I think the professor had a lot of interesting insights and information to give us, but I do think that it impacted the class because we were really speeding through content, and often the lecture from the previous class would leak into the next class. I did enjoy the content though. I also think the last third of the class felt very rushed, there was a lot more content than the first two midterms. I liked suggested questions for the exams, and I also enjoyed the projects for the most part (since we got to choose!)

Professor Groeling is extremely knowledgable about the history of CMC and is an eloquent lecturer. The class is structured as a series of mini-lessons which transition into one another nicely to give students a modern narrative of CMC and how it is directly affecting the economy, sociality, and even politics. The history of the internet and comm tech was especially interesting to learn about.

The class had 3 exams, weekly readings which he quizzed you on via iClicker at the start of each class. There were mini-projects assigned to engage students in a real world application of class material, each worth a certain number of points towards your final grade (he used a points-based system). The quizzes can be tricky sometimes, so don't just skim the readings -- actually read them.

The exams are about half-half multiple choice and short answer. The questions are generated by the students themselves on a discussion board and selected by the professor. Having your question appear on an exam means you get extra credit. Every point definitely matters in this class, so complete every assignment you can! Overall this class is a moderate workload so be prepare to set aside time for it. Personally I liked the content and thought it was one of the better comm courses taught at UCLA.

Overall enjoyed this class. Groeling is a good lecturer, even if his slides are a little text heavy (although they are a great tool for studying). The workload was pretty reasonable, with readings + a 1 question quiz (very reasonable) every class. Midterms and final were also reasonable. He lets you suggest questions but I would recommend studying more than the material suggested by your classmates. I only studied the suggested questions for my second midterm and didn't do as well.

This is a super interesting class! There are three exams spread out throughout the quarter, but they are not cumulative which is really nice. The final is just treated as a normal exam like the first two. Each exam is based almost entirely on questions that are suggested by yourself and your classmates. Everyone is able to submit up to two suggested questions for each exam, and the professor then chooses questions from these suggested questions to put on the exams. Because of this, the best way to prepare for the exams is to MEMORIZE ALL OF THE SUGGESTED QUESTIONS AND THEIR ANSWERS! It's a lot of work, but if you do this you'll for sure do well on the exams. There are a decent amount of readings, and you should have a general understanding of each one in order to do well on the exams. There are also small "projects" that you are required to do throughout the quarter. You need to do a certain number of projects in order to get your full points, so make sure that you're regularly doing projects throughout the quarter and that you don't wait until the last few weeks to try and cram in all of your project points.

I took this class Winter of my first year because I want to apply to the Communications major. This class has interesting content that is fairly applicable to our everyday lives. It’s not too hard either! Professor Groeling has great lectures with an interesting, dry sense of humor. This course covers a broad topic, so we covered new units every day like “Advertising,” “Privacy,” “Government Repression,” and even the history of computers and the internet. The workload of this class involves a lot of reading and it can be challenging to keep up at times.

The grading is based on 3 Exams (18% each, 54%), Projects (40%), and Reading Quizzes (6%)

If you like to read peer-reviewed and news articles, you’ll love this class. Each class has 2-4 readings raining from 10-grade level to Graduate school difficulty. During the lecture, he will do a 1 question quiz through iClicker that also ranges in difficulty. I prepared for all of the classes and only missed 4 of the 25+ quizzes. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to make up those missed points.

The exams involve a 12 point test (short and long answers) and a 6 point, two pages, take-home essay. A good amount of questions that are on the exam was written by the class for a quiz make-up credit.

The projects are the most interesting. You will have a large menu of projects to choose from (ranging from 3-5 points) and must combine any of them to make 40 total points. There is only one mandatory group project (worth 10 points) that everyone in the class does at the beginning.

Overall, Professor Groeling runs a great class that I looked forward to most days. Even if I wasn’t particularly interested in one unit, I could often look forward to the next. I recommend you take this class, and if you put in some effort, your GPA will thank you.

The class is broken down into a couple parts: projects, exams, and quizzes. In the beginning of the quarter there will be a group syllabus project where you and a group are to revise a portion of the syllabus and add/remove readings. It can be a little a time consuming but overall not a bad project if you have a good group. If you decide to lead the group, your points are doubled. By the end of the quarter you need to have 40 project points and I suggest doing them all towards the start of the quarter so you can chill later on. Exams aren't that bad, with one portion of it being a short paper and then other portion short/long answer. The questions on the exams aren't too bad, as the class suggests them and he chooses which ever one he wants. I suggest making a shared doc with all the questions and answers so that you can study them. The only annoying thing about the class is the clicker quizzes every class based off of the readings. Most of the time you can get by with skimming the readings, but sometimes he asks more difficult questions. On the bright side he offers plenty of makeup opportunities to get those points back. Overall, not a bad class and won't take that much of your time if you do the work early.

I loved this class! Professor Groeling is one of the best professors in the Comm department and I'm really glad I got to take a class with him. The material for this class isn't super interesting for the first few weeks, but once the class gets going it's incredibly engaging because you cover a wide range of topics, including online journalism, social networking, government repression, hacking, etc. Basically anything involving communication online is within the scope of this course, which means everyone will find at least some of the topics engaging. The grading for this class is broken up into 40% projects, 6% in-class reading quizzes, and 54% exams (there are three exams that are 18% each and no exam is cumulative). It's on you to complete as many projects as you need to get you to 40% of the projects grade, and you can make up the quizzes you don't get right, so it's pretty easy to get an A in this class. The exams aren't hard – I never missed more than half of a point. Each exam also has a take-home essay that you can work either alone or with a group on. All in all, this class has a lot of material since it meets 3x a week, but Professor Groeling has structured the class in a way that makes it easy for students to do well. Plus he's one of the funniest and most engaging professors I've ever had!

This was honestly one of the most boring classes I have taken at UCLA, and I really don’t like Groeling’s teaching style. On the first day of class he had a screenshot of his bruinwalk reviews on his powerpoint as a way of telling us that people love his class which I thought was sort of weird. He has a sarcastic sense of humor which I found too much at times, like he was trying out a stand up routine and prove how clever he is. He also at one point told us to look up his salary and told us how much his house was worth, ostensibly to demonstrate how easy it is to find information about people online but it really felt like a weird attempt to flex his money. As for the class itself, at first the amount of reading he assigned for every class (3x a week) was way too much, there would be 5-6 often long articles we would have to read and then he would give a quiz on extremely minute details rather than quizzing us on the overall meaning or takeaways from the articles. Thankfully he gave us a survey to give feedback for him and I think enough people complained about the amount of reading that he reduced the assigned articles to 3 max per day. I did appreciate that he decided to assign 3 2-page papers rather than giving us tests because of the online format, and I thought the papers were pretty fair and easy to write. Overall I didn’t like the class or him as a professor but if you like his sense of humor I can see how the class would be more enjoyable.

One of the best professor in communication department. He is opened to help and his TA Mackenzie was really sweet and super helpful either. I was kind of confused about the assigned work materials at the beginning but ended up getting A+ on this class. We had quizzes everyday based on the assigned readings (one question from one reading), but the questions are fair and easy points. Plus he provides lots of quiz make-up opportunities as an extra credit so why not Comm 151 ? :)

Professor Groeling is amazing! The course material is a bit superfluous in the beginning, it takes a few weeks to really get into the interesting and relevant content, but Groeling did an amazing job at keeping us all engaged and participating! You start the quarter with a big group project, which was fun and allowed us to collab to revise his syllabus & lecture material. Throughout the quarter, he gives short quizzes every class based on the readings. Easy points and he also does plenty of quiz makeup opportunities. Also, he included guest lecturers who were professional and endearing. Prof Groeling really did his best to make this class as engaging as it could be virtually!