ANTHRO M67W
Making and Studying Modern Middle East
Description: (Same as Middle Eastern Studies M50CW.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: English Composition 3. Survey of modern Middle Eastern cultures through readings and films from Middle East and North Africa. Satisfies Writing II requirement. Letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - I took this class for a GE / Writing II credit. If you are in the same position, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS! Also as a disclaimer, I am getting an A, so I'm not salty about grades, this class is just a HUGE time commitment for what a GE should be... I am a neuro major and am used to putting in a good amount of work for my classes, but this class was sucking up more time than all my actual major classes combined! I had to take it and stay in it because I was a graduating senior, otherwise I would honestly have dropped within the first couple weeks and waited to take a lighter GE. GRADING: Attendance of discussion (not required for lecture): 10% Participation in discussion: 10% Response papers /Focus Question Answers (300-500 words per week): 10% Midterm Exam: 15% Final Exam: 15% Essay 1, 7 pages (draft=5%, revision=10%): 15% Essay 2, 9 pages (draft=10%, revision=15%): 25% CLASS: Two 1h15 lectures a week (that thankfully are recorded). Slides are about 50 per lecture with nothing but pictures in them and random words... so be prepared to take the fastest notes of your life or watch the recordings slowly to catch all the details -> because the exams will ask about detailed information the professor says in lecture. He is honestly a nice man and good lecturer, I'd love to listen to him as a podcast, but hated having to actually absorb every single detail he mentioned in class for the exams... he could at least add some more text to slides so you can focus on listening instead of writing all the small details... or make the exams be less into the details. The level of detail honestly makes it seem like you're a graduate anthro student instead of an undergraduate GE student... DISCUSSIONS (1h per week): if you can, have Emma as your TA, she was the one blessing in this class! Every week you must show up and participate a little bit for points, and then you also need to turn in a weekly focus question (300-500 words) based on a question from the readings. It took me about 1h a week to do the focus question (not counting the time to do the readings!) Readings: they are the reason this class is ridiculous. I could deal with the detailed lecture aspect... but the amount of readings required for this class is absurd. There were weeks where we'd have to do 100+ pages of readings, watch a 1-2h movie, and read an 30 min-1h article! IN ONE WEEK! I'd spend easily 4-5h a week on the materials... and I wouldn't read the actual novels, I'd either skim or read many notes and articles about them... because I cannot read a freaking book a week for ONE class... and also because you had to pay for them a lot of the times which seems ridiculous to me when there's so many good, free and shorter reading sources he could've picked instead the problem is that you need the readings to both answer the focus question each week, as well as for the exams! If you don't do them you will most likely fail the class, which is what makes it such an impossible time commitment. The articles were normally a good read, some shorter videos we're good too. The problem really is with having whole damn novels some weeks... if the professor cut it down to 1-2h a week of extra material it would be much more reasonable. Exams: 50 questions each, non cumulative, open note. Half the exams are on the lecture and the other half is on the readings. He will go into detail. It is not enough to know the symbolisms or meanings in each reading, he will ask you for specific information about them. I missed an exam question on a reading that I had done from start to finish because it was super detailed... it's just not reasonable to expect us to go into that level of detail for so many readings per week. I made copious notes on each lecture + for each reading, added notes from friends, from discussion section, ect... it really was a lot of work... Essays: The first essay is analysing a boundary in one of the readings for the class, the second one requires more outside research and extra sources. You first turn in a draft and then a final version. I spent a lot of time on these... maybe 20h each easily between drafts and final versions. I suggest treating your draft as the final version, because they do grade it expecting a pretty decent essay already. If you a 3-4h effort the night before I really doubt you'll get a good grade on your draft. I was lucky that my TA was amazing and helped me a lot during OH... but once again, this took a lot of time and effort on my end. Once again, you have been warned. The time commitment for this class is insane! You're looking at 3h30 of class + 1h for weekly homework + 4-5h for readings (assuming you only read the articles or sources that are less than 40 pages and then read summaries on the novels or bigger movies, otherwise it's even more...). That's 10 hours a week for basic stuff. Then add the time for essays (easily 40h a quarter) plus studying for the finals and organising all your class notes and reading notes (easily another 30h)... divide it all amongst 10 weeks and you're looking at 15-20h of work per week to get an A (some weeks more, some less depending on when deadlines are coming up...). Even if you don't want an A and you just want pass the class, I really doubt you can get away with less than 10h a week of work... If you love anthro and this is your jam, by all means go for it, it is doable. But if you just want to take an interesting GE and get your writing II credit, learn a bit about something different, and have a manageable work load, this class is NOT it
Spring 2022 - I took this class for a GE / Writing II credit. If you are in the same position, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS! Also as a disclaimer, I am getting an A, so I'm not salty about grades, this class is just a HUGE time commitment for what a GE should be... I am a neuro major and am used to putting in a good amount of work for my classes, but this class was sucking up more time than all my actual major classes combined! I had to take it and stay in it because I was a graduating senior, otherwise I would honestly have dropped within the first couple weeks and waited to take a lighter GE. GRADING: Attendance of discussion (not required for lecture): 10% Participation in discussion: 10% Response papers /Focus Question Answers (300-500 words per week): 10% Midterm Exam: 15% Final Exam: 15% Essay 1, 7 pages (draft=5%, revision=10%): 15% Essay 2, 9 pages (draft=10%, revision=15%): 25% CLASS: Two 1h15 lectures a week (that thankfully are recorded). Slides are about 50 per lecture with nothing but pictures in them and random words... so be prepared to take the fastest notes of your life or watch the recordings slowly to catch all the details -> because the exams will ask about detailed information the professor says in lecture. He is honestly a nice man and good lecturer, I'd love to listen to him as a podcast, but hated having to actually absorb every single detail he mentioned in class for the exams... he could at least add some more text to slides so you can focus on listening instead of writing all the small details... or make the exams be less into the details. The level of detail honestly makes it seem like you're a graduate anthro student instead of an undergraduate GE student... DISCUSSIONS (1h per week): if you can, have Emma as your TA, she was the one blessing in this class! Every week you must show up and participate a little bit for points, and then you also need to turn in a weekly focus question (300-500 words) based on a question from the readings. It took me about 1h a week to do the focus question (not counting the time to do the readings!) Readings: they are the reason this class is ridiculous. I could deal with the detailed lecture aspect... but the amount of readings required for this class is absurd. There were weeks where we'd have to do 100+ pages of readings, watch a 1-2h movie, and read an 30 min-1h article! IN ONE WEEK! I'd spend easily 4-5h a week on the materials... and I wouldn't read the actual novels, I'd either skim or read many notes and articles about them... because I cannot read a freaking book a week for ONE class... and also because you had to pay for them a lot of the times which seems ridiculous to me when there's so many good, free and shorter reading sources he could've picked instead the problem is that you need the readings to both answer the focus question each week, as well as for the exams! If you don't do them you will most likely fail the class, which is what makes it such an impossible time commitment. The articles were normally a good read, some shorter videos we're good too. The problem really is with having whole damn novels some weeks... if the professor cut it down to 1-2h a week of extra material it would be much more reasonable. Exams: 50 questions each, non cumulative, open note. Half the exams are on the lecture and the other half is on the readings. He will go into detail. It is not enough to know the symbolisms or meanings in each reading, he will ask you for specific information about them. I missed an exam question on a reading that I had done from start to finish because it was super detailed... it's just not reasonable to expect us to go into that level of detail for so many readings per week. I made copious notes on each lecture + for each reading, added notes from friends, from discussion section, ect... it really was a lot of work... Essays: The first essay is analysing a boundary in one of the readings for the class, the second one requires more outside research and extra sources. You first turn in a draft and then a final version. I spent a lot of time on these... maybe 20h each easily between drafts and final versions. I suggest treating your draft as the final version, because they do grade it expecting a pretty decent essay already. If you a 3-4h effort the night before I really doubt you'll get a good grade on your draft. I was lucky that my TA was amazing and helped me a lot during OH... but once again, this took a lot of time and effort on my end. Once again, you have been warned. The time commitment for this class is insane! You're looking at 3h30 of class + 1h for weekly homework + 4-5h for readings (assuming you only read the articles or sources that are less than 40 pages and then read summaries on the novels or bigger movies, otherwise it's even more...). That's 10 hours a week for basic stuff. Then add the time for essays (easily 40h a quarter) plus studying for the finals and organising all your class notes and reading notes (easily another 30h)... divide it all amongst 10 weeks and you're looking at 15-20h of work per week to get an A (some weeks more, some less depending on when deadlines are coming up...). Even if you don't want an A and you just want pass the class, I really doubt you can get away with less than 10h a week of work... If you love anthro and this is your jam, by all means go for it, it is doable. But if you just want to take an interesting GE and get your writing II credit, learn a bit about something different, and have a manageable work load, this class is NOT it
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