If you're a finesser, this is the class for you.

HORRIBLE teacher in every way possible. If you take her class your IQ will drop an average of 2 points every lecture.

There is one HUGE reason to take this class — the light workload. It is an absolute boon if you struggle with time management. The course itself is somewhat average, but the workload and general difficulty is quite low.

This class is easy, and the workload is light. That's about the only redeeming quality in this class. The content is so pointless that sometimes I cannot even motivate myself to spend just an hour or two each week writing the blog.

An a student focused on engineering, I thought the class would provide some much needed macroscopic perspective on science and technology, especially how they relate to art. Yet I find the topics to be a strange hodgepodge with little to no rigor. Vesna was not an engaging lecturer at all; her YouTube lecture videos, uploaded *years* ago, only had modest number of views, and that should tell you whether the majority of the students who take this class actually watched them or not. The grading was opaque and easily gamed (pretty much just follow all directions). I learned nothing new in this class.

Directions in the class are not clear until I started emailing my TA, her name is Symrin, she was very helpful in leading me in the right direction of everything that we had to write in this class. The first blog was the only bad grade I got. I contacted professor one time directly when I had technical issues in submitting my midterm, and she seemed to be very nice also and fast to reply considering it was a night time. The Quiz was not easy for me, but it's worth very little and there is an extra creding available, so it did not bother me much. I guess, the only way you will not get an A in this class if you do not ask your TA what has to be corrected when you receive your 1st blog grade, and for the midterm again email your draft with your ideas and ask for advice on it.

DESMA 9 is a really stupid class... i just took it for GE credits and changed grading base to P/NP. It's an online class so it's really convenient to take it during summer... SOOOOO BORING... i just hope i can pass

This class was a disappointment.
Look, it's online, so if you need a quick 5 units, it will work out great for you.

As this was an online course, Professor Vesna was present only on pre-taped video lectures. She never answered any e-mails, though, so you were completely dependent upon the TAs. My TA was a good one, so I got lucky. The lecture material and the assignments were good, but there are a few annoying things about this class.
You will have virtually no contact with the teacher, TA, or any of the other students and Prof Vesna's voice is very dificult to listen to. I would often mute the lecture videos and turn on the CC option so I could just read along.

I took this class in the summer session, and I highly recommend you guys take this class during the summer session. The class composed of 3 events + 6 blog writings + 1 final project + 2 quizzes +(2 extra events). It's pretty time-consuming, but it's not bad class, even though lectures are pretty boring. You should go to the museums to do some events, take pictures etc. The nearest are Hammer and Getty, some museums are around USC. Most of the grading are done by the TA, our TA is Gavin, he is a nice guy. One more thing, each blog writing will have some samples. See it's pretty straightforward.

Professor Vesna has little control of her class. After about week 3 she only attended one of our weekly lectures, leaving it up to her TAs to lecture or making us listen to her podcasts. The content of the class inspired little creativity. Everything graded in the class was HIGLY SUBJECTIVE - left up to how the TAs felt about you. My TA was Joanna Cheung. This woman had no confidence, motivation, and was Professor Vesna's only TA to have a pathetic resume (the others were models and physics scientists, or were at least into making creative products). What's more, Cheung would show up at least 15 minutes late to every discussion (once missing an entire discussion without noticing because she had a conference). Cheung is the ONLY SUBJECTIVE TA I have had at UCLA, she grades on (1) your personal beauty, (2) how well you can ignore her excuses for not caring about the class, (3) how much you can exaggerate your appreciation of the pathetic pictures she shows you in discussion without any explanation how it connects to the week's topic. I expressed these concerns to Professor Vesna off the bat. She said she'd investigate it, but Cheung only got worst. Professor Vesna has NO CONTROL over her class, or gives any instructions. This is why her TA Cheung resorted to grading in the most Neanderthal-mode of grading: her feelings.

The class is boring; Vesna is an incredibly un-compelling speaker. The class is a hodgepodge of stuff that Vesna thinks is cool. There is never anything rigorous; never are students actually asked to relate science to art, since the blogs only require you to go on Google and find something cool related to the topic of the week. For the projects, you need to invent something cool (see a theme developing here?)

The projects are insanely easy both because the TAs grade them pretty easily and because half the class comes up with terrible ideas (for example, the guy whose project "proposal" was to make iPads. Seriously?)

The most annoying part of the class was that Vesna does not know how to assign work. Many times, she would mention an assignment three different times and each time it had different requirements; it was up to the TAs to figure out what she wanted and explain it to us. Same with her being gone half the time: We presented our midterms in class, but she didn't attend. It was all run by the TAs.

My TA, Tiffany, was really good but unfortunately the entirety of section was spent sorting out what we were supposed to be doing for Vesna because she is unable to keep track of what she has assigned or what is on the syllabus.

As others have said, this is an excellent class if you're looking for an A in a GE. I'm not sure how I could have gotten below an A other than by not turning anything in. Be ready to write a bunch of blogs, though, and try not to fall asleep when Vesna lectures.