By all means read all the negative reviews of this class ('bruh this is the worst class ever' etc) which are posted below but I would suggest that before you jump to any conclusions, ask yourself- how does one teach 'punk'? Professor Schwartz introduced this question and made us answer it for ourselves, prompting us to question our assumptions about the genre and investigate why punk music exists. THAT is punk. If you want a typical survey style music history course in which you are fed information to regurgitate on tests, don't take this class. If you like punk music and culture and want to think about what it stands for, you will probably love this class.

Not sure why I’m leaving a review, all the reviews below are accurate. I guess I’m here to reiterate that Jessica Schwartz’s teaching is so incredibly bad, that our TAs had to report her to the department chair. I took this class solely because I knew both of the TAs were amazing, and I ignored all the Bruinwalk reviews...but please, I cannot stress this enough: do NOT take a class with Jessica Schwartz. What the hell was this class? Genuinely, what the hell? It’s too bad, because some of us really wanted to learn. I literally had no idea what she was talking about all quarter. Her “teaching” style, if you can call it that, made absolutely no sense to anyone but her. Truly the most unorganized and unprepared (and honestly, most annoying) professor I’ve ever seen, and yet she acts like it’s all part of her grand plan. She provided us with no guidance. She would tell us to do readings or assignments and then never bring them up again. She speaks for two straight hours about absolutely nothing of substance. Her vagueness drove me NUTS. I am shocked to see she’s been teaching this class for so long.

Though this class was very easy, it was the most unorganized class I have ever taken. The content is very interesting, however the course is so unorganized that it is hard to follow at times. Professor Schwartz is a very fun character.

I took this class because it was required for the musicology minor. The class is just a 3-hour seminar once a week, with weekly discussion forum posts, a midterm project, and a final project. The final project is pretty open-ended: you can choose to do a podcast, video shorts, or traditional paper on pretty much any topic of musicology that you want to do. You also are required to "lead" discussion with a group once during the quarter for about 1 hr-1.5 hrs. I found this class pretty difficult, especially because I didn't really have a lot of background knowledge for the specific topics that the professor focused on a lot in class (ex. punk music) and found that it was pretty difficult to contribute to discussion because I felt out of place (although being on Zoom might have contributed to it). During the later weeks, there were musicologist guest speakers that came in, which I thought was pretty cool at least. I was expecting more of an introductory-level course to what the study of musicology is, but I thought this course was disorganized, disjointed, and I'm not too sure what exactly I learned after ten weeks. Probably wouldn't recommend taking this class unless it's required for your major/minor.

I only took this for the minor. It was pretty boring, I really don't feel like I got anything out of it. I did enjoy the final project, which you can kind of make your own. It's an easy class.

Music History 13: Punk Music, History, and Subculture was one of my favorite classes at UCLA. The lectures are very organized and engaging. We go in depth on various punk scenes in the United States and internationally. I'd highly recommend taking this class if you have an interest in punk or music history.

I took this class as preparation for the Musicology minor and really loved it. Though it's a three hour class, it's only one hour of lecture and the rest is dedicated to weekly group presentations and guest speakers. One time, preparation for class involved listening to a podcast pop musicology and the two podcast hosts were in class the next session. It was really cool. Would definitely, definitely recommend. No tests just projects and Professor Schwartz is really cool.

I didn't love Schwartz, but I didn't hate her either. She just tries really hard to be funny and it just gets really awkward. Her slides are also super unhelpful when you go back to study because its usually just a picture with the name of a song and the band that performed it. She also moves quickly so you can't always get all the info for a particular slide, so when you go back to study you're kinda screwed. The winter quarter is mostly her show because basically every other lecture is about a musical genre. She also writes the prompts for an essay thats 25% of your grade, and the prompts are super convoluted and confusing. She is also terrible at explaining musical sounds because she assumes we can all pick up on the nuances in the differences in sounds from an amplifier. The lectures she gave never lived up to my expectation of the topic. Some people liked her style, but it wasn't really my thing.

Schwartz is pretty cool and the material is interesting, but she's new to teaching and it kind of shows. The whole second half of the class was totally not planned ahead of time, which made it a lot more disorganized and more difficult to study for the final. Overall an easy A if you're into the topic.

Schwartz is a really fun professor who loves punk and has a great personality. Lectures could be a bit disorganized sometimes but they were always engaging and interesting. Workload was super light and this class was an easy A (p.s. you don't need to do the readings). I'd highly recommend it if you're looking for a Visual & Performing Arts GE.