Learned a lot about Latin America which I was otherwise ignorant before. Really friendly and funny professor. Not a harsh grader at all. Material is engaging and relevant. One of my fav professors at UCLA. Easy A as long as you out the work in which doesn't take that much effort. Many extra credit events to attend which she greatly appreciates and rewards you for. 10/10 recommend this professor and class

Dr. Taub was great, I really loved her as a person. She was incredibly sweet. Her class was awesome, we learned so much about Latin America, and she had many first hand experiences to share with us. We did read a lot, but the work load was not that bad. Overall I had a great experience with her.

Dr. Taub is an amazing lecturer. She is passionate about Latin American health, and gives engaging lectures. I strongly recommend this class to anyone who is interested in public health or pursing a career in the health field. There is a lot of reading in this class, but it is really interesting. If I could, I would love to take another class with her. She truly cares about her students, and she can be a great mentor!

I took a class with her on Chocolate in the Americas. (I honestly did not know that could be a class). It was a lot of fun. We always ate chocolate or some sort of snack and got points for it. I thought she was funny though I do appreciate dry humor such as her comment about how companies are not allowed to write "love" as a food ingredient. She was very kind and worked hard to ensure that the class was a positive experience for those interested in the material such as taking us to the Fowler Museum and to YRL Special Collections. She is also a fairly lenient grader.

My one and only complaint was that it was annoying dealing with students chatting during a documentary or texting on their phones on full brightness. I would recommend this class for those in International and Area Studies majors, especially those in Latin American Studies. Just please take the course seriously.

Coming into this class, I knew little about Latin America. I am much more open minded and informed about the subject after taking this class. I really enjoyed Professor Taub as a person. Her lectures were engaging and she had so many diverse personal experiences to share with us. She does give extra credit, which helps a lot. Here is a breakdown:
Class Attendance is important! You have to turn in an article every class to earn your attendance marks. Although she does upload her powerpoint to CCLE, she will put very general words like 'anthropology' or 'Mayans'... which does help at all unless you are in lecture.
Midterm was a breeze if you read the books and went to lecture. However, the final intensely focused on material in the textbook. It was kind of a surprise.
The books are necessary!!! Buy them and read them!!!
Although this class was the most work I've done for a GE, it really was not that bad. I would take it again just because Professor Taub was so lovely and engaging.

This was my favorite class Winter Quarter! Professor Taub is a really kind woman, and an engaging lecturer. The midterm was super easy, and the final paper, which was an ethnographic interview/research paper on change in Latin America, was actually fun to write. The novels she assigns make up most of the exams, but they are short and interesting reads. She also allows for three extra credit assignments, which require you to do anything related to Latin America (read a book, listen to a song, watch a movie, visit a museum, etc.) and write a half-page response to it. Overall, I highly recommend this class and Professor Taub!

Professor Taub is not only a great professor but also a super sweet person. It's easy to tell that she is very passionate about what she teaches and she is very willing to help students understand and learn the material well. There are frequent homework assignments and lecture attendance is taken through those homeworks, the assignments are all super helpful in understanding the material. The exams are not too challenging as long as you pay attention to lecture and ask Professor Taub if you have any questions. She'll go over it as many times needed too! She's great!!

IA STD 50
B+
Worst.
She is nice. But she was gone for 3 weeks and gave us midterm on week 6 saying "not all the things we covered in the class will be on the midterm."
One thing we did do in class a lot was watch documentaries which we were tested on.
WTF
She is extremely unorganized.
Her powerpoints slides are just sad.
She didn't even let us know our midterm grades until the final grades came out... so we didn't know how well we did on the midterm until we got our final grade.

Don't take any class with Bonnie.

I absolutely loved learning about Latin America, but I felt like Professor Taub's lectures were not super helpful towards the midterm and final. I enjoyed this class too because there was no discussion, which actually might have been helpful to have. In all honesty, you do need the textbook for this class. But don't fear. It should be on course reserves in the library. I didn't have to buy mine because of this. There is a lot of content to go over, but it isn't too understand. Professor Taub does create a brief study guide list. Most of the questions on the exams are pretty specific, therefore it is important to read from the textbook. I believe that for every lecture section (2x a week) we had to turn in a printed copy of a current news event on a country in Latin America and write a brief summary of the article and some thoughts. Professor Taub is very sweet, but she is a bit forgetful. She also never claims to know everything which is great compared to other professors. She also speaks a whole bunch of languages and has worked abroad. There is a pretty long essay we have to write where we interviewed someone who has lived in a country in Latin America and discuss their experiences and how they coincide with the events at that time. I recommend doing this as soon as possible because the essay does require a lot of time and research to be accurate. As long as you did all the readings (or just skimmed the main points) and the essay to your best abilities, it is highly likely that you will get and A.

Professor Taub is easily one of the nicest, most passionate professors I've had at UCLA. Her work in the field is super interesting and hugely diverse, and she has a lot to say about her experiences and is very knowledgable about the subjects covered in IA STD 50. A lot of the topics covered in this class are super interesting and will definitely open your eyes and make you think. That being said, there is a lot of reading for this class. The tests are decently in depth, and there is definitely a lot of material to understand along with a lot of things to memorize. The interview research paper also was a ton of work, and took a couple of weeks at least to gather all the facts and data you need, interview your subject, make sure of its accuracy, and actually write the paper. Even though this research paper was super involved and difficult at times, it was genuinely very interesting to learn from a first hand account. It makes you realize the themes and subjects you are studying in class are present in the experiences of someone right in front of you, and humanizes everything this class stresses over the course of the quarter.