Professor
Renata Fuchs
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - DO NOT TAKE GERMAN WITH DR. FUCHS! Dr. Fuchs is the worst language teacher I have ever had. I have studied many languages in my life but I’ve never had such a bad learning experience. Week after week, Dr. Fuchs showed us her lack of support and extreme demotivation. The worst part of her “teaching approach” is that she does not motivate her students to learn German. Dr. Fuchs looks profoundly bored during class and annoyed when students ask her questions. Once she replied to a classmate’s grammar question by saying: “Ah, yeah, that’s because in German we have many rules and many exceptions,” without providing any explanation to the student. Here is a list of the reasons why I think Dr. Fuchs should not be teaching German language courses: 1. Lack of knowledge of the course materials: when asked about the online book, she would always tell us to contact the support team on the book’s website. However, most questions were related to the homework that she had assigned but never looked at. As an example, she assigned the same homework twice, and when asked about it, she decided to delete that whole week of homework (which was counterproductive, since we could not access that homework to study for the exam anymore). It seemed that she didn't want to grade any homework. 2. It was clear to students that someone else had prepared the course materials and that she was just using what another professor had planned. 3. Lack of support to students: when asked any kind of question, she would look irritated and start patronizing, as if we were annoying children. She also never replied to students' emails. 4. Most of the homework and midterms were graded electronically, but Dr. Fuchs never graded any of the BLINK homework that needed to be graded by her. I imagine she does that at the end of the quarter, but that is not helpful because there is no way of receiving individual feedback throughout the course. 5. Dr. Fuchs didn't know our names and didn't care about our individual learning processes. She always looked disinterested and lazy. Of course, German is a difficult language, but precisely because of this and because of the decrease of students in her department, Dr. Fuchs should care more about her class and enjoy the opportunity that has been given to her to teach in a top university.
Winter 2021 - DO NOT TAKE GERMAN WITH DR. FUCHS! Dr. Fuchs is the worst language teacher I have ever had. I have studied many languages in my life but I’ve never had such a bad learning experience. Week after week, Dr. Fuchs showed us her lack of support and extreme demotivation. The worst part of her “teaching approach” is that she does not motivate her students to learn German. Dr. Fuchs looks profoundly bored during class and annoyed when students ask her questions. Once she replied to a classmate’s grammar question by saying: “Ah, yeah, that’s because in German we have many rules and many exceptions,” without providing any explanation to the student. Here is a list of the reasons why I think Dr. Fuchs should not be teaching German language courses: 1. Lack of knowledge of the course materials: when asked about the online book, she would always tell us to contact the support team on the book’s website. However, most questions were related to the homework that she had assigned but never looked at. As an example, she assigned the same homework twice, and when asked about it, she decided to delete that whole week of homework (which was counterproductive, since we could not access that homework to study for the exam anymore). It seemed that she didn't want to grade any homework. 2. It was clear to students that someone else had prepared the course materials and that she was just using what another professor had planned. 3. Lack of support to students: when asked any kind of question, she would look irritated and start patronizing, as if we were annoying children. She also never replied to students' emails. 4. Most of the homework and midterms were graded electronically, but Dr. Fuchs never graded any of the BLINK homework that needed to be graded by her. I imagine she does that at the end of the quarter, but that is not helpful because there is no way of receiving individual feedback throughout the course. 5. Dr. Fuchs didn't know our names and didn't care about our individual learning processes. She always looked disinterested and lazy. Of course, German is a difficult language, but precisely because of this and because of the decrease of students in her department, Dr. Fuchs should care more about her class and enjoy the opportunity that has been given to her to teach in a top university.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2017 - Took German 1,2,3 and Prof Fuchs was my least favourite teacher. You will still learn a lot and she is nice and encouraging but often did not understand exactly what the students were asking about before answering their questions. Which was very important when it comes to all the details concerning german grammar. The other teachers I took german language classes with, who were grad students in UCLA , took extra care in understanding what the students were asking. Difficulty of german classes are standardized across classes so i would recommend you to take another professor if possible.
Winter 2017 - Took German 1,2,3 and Prof Fuchs was my least favourite teacher. You will still learn a lot and she is nice and encouraging but often did not understand exactly what the students were asking about before answering their questions. Which was very important when it comes to all the details concerning german grammar. The other teachers I took german language classes with, who were grad students in UCLA , took extra care in understanding what the students were asking. Difficulty of german classes are standardized across classes so i would recommend you to take another professor if possible.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - This was one of the most frustrating classes I've taken at UCLA. Of course, it is a German 3 class, but this professor did not help make it better in any way. The workload for this class was very heavy given a language class. We had 2 books over the quarter, packets, and multiple tests. This professor was unclear on what she wanted and not helpful. If you asked a question she would either seem annoyed or proceed to answer before you finished explaining your question. If you can choose a different professor for German classes, I definitely would.
Winter 2020 - This was one of the most frustrating classes I've taken at UCLA. Of course, it is a German 3 class, but this professor did not help make it better in any way. The workload for this class was very heavy given a language class. We had 2 books over the quarter, packets, and multiple tests. This professor was unclear on what she wanted and not helpful. If you asked a question she would either seem annoyed or proceed to answer before you finished explaining your question. If you can choose a different professor for German classes, I definitely would.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Hi, I'm going to be going on an IN-DEPTH review of this course from the perspective of a student who is definitely a procrastinator and isn't very fond of reading, but arguably a decent test taker. If this sums you up, or hits even close to home, I would read this for an idea of whether or not you want to take this class. Also I took this course Fall of 2019, if that matters. LECTURE: First off, the professor says the lectures are mandatory, but she doesn't keep track so it's fine if you don't go to lecture. Most of her lectures are just her reading off the slide and is definitely not super useful for the only test in her class, the Final. Plus she BRUINCASTS all of her lectures, so bonus motivation to not go to lecture. By about week 3, half of the students stop attending lecture lol. TA: TAs are basically a massive chunk of your grade, so hopefully you get a good one. I had Erika Yagi, who was honestly amazing. If you do get a choice, I definitely do recommend her. I got lucky since our first TA dropped the course, so we got her. DISCUSSION SECTIONS: Discussion sections are a MUST as attendance is basically 10% of your overall course grade. PAPERS: There are 3 papers (Maybe 4 if you are unlucky). There are 2 response papers usually regarding books and movies you are SUPPOSED to read/ watch. PERSONALLY, I think you can get away with just reading sparknotes/ summaries of the book, because the prompts are usually based on broader themes and interrelations between multiple pieces of literature. The only book I read was Maus I, which was a comic, and definitely an enjoyable short read. The third paper is a memoir on a book by a specific Holocaust survivor, assigned by the professor. For this one I would recommend reading the book as I was unable to find any summaries online. However, based on your writing capabilities I would say you can still get by as I got a 100 on the paper by simply reading like 5 reviews about it (which was all that available lol) AND if you ARE UNLUCKY, there is supposed to be a project which the TAs get to decide how it is going to work. It was supposed to be a paper for us, but the TAs changed it to a group presentation which definitely was much easier. ALSO, The Prompts for the Essays don't come out till like week 7. So it's not like you can get ahead. The first one comes out in around week 7, the other two come out around Week 8/9. BOOKS: The books are marked Required, but honestly, just read the summaries if you are an above average writer. You should be fine. But otherwise, the books are necessary to do well on the final, so weigh your strengths (and how hard your TA grades too). The book for the memoir is one I recommend you buy because there aren't any summaries online, at least for the book I had (All The Things I Never Told My Father) MOVIES: There are a good number of movies to watch, which are part of the final. They are PROVIDED on CCLE. Some of them are very interesting, while others not so much. Personally my favorite was Schindler's List by far. Rosenstrasse comes a close second. 1945 was also not too shabby if I remember correctly. Triumph of the Will is very boring and is basically an hour long propaganda with almost no commentary. Shoah is by far the work, I couldn't even get through the first part of it (I believe there is 4?) It is a 9 hour long DOCUMENTARY. MIDTERM: There was no midterm for us. So YAY! FINAL: Honestly the single most hardest aspect of this class. The final single-handedly is the reason I did not get an A in this class because it dropped me practically 9.5% on its own, which effectively dropped me to the border between A- and B+. There is two long essay questions, you pick one to answer. Ten Paragraph length question, you pick 9 to answer. 5 One sentence answers, you do all. There are 2 Extra Credit questions, but they are VERY VERY Specific topic that I'm not even sure the professor goes over. Also not worth many points. The questions are all analytical and require you to connect readings/movies throughout the course, as well as ideas covered in lecture/slides. There are some specific people you need to know about to a good degree. But again, the single most difficult aspect that keeps this course from being an "Easy A" class. STUDY GUIDE: Yes. Provided a week before finals. EXTRA CREDIT: Yes. Upto 3% of your total class grade based on multiple different things you have to do. GRADED ON A CURVE? No :( I know, I'm sad too. PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION: ...yes? I mean workload-wise it was very easy. I'm not sure if I could've got more than A- though had I put in more effort. You weigh your ability based on how much you know yourself. Hope this helped and that I covered all the necessary information regarding the course. Good luck to those who choose to take the course. ##
Fall 2019 - Hi, I'm going to be going on an IN-DEPTH review of this course from the perspective of a student who is definitely a procrastinator and isn't very fond of reading, but arguably a decent test taker. If this sums you up, or hits even close to home, I would read this for an idea of whether or not you want to take this class. Also I took this course Fall of 2019, if that matters. LECTURE: First off, the professor says the lectures are mandatory, but she doesn't keep track so it's fine if you don't go to lecture. Most of her lectures are just her reading off the slide and is definitely not super useful for the only test in her class, the Final. Plus she BRUINCASTS all of her lectures, so bonus motivation to not go to lecture. By about week 3, half of the students stop attending lecture lol. TA: TAs are basically a massive chunk of your grade, so hopefully you get a good one. I had Erika Yagi, who was honestly amazing. If you do get a choice, I definitely do recommend her. I got lucky since our first TA dropped the course, so we got her. DISCUSSION SECTIONS: Discussion sections are a MUST as attendance is basically 10% of your overall course grade. PAPERS: There are 3 papers (Maybe 4 if you are unlucky). There are 2 response papers usually regarding books and movies you are SUPPOSED to read/ watch. PERSONALLY, I think you can get away with just reading sparknotes/ summaries of the book, because the prompts are usually based on broader themes and interrelations between multiple pieces of literature. The only book I read was Maus I, which was a comic, and definitely an enjoyable short read. The third paper is a memoir on a book by a specific Holocaust survivor, assigned by the professor. For this one I would recommend reading the book as I was unable to find any summaries online. However, based on your writing capabilities I would say you can still get by as I got a 100 on the paper by simply reading like 5 reviews about it (which was all that available lol) AND if you ARE UNLUCKY, there is supposed to be a project which the TAs get to decide how it is going to work. It was supposed to be a paper for us, but the TAs changed it to a group presentation which definitely was much easier. ALSO, The Prompts for the Essays don't come out till like week 7. So it's not like you can get ahead. The first one comes out in around week 7, the other two come out around Week 8/9. BOOKS: The books are marked Required, but honestly, just read the summaries if you are an above average writer. You should be fine. But otherwise, the books are necessary to do well on the final, so weigh your strengths (and how hard your TA grades too). The book for the memoir is one I recommend you buy because there aren't any summaries online, at least for the book I had (All The Things I Never Told My Father) MOVIES: There are a good number of movies to watch, which are part of the final. They are PROVIDED on CCLE. Some of them are very interesting, while others not so much. Personally my favorite was Schindler's List by far. Rosenstrasse comes a close second. 1945 was also not too shabby if I remember correctly. Triumph of the Will is very boring and is basically an hour long propaganda with almost no commentary. Shoah is by far the work, I couldn't even get through the first part of it (I believe there is 4?) It is a 9 hour long DOCUMENTARY. MIDTERM: There was no midterm for us. So YAY! FINAL: Honestly the single most hardest aspect of this class. The final single-handedly is the reason I did not get an A in this class because it dropped me practically 9.5% on its own, which effectively dropped me to the border between A- and B+. There is two long essay questions, you pick one to answer. Ten Paragraph length question, you pick 9 to answer. 5 One sentence answers, you do all. There are 2 Extra Credit questions, but they are VERY VERY Specific topic that I'm not even sure the professor goes over. Also not worth many points. The questions are all analytical and require you to connect readings/movies throughout the course, as well as ideas covered in lecture/slides. There are some specific people you need to know about to a good degree. But again, the single most difficult aspect that keeps this course from being an "Easy A" class. STUDY GUIDE: Yes. Provided a week before finals. EXTRA CREDIT: Yes. Upto 3% of your total class grade based on multiple different things you have to do. GRADED ON A CURVE? No :( I know, I'm sad too. PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION: ...yes? I mean workload-wise it was very easy. I'm not sure if I could've got more than A- though had I put in more effort. You weigh your ability based on how much you know yourself. Hope this helped and that I covered all the necessary information regarding the course. Good luck to those who choose to take the course. ##
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