TLDR; class is kinda boring but pretty easy. can get by with minimal reading

The grading breakdown for the class is 50% midterm and 50% final. The professor also requires that you submit two reading responses during the quarter; rather than getting a grade on these, they are just credit/no credit (if you fail to complete both satisfactorily your overall grade will be reduced by 20%).

The professor repeatedly said that the exams would be based on lecture and reading material, but I'm honestly not sure that there was anything on the exams that wasn't addressed in lecture. I just used the readings to help clarify the lecture concepts that I didn't understand, because there is a lot of overlap, but I don't think you need to do the full readings to do well in the class. You could probably get by without the course reader if it weren't for the reading responses; even then, he often tells you that something in lecture is from the reading so you could just write about those things for your response if you really don't want to buy the book. I thought the exams were pretty straightforward, both had like 7 or 8 short answer/short essay questions; I think they had 3 required questions and then for the rest you got to pick which ones to answer out of several options.

The reading responses are super easy, they're just a 3 page response to anything in the readings. As long as you bring in your own ideas and don't just summarize, you should get credit. And you're allowed to resubmit if you don't do well the first time.

I like Professor Bryant, he made things interesting and he's a funny guy. My only complaint is that he sometimes explained things in a confusing way and often confused students even more when they would ask questions... I think it's just because he's really intelligent and has difficulty not explaining things in a really scientific way. That being said, he was always willing to try to clarify thing.

I personally didn't find the material very interesting, but I guess it could be to some people. The class covers a wide range of topics so you'll likely find something to be of interest to you. I wouldn't recommend taking it if you're not a comm major who has to take it.

Discussion was not mandatory, but I found it pretty helpful for gaining clarity on confusing topics.

I enjoyed taking this class. If you go to class, take good notes, and listen to your TA, you are guaranteed an A. He posts slides online, but I still recommend going to class because he elaborates on the bullet points and explains things more clearly. My TA was very helpful, so be sure to go ask them for advice on test prep and the essay. Theory might not be the most engaging topic, but this class is a must for every comm major (literally), and Bryant is a great, funny prof.

Class is broken into 50% midterm, 50% final. There are 2 reading responses (that you'll need the course reader for) that are graded credit/no credit. You don't receive a grade for them, but if you fail to complete them, your grade gets docked 20%.

Readings are so important!! It's so hard to bullshit the papers if you haven't read. He references a lot of the readings during lecture and it gets kind of confusing if you haven't at least skimmed his passages.

Midterm and final is decent, as long as you've read and gone to section you'll do fine. You discuss a ton of readings in section. He gives out 'hints' of what will be on the midterm/final during section as well! They're almost verbatim from the questions he gives out.

Material is not hard, mostly a memorization based class.
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Sometimes lecture is a bit confusing and he can take forever trying to explain something. Much of exam is just the major concepts he covered in class. He goes over them before the exams.
Midterm, know your definitions and examples. (You lose a lot of points for not getting a definition right)
For the final, know how to apply concepts and come up with your own examples!

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This class was one of the least interesting classes I’ve taken at UCLA, but it’s required for Comm majors. Bryant does his best to make the lectures engaging but I personally found it really hard to pay attention in this class. He sometimes explains things in a way that just makes them more complicated, so it’s really important to have a good TA to help explain the concepts.

The midterm isn’t bad, you just need to memorize the concepts. I think the class average was 91. Bryant repeated all quarter that the final was going to be hard because he was feeling pressured not to inflate our grades. I had a special situation because I took the class when school got moved online from the coronavirus, so the format of our final was different. I think he made it much harder than it would’ve been if we took it in class, and made it much more time consuming - basically a 6-8 page paper. Overall I didn’t enjoy the class at all, and wouldn’t recommend it unless you have to take it.

This class was very confusing and abstract, and Greg is not a great lecturer. He talks way too fast and explains things in a very confusing way. Grade is composed of a midterm (mostly memorization) and a final (coming up with examples and application of material), and 2 p/np reading responses.

Bryant tries hard to make the class interesting, but the material just isn't engaging unless you really love science. Some of the material is easy, but the vast majority of it is pretty technical and difficult to apply. He tried to explain how the material was communication related, but it was difficult to see how everything tied together. I would recommend going to lecture and section because the class will make zero sense if you can't comprehend the readings (research articles in course reader).

Your grade is comprised of 2 P/NP 3 page papers and a Midterm (50%) and Final (50%). Section isn't mandatory to attend, but I feel like it helped. I feel like he should just make the papers 10% of the grade because they feel like a drag to complete, since they're not even graded. They're just extra work that doesn't really make a difference in your grade (unless you don't do them of course).

The midterm wasn't hard, but one of the TA's who graded mine (I think his name was Tim) took off a huge amount of points on one of my answers for not including one word, which significantly dropped my grade. I talked to him about the question at his office hours in a respectful manner to see why I got such a large number of points off. After figuring out why I had lost so many points, I displayed to him that I did in fact answer the part of the question that he took points off for in my first paragraph. He didn't consider giving me any points back at all, which I felt like was unfair, especially after studying 2 weeks for the midterm.

Our final ended up being a 6-8 page take home paper because of COVID-19, and it was probably much harder than the in class final would've been. I don't know my grade yet, but even if I get a perfect score, I probably won't get an A because of that midterm grade.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend the class unless you have to take it for your major.

Bryant is an outstanding professor. I came into this thinking "ah just gotta do the requirement" and came out thinking "wow I love these topics and these topics are exactly what made me choose my major." It just really matched up with what I'm interested in and it was very engaging. The slides were very clear and organized, and the readings were also super duper organized. I did all the readings and lectures really matched up with the readings, so you definitely are surefire going to succeed if you do all the readings. I also get the feeling that you could get away with not reading and do pretty well just from paying attention in lecture and studying slides. Bryant also wants you to get a good grade and is sympathetic toward the student. The grade was made of midterm and final tests (not cumulative) for 50% each with two papers to prove you read that only detract from your grade if you don't do them.
In terms of discussion, I scored a pretty easy TA and also participation is not graded so I almost never went.
Totally a great class. Probably going to be top 10 (not the best of the best but up there) for me in my time at UCLA.