Professor Suman is a very entertaining lecturer. It has definitely been one of my favorite courses that I have taken-content wise- but the most difficult in grading. The content is very simple- but there is a lot of content. There are 200 pages of articles for the midterm, as well as a book and the lectures. The tests are open note, but the questions on the exams are specific to certain topics versus a broad understanding of the course material. There is no clear grading scale for the paper, and the exams are graded very harshly. If you take this class, you will learn a lot, but you will also be spending an ungodly amount of time reading.

Contrary to other reviews, I actually really like Professor Suman. The things I've learned in this class will stick with me for a very long time. His lectures are not boring. My favorite part of his lectures is that he introduces two sides for many of his points. I feel like as a society, we're so used to hearing one side, but we should really be hearing both sides of a story, for it makes us wiser. He doesn't use slides and he rarely writes on the board but he posts guides and podcasts on the website, and the podcasts can be transcribed. No laptops allowed, but this is for a good reason. Grade is based off 3 things - midterm, final, and paper. You can have all the notes you want on the tests. Yes, the class is a bit demanding in this sense and tests are graded "harshly," however, I'd rather take a challenging class where I will actually walk away with new knowledge - but that is just my opinion. This class is not an easy A, but if you want to expose yourself to different ways of thinking while retaining interesting information - take this class. Every single lecture was interesting. He is not a mean guy by any means. He will help when you ask. He is an actual professor who deserves to be at UCLA. This isn't an easy school, so we shouldn't expect classes to be super easy. However, I do understand wanting to get a good grade, and it is possible to get an A in this class! I will probably get a B but I'm happy that I took it. It's really up to the individual's preference - do you want to actually learn something and challenge your thoughts, or do you want an easy A?

Probably one of the worst graders. He does not have a clear grading scale in the syllabus, when you take the midterm he grades however he wants. Horrible horrible in grading. Avoid this teacher.

Contrary to many students at UCLA, I love Professor Suman!! This class was very interesting. Your grade consists of a midterm, final, and research paper. The midterm and final were not too bad as long as you listen to the lectures (which were all podcasted and asynchronous) and did the readings. They were both part short answer and part essay (the short answer was based on lectures/articles and the essays were based on the books). The 2 books you have to read for the class aren't too long and can be read pretty quickly. He gave guides to guide your reading of the books too in terms of preparing you for the essays on the midterm and final. A lot of people found the books for free online but they were really cheap so I just bought them. There were additional readings of articles that he posted which are kind of a lot but you can easily skim them a day or two before the tests. The research paper was not bad (I got a 32/35) and Professor Suman was very clear on the instructions. He was also very helpful with questions if you emailed him. The research paper was due week 7 I believe, but Suman encouraged us to start early which helped. For the paper you have to create a survey and collect responses to study more about the effects a certain form of communication can have on certain populations.

Would definitely recommend!!

Be prepared to teach yourself the entire quarter with Suman. He only posts audio podcasts as lectures, no accompanying videos or slides, where he will go on many side tangents. This podcast format did a disservice to an otherwise interesting class. TA was virtually nonexistent, didn't even know their name and didn't have any contact/criticism/help from them once. Suman grades notoriously hard, I was expecting this from other reviews, but I scored low on the midterm and was not given a single word of criticism or suggestions on how I could improve. I spent weeks on the research paper, put my all into it, just to score low on it also - only problem is, all of the comments left on the paper were positive and complimenting my thesis and analyses. Not sure why I scored low, and wish I had some form of critique to grow from. Overall, least engaging class I've ever had, but interesting concepts if you're a media studies comm major. Also, final grade in class is based on only 3 assignments, so be prepared!

Love love love Suman!! Despite the fact it is impossible to get an A in this class :) compared to some other comm professors I've had, Suman is the most organized and the most clear. There are no surprises. Best lecturer at UCLA -- funny, engaging, repetitive in a good way, doesn't use slides. He doesn't allow tech in class (amazing!) and enforces this strictly; you learn so much better in an environment like this. Lots of readings but they're ACTUALLY interesting. Everyone at UCLA should have to take this class. There's a big research paper, but Suman will help you so much! He'll email you back super quickly. I got an A on the paper but B in the class despite being able to use all notes on exams. I think the essays are just graded super harshly considering I knew I got every short answer right.

selling the course reader for cheap! text me (818)263-1706

The information and topics taught are interesting. However, the way Professor Suman lectures is painfully boring and hard to follow. Constantly jumping around from different topics during lecture making it extremely easy to get lost. He isn't very clear in what he expects from you in your final project or his test. Also, the T.A I had was awful! She did not like my topic for my final project and was very bias with my grading, even though Professor Suman had approved my topic and given me examples of questions that I used in my survey. I had to have my projet regraded. Do not take this class!

Suman, Suman, Suman... THE most dreaded communications professor in the department. Honestly he is a CS celebrity. Is this class hard? Not necessarily. Is there a heavy workload? Absolutely! For our midterm we had to read 8 chapters of our reader and take handwritten notes on it we could use for the test (both final and midterm are open notes so take good notes!) for the final, we had to read an entire novel, the last 8 chapters in the reader, and read 100+ pages of news articles he compiled for us that we took notes and were tested on. (I’m not a reader by any means but the material for this class was so interesting that I finished the novel in 2 days and I genuinely enjoyed it) It is a lot of work and you absolutely must do it and do not slack off if you want to do well in class. He is literally one of the best lecturers I have ever had and the information he assigns and discusses has truly stuck with me. Never at any point in his class was I unclear about anything. He is a prompt emailer, too. He’ll call you out for having laptops and phones in class but it is for the best. I don’t think I would recommend taking this course if you already have a full load since the amount of material is immense and can seem intimidating, however he tells you everything you need to have read/notes on from day 1 of class. There is one research paper that you have to survey 100+ people for and analyze the data but he gives you an example paper to go off of so it is not too difficult. Always go to the TA if you have paper questions since they are the person who will be reading it. (I made this mistake and got a 70 on it which could have been avoided had I talked to the TA). A lot of my friends in the class didn’t do so hot on the paper (D’s) but I believe he offered them an alternative option to improve their grades but I’m not 100% sure.

Professor Suman does have a curve that guarantees that if you do the BARE MINIMUM you will get units for this class. You have to get something around 19/95 points to get a D-. The issue is if you are like me and your grades are above the class average the curve does not help much. It is actually impossible to get an A in his class. He mentions things on tests that he hardly talked about. Way too much reading, way too many notes, no electronics allowed (he will call you out if he sees you on your phone or computer). His office hours suck because he has so many students. You have to get there super early otherwise there are 10-15 people in line. Paper was easy but the tests were so hard.