I would recommend staying away from this class unless you absolutely have to take it. I had a 4.0 before I took this class and was taking it to fulfill a GE. My main issues with this class were the grading structure and the sheer amount of material covered in this course. There is a midterm, final, and paper, and those are the ONLY items in your grade, which I feel is very unfair. I think that there should also be homework and/or participation points contributing to our grade so that not everything rests on two exams and a big paper. Mess up one of those and you're doomed (which happened to me). Definitely make sure to review your paper with the TA, as they are the person grading it. Suman is very strict about rubrics/grade cutoffs so you want to make sure you're maximizing your chances of meeting everything on the rubric by meeting with the TA. On the midterm and the final, Suman will ask the most subtle of questions. Every WORD in his lectures or the (long) readings is fair game for the exam. Every. Word. I mean that. Not to mention that the lectures are SO BORING! This man is old and speaks with a very unengaging and monotone voice. I had a hard time not falling asleep while listening to the lecture podcasts. Additionally, I find the material of the class to be very boring. This class basically sheds light on things people do in their everyday lives, it felt like I was memorizing an unreasonably large number of facts rather than actually learning something insightful. Overall, this was probably my least favorite class I've taken at UCLA, and unless you absolutely must take this, stay away!

Perspective of an engineering major taking the class as a GE.

I read the reviews and thought that maybe people were being a little harsh. After experiencing it, I realize that they were right. This class has very harsh grading. I do not recommend it as a GE at all.

The TAs are smart. The professor is smart. They are all smart people, and it really shows in discussion and lectures. They are knowledgeable about the subject and are well spoken in general. I personally enjoyed Suman's lectures a lot.

I would recommend the Tannen book even if you don't take the class. It is very insightful. Very well written, timeless, and easy to follow. Very helpful with any relationship.

The grades are very bad reflections of your knowledge about communications. Knowledge will not get you an A. You need to be good at writing. If you cannot express you ideas effectively, you will not get an A no matter how well you think you know the content. The description of the paper even states that you can get a good grade on the paper without needing to use concepts you learn in the class. It is a writing and critical thinking assignment about communications concepts, not a communications assignment.

Only take this class if you are/want to be in the comm major. Suman is a very good lecturer, although he doesn't use powerpoints. Write down EVERYTHING he says. There is only a midterm, term paper, and final.

This class changed dramatically after the midterm. Before the midterm, material was focused on interpersonal communication like flirting and lying and demanded an intense amount of hours every week but was pretty interesting. After the midterm, material focused on mass communication which became much less tangible and more confusing. The class readings take up a huge amount of time. All notes MUST be handwritten and can be used on the tests ONLY IF they are on the readings; notes taken on the lectures are not allowed in the tests, which do not focus on the seemingly main points of the class; instead, they often focus on obscure concepts mentioned once in lecture. This class took up insane amounts of time last quarter, taking valuable time away from other classes.

Suman is extremely knowledgeable on the topic and can be humorous, but consistently goes off on tangents. However, I took this class Fall quarter of 2021 and it was asynchronous. The pre-recorded lectures are just audio with no visuals and literally there could be 4 a week (each an hour long and sometimes longer). Those sucked. I hated just having the audio. I watched (or should I say listened to) every single one and it was truly excruciating. There are only THREE grades: an essay, the midterm, and the final. I did horribly on the midterm, so I had to ensure that I performed well on the other two. Funnily enough -- TO THIS DAY I still do not have grades inputed for my essay or final. I have no idea how I did. I must have done well enough to end with an A- (and now I don't have a 4.0 ... #tragic). The readings for discussion section made me lethargic, but they were nothing compared to the behemoths of readings that Suman either wrote himself or wanted us to read. Also -- there is just no conceivable way that you will finish the essays for the midterm/final feeling confident because so many people finished with seconds to spare. Suman is undeniably a true expert on this subject though.

start those cheat sheet notes early......

Overall the class offers some interesting stuffs to learn. And I like Suman personally. It's just that the grading of this course is really old-fashioned and quite unfair to some extent. Memorizing (tons of them) are actually the better part in this course, the worst part is the cheat sheet. You could be reading hundreds of pages and writing down 20 pages of cheat sheets carefully but still missing the questions on the tests, which are insanely detailed and some are not even relevant to the central theme at all. TA grades very harshly on short answer questions, missing out THAT KEY TERM can lead you to lose score even if you demonstrate correct understanding of the concept. Not to mention the grading of paper, every punctuation counts. I'd say as long as you put into effort, a B can be expected, but an A requires not only effort but some fortune and luck as well (like getting an easy-grading TA, getting the questions you have written down on the cheat sheet, etc.)

SELLING 30-PAGE TYPED POST-MIDTERM LECTURE NOTES (pre-midterm is mostly pretty basic, intuitive concepts but post-midterm is the hard part. You will probably miss out something on lecture and the typed notes can be very helpful for review) AND ALL ONLINE READING NOTES
Text me at 310-592-7932 if interested.

Suman is honestly a great professor in that he knows what he's talking about and organizes everything you need to know pretty clearly. The things he writes on the board, examples, and the lists are key to the class. The grade is entirely dependent on your midterm, final, and an essay, so it feels like there is no room for errors. You have to study and study HARD todo good on the tests; consolidating your notes and lists into manageable pieces of information and quizzing yourself is really helpful and its best to start reviewing as soon as possible because there is sooooo much you need to know. The readings are not that bad, they are pretty interesting and its also best to start writing your midterm and final notes that you can use on the exam as soon as possible as well, because there is also a lot to read. Overall, there is a lot of information to study and take in, but the material itself is interesting and if you work hard you should be fine. For the essay, reviewing it with your TA is best, because they're the ones grading it. Discussion sections are not really necessary if you're on top of the readings, and if you're behind on the readings they won't be much help to you anyways. All in all, don't be scared of this class, but know that it is a lot of work but if you're interested in Comm it won't be so bad.

The workload of this class and the amount of reading you have to do is insane. This is by far the hardest class I've ever taken at UCLA. Do NOT take this class if you're not trying to be a Comm major, there's literally no point. Professor Suman is super strict about his rules including no electronics in class, you have to handwrite all your notes. Since the first 4 weeks were online for Winter 22, the first time we ever met in person was to take the midterm which was super stressful. The midterm and final are hard because you have to be super specific and you never really know what they're looking for. I really wanted to be a Comm major but now I'm not sure if I'll even get in because of my grade in this class.

The only reason people don't like this class is because 1. they're taking it as a GE or 2. they don't want to put in the work to study the material. The tests are very easy if you thoroughly study and do all the readings. The people saying that they're impossible are the ones who did not put this effort in. There is no reason you should take this class unless you're a communications major, I would not recommend it as an easy GE. I find the class material extremely interesting and it confirmed that I want to be a communications major. Suman does talk very slowly but is still very engaging and organizes his lectures very well. He provides a lecture guide, which lays out a nice format for your notes. If you take this class in person, be aware that you cannot use a laptop for notes during lecture, he only allows you to handwrite notes in class and does not want technology in his classroom. Essentially, this class is awesome if you're interested in communications, but definitely a lot of work!