This class was not difficult at all, just extremely boring. The weekly ELI review was annoying due to it being unnecessarily long. I ended up skipping most lectures toward the end of the quarter, as they were often disorganized and presented very little actual material. I learned more from a 35 minute youtube video than the whole class itself.

She's a very kind professor! Even though lectures don't require attendance, I found them interesting and informal (which is great if you dislike info-heavy formal lectures). She takes the time to answer questions at the beginning of each lecture, which is also great! The only negative thing about her course was the weekly Eli Reviews.

Some classes are hard, this was just bad. Beware that the essay prompt she gives you is not actually what you are graded on and there are hidden requirements that she mentions briefly in class. Overall essays were graded horribly Prof has a shockingly bad understanding of history outside of LatAm, I felt second hand embarrassment during lectures.

She was very, very sweet. However, I did not learn anything.. She was gone for ~5 weeks due to an illness, not her fault, but quizzes were dense/she expected us to know. She didn't reply to any of my emails. We went over like 30 years in one lecture, and I don't know how? Slides were provided, but as informational as a picture book. Overall, no.

Tbh I don't know why there are so many negative reviews. This is the easiest class I've taken at UCSB. We had weekly Eli reviews, a very easy midterm project and exam, and a short final research paper. I also only went to 50% of the lectures and still received an A. She is a bit disorganized, but still very nice and easygoing.

I have regarded many courses as some of the worst I have taken but I think this is actually the worst. We got behind in lecture so she made the last two assignments due right before finals. She was extremely disorganized and treated the class like it was the only one we were taking. It felt rushed and like I barely learned anything.