I love both music and media, so I thought this would be the perfect GE for me! I couldn't have been more wrong. Taylor speaks in a monotone voice, and lectures were very boring. He barely wrote anything on his slides, so you would have to pay attention to what he said, even thought most of it wasn't important. Exams were unnecessarily hard, and we got marked down for not using specific words, even if we showed that we understood the concept clearly. Essays were graded unfairly in the same way. Definitely do not take this class as a GE.

I did not like this class. The lectures were so boring. The professor doesn't write much on his slides, so pretty much try to write down everything he says. There are two essays you have to write, and you pretty much regurgitate everything he says in a certain order and you'll get an A. On the midterm and final, it's all short/long answer, so just write down everything you can think of about the prompt. Even if it's short answer, you have to write down a lot in my opinion to get things right. On my midterm, I got marked off on almost all my questions even though I basically said the right things, so just write a lot. You aren't allowed regrades for some dumb reason. Also for the exams, you have to memorize songs and their names, artists, years, and their importance. That part was okay. In the discussion sections, you have to write a weekly response to the readings. The readings are also so long and boring. My TA was really nice though. He was pretty chill. Overall, I guess it was okay, but I do not recommend this class.

I took this course in the spring of 2016, and received an A-. Now, I took this class thinking it would be a chill GE that would be little work and easy to get an A. I took Ethno 50A in the fall of 2015, and that was the chillest class I have ever taken. I received an A+ in that class, and the professor is the coolest bro ever. Absolutely take that class. However, do not take this class, unless you like kissing up to the TAs. Don't be fooled by the grade distribution it shows, it is rather hard to get an A in this class. Seriously, like most GE's, the grades are based off of the TAs, and not the professors. I had a terrible TA, and if you get him (Pablo Infante), then try to switch, or else go to all his office hours, and be bros with him. He is a very subjective grader, and took off points on my papers, and tests without any explanation. This class is attendance-based, so you have to go to all of the discussions. If you miss one discussion, then you lose almost a full percent. This may not seem like much, but it is in the end, so go to all discussions. In terms of Professor Taylor, his lectures are incredibly boring. I often fell asleep, despite trying very hard to stay awake. He does use slides, and like he says, the test questions are based off of the lectures. Now, I did score well on all parts of this class, however, I received about 92-93% on the two papers, and all tests. I finished with a 92% in the class, but the cut-off for an A is a 93. If you see this course, and think "Yay an Ethno course!", think again because this course is more based on advertising. No seriously, all the material is on advertising, not actual music. But to be fair, the title is Music and Media.

I would say that this is one of the worst classes I've taken at UCLA. Not because the topic is not interesting, but mainly because of the professor. First, Professor Taylor speaks with a monotone voice, which I can hardly understanding what he's trying to say. He also digressed away from the main points by telling us different anecdotes. The worst part is his presentation. It only consists of pictures, and huge quotes. He doesn't put up any main point or whatsoever. If you spaced out for a few seconds, or missed a class, you could potentially miss out important points for the exam. The readings are also ridiculously long and excessive. Their content is almost entirely exclusive from the lecture.

I feel like I learned very little from this class. To be fair, I was taking it only for GE. Those people who love 'music' classes might be interested. I feel like this class would be much more interesting if it was taught by other clearer and more succinct professors.

The test was not hard, and the TAs were great and helpful. However, I did not do so well, because I couldn't really understand his lecture. His study guide is also very vague, not giving us any specific terms and ideas to study for.

Overall, what makes this class horrible is mainly the professor and how he organized the class.

Professor Taylor is a very interesting character. He often cracks jokes during lecture and gives a lot of anecdotes from when he was younger. He has an extremely monotone voice and I may have fallen asleep a couple times in lecture, but do your best to stay awake!! I hated emailing this professor because he never answered any of my questions and I often sensed a hint of sarcasm in his answers. He would basically answer all my questions with a "I can't tell you." So that was extremely annoying.

Going to lecture is not mandatory and he makes it very clear that he doesn't care if you're paying attention or not because "you're all adults." However, going to lecture for this class is important because even though he uploads the slides online, they barely have any text explaining the topic for lecture. He does all the explaining in class, so go to lecture!

The experience you will have in this class will be largely affected by the type of TA you have. My TA was very helpful and broke down the readings in discussion well enough to manage writing a decent paper for the assignments. If you aren't as lucky, do the readings as best as you can! And go to discussion because it will affect your grade if you don't go.

The assignments for this class are pretty light. You have to write two 5-page papers, the professor will give you the prompt a week before it is due in discussion. The midterm wasn't hard. Basically if you do the readings and go to lecture, and study a bit, you'll be fine. But nothing to stress over. The TAs grade the midterms and papers, Professor Taylor pretty much leaves it up to them to give the grade for assignments.

The final exam was a series of questions about the readings, listenings (songs), and a type of mini essay at the end. Professor Taylor lets you prepare for the final essay at home and then you write the paper in class.

Overall this class was pretty good. I was upset at how they graded the final because it brought down my grade, while I did very well in the other assignments. I would take this class again, just try to pay more attention to what the TAs want you to write.

Professor Taylor was great. I don't know why everyone seems to not like him too much, however the only thing I can say might be because those were almost 6 years ago. But Music and Media was my favorite class so far at UCLA. I loved every single lecture, and barely had to study for the midterm and final because the material was so interesting that you just retain it as you go. The homework wasn't too bad at all. Only 1 or 2 readings a week that aren't very long and he even tells you to basically just skim them and get the main ideas out of them. I had the TA Deonte and he was SO great. I HIGHLY recommend this class. Also, there are two essays but you have plenty of time and the prompts are extremely easy and I hate writing essays but these were actually enjoyable because the material is great. And they help you indirectly study for the final. The class description is a little off though, Music and Media traces music starting at the record player all the way up to the ipod. While also looking at the advertising industry, radio, and TV (whole lecture on MTV). Basically just take this class. It's awesome.

btw Taylor does have a slightly annoying voice for the first day, but you get used to it. And I think he definitely seems passionate about the topic considering he's dedicated his entire life to it basically. Also not to brag for him but he taught this subject at Columbia and he went to Yale music school for grad school. Just sayin!