Baldwin cares about his students and encourages his office hours a lot. But, his writing is like chicken scratch that you can barely read from the first 1-4 rows let alone the back, and it's a lot of material for just 3 tests. Do the readings, go to lecture, ask questions.

This course is a joke, cancelled in person lectures within the first couple weeks of school. Resumed in person lectures the last WEEK of the quarter and didn't even address his absence. The lecture hall was filled with blank, confused stares bc this prof doesn't make any sense. Deleted all study material without notice before the final. Scammed.

Horrible class and teaching. Lectures are so confusing, notes written illegibly on the whiteboard of a large lecture hall, slides have little to no info. And the lectures do not follow the readings and are filled with lots of random information. Blatant fatphobia was present in lectures and especially in the textbook. DO NOT TAKE

Awful experience:1/4 of the way through the course, he couldn't teach the rest in person, and put lectures online. Sunday night after Thanksgiving he emailed that we would meet in person that week (starting Monday). Without warning, he removed all of the online lectures, that people needed to study, leaving us without notes for the final exam

At first, I did enjoy the concept of the class as it's important material, however, the professors and how this class is structured did not prepare the students for success. Most lectures were CANCELLED, leaving us to asynchronously watch videos and teach ourselves. 2 midterms (30%) and one final (40%) for the overall grade. Outdated info as well.

The classroom culture and the material are outdated. This year, they changed the grading criteria from three to two midterms (30% each) and one final (40%). The professors missed most of the lectures due to medical emergencies and they offered no extra support for students. It's time for them to retire...

Prepare to put in the work for this challenging but interesting course. Attend lectures, study the textbook, and utilize resources like unstuckstudy ai to ace the exams. The material is engaging, but the tests require serious preparation.

Outdated content. Sweet guy, but the class is just not really relevant anymore. Don't think he realizes how many people are part of the LGBTQ+ community nowadays. Also he interrupted the other professor quite often.

Not an easy GE. Graded on 2 midterms and a final. Tests are all short answer, based on his very disorganized lectures and an outdated textbook that has little to do with the lecture material. His grading scale only allows 30% of students to get full credit on each question.

John was very dismissive during lectures. He never had a clear, backed-up response when questions arose in class, he just disregarded questions tbh. Shows how outdated their content is. They just read from the slides. Added a bunch of unnecessary and offensive comics that wasted time. Also, he would start lecture before the class started. AVOID

The first day of class, I thought this was going to a be a super light course. It turns out that it is likely the hardest GE that I've taken at UCSB. Your grade is entirely dependent on the tests, and don't count on the tests being easy. If you want a class to just cruise by with, do not take this class.

3 midterms and a final and they aren't easy due to the unclear lectures. the concepts are interesting, but not taught in a way that's helpful for the exams. the textbook is required and is hard to find for cheap or for free. the review sessions are helpful and the graders for try to give points in any way they can, but overall really hard class.