Professor
Matthew Barreto
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - While the course material was fascinating, Dr. Barreto and his TAs made the experience kind of lackluster. My problems with this class are many. 1. The syllabus for the class required students to buy around five textbooks. We only used maybe half of them for the entire quarter. 2. There is a clear lack of unity, cohesiveness, and standardization among how the TAs graded. My TA, Claudia Rodriguez, was absolutely wonderful. Claudia was great at leading class discussions and was clear about what her expectations were. I had two friends who had an absolute nightmare TA. This TA was rude and condescending to them in emails. When receiving their final grades for a final project that required us to research Latinx populations in various cities across the US, my friends reached out to their TA to ask for an explanation. She gave them both Cs for their project because they didn't include "specific information" required by the professor. My friend emailed the professor back and forth; after re-grading her project, the professor gave her a B+. This lack of communication, cohesion, and standardization could have cost her an entire letter grade. 3. My final comment is about Dr. Barreto himself. His lectures were SO BORING. He would literally just make PowerPoint slides and read off of them the entire time. There were a few pictures here and there throughout the slides, but the majority of the slides were a text that had been copied and pasted from the book. Though a smart and accomplished man, I think he lacks the ability to make the information interesting in a teaching setting. Though I have many complaints about this class, I will say that (with a good TA) the class was actually pretty easy. There were only three components of our grade, two of which were a final and a final project. The final was easy if you went to lectures, took notes, and made a mental timeline of the events he talked about. I would definitely be wary of taking this class. I say go for it if you want to roll the dice and risk getting a rude and unfair TA.
Winter 2019 - While the course material was fascinating, Dr. Barreto and his TAs made the experience kind of lackluster. My problems with this class are many. 1. The syllabus for the class required students to buy around five textbooks. We only used maybe half of them for the entire quarter. 2. There is a clear lack of unity, cohesiveness, and standardization among how the TAs graded. My TA, Claudia Rodriguez, was absolutely wonderful. Claudia was great at leading class discussions and was clear about what her expectations were. I had two friends who had an absolute nightmare TA. This TA was rude and condescending to them in emails. When receiving their final grades for a final project that required us to research Latinx populations in various cities across the US, my friends reached out to their TA to ask for an explanation. She gave them both Cs for their project because they didn't include "specific information" required by the professor. My friend emailed the professor back and forth; after re-grading her project, the professor gave her a B+. This lack of communication, cohesion, and standardization could have cost her an entire letter grade. 3. My final comment is about Dr. Barreto himself. His lectures were SO BORING. He would literally just make PowerPoint slides and read off of them the entire time. There were a few pictures here and there throughout the slides, but the majority of the slides were a text that had been copied and pasted from the book. Though a smart and accomplished man, I think he lacks the ability to make the information interesting in a teaching setting. Though I have many complaints about this class, I will say that (with a good TA) the class was actually pretty easy. There were only three components of our grade, two of which were a final and a final project. The final was easy if you went to lectures, took notes, and made a mental timeline of the events he talked about. I would definitely be wary of taking this class. I say go for it if you want to roll the dice and risk getting a rude and unfair TA.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - I'm personally not a fan of professor Barreto's teaching style as his lectures got boring very quickly but the material is pretty straightforward. Although this class is cross-listed as Chicano studies and political science, definitely don't expect to learn any chican@ theory, a majority of the lectures were spent looking at statistics about Latino voting trends. Grade is broken down into 3 parts: 25% participation in TA section, 25% research project, and 50% final exam. The final exam was 114 questions and had a few ambiguous questions in my opinion. You had to know very specific details that I couldn't recall learning in lecture, he also oddly didn't test much on statistics which I felt like he spent most of his time discussing. The final project is also very straightforward and involves minimal coding that the professor and TAs will walk you through, they use what seems like a simplified version of R on Stata for this project. Additional to the coding, you will also have to create a 10-slide presentation about your dataset and analysis. Every week we had assigned reading from the textbooks or supplementary articles that averaged about 100 pages per week. The readings are all pretty straightforward but they all seemed to repeat the same thing, especially those from the textbooks. He also allowed extra credit by attending political science-related events but you had to find those on your own. Overall, if you really pay attention in lecture then this will be an easy A, but keep in mind that he does not post lecture slides and 75% of your grade is dependent on your final exam and project score.
Winter 2022 - I'm personally not a fan of professor Barreto's teaching style as his lectures got boring very quickly but the material is pretty straightforward. Although this class is cross-listed as Chicano studies and political science, definitely don't expect to learn any chican@ theory, a majority of the lectures were spent looking at statistics about Latino voting trends. Grade is broken down into 3 parts: 25% participation in TA section, 25% research project, and 50% final exam. The final exam was 114 questions and had a few ambiguous questions in my opinion. You had to know very specific details that I couldn't recall learning in lecture, he also oddly didn't test much on statistics which I felt like he spent most of his time discussing. The final project is also very straightforward and involves minimal coding that the professor and TAs will walk you through, they use what seems like a simplified version of R on Stata for this project. Additional to the coding, you will also have to create a 10-slide presentation about your dataset and analysis. Every week we had assigned reading from the textbooks or supplementary articles that averaged about 100 pages per week. The readings are all pretty straightforward but they all seemed to repeat the same thing, especially those from the textbooks. He also allowed extra credit by attending political science-related events but you had to find those on your own. Overall, if you really pay attention in lecture then this will be an easy A, but keep in mind that he does not post lecture slides and 75% of your grade is dependent on your final exam and project score.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Professor Barreto was a very understanding professor, which really meant a lot to me as we transitioned back to in-person classes. He made sure to have a working hybrid model for the class, and he made the final online. The content of this course is interesting (be warned there are a lot of statistics but its not scary!) The grade is broken down between 50% final 25% section participation and 25% final project. The exam was an 114 multiple choice question test, which for the most part was easy to accomplish if you went to the lectures. I found the readings helpful, but you could probably go without doing them. The final project is really not that bad, it uses STATA, a data program, but it is very minimal and Professor Barreto walks you through STATA. I would take this class again easily, the information is pertinent to the real world, making it a great class for me.
Winter 2022 - Professor Barreto was a very understanding professor, which really meant a lot to me as we transitioned back to in-person classes. He made sure to have a working hybrid model for the class, and he made the final online. The content of this course is interesting (be warned there are a lot of statistics but its not scary!) The grade is broken down between 50% final 25% section participation and 25% final project. The exam was an 114 multiple choice question test, which for the most part was easy to accomplish if you went to the lectures. I found the readings helpful, but you could probably go without doing them. The final project is really not that bad, it uses STATA, a data program, but it is very minimal and Professor Barreto walks you through STATA. I would take this class again easily, the information is pertinent to the real world, making it a great class for me.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2016 - Great class! Amazing professor, someone who knows what they're talking about, and is engaging. I was fortunate enough to obtain an A+ in this class. I really enjoyed the class, and content. John Ray was my TA and I have to give him a shout out also! The class consisted of an in-class final, and final project in which you can use R studio, or Stata. Intimating at first, but definitely worth it!
Spring 2016 - Great class! Amazing professor, someone who knows what they're talking about, and is engaging. I was fortunate enough to obtain an A+ in this class. I really enjoyed the class, and content. John Ray was my TA and I have to give him a shout out also! The class consisted of an in-class final, and final project in which you can use R studio, or Stata. Intimating at first, but definitely worth it!
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