I think Professor Fessler is really a hit or miss for people. I took this class during Winter 2020, and got a B mostly because of my own work ethic. I do think that the course content itself is extremely interesting as it deals with human evolution.
The course consisted of weekly chapters and quizzes in an online format (the e-book was $60 I believe). We would receive homework in our discussion sections that were due weekly, but they weren't incredibly difficult or time consuming). There was a midterm and a final, and that was the entirety of the course content and grade.
His lecture style was engaging and he was kind of awkward/ funny in a way that made him fun to listen to. He had a lot of knowledge and cool fun facts related to the course content which made it enjoyable.
However, I wasn't a fan of Fessler himself. He is incredibly strict and does not have any type of leniency (that was up until Covid, he made the final optional when everything crashed and burned). He refused to record his lectures to encourage students to show up (he had a fun fact for that too), which ultimately ended up being inconsiderate of students who had other responsibilities or sometimes didn't want to show up to class. Overall not too terrible, but I didn't appreciate his tone about it. ALSO I once saw him literally tear a students midterm paper in half because she was erasing something on her exam two minutes past the deadline. She wound up leaving the room crying, it was really sad to watch. Point is, the course content and his presentation of it is very interesting and worthwhile, but his own character was somewhat unlikable to me.

First off, I absolutely LOVE Fessler. One of the most knowledgeable, interesting, passionate, and quite frankly supportive professors I've had the pleasure of meeting during my time at UCLA. Is his class difficult? Absolutely. Anthro 1 with Fessler was by no means a "joke" or a "walk-in-the-park"; his classes are rigorous, the midterms and finals are difficult and timing is most definitely constraint, he can come across as quite intimidating at first (mostly because of how accomplished he is in all areas of his life, his honestly unparalleled eloquence, and excellence in *everything*), and you may feel overwhelmed and/or overworked.
This is coming from someone who was pre-med during my time at UCLA and will be beginning medical school this upcoming August; yes the difficult/workload is on par with classes like Chem 14D and Chem 153A in my opinion.
That said, as someone who has consistently strived to get A's in all my classes, and often looks at Bruinwalk for reviews (and shies away from enrolling in classes in which I know getting an A will be especially difficult, because a high GPA is almost *essential* in the pre-med track), even I would STILL take this class. Why? Because Fessler is quite literally that amazing. His class will change you; your perspective; your approach towards academia and life; and if you engage in and succeed in the class, you will most likely even be afforded the opportunity to work more intimately with him in his undergraduate laboratory, FessLab.
Again, the opportunities in this class are endless, and Fessler is one of the greatest professors at UCLA. This class is what you make of it, but I would 110% recommend enrolling with Fessler if you're privileged enough to do so.

Alright so I don't know what these other reviews are on but Fessler is by far the worst professor I've ever had. He doesn't care about his students unless you're one of the five people that sit up front and raise their hand every few minutes. The tests are out of this world difficult. No joke, the average on the first midterm was a FAILING grade. Not gonna lie, I cried. I every other anthropology course I've taken, I've gotten A's, except for this one. And it wasn't just me struggling, my close friend took it with me so we got to sit and cry together. The TA I had, while nice enough, SUCKED at actually helping me. I wanted to switch to P/NP and she told me to 'wait for my second midterm grade to come in'. So I listen because she's told me they'll be graded and ready soon. Two weeks go by, the deadline to switch the grading basis has passed, and I still don't have my test grade, and she tells me 'oh well I guess you'll just have to do really well on the final' even though she KNEW that wouldn't be possible.

TLDR; Fessler sucks and while the material is interesting, the formatting of the class, tests, and instruction, isn't it. Do not recommend.

This was one of my favorite classes. The professor is so funny and definitely makes it so worth it to go to class. His explanations were overall easy to understand and super interesting. I definitely feel like its a class worth taking because I walked out of it with a greater understanding on us as a species and our behaviors. With that being said, the tests are pretty tough but the grading scale is quite fair (an 84 percent is an A). If you get the chance to take this class with this professor, definitely do so.

I loved this class! Professor Fessler is a very engaging lecturer, and I feel like what I learned in this class is relevant to my life even though I'm not majoring in anthropology.

It's not the easiest class, which puts some people off, especially if they're doing it as a GE. However, it's not unreasonable. I feel like the grading scale was pretty fair, and if you put in the work, you'll probably end up with a good grade.

For homework, we'd have two brief writing prompts each week. We also had these online module things (inQuisitive, I think). Fessler didn't like them, and they were buggy but it was easy points.

There were two midterms, and the second one was adjusted to be easier because people didn't have enough time to finish the first and Professor Fessler doesn't want time to be the reason you don't perform well. Under the strange circumstances of the COVID-19 shutdown, we had a take-home final with six fairly straightforward writing prompts, each with a max length of 1 page. Obviously, for those of you who do your final in person, the format will be different. But I think it's important to note that he tried to be really fair with the unforeseen circumstances and gave everyone ample time to complete what I considered a fairly easy final (if you paid attention at all during the quarter)

Overall, I think this class is really great and I enjoyed it a lot.

This class didn't count to my major in any way but I took it because I was super interested and was not disappointed. The content is really so amazing and makes you understand human behaviors and societies with a lot more scientific explanation. The class starts with some biology and genetics before going into previous primate species, then eventually getting into homo sapiens and studying how we evolved our brains and diets to help us become one of the most successful species alive today and our cultures, fashion choices, physical differences etc.
Fessler is super dedicated to the subject and has done a lot of work in this field. He also connects everything to very meaningful real world topics (ex. racism, climate change, etc.) Sometimes he goes off on tangents which I know can be a bit distracting but I honestly enjoyed them because they were usually funny and entertaining anecdotes. His exams were harder than I expected but still doable as long as you review the slides and don't get bogged down in details (you don't need to memorize as much as you might think!). My TA was Steven and he was super positive and a really good TA. Homework was graded on completion but were useful to think about and go over in discussion.

This class was very engaging but was also kind of hard. The workload was pretty light - 2 homework questions from the reading due in discussion and online inquisitive assignments every week. The book is not mandatory but it does help a lot with further understanding what he goes over in lecture. Inquisitive, however, is mandatory as it counts for a tiny percentage of your grade. There were 2 midterms and a final. The first midterm was pretty hard but the second one was a lot easier (if you study). (For the first midterm we did not have to memorize all of the different species of apes - only the main differences between them). Because of the pandemic, our final this year was a written assignment that was optional. I think he made it pretty hard because we had so much time to work on it, but I didn't do it because I didn't want to drop my grade lower.
Overall the material covered was engaging and Prof Fessler kept things interesting in class. He is also always available for office hours which is very nice.

This class and professor have been my favorite at UCLA so far. Fessler is the most engaging professor I've had, his slides are very organized and he gives a lot of extra detail during lectures. I never missed a lecture even though it was at 10am, and I would skip the lectures I had after since they were so boring. Fessler keeps his lectures relevant and interesting, which is why I showed up to each one. Tests were difficult, but there's a curve built into the class so the cut off for an A is at 84%. It's not hard to get an A/B with this cut off as long as you study; tests aren't tricky, there's just a lot of info to know and conceptualize, but the questions are straightforward. My TA was pretty easygoing and would let us out of section early most times. Inquisitive is tedious but not hard, it's an easy 100% worth 5% of your overall grade. Written homework is straight from the textbook and easy to find and there are only two questions per week. Overall, take this course if you have just a shred of interest in the topic and you won't be disappointed! It's a fair amount of work but if you like the material it won't feel so heavy. I'm really glad I took this course with this professor and would highly recommend other people take it too.

I thought Anthro 1 would be relatively easy because it was an intro class. I thought wrong.

You are graded by completing InQuizitive quizzes, participation in discussion, two midterms and a final exam. I personally did not enjoy discussion section and did not find my TA to be helpful at all. The exams to be difficult and most of my class felt the same. The exams were very specific and made up of multiple choice, free response and fill-in-the-blank questions.

Midterm #1 average was 66%, Midterm #2 average was 69% and the Final exam average was 74%. Honestly, if it were not for his curved grading scale, I would have ended up with a C/D in the class. I would not take this class again due to the stress it gave me. It was ridiculous how difficult the tests were for an intro class!!!

This class was awful. The first midterm was straight up biology and genetics. The second midterm was a little easier but not by much. Overall the averages for the midterms were not good and I barely passed. The class is significantly curved but I -along with other students I knew- were barely passing. Most of the class was taking it for a GE but it was way too much work and too difficult for a GE. Do NOT take this class!!! I got lucky that COVID-19 made our final optional because I would've been screwed if I had to take it. The only thing good about the class was my TA who was super nice and genuinely cared about us. Fessler didn't seem to care about us since the class was so difficult. The Inquizitve quizzes are so annoying and so time consuming and really not an effective way to study for the midterms so they're a waste except they're part of your grade.