Professor Ratner is a very great professor who cares about his students. There is no assigned book; he provides all readings online. His readings are heavy, though, and you will be tested on the readings. Attendance is not required but if you want access to the recordings to study you need to go to class.

I wish I had more classes with Ratner! Your overall grade is based on a video presentation, midterm. and final. Exam questions were fair and were based heavily on lecture material and readings of papers that he assigns. He's a great explainer, and he provides a lot of examples in class to help you understand the material. Take him if you can!

Class graded on vid. presentation, midterm, and final. Ratner is approachable and very excited about answering students' questions during lecture. Content is straight-forward and applicable to daily life, and the assigned papers (despite being sometimes dense) were insightful and interesting (featured as test questions, too!) Ratner was great!

he gives great lectures, provides slides before class and recordings afterward, moves through content at a very reasonable pace, and always is open to questions. He is very kind and makes class an enjoyable and interactive experience if you want it to be one. the grade breakdown was midterm, video presentation, and final.

He is terribly boring, and goes over 10 examples per topic, without actually teaching anything, I personally would avoid like the plague. Probably my least favorite proffesor I've had at UCSB.

AMAZING. Ratner is very passionate and caring professor. The grade breakdown of this class was very intimidating because it was heavy on one midterm and the final. If you go to lectures, read the readings, and study a fair amount you should do great in this class.