Professor
Adriana Vazquez
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - The class I took was called Classics, Western Civilization, and White Supremacy: History of Complicity. It was really great and eye-opening with great readings and discussions. The workload was super light but we engaged deeply with the topic. Vazquez is super friendly, engaging, and understanding.
Fall 2020 - The class I took was called Classics, Western Civilization, and White Supremacy: History of Complicity. It was really great and eye-opening with great readings and discussions. The workload was super light but we engaged deeply with the topic. Vazquez is super friendly, engaging, and understanding.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - As a STEM major, I was really looking forward to taking this class as a GE. I was also counting on this class to be a bit more manageable than my other three classes, one of which included a 6-unit psychology course. I did NOT expect to get a worse grade in this class than my major and minor classes. Let me start by saying this: Professor Vazquez is one of the LEAST understanding professors I have had at UCLA. I am convinced that her and the TAs believe this is a graduate-level Roman studies course, or else they would not have such ridiculously high expectations. I took this class in the middle of the pandemic (Fall 2020), and she was not accommodating at all. Her emails were stand-offish and rude, and I found it hard to get in contact with both her and my TA. My TA never elaborated on the writing assignments in our discussions, and we seemed to have conversations that were not very relevant with what we went over in lecture. Speaking of lecture, the slides were ridiculous. They were filled with pictures and sentences (very hard to read), but all of this information is useless! Our entire grade was basically based on the three written assignments (2 page papers), and the grading was completely arbitrary. We never received enough information to know exactly what to do for the papers, and both Vazquez and my TA, Carly, lacked clarity in explaining the expectations for the assignments. When we got the papers back, there was no explanation for the grade, and no feedback. They were only 2 pages, so it seemed like they would be graded relatively simply. I had no idea how to improve or what I even did wrong on each paper, and that was basically my entire grade. When I brought up my concerns with my TA and Professor Vazquez, my TA took weeks to respond, and even then she was on the same level as my Professor: it is what it is and “trying your best” does not mean “being accurate.” On top of this, there was an optional assignment (movie review worth 5% of the total grade). I was on the borderline of an A and an A-, so I decided to do the assignment, thinking it would boost me up just a couple of points. Nope. I got a B+ on it (A 1-PAGE PAPER) despite spending hours on it and genuinely putting in the effort to follow the ambiguous rubric. So this optional assignment ended up hurting my grade (secured my A-), and Professor Vazquez refused to consider changing her method of grading, and my TA never even explained what I missed points on. My main point is: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR VAZQUEZ. The content was interesting but she is a HORRIBLE and unsympathetic professor with unhelpful TAs. (Funny enough, I got As/A+s in all my other, much more difficult classes that quarter. That should tell you enough about taking this as a GE.)
Fall 2020 - As a STEM major, I was really looking forward to taking this class as a GE. I was also counting on this class to be a bit more manageable than my other three classes, one of which included a 6-unit psychology course. I did NOT expect to get a worse grade in this class than my major and minor classes. Let me start by saying this: Professor Vazquez is one of the LEAST understanding professors I have had at UCLA. I am convinced that her and the TAs believe this is a graduate-level Roman studies course, or else they would not have such ridiculously high expectations. I took this class in the middle of the pandemic (Fall 2020), and she was not accommodating at all. Her emails were stand-offish and rude, and I found it hard to get in contact with both her and my TA. My TA never elaborated on the writing assignments in our discussions, and we seemed to have conversations that were not very relevant with what we went over in lecture. Speaking of lecture, the slides were ridiculous. They were filled with pictures and sentences (very hard to read), but all of this information is useless! Our entire grade was basically based on the three written assignments (2 page papers), and the grading was completely arbitrary. We never received enough information to know exactly what to do for the papers, and both Vazquez and my TA, Carly, lacked clarity in explaining the expectations for the assignments. When we got the papers back, there was no explanation for the grade, and no feedback. They were only 2 pages, so it seemed like they would be graded relatively simply. I had no idea how to improve or what I even did wrong on each paper, and that was basically my entire grade. When I brought up my concerns with my TA and Professor Vazquez, my TA took weeks to respond, and even then she was on the same level as my Professor: it is what it is and “trying your best” does not mean “being accurate.” On top of this, there was an optional assignment (movie review worth 5% of the total grade). I was on the borderline of an A and an A-, so I decided to do the assignment, thinking it would boost me up just a couple of points. Nope. I got a B+ on it (A 1-PAGE PAPER) despite spending hours on it and genuinely putting in the effort to follow the ambiguous rubric. So this optional assignment ended up hurting my grade (secured my A-), and Professor Vazquez refused to consider changing her method of grading, and my TA never even explained what I missed points on. My main point is: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR VAZQUEZ. The content was interesting but she is a HORRIBLE and unsympathetic professor with unhelpful TAs. (Funny enough, I got As/A+s in all my other, much more difficult classes that quarter. That should tell you enough about taking this as a GE.)
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2017 - This class was the worst class I have taken at UCLA. I know people who have taken the class from another professor and loved it, but DO NOT take this class with Vazquez. She doesn't post her slides, is the most boring lecturer ever, and creates horribly unorganized and hard tests. There's no way of knowing what will be on her exams. There's up to two hours of reading a night, and if you miss a reading you will be completely lost. The weekly quizzes in discussion were doable, but you have to do the readings thoroughly and memorize all the material. Besides weekly quizzes, there was a midterm, final, and final paper (7 pages I believe). I thought this would be an interesting class, but it was terrible and is the only B I've gotten at UCLA, and I'm a Physiology major (pre-med).
Fall 2017 - This class was the worst class I have taken at UCLA. I know people who have taken the class from another professor and loved it, but DO NOT take this class with Vazquez. She doesn't post her slides, is the most boring lecturer ever, and creates horribly unorganized and hard tests. There's no way of knowing what will be on her exams. There's up to two hours of reading a night, and if you miss a reading you will be completely lost. The weekly quizzes in discussion were doable, but you have to do the readings thoroughly and memorize all the material. Besides weekly quizzes, there was a midterm, final, and final paper (7 pages I believe). I thought this would be an interesting class, but it was terrible and is the only B I've gotten at UCLA, and I'm a Physiology major (pre-med).
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