This class was overall fun and interesting. It's pretty easy to do well if you listen in class and do the readings. Professor Kip is nice and cares about his students. My one complaint is it occupied significantly more time than my other Spanish classes have because you have to watch a lot of the movies outside of class as well as do weekly readings and "screening reports" which are like mini essays.

I ended up taking this class just for fun and I loved it so much. It's a smaller class size so you really get to build a connection with the professor. Kip was super fun and had interesting essay assignments. Overall, really helpful to strengthen some of my weaker skills in Spanish, especially because I hadn't written essays in a while. Only con was VHL but I've hated that system for the many years I've taken Spanish. I would say also if you were a native speaker or have studied for many years, Span 27 may be a better option because I felt at times we went over very simple grammar.

We had multiple assignments due every class, none of which are too hard to complete but it can definitely take some time. There were 3 essays, 4 quizzes, and a final presentation in addition to the regular homework. I overall enjoyed my time in this class. I feel like it was a good environment to strengthen some of the fundamental skills of speaking and writing in Spanish.

This was the class that convinced me to double major in Spanish. Kip is perhaps one of the best professors that UCLA has ever seen: he cares for his students' learning and will go out of his way to make class engaging for them, making sure they're doing their best to improve their Spanish.

This class focuses primarily on writing skills and intermediate grammar topics. I've tended to notice that most Spanish professors at UCLA tend to shy away from this while simultaneously expecting high-quality writings, so I think Kip's way of handling the topic was not only very helpful but also insightful.

Profe Kip cares about what he does and his students. He is nice but I will say that if you miss an assignment/quiz he has little to no mercy. Other than that, a very thorough professor.

This is the second class that I have taken with Profe. Tobin and I cannot recommend taking his classes enough. You will learn new perspectives on topics that you never would have though of and will explore genres that you may have otherwise overlooked. There are a few weeks when this class was a lot of work to the point that it was difficult to keep up with, but there were others where I found myself doing very little for the class. You must like participating in and outside of class as there is lots of group work, but our whole class was very involved so I had no issues with this. All in all this class is very interesting and I would absolutely recommend it especially if you are taking lifescience/environmental course work in other departments.

This class was called Topics in Contemporary Studies: Latin American Climate-Change Fiction and it was very informative. Kip is great, you can tell he put a lot of thought into the materials we used in class and he incorporated different works, like readings, podcasts, even a film. The class is definitely discussion based rather than just listening to lecture slides, so it's important that you do the readings beforehand so you can participate. There is sometimes a good amount of reading to do before class but in my opinion the works were interesting and very different from one another, so it felt engaging. There are 2 response papers and a final project, and the final project has room for a lot of creativity– overall, the graded assignments were very manageable. If you are interested in climate change, I would definitely recommend this class because you learn about a lot of different ways that authors depict the issue in fictional works. I will also say that Kip is super understanding and a kind professor. He was very accommodating of us during the TA strikes and he also asked for our feedback halfway through the quarter, then implemented a lot of the feedback that was given. This was one of my favorite classes at UCLA so far, and definitely a manageable workload with some other intense classes going on.

Great class! clear writing assignments, structured class time to brainstorm and compose work. Fair homework load. He cares very much about student success. Very transparent with grades and standing. Plays music at the beginning of class!

Stephen ("Kip") Tobin is overall a very friendly and engaging professor! He knows how to cater his classes to the individual needs of his students and often spends time reviewing tricky concepts. Final grades include participation points, online homework, three essays, five pop quizzes, and a final oral presentation. The workload was not too heavy, but consistent and constant, with homeworks due before each class (three times per week). Students are required to buy new copies of the textbook in order to utilize the online book access codes for the homework, which is extremely annoying because it is so expensive, but this is a Spanish 25-wide issue, not specifically for Professor Tobin. Occasionally he will get a little short or noticeably irritated with students but ultimately is a great professor who plays music before class and knows how to cater to the students!

Professor Tobin is by far the best professor I have had at UCLA. I have taken his classes a couple of times, and he never fails to make the class exciting and engaging. His in class quizzes are fair, he'll let you know everything that will be on the quiz, and his take home papers are not too difficult if you have been going to class and paying attention. After his class, I ended up loving the topics of science fiction, and I definitely recommend anyone who has an opportunity to take this class, even if you think science fiction is lame or you've never read it.