ANTHRO 124P
Evolution of Human Sexual Behavior
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Recommended requisite: course 7. Examination of human sexual relations and social behavior from evolutionary perspective. Emphasis on theories and evidence for differences between men and women in their patterns of growth, maturation, fertility, mortality, parenting, and relations with members of opposite sex. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
I have to disagree with most of the reviews here. I found Professor Scelza's lectures entirely uninspiring. While she does put a lot of information into her slides there are a number of problems with her lectures. First, the module I took (Human Behavioral Ecology) involved quite a number of fairly abstract quantitative models for explaining human behaviour. However, as these were presented on an extremely broad scale: they were made assumptions about hunter gatherer societies in general - it became quite difficult to conceive of how they actually manifested in the real world (HG societies being hugely varied and not complying with extremely basic statistical models). Had she introduced a concept - e.g. methods of hunting in a particular society, and then demonstrated how a particular model could be applied to that situation, I would have stayed engaged with the class. As it was, she would simply talk in an extremely abstract fashion rarely displaying any applicability to the models in question. The fact that a good 90% of lectures involved Professor Scelza simply reading out slides, the dull nature of the content kind of inspires you to stay at home. I think the fact that only around a quarter of enrolled students were ever in a lecture at any one time is testament to the level of engagement felt overall. So, if like me, you do well writing papers - i.e. understanding concepts and demonstrating that knowledge by expanding on the basic points from lectures, you will hate this module - there is no continuous assessment. If however, you enjoy learning content and then repeating it parrot fashion in multiple choice exams then go right ahead, just prepare yourself for some dull hours in the lecture theatre.
I have to disagree with most of the reviews here. I found Professor Scelza's lectures entirely uninspiring. While she does put a lot of information into her slides there are a number of problems with her lectures. First, the module I took (Human Behavioral Ecology) involved quite a number of fairly abstract quantitative models for explaining human behaviour. However, as these were presented on an extremely broad scale: they were made assumptions about hunter gatherer societies in general - it became quite difficult to conceive of how they actually manifested in the real world (HG societies being hugely varied and not complying with extremely basic statistical models). Had she introduced a concept - e.g. methods of hunting in a particular society, and then demonstrated how a particular model could be applied to that situation, I would have stayed engaged with the class. As it was, she would simply talk in an extremely abstract fashion rarely displaying any applicability to the models in question. The fact that a good 90% of lectures involved Professor Scelza simply reading out slides, the dull nature of the content kind of inspires you to stay at home. I think the fact that only around a quarter of enrolled students were ever in a lecture at any one time is testament to the level of engagement felt overall. So, if like me, you do well writing papers - i.e. understanding concepts and demonstrating that knowledge by expanding on the basic points from lectures, you will hate this module - there is no continuous assessment. If however, you enjoy learning content and then repeating it parrot fashion in multiple choice exams then go right ahead, just prepare yourself for some dull hours in the lecture theatre.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - I would not take this class again. The content was interesting but there are such few assignments (no extra credit) that if you get a B or lower on midterm 1 your fate is sealed. I barely skimped out an A- barely! This class ended up being more stressful than my other classes and I am a STEM major. He needs to learn to either put more assignments or curve, not an easy A class if you have more than 3 classes to take a quarter. TONS of reading
Fall 2023 - I would not take this class again. The content was interesting but there are such few assignments (no extra credit) that if you get a B or lower on midterm 1 your fate is sealed. I barely skimped out an A- barely! This class ended up being more stressful than my other classes and I am a STEM major. He needs to learn to either put more assignments or curve, not an easy A class if you have more than 3 classes to take a quarter. TONS of reading
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