Professor
Amir Alexander
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - This professor is knowledgeable and skilled, but his frequent use of "uhhhh" can be distracting. During the first eight minutes of class, I counted 70 instances of him saying "uhhhh" which may affect some students' ability to focus. However, if you can overlook this tendency, it is an engaging and informative course.
Winter 2023 - This professor is knowledgeable and skilled, but his frequent use of "uhhhh" can be distracting. During the first eight minutes of class, I counted 70 instances of him saying "uhhhh" which may affect some students' ability to focus. However, if you can overlook this tendency, it is an engaging and informative course.
Most Helpful Review
I took Professor Alexander's History 20 class for a GE. The lectures are very boring and the hour and 15 minutes drags on. Bring your laptop if you want to type your notes. He puts up a picture on the screen then just drones on about the topic, so pick and choose what you want to write down. The textbook is very helpful, since a lot of the material is straight from it. That being said, the discussions are pretty interesting, depending on your TA. You get some pretty good debates about past cultures and philosophies and how they can relate to current events. Also, the paper is fair, they give you ample time to prepare and lots of guidance if you go to office hours. The tests are also alright. You have to memorize a ton of useless IDs (100 or so), and he'll give you about 8 to define. Then there's some essays on the tests too, but you can pretty much guess what's going to be asked. Try to avoid his class if you can, but if you enroll in it, it's not the end of the world. I got an A, you can too.
I took Professor Alexander's History 20 class for a GE. The lectures are very boring and the hour and 15 minutes drags on. Bring your laptop if you want to type your notes. He puts up a picture on the screen then just drones on about the topic, so pick and choose what you want to write down. The textbook is very helpful, since a lot of the material is straight from it. That being said, the discussions are pretty interesting, depending on your TA. You get some pretty good debates about past cultures and philosophies and how they can relate to current events. Also, the paper is fair, they give you ample time to prepare and lots of guidance if you go to office hours. The tests are also alright. You have to memorize a ton of useless IDs (100 or so), and he'll give you about 8 to define. Then there's some essays on the tests too, but you can pretty much guess what's going to be asked. Try to avoid his class if you can, but if you enroll in it, it's not the end of the world. I got an A, you can too.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - This class is one of the most difficultly easy classes I've ever taken in my life. Grading depends ENTIRELY on your TA so it's really luck of the draw if you get one who is gracious or not. The grading system is based on watching two movies and writing short reports (2.5% each), going to the Getty and writing a report (5% and you have to figure out how to get there, taking pop quizzes (20%), attendance and participation (25%), and then writing a midterm and final paper (15% and 30% respectively). The attendance is this classes saving grace as the papers can be difficult and the quizzes are hard to prepare for. Basically, you spend like $150 between the books and course reader and have to read like all of everything to prepare. Randomly, the professors give a pop quiz during lecture and you have to recall the author, title, and publication date of a given paragraph from one of the readings and, since each week's readings are based on the same topic, it's quite difficult to recall which paragraph is from which piece. If you abuse the life office hours (of your TA because they're who matter for your grade), you should do well. As few students tend to take this cluster, you may even get lucky and have your TA read and edit your paper long before it's due to ensure that you get an A. Side note: Sissa and Stahulyak (the professors for the Fall quarter) are very nice individuals but are often hard to follow in lecture. The slides are tiny and are usually either A) direct quotes from the reading that they read directly off of or B) totally unrelated to the readings and thus unrelated to any quizzes or papers that you may write. This was cool for a while, but the novelty of learning fun facts wore off when the lack of coverage of actual course material reflected itself in my grades for quizzes. Do the readings and rely on your TA and you should do well.
Fall 2019 - This class is one of the most difficultly easy classes I've ever taken in my life. Grading depends ENTIRELY on your TA so it's really luck of the draw if you get one who is gracious or not. The grading system is based on watching two movies and writing short reports (2.5% each), going to the Getty and writing a report (5% and you have to figure out how to get there, taking pop quizzes (20%), attendance and participation (25%), and then writing a midterm and final paper (15% and 30% respectively). The attendance is this classes saving grace as the papers can be difficult and the quizzes are hard to prepare for. Basically, you spend like $150 between the books and course reader and have to read like all of everything to prepare. Randomly, the professors give a pop quiz during lecture and you have to recall the author, title, and publication date of a given paragraph from one of the readings and, since each week's readings are based on the same topic, it's quite difficult to recall which paragraph is from which piece. If you abuse the life office hours (of your TA because they're who matter for your grade), you should do well. As few students tend to take this cluster, you may even get lucky and have your TA read and edit your paper long before it's due to ensure that you get an A. Side note: Sissa and Stahulyak (the professors for the Fall quarter) are very nice individuals but are often hard to follow in lecture. The slides are tiny and are usually either A) direct quotes from the reading that they read directly off of or B) totally unrelated to the readings and thus unrelated to any quizzes or papers that you may write. This was cool for a while, but the novelty of learning fun facts wore off when the lack of coverage of actual course material reflected itself in my grades for quizzes. Do the readings and rely on your TA and you should do well.
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Winter 2024 - with my other major classes, this class was a breather for me. we would have discussions on our weekly readings and at the end of the course, we need to write a final research paper about a topic we pick. i am aware i didn't put much effort into the class because my other classes demanded more of my attention, so i could've gotten a better grade than what i got. Professor Alexander is a great professor as he gives engaging lectures on the topic at hand. i just wish he would help us understand a bit more of the context rather than assume we understand it upfront even when we did the reading.
Winter 2024 - with my other major classes, this class was a breather for me. we would have discussions on our weekly readings and at the end of the course, we need to write a final research paper about a topic we pick. i am aware i didn't put much effort into the class because my other classes demanded more of my attention, so i could've gotten a better grade than what i got. Professor Alexander is a great professor as he gives engaging lectures on the topic at hand. i just wish he would help us understand a bit more of the context rather than assume we understand it upfront even when we did the reading.
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