SOCIOL 1
Introductory Sociology
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour. Survey of characteristics of social life, processes of social interaction, and tools of sociological investigation. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
The course does not give an introduction to sociology in the textbooky sense (I still don't know many sociological terms after taking the class), but rather Sherwood makes you think about your own life and society around you on your own. His lectures are interesting - he keeps the class engaged. He is a concerned and lively guy, and will remember your name if you talk in class. Participate during section. Participate during lecture (though it may seem daunting to speak in front of 200 people, Sherwood highly, highly values your participation in the lecture). Write high-quality papers that incorporate both personal experience and sociological concepts.
The course does not give an introduction to sociology in the textbooky sense (I still don't know many sociological terms after taking the class), but rather Sherwood makes you think about your own life and society around you on your own. His lectures are interesting - he keeps the class engaged. He is a concerned and lively guy, and will remember your name if you talk in class. Participate during section. Participate during lecture (though it may seem daunting to speak in front of 200 people, Sherwood highly, highly values your participation in the lecture). Write high-quality papers that incorporate both personal experience and sociological concepts.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - This class was super interesting. The readings were a little boring at first but they get far more interesting as the quarter goes on. We have to do a weekly journal based on the readings but they are fairly short. You must buy the books though!! Professor Sigmon is super nice and pretty engaging but he can be a little boring since he does not use a mic and his class was late in the day. He gave us study guides for the midterm and final which were extremely helpful. There is also a term paper due at the end of the quarter but you choose your own topic so it is fairly interesting. Overall, I would recommend this class with Professor Sigmon. I am also selling hard copies of the following books for this class: The Meaning of Sociology (9th edition), Mapping the Social Landscape (7th edition), and Readings for Sociology (9th edition). Text me at (909)725-7338 for prices!!
Winter 2020 - This class was super interesting. The readings were a little boring at first but they get far more interesting as the quarter goes on. We have to do a weekly journal based on the readings but they are fairly short. You must buy the books though!! Professor Sigmon is super nice and pretty engaging but he can be a little boring since he does not use a mic and his class was late in the day. He gave us study guides for the midterm and final which were extremely helpful. There is also a term paper due at the end of the quarter but you choose your own topic so it is fairly interesting. Overall, I would recommend this class with Professor Sigmon. I am also selling hard copies of the following books for this class: The Meaning of Sociology (9th edition), Mapping the Social Landscape (7th edition), and Readings for Sociology (9th edition). Text me at (909)725-7338 for prices!!
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - Professor Desi is an amazing lecturer, she is very unreliable. She cancels more classes than she holds (she will inform us one minute before the lecture - no exaggeration) and she will post the recording several days later. However, my biggest problem was that even though she canceled class frequently she was not apologetic about it and expected us to keep up with watching the lengthy lectures. She also is not very transparent with the format of the mid-term and gave us insufficient time to complete the lengthy multiple-choice and “short” answer questions. Furthermore, the mid-term had several important questions on a lecture that she had posted a day before the exam. DO NOT trust anything she says, she will post the lecture, essay prompt, grades, etc several days after promised and will not make any accommodations for those who were unable to catch up with the work she posted late. While I do agree that Professor Desi is very good at getting her point across during the lectures (which I personally found engaging and insightful) she is the most unreliable professor I have come across. BEWARE: the exams will be much harder than anticipated and content that our TAs confirmed will not be tested was tested (supplementary reading) which may be a result of her not being communicative with the TAs.
Fall 2021 - Professor Desi is an amazing lecturer, she is very unreliable. She cancels more classes than she holds (she will inform us one minute before the lecture - no exaggeration) and she will post the recording several days later. However, my biggest problem was that even though she canceled class frequently she was not apologetic about it and expected us to keep up with watching the lengthy lectures. She also is not very transparent with the format of the mid-term and gave us insufficient time to complete the lengthy multiple-choice and “short” answer questions. Furthermore, the mid-term had several important questions on a lecture that she had posted a day before the exam. DO NOT trust anything she says, she will post the lecture, essay prompt, grades, etc several days after promised and will not make any accommodations for those who were unable to catch up with the work she posted late. While I do agree that Professor Desi is very good at getting her point across during the lectures (which I personally found engaging and insightful) she is the most unreliable professor I have come across. BEWARE: the exams will be much harder than anticipated and content that our TAs confirmed will not be tested was tested (supplementary reading) which may be a result of her not being communicative with the TAs.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2017 - Would definitely take this class again. Professor Speer is an amazing lecturer and is young so he understands students better than older professors. The material is a tad confusing but he does a good job of getting you to read and comprehend through homework questions that are very specific to the readings!
Fall 2017 - Would definitely take this class again. Professor Speer is an amazing lecturer and is young so he understands students better than older professors. The material is a tad confusing but he does a good job of getting you to read and comprehend through homework questions that are very specific to the readings!
Most Helpful Review
i really enjoyed this class... i'm actually doubling in soc because of her class. the subject is totally interesting because its all about the world and your surroundings... its totally applicable to real life... you start analyzing things around you, but in a good way though... not like "oh my gosh, what did he mean when he said 'i'll catch you later'?" its just looking at your life in a different way. i recommend her if you need a social science ge to fulfill or if you're the type of person who likes to learn about the society around you! she's really hip and to wake her students up before lecture, she plays modern songs that relates to the topic of discussion during lecture! exams are extremely straight forward. jsut read the reader and text book and youll do fine. there are 2 paper assignments.
i really enjoyed this class... i'm actually doubling in soc because of her class. the subject is totally interesting because its all about the world and your surroundings... its totally applicable to real life... you start analyzing things around you, but in a good way though... not like "oh my gosh, what did he mean when he said 'i'll catch you later'?" its just looking at your life in a different way. i recommend her if you need a social science ge to fulfill or if you're the type of person who likes to learn about the society around you! she's really hip and to wake her students up before lecture, she plays modern songs that relates to the topic of discussion during lecture! exams are extremely straight forward. jsut read the reader and text book and youll do fine. there are 2 paper assignments.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Alright, let me get this straight. This man is so mad that students at UCLA are doing better on his weekly quizzes than the other community college he teaches at that he PURPOSEFULLY makes the midterm exam more difficult. (BTW, he changed his midterm the night before giving it out, so there were numerous typos that made it difficult to understand questions, and had a few questions that had multiple answers that were correct when only 1 was marked as the correct answer). Also, he REFUSES to accommodate other students when we simply asked for a little bit more time than 5 minutes on weekly quizzes (he eventually FINALLY caved halfway through the quarter and gave us 1 extra minute to answer even more vague questions he puts on his quizzes). He instructed his TAs to grade our final paper on a strict grading rubric that was EXTREMELY vague since the beginning as it was supposed to give us "creative freedom," yet he enforces a strict grading policy??? Let's talk about the final I just took. He claims that due to his fears of students cheating during online teaching, that he puts in place sequential testing (where you can't go back to check answers after you click to go to the next question, and you can't skip ahead to another question). This was an okay policy, personally; I can deal with that. Yet while he says he's afraid of students cheating, he puts a question on the final that requires you to look at your notes for the graph or just straight up guess because it's such a random detail from one of his lectures. There is also no graph to go alongside the question to help you answer it, so you either guess, or quickly look through your notes on a closed-book exam. I guessed and probably got it wrong. The interesting topics that this course goes over were completely ruined by this professor's weird test-taking policies and strange stubbornness to accommodate students DURING A PANDEMIC. I actually really like sociology, but it is not my major and I took this class as a GE. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS FOR A GE. It's not worth it unless you take P/NP. I would actually rather write 5 papers like the other sociology professor does than take this class again with Villarreal. This class was STUPIDLY hard for no reason when the topics were actually interesting. I know the core concepts for this course (as stated by the learning objectives in the rubric), yet what is actually tested are random, fleeting details from lecture. Awful all around. Class grade breakdown: Midterm: 25% Final: 25% Weekly quizzes (lowest 2 dropped): 20% Essay: 20% Participation: 10%
Fall 2020 - Alright, let me get this straight. This man is so mad that students at UCLA are doing better on his weekly quizzes than the other community college he teaches at that he PURPOSEFULLY makes the midterm exam more difficult. (BTW, he changed his midterm the night before giving it out, so there were numerous typos that made it difficult to understand questions, and had a few questions that had multiple answers that were correct when only 1 was marked as the correct answer). Also, he REFUSES to accommodate other students when we simply asked for a little bit more time than 5 minutes on weekly quizzes (he eventually FINALLY caved halfway through the quarter and gave us 1 extra minute to answer even more vague questions he puts on his quizzes). He instructed his TAs to grade our final paper on a strict grading rubric that was EXTREMELY vague since the beginning as it was supposed to give us "creative freedom," yet he enforces a strict grading policy??? Let's talk about the final I just took. He claims that due to his fears of students cheating during online teaching, that he puts in place sequential testing (where you can't go back to check answers after you click to go to the next question, and you can't skip ahead to another question). This was an okay policy, personally; I can deal with that. Yet while he says he's afraid of students cheating, he puts a question on the final that requires you to look at your notes for the graph or just straight up guess because it's such a random detail from one of his lectures. There is also no graph to go alongside the question to help you answer it, so you either guess, or quickly look through your notes on a closed-book exam. I guessed and probably got it wrong. The interesting topics that this course goes over were completely ruined by this professor's weird test-taking policies and strange stubbornness to accommodate students DURING A PANDEMIC. I actually really like sociology, but it is not my major and I took this class as a GE. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS FOR A GE. It's not worth it unless you take P/NP. I would actually rather write 5 papers like the other sociology professor does than take this class again with Villarreal. This class was STUPIDLY hard for no reason when the topics were actually interesting. I know the core concepts for this course (as stated by the learning objectives in the rubric), yet what is actually tested are random, fleeting details from lecture. Awful all around. Class grade breakdown: Midterm: 25% Final: 25% Weekly quizzes (lowest 2 dropped): 20% Essay: 20% Participation: 10%
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - I took this class for my major and definitely did not expect to get a B+, but I was thrown off by the midterm. Other than that, I found the content really interesting and it could have been my own fault that I never took advantage of office hours or anything. The paper was also relatively easy, I thought mine was horribly written but I still got a 92. Lectures are boring and can be confusing or hard to understand due to the accent. Read the textbook if you can, I think my only downfall was that I second guessed myself a lot on the exams. Not a bad prof, but if you're choosing between Villareal and another with a higher rating then perhaps choose the other.
Fall 2021 - I took this class for my major and definitely did not expect to get a B+, but I was thrown off by the midterm. Other than that, I found the content really interesting and it could have been my own fault that I never took advantage of office hours or anything. The paper was also relatively easy, I thought mine was horribly written but I still got a 92. Lectures are boring and can be confusing or hard to understand due to the accent. Read the textbook if you can, I think my only downfall was that I second guessed myself a lot on the exams. Not a bad prof, but if you're choosing between Villareal and another with a higher rating then perhaps choose the other.
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