Took this course and truly enjoyed Prof. Walker. His lectures are engaging and the readings are interesting and relevant. Highly recommend. Selling the course reader for $30. 661 803 1740.

Just to give a different point of view from the last review give, I took this class during my first quarter at UCLA and my TA was Nada also. The last review was a great summary of the class but I want to give my personal experience in case it helps future students. I am a transferred student and it was my first quarter. I took this class per recommendation of my New Student Advisor (NSA), when I went to see a counselor before the quarter started she said don't take this class in your first quarter here because it's a tough class. I chose not to drop it because I really want to finish my undergrad in 2 years and given the time most of the Sociology classes were already full. Professor was great and so was the TA, I did all the work and attended all classes. It is tough though, you have to do all the readings in order to keep up with the class. The only thing I didn't really like is the midterm is only like 8 multiple choice and fill in and then you have a short answer and then a long answer question, so if you miss a few of the multiple choice or fill in and don't do great on the short and long answer you get a low grade. Theres basically not a lot of room for error. If I can retake this class, I probably would so I can get a better grade with the same professor, as a transfer student from a community college who had only taken one political science class before, I'd say I just wasn't mentally prepared for the work load and the depth of this class.

Professor Walker is a great professor. Very knowledgable guy that knows how to relate lectures to current events. I would definitely take him again. You will need an i-Clicker 2 for this class. He asks at least one clicker question during every lecture. This will count as 10% of your grade. There are a lot of readings for this class, but they are interesting. You will have 2-3 different articles to read every week. I had Nada as my TA; She was very helpful, but you'll have a better understanding of the material if you read the articles before discussion. Given that some of the articles were long, I didn't always read the entire articles, but did skim reading to get a general understanding of the article. You will have to write discussion papers (1-2 pages) for 6 weeks of the quarter (you choose which weeks). These aren't difficult, you just need to show them that you're understanding the readings; these count for 6% of your grade. Discussion attendance counts for 4% of the grade. Midterm Exam is 25% of your grade. You will need a blue book for both the midterm and the final. Both the midterm and final include multiple choice questions, fill in the blanks, short answer responses, and long answer essays. He gives a study guide for both the midterm and the final. As long as you have a general understanding of the articles and took good notes during lecture, you should be able to easily fill in the study guide. The Final Exam is 35% of your grade; given that it is cumulative, it is a little bit longer than the midterm. You will also have a Media Analysis Paper due around the 7th week of the quarter. This will count for 20% of your grade. He will give you a list of articles to choose from and you will have to write a 4-5 page paper relating the class material to the article. This may sound like a lot, but this was the class I enjoyed the most this quarter.