Professor Alexander talks in a mellow tone so class was often boring for the majority of students. He has an attendance sheet that he passes around in class for students to sign, but I'm not entirely sure how much that ties into the final grade. The TAs and discussion section were definitely better in explaining the terms though. Standard grading was 93% (aka. 93% was full marks, so to get beyond that you would have to go beyond what is required).

The course is not heavy in workload. There's only one assignment per week that takes about an hour to complete (if you have good reading skills). Be warned that there is A LOT of reading though. Skim reading is vital to the course! All homework is due before the lecture begins.

Lecture: Class content was pretty boring overall, I mainly go to class for the participation points and then just look at the slides that he posts during the class. He talks a lot, and most of the stuff he says is not even on the slides so bring a computer or tablet if you can to take better notes.
HW: The readings took way too long and I felt like you didn't even need to read through all of them to answer the reading response question so I ended up skimming over the readings briefly to get enough content to write one long paragraph. Not too bad and I feel like my TA Sunny was pretty nice with grading.
Exams: Prof will give a list of words that you should definitely know how to define. TA will also run a discussion to review basically all the definition for the content that will be covered on the exam, so make sure to make that discussion to review. Otherwise, just make just you know how the vocab connect to each other and which topic they fall under. Only hard part about exams was that the time limit is only 50 mins (I think) so if you don't write fast and know the content then it can be hard to have enough time to get everything down on paper.

Overall: Boring class but pretty easy A! Just make sure to study at least a day or two in advance for the exams.

I just took this class in the fall and have both books needed for the course! Send me a text ********** if you wanna buy them from me:

1. Used version of: Revolutionizing the Sciences, European Knowledge in Transition, 1500-1700, Third Edition, by Peter Dear

2. New version of: Science in Europe, 1500-1800. Edited by Malcolm Oster

I'll split this review into the class and the professor: (NOTE: I took this class during the TA strike so my experience was much different)

The class is pretty interesting the topic is really cool and the lectures are pretty engaging. Attendance is taken by a sign in sheet so you have to be there. The workload can get kind of heavy when you have to read alot. Sometimes those readings don't even help with the assignment. The midterm is like an LEQ for AP History classes with some vocab words (Term IDs). The final is a doubled midterm. The TA's grade everything. My TA graded strictly making the class a bit harder for me.

The professor is fine, I would suggest sitting in the front because his mic often cut out and it was hard to hear what he was saying when it did. He's pretty helpful in making sure you understand the class and is pretty interesting to talk to. Overall, this class is not too bad and if you like the scientific revolution or are a history buff, take this class. Good Luck!

Lecture: The professor's lectures are very boring with him talking about dry material with slide shows largely consisting of pictures and few bullet points as reference. Also, attendance is mandatory as its part of your grade.

HW: The readings for this class can be very time consuming if you actually take the time to do them and fully process them. It is probably better to just skim the text or look up main ideas for the weekly reading responses.

Exams: The exams consist of knowing certain vocabulary (which is pretty managble) and also writing down an essay (which is much harder especially with the time constraints).

Overall, this class is a very middle of the road GE in that an A is defintely attainable for most, but it is incredibly boring

Really interesting class and no papers. Dr. Alexander was really kind too and gave me an accommodation on the final because I was sick. Josh was a great TA too. There's some reading and writing but it's manageable.

Wonderful GE! Absolutely loved taking this class as a distraction from my engineering workload, the lectures are engaging and very well thought out. Prof. Alexander has been teaching for so long that he's got the curriculum down to a T and it's a great experience as such. The weekly readings aren't really necessary for the midterm or final, but if you have time they can be interesting to read through (and they're necessary for homework). Exams aren't that bad, and my TA section with Max Nikol was insightful and fun. I highly recommend this class :)

Professor Alexander was an alright professor, and his class was an "ok" GE. Not my favorite class I've taken at UCLA since it was very Eurocentric and literally only mentioned one female figure (one philosopher's wife) throughout the entirety of the course. Professor Alexander tends to repeat himself quite a lot which is kind of annoying especially since we can't skip ahead 10 seconds in recorded lectures, but the content was pretty interesting. Insightful for learning about how the world has become what it is today, but also meaningless because everything we learn has since been proven false.
This class is pretty much AP European History and it's very easy to get an A. There are around 30 pages of reading assigned each week and you can skip some of them since they're just primary sources. Additionally, you have to write a paragraph answering a question of the week, but you can skip 2 to still get an A in the class. You definitely have to work to study and do well on the exams, but pretty easy if you like history.

tl;dr - fun class, interesting material, a lot of readings, good discussions, meh tests.

The teacher records attendance by having people sign in before class on a piece of paper. Some lectures aren't recorded. The lectures are generally interesting, but Alexander tends to start and stop sentences and be repetitive, which can just get boring after a bit. I kept with it because I thought that the general overarching themes that were being taught and the various important figures we were learning about were really interesting and I found the material engaging. Each week we had readings and had a paragraph response to a relevant question. There were 9 total questions and you only had to turn in 7 of them. Some of the readings were difficult to read and I just scanned them. It didn't hurt my grade. I didn't attend any office hours either, and missed a discussion session. This class is fun if you enjoy history and science and religion, but you have to be committed to taking good notes and reading notes. For the midterm, you define some terms and then write an essay (one of two choices) in 50 minutes. It was a bit tight. The average was I think 93%. The final was more terms and then two essays (of four choices). The prompts were all general enough that you could answer them so long as you knew they key important people and their ways of thinking, along with the general timeline. Dates aren't hugely important, just knowing who came first, then next, etc. I think it'd be better if the midterm and final were take home, but it wasn't awful in person.

Overall I would take this class again.

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