Very disorganized lectures and class, really cares about the material but has trouble transmitting that to the students

Overall, would not take another clas

Gotta love Johanson, he cares a ton about what he's teaching, is clearly motivated and wants us to do well. That being said, he is disorganized in lecture, gets side tracked on minor points, and never finishes his lecture-ever. I've had 2 classes with him now, and both times he's had some kind of all-encompassing project due at the end of the quarter, and they always involved something technical (wikis, google earth, etc), because he teaches in the Dept. of Digital Humanities. All that being said, I want to reiterate that he does care immensely about us doing well, will always make arrangements to meet you if his office hours don't fit your schedule, and is a big believer in improvement as the quarter goes on-even if you bomb something early, like a midterm, you can always make up for it with him.

I really liked Johanson's class. He's really enthusiastic and excited for his students to learn the material. The one thing that sucked the life out if the class for me, though, was the weirdo TA we had. He seemed to think his job was to never give you all the points you deserved. It was just so arbitrary and capricious. He'd make you feel paranoid that you weren't "participating" enough in discussion, but then give you the feeling that he was reducing your points based on the tone of your comments or reducing your points because now you were sharing "too much", as if there was some limit you didn't know about. Jesus. A real mind-fuck.
The class is really enjoyable, just avoid having Brian as your TA.

Hi, I have all of the books for this class and I'm looking to sell them. Email me if you're interested! Thank you.

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I really love his class!! I would definitely retake his class if I could. It does require lots of reading but it is tolerable. I love my TA even though she was strict in her grading. The quizzes were fair and the essays were alright. The reading is so much fun to read and fun to later discuss. I enjoyed the class.

Johanson is awesome. Super nice guy who is really passionate about the subject. He is really approachable and easy going. He doesn't post his slides online so you have to go to lectures if you want the information for the quizzes. All around manageable class and you learn some interesting stuff if you like history

Long story short: This class might stress you out, but you will get a good grade just by going to lecture and discussion. Would take it again.
Pros: It honestly feels like a very long story being told and its kinda cool. I got by with not reading the majority of the assigned readings, just make sure you know the basics on the readings and you'll be fine (Just say very general things during discussion and you're golden). The essays are short and easy, I wrote both overnight and got a B and A on them (not to brag).
Cons: Johanson means well, but he would often lose his trail of thought (lots of pauses, rushed slides). That just might be something that bothers me specifically, though. He will assign over 100 pages of reading for discussion weekly, and discussion is the bulk source of participation points (Sparknotes=BFF). Lecture for the beginning of the class is just a recital of Livy, but towards the end the readings align less with class lectures. There are about 7 books for the class, but they aren't textbooks, more like stories and collections and such. The most expensive one was like $300, but you can rent it (Barnes and Nobles has most of them used and cheap). He doesn't post slides, but his slides rarely got dense.

This class has a lot of reading!! An A is achievable as long as you do the reading and review the topics.

He has lecture slides, but usually only prompting words on them (ie "Caesar", no facts or anything), so going to each lecture and taking notes on what he says is beneficial. His lectures correspond to most, maybe 90%, of the readings, so doing the readings isn't useless.

Tests are basically just writing stuff. Quizzes are in section, and they have sections from the reading that we had to identify. As long as you have done the reading, they pick easy passages, usually. Midterms were basically the essays. The final was a lot of writing; I ran out of time and starting writing random notes down and still got an A on the final so they grade nicely.

Johanson had review topics, some really specific and some super abstract, but at least there was a list (am I right?!)

TL;DR: Lots of reading, probably should read a lot of it. Go to lecture bc all the info is from what he says. Be prepared to write.

Overall the class was relatively easy IF you read all of the assigned readings (usually 80-100 pages a week). The teacher was very engaging however his slides are not uploaded and his lectures aren't bruincasted so you have to show up to class. His lecture slides are pretty disorganized but overall it is pretty easy to follow. There are two quizzes that make up the midterm and you have to memorize a ton of terms and they pick a random excerpt from one of the readings you have to analyze. The textbooks are easy to find but cost about $60 for the 7 books you have to get (amazon).

Professor Johanson is overall an awesome professor. The material you learn in class is interesting and engaging if you are into the subject of Roman History. He does show slides during lecture but most of the information is dictated verbally. There is a lot of reading to do every week and Discussion Section is a huge part of the course. I had Mike as a TA and he was amazing. The only downside to the course I would say is that the quizzes and final are a bit unfair. You'll get a study guide of about 50-70 terms and only 3 of them show up on the quiz and a random passage from the many readings you've had so far that you get no heads up on so you're really just left hoping its something you remember. For the final it's double this amount. I don't believe the study guide should even be called guide since its basically everything you've learned in class put into list format. Doesn't really seem helpful at all.