help.

The grading of the course was based on weekly quizzes and a final paper.

I honestly thought this was going to be a really easy class but was starkly surprised. While the class is straightforward like others mentioned with only 8 quizzes, those quizzes are oddly specific with what is asked. There are about 20 questions usually that are multiple choice, but again, they are quite specific to the ~3 or so readings for that week that range anywhere from 10-40 pages each. There are also the two lectures that questions also come from.

I supposed this is a great class for people very organized and are able to focus on pieces of texts and lectures for long periods of time. I would find myself studying anywhere from 6-10 hours depending on how productive I was for the day. Chatterjee himself is super nice but I guess I just am not a fan of the grading scheme. I also should mention that the quizzes are timed (30 minutes I think).

In short: if you are good at tedious note taking and studying, this is the class for you. If you struggle with concentration like me, you probably should stray away. I also had a friend who had to pass/no pass this class because it was so difficult for her.

Chatterjee was an engaging lecturer, and lecture attendance remained pretty high throughout the quarter for this reason (also because you never know if some in-class stuff would show up on the exams).

This class did not have a lot of required items - just three online assessments that are open with a window of a few days for students to take at their own convenience. The assessments (multiple choice, one was fill-in-the-blank but Chatterjee says he won't do this anymore because it causes too many CCLE issues) covered assigned reading each week and in-class discussions.

What bothered me is the sheer amount of reading each week (around a hundred pages each week). It was unrealistic and clear nobody ever did the entirety of the reading. I would just make sure to do it by the time the assessments rolled around.

Tl;dr: Low-stress interesting class I'd recommend but be prepared for a lot of sometimes boring readings, but up to you to do them in the first place.