I took History M182A with Prof. Burke. He was honestly one of the worst Professors I have had at UCLA. He is NOT a historian. He is Not a religious scholar. He is an archeologist. I went into the class thinking I would earn the religious history but instead learned about buildings and architecture which although somewhat interesting was still, I thought not what the coarse description led me to believe. I would not take this class. I am a Religious Studies and History Major. He did not satisfy either of those interests. I felt robbed. He gives two tests, a midterm and a final. They are both Scantrons, which is ridiculous for a history class. He also gives an 8 page paper that overviews the class. His lectures have nothing to do with the tests. Overall, I did not enjoy this class at all.

CLASS: JEWISH STUDIES (JEWISH HISTORY): From Patriarchs to Rabbinic, Fall 08

I actually like the class because I learned a lot, and took it for personal reasons.
DON't try to copy everything down from his slides and not listen to him, if you read the slides later they might not make sense. I think this is why most people had hard time in the class. But if you listen to him and take notes on what he says, you actually learn, he says whatever is important in the slide, and when later u read ur notes they actually makes sense. (i know its common sense, but half the class was just copying down his slides)
LOTS of readings, but HALF of it is unnecessary. DO NOT waist your time with the miller book.
Read the online readings and the source reader only.
How the bible became a book, I actually read it, its not that bad, but some parts lots of unnecessary details. There is a Synopsis at end of the book that you might find very helpful.
He does give study guides. know every essay questions in the study guide, the good thing is u can write the essay in bullet point format!! (i integrated some stuff from the readings to show that I read the stuff). Overall I like the class, and he is helpful in his OH.

Class: Jewish History

Overall: an effective teacher

Provides study guides before the midterm and the final, which help enormously in acing the exams. Exams can be challenging and involve detailed as well as general questions. Negative aspect: reading assignments are overwhelming. Advice: consult him to know which texts are more worth reading given your time constraint. His lectures can be very boring as you may feel like the lectures consists of writing down notes from his PowerPoint presentations without being able to interact with what he says.
He is better than the average UCLA teacher.