I took this class for a GE requirement. Professor Pestana is very well versed on the topic of the class. She is a good story teller. She doesn't shy away from addressing the problematic Eurocentric view of U.S. history by calling out historical authors. Your grade all depends on if you have a good TA. Your grade is based on essays and discussions.

This class was a fairly easy GE but did have a good amount of writing. Each week there was a 250-word assignment based on primary sources posted in Bruin Learn, and then there were 3 papers, one of which was the final paper. There were no tests or quizzes. The lectures were not recorded, but it wasn't necessary to attend them to do well in the class. Discussion was mandatory and involved talking about the primary sources.

This is a great class to take for the historical analysis GE! I took this class P/NP because I just needed one class to be on the backburner this quarter, but I still ended with an A- percentage-wise, as it's graded on just three essays, all of which don't have very complicated prompts or outrageous word count minimums. Professor Pestana had very insightful and informative lectures, and the slides are mostly supplemental so it's definitely important to go to lecture to get the full picture of the course content. As someone who took multiple American history classes in primary and secondary school, I feel like this class was the most in-depth one I have ever taken. Professor Pestana was really good at leading us through the societal context of the time periods she talked about and explaining why one event led to another.

Awesome class, easy A. The class was graded on 3 papers and section online discussion and section attendance, The first 2 papers were 2-3 pages long and the last paper was 4-5 pages long. The section discussion is a 200-300 word post on the primary document of that week. The papers are based on the primary documents but I highly recommend reading the textbook as well as attending lecture, because it will broaden your understanding of the topic and make the paper writing easier. Pestana is a wonderful lecturer and I was interested in the class beyond getting an A. Marcellin Ma was my TA and he was also great.

This class is probably one of the easiest GE to take here at UCLA. The lectures were kind of boring but the overall assignments were easy. There's only 3 papers, 2 short ones and 1 long paper. Essay topics were always discussed in section so with your TA's and classmates your discussing on primary events that led to paper topics. One minor thing about this class is the restrictions on using the text book or outside knowledge in our essays. She's very strict on only using provided material nothing else. But i would HIGHLY RECOMMEND to save your GPA.

Professor Pestana is such a good lecturer and is so knowledgeable about history in general. I took this class P/NP because I was taking a really heavy workload and didn’t want to stress about my grade in this class or put that much effort in. I still got a B+ (which was a pass). Basically, there are no tests, there are 3 papers and you are given the prompt the week before each paper is due. We also had reading we had to do every week and write a 100-200 word reading response (that I usually didn’t do).

it’s really easy to get a B+ or an A-. You have to just write a coherent essay with some arguments. I never did the reading, I just went to lecture and listened during my discussion section and my classmates brought me up to speed during their discussions of the reading. I would skim the documents for quotations when I was writing the papers.

This class is by no means an easy A though. For the final paper (that i wrote in 1 hour the night before it was due and got an 88) the median was an 88.9 and the low was an 87 and the high was a 93. Keep in mind, an A is from 93+ and some of the kids in my discussion were actually trying really hard to get an A. Also no curve.

If you’re looking for an enjoyable class where you will learn tons about American history this is the class for you, but like expect an A- or a B+.

I loved this class! It was super manageable work-load wise, the professor is great. Recommend for an easy GE that is also interesting.

Easy GE class If you took APUSH in high school or paid any sort of attention in a US History class then this class will be a breeze. Prof. Pestana is a good professor like she's interesting and her lectures are generally very informative but many times don't exactly align with whats being covered by the primary sources. The problem is the entire grade is determined by 3 papers and you are pretty much forced to solely use the primary sources in writing it. That pretty much means the lectures are only useful for understanding basic context which if you already know through like APUSH means the lectures are almost useless to go to. That lecture hall became a ghost town real quick. Workload is extremely light only consisting of reading a primary source that 1-5 pages and 1 chapter of the textbook a week. Papers are worth 20-30% of your grade but they're only like 2-3 pages and my TA was an easy grader. Final was just a paper due on the last day of finals week and was 4-5 pages. There is no curve in this class but to be honest there is no need for one nobody gets below an 85 on the papers.

As the department chair, Professor Pestana is definitely an expert in both the content for this course and history in general. What's more important is that she masters the teaching skill to make her lectures compact, effective and engaging in a short time frame. Her lectures incorporate lots of interesting details and unique perspectives on some familiar historical events and Professor Pestana usually organizes the lectures coherently, constantly linking facts, events and significance and connecting different periods included in this course. She posts slides for every lecture onto CCLE and encouraged us to take effective notes instead of writing everything she talks about down; I do found that the notes I take and the slides become excellent complement to each other (Especially as the slides provide an outline to follow the notes and can sometimes remind me what's omitted in my notes). For those with no US History background in high school, the optional textbook could be a good resource to refer to, but again it is purely optional. As a student with no high school US History background, I didn't use the textbook and I think doing the weekly readings (both lecture readings and discussion readings) thoroughly could be enough (and the readings, both first-hand and second-hand ones, are the only resources we can use for essays; no outside research needed and allowed). The grading consists of a paper due week 3, an in-class mid-term ( ID questions and an essay), a take-home final paper, and 20% participation. For the mid-term, a large amount of questions are given and the real exam questions are all selected from this range; I personally like this method as I got more control over my performance on the exam and it really consolidated my knowledge and enriched my perspectives for this period of history. The final paper includes some interesting essay options that requires us to think holistically (especially think throughout the whole period) and critically on certain events or historical views. All the papers in this course are short and managable if you know what's going on, and they really helped me to practice on how to write more concisely. Attendance was not taken for lectures, but participation in lectures is cardinal to a decent performance in this course. Attendance and Participation in discussions will be graded, and the participation mark are never hard to get. My TA, Christian, made us to post questions and thoughts on discussion readings weekly, and this will be a good way to earn the participation grade if you are not so willing to speak in sections. Christian was also a extremely nice TA; He was clearly enthusiastic about history, and he posted his discussion slides onto CCLE which were also very useful. He gave really thorough and effective feedback for papers, and his office hours are also really helpful. The only thing I might complain about this course is that it was an 8 a.m (don't know whether it's the case every time); however, it was definitely worthy to get up early for the lectures and the course overall.

Pestana is a good professor who is clearly very knowledgeable about history in general. Her lectures tend to stray a little bit from what's taught in section. The midterms and Finals are essays and she absolutely loves it if you explain yourself as clearly as possible. Seriously just dumb everything down so that a middle schooler could easily understand it and you'll be fine in the class.