Overall, this class was fairly easy.
I'm not sure why Stiver's has received such bad reviews on here. She's a great professor, comes off a little callous but she means well. This class has a lot of busywork involved, and the instructions for the assignments are not always clear, but I had a good TA and I emailed him often for clarifications.
Go to the review sessions and ask lots of questions in session and you should be fine.

All the bad reviews on Professor Stivers must be from someone who didn't really pay attention in class. Professor Stivers is a great professor please don't be discouraged by the bad reviews. She is very approachable and super sweet I really don't understand why the reviews say otherwise. If you seriously don't try speaking to her you will believe she is mean because she does seem "mean" and "strict" however, once you talk to her you will know she means well. I honestly learned so much from her and you can tell she is very passionate about soc.

4 homework assignments, midterm and final, and two group projects with individual papers. She doesn't post powerpoint but she does podcast. some hw assignments were graded tougher than others. I remember I did the Hw is meant to help you apply what you learn in lecture. Midterm I studied alone and got a 67% I almost died. But for the final I seriously studied for like 10 days, attended office hours for like 4 days, made study groups and met with them like 3 times and got a 47/50. Also, I went from praying for a C to getting a solid B. It is a tough class so don't get discourage, the professor and my TA Caroline were very helpful and would go over the lectures as many times with you so you can understand.

Dr. Stivers is really engaging. I took her for SOC 20, and she was really helpful and made sure the class understood the material. She uses the class before exams as review days, where she covers the material that she will be testing you on. There are 4 homework assignments which require that you read articles and answer questions. There are two exams, midterm, and final, and two group projects. Her exams are fairly easy and come straight from the powerpoint slides. Make sure you photograph her slides as she does not post them. She does not test you on any textbook material but encourages we use the textbook to help us for exams. I never used a textbook and managed to get an A on both exams. The group projects are where the chunks of your grade come in so just make sure you have a reliable group to work with. I highly recommend taking her!!

Least understanding professor I've ever had. She gave us 6 minutes for quizzes that had 10 questions. These questions were long and required a long time to read and answer, so 6 minutes was not nearly enough time. When we asked her for more time, she did not even give it a thought before shooting down any suggestions we had. We tried explaining to her that these quizzes are disproportionately harder for people who speak English as a second language, but she refused to change the timing because she was so worried about cheating.

Also, she assigned us an ethnography project where we had to observe people in public spaces. We're in the middle of a pandemic! She suggested going to places like gyms, coffee shops, parks, etc., but many people felt uncomfortable going to these places for observations due to the coronavirus.

I thought the overall class was straightforward, with 5 exercises relating to readings/lectures/video recordings as well as two multiple choice exams. The jeopardy reviews our TA's went over during discussions as well as the study guides provided by the Professor were more than enough to prepare yourself for the exams. There are assigned readings, but discussions serve to break these chapters down to ease the workload of the class. I would recommend attending every discussion as well as memorizing the study guides. She also gives extra credit at the beginning of every lecture if you answer one of her questions relating to previous class material. The class isn't as difficult as you would imagine and the Professor was solid in her efforts.

There is one quiz per week with not enough time at all. Two group projects throughout the quarter that basically works as a midterm and a final. If you get stuck with crappy group members, it is your loss unfortunately. But they do have a section where you talk about group members' contributions so I ended up ratting out some of my group members who less than bare minimum.
She started out the quarter saying we all should compromise during this difficult time, but when students reached out for help, she rejected EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
Do not take this class if you know that you aren't a fast test taker AND if you know that you won't be able to speak up for group projects members who do not contribute.
Textbook was not required, she only said to use it if we need it. Meeting a helpful TA will help a lot because I had Taylor and she basically did everything the professor should be doing.
While we understand that it is a difficult time for both professors and students, Professor Stivers was being unreasonably unaccommodating and rude.