Cons: time management is bad. This is just a recent example that I remember, but there are plenty of other times: she spent 15 minutes explaining how to complete the course evaluations during lecture, but it ended up that the evaluations were pass due so that was for naught. Basically she spends too much time over explaining and over complicating things that could be said in a much more succinct manner. She’s reluctant to discuss grades and is slightly passive aggressive when it’s brung up. There was only one grade inputted and the rest were inputted the day grades were due, so the class was left in the dark about grades.

Grade breakdown:

20% discussion posts - this required a lot of elbow grease and for what. group based work

20% podcast - group based. Decently easy imo, but could vary based on the topic you’re given

10% film paper

5% final reflection paper - you gotta write about what you learned in the class and what you liked/ didn’t like in the class.

5% office hour meeting

40% final research paper - write about covid and how it impacted global regulatory systems. Prompts gonna vary per quarter I suppose.

Overall this class was fine, but it was a lot of work and combined with the bad time management and late grading left a bad taste.

She knew what she was talking about to the point that she could engage the class in critical discussions. She required her students to read some interesting readings. However, in the lecture, she often talks about concepts without clearly defining them, though not always, which is problematic since many of her students were not majoring or minoring in the field, so they had no background on the topic. She is nice enough though she gets a little testy when it comes to questions she does not want to answer, as stated in other reviews, specifically when it came to grades. She waited until the last day to input grades, which left many students in the dark. While fairness is a myth, I think a good professor wants her students to succeed; yet, it did not seem to be the case here. It would have been better for her to input each assignment and forum grades separately and add feedback since some students suspect that she never included the extra credit though she says she did. While it is possible that she did, her students don't know that. We are just supposed to take her word for it, which is not in the nature of many, especially with helicopter parents breathing down on our necks. Furthermore, while she made room for students to ask questions during lectures, she did not try to go the extra mile for her students, as many other UCLA professors do. In my opinion, as a professor to be, she needs to work on being more available for her students (not only 10 minutes) instead of possibly just researching because she wasn't very helpful or accommodating, as seen with the responses of my other peers in our group chat. Many claimed that she sucked at responding to emails, among other things. If you have to take her, just actively read the material to truly understand the arguments and evidence, write summaries for all of them, ask questions about the material in class, go to the writing center, and always try to go the extra mile. Just remember its one class and that it doesn't define you.

Adina was nice and clearly cared about what she was teaching. However, she literally only inputted one grade the entire quarter and no one knew what their final grades were going to be until the day they were actually due. This was super frustrating and I wish there was greater transparency.

Adina was willing to take 10 minute meetings with students, which really helped me with the assignments. Overall, it was a pretty chill class. However, she did not count extra credit in the final grade and graded everything on the last day possible, which left many students in the dark.

I understand that she was probably overworked (it was her and one other grader for a class of 70 students), but better time management would be good.

I would really hope UCLA does not bring Adina on as a professor. Although she was clearly well versed in the subject matter, she did not have many of the other skills expected of a professor. She was very reluctant to have students question or debate with her and even became hostile, defensive or passive aggressive when this happened. Furthermore she did not create an environment where students were encouraged to ask questions and to interact with her outside of class. This has never been an issue for me at ucla and every professor i’ve had so far enjoys a spirited debate on the subject matter, especially if it shows that a student is thinking critically about the topics at hand. Moreover all my professors in the past have been very responsive to emails and quite friendly and welcoming in office hours and Adina was not. In her defense however this was probably an unusual experience for her because the course was online.

I think it was an extremely interesting class that provided great insight into the major and comprised of contemporary readings , podcasts and one Q&A with professionals in the field. The discussion questions were based on readings which were interesting and fun to read! The only thing I disliked was with regard to grades and how they were handled. They could have been told to us sooner so we accordingly could plan for our finals. Also, it would be nice to have had some more time with the professor one on one and had her reply to emails a bit more regularly. Otherwise, I think the class content was pretty interesting and I'd take it again save for more transparency in grading and extra credit!