I have extremely mixed feelings about this class. A lot of the reviews here are positive, but I just can't find myself holding that perspective no matter how hard I try. As a classics major, I have taken a decent amount of both classics lower and upper divs, and when I say this was my least favorite one of all of them, I mean it. As far as the actual information in the class, I think it was really interesting, but that's also coming from someone choosing to study this. The way the content was presented was a bit weird because you learn it chronologically and then 3/4 of the way through, its just cultural stuff until you pick back up a few hundred years later at the fall of Rome. Professor Vazquez did a decent job bringing attention to a lot of the social issues both in the field of classics and in the material we have available to us today, but I feel like she always failed to say anything meaningful about it. She would discuss how slavery was bad and point out how scholars in classics attempt to excuse it, which I strongly commend her for, but the impact of slavery on Roman culture was glossed over. As far as the mode of assessment, this class isn't necessarily difficult (mean grade for my quarter was an A- and median was an A), but the amount of work is kind of a lot for a class that counts as a GE and is meant to be a basic introductory course for the major. If I actually did all of the work assigned and took notes on the readings, I would be spending more time on this class than multivariable calculus. That said, you can definitely get away with skimming the readings or not even doing them as long as you actually go to lecture. There were 3 essays, and I felt like we received very little support from both Professor Vazquez and the TAs. Sure, there were office hours, but I did not find them helpful at all. The last half of the class is very fast-paced because right after the midterm there are two essays and then the final. The exams themselves were very easy, so I have no complaints, but I think that three essays (two were 3-4 pages and one was 2-3), a 50 minute midterm, and a 2 hour final was overkill and unnecessary. The TAs took very long to grade, so I went into summer break not knowing what my grade would be. The discussion sections were completely useless and were somehow mandatory with no credit for actually showing up, meaning that no one showed up and no one wanted to participate. Maybe I just had a bad experience with my TA and my specific section, but Professor Vazquez does not structure the course in a way that facilitates engagement in section. Professor Vazquez also does not have the best organizational skills and tends to dump a very large amount of information on her slides, which she usually has to rush to get through. She goes on tangents a lot, which makes the aforementioned problem worse and has admitted that the department will not allow her to teach classics 30 for this exact reason. She is very nice as a person, easy to approach, and her lectures are engaging and interesting, but I really disliked the way she structured the class. If you're looking for an easy GE, I'm not sure if this is the one, but if you have to take this class, it's really not terrible, and I mostly enjoyed it aside from discussion sections.

This class was great. I really liked it. The course overall was pretty interesting and the professor can be quite funny. The grading breakdown gives chances to make up for your grade and all papers had a 4-day grace period for submission after the deadline with no penalties and no need for excuses. There is relatively a lot of work in terms of amount but none was that hard. The classes were recorded and slides were given by the professor.

15% - weekly open book quizzes (can be retaken as many times to get 100%)
16% x 3 - 3 Short Papers
17% - Midterm
20% - Final

Midterm and Finals materials are all from the slides. Readings will help you understand deeper concepts but they aren't 100% necessary. I mostly skimmed and sometimes skipped them.

I had a great time in this class and with this professor. If you study the material and have any essay-writing experience it’s an easy A; you just have to put in the work with readings and some studying. Really enjoyable material, would recommend if you liked Percy Jackson in middle school. All my TAs in the classics department have been great so far, but getting on their good side is important for grading.

Honestly I took this class during Fall of 2020 in the Pandemic and Prof. Vazquez is extremely kind and accommodating. Grades are mostly based on 3 written assignments which include clear rubrics, a dedicated section day for the content of the essays and she included an example written by herself for each one. Additionally she created an FAQ on the course website with all the questions she'd answered from students. Then there were reading checks based on participation, section participation, an optional final, and extra credit movie review.
The reading for each class was a bit dense but her lectures(which were recorded) are so comprehensive that you really only need a skim to grasp the material. As a north campus major I was honestly expecting quite a bit more work from a history class and was pleasantly surprised. That said I can also see how it may have been stressful to others not familiar with that type of work. However Prof. Vazquez was super kind and as mentioned she acknowledged that her emails may have come off a bit stiff on a few occasions. I emailed her personally on several occasions and she never failed to get back to me with a kind and professional tone. I also had her as my section instructor and she was very engaged. Overall she's passionate about the material which you can tell, this is great as it makes lectures more fun but also means she tends to include a lot of info and use all her time until the last second.