In my opinion, I'm stuck between saying if this class is easy or not. For reference, for my class, the lectures were uploaded onto CCLE beforehand so you can say the lectures were asynchronous, but my discussions were in person, but I think this depended on your TA. I say it's was relatively easy mainly because we didn't have any work to do aside from the 2 midterms, the final, and the term paper. So there weren't any homework assignments you had to worry about. The exams were easy to pass. I would also like to say that this class wasn't as easy or relaxed, mainly due to the number of readings you had.

So to begin, the exams were relatively easy to pass for one reason. The professor gives you a study guide one week before the actual day of the exam. On said study guide is all the questions for the actual exams. What I mean by this is, there are 2 parts to the exam; the first part is an Identification portion where you give all relevant information about the term (ex: time period, who/what the person/event was, why it's important, etc.), the second part is the essay portion, maximum 5 pages, but you don't need to write that much as long as you answer the question. The study guide will give you around 30-40 terms, in which 8 will be chosen for the actual exam, and you only need to choose 5 of the 8. The study guide will also give you 4 essay prompts, in which 2 will be chosen for the exam, and you only need to write 1 of them (take this with a grain of salt, but the essay questions that were always chosen for my exams were the first 2 prompts). So essentially, you had the chance to complete the exam before the actual test day by pre-filling out the study guide; which I highly recommend because the 1 hour limit for the exam is not enough time if you were to start from scratch. My recommendation is to pre-fill out 3 of the essays, or at least have a basic outline so that you have a 100% chance of already having done one of the essays that show up on the exam. (The exam was online for me, no monitoring, just finish and submit the pdf however your TA wants it). Also, the exams are not cumulative so you don't have to worry about remembering old material.

The term paper was pretty straightforward. It was pretty much like the exam essays except you have to cite. But the good thing was that it wasn't a research paper. All the sources you need are the primary sources in the Course Reader and the Course Pack you need to get. You only need to cite if you use outside sources. I believe you get a couple of weeks to do it, it's about 6-8 pages, and you can choose from 3-4 prompts. The difficult part was actually getting the paper to 6 pages.

The textbooks are required for this class. The Course Reader and Course Pack specifically. Honestly, you don't really need the actual textbook, the EGR one, because a lot of the information gets recycled in the lectures. So if you can't afford it or you just want to save money, you can skip out on it, there's usually someone with the PDF of it anyways. But get the Course Reader and Course Pack. They will have the main primary documents you need to read for discussions where participation matters. (I say go to all the discussions because my TA, Armando Gonzalez, was very helpful in explaining the material and also giving us a lot of info that was helpful for the exams). Also, missing 3 discussion sections, without an explained absence, will put you at an F for the participation portion of your grade, so try to go to all of them. During discussions, you usually just talk about the readings. Be aware of classmates who might ask you to send photos of the readings because they themselves didn't buy the books. The syllabus will outline a bunch of readings, but you really only need to focus on the ones that are starred because that is what you will be talking about during discussions, so if you're short on time, prioritize those. The other readings will help give context and extra info.

The lectures themselves were pretty dry and a little boring. The recordings were just the professor speaking into the camera, he did upload the slides and outlines onto CCLE but they weren't as helpful because they were so short and didn't really have information on them. He did crack a couple of jokes that made me laugh because of his straight face, but other than that, I didn't really watch the lectures aside from getting information for the study guide. It was a bit difficult to get the correct spelling for some words because they were usually some ancient language, so this didn't help all the time when I tried to ctrl +F the transcripts. I can't speak for myself because I never went to office hours, but I have heard he seemed like he didn't want to be there, or that he seemed a little unapproachable, so heads up on that.

I AM SELLING MY COURSEPACKS AND SUPPLEMENTAL BOOKS FOR THIS COURSE. EMAIL ME AT *************

I really enjoyed this class! I’m definitely coming from a place of bias because I love ancient history, but the content and the structure of this class really worked for me. I never actually met Prof. Philips because I took this class asynchronously, but you can tell this guy knows what he’s talking about. He does a great job explaining the material and making connections that you might not notice.

You’ll be asked to buy a main textbook, two course packs, and a few supplemental books. Don’t get the textbook. You don’t need it, since everything mentioned in the reading is covered in the lectures. By not doing the textbook readings you’ll save yourself from a lot of unnecessary work. I would recommend getting both coursepacks, but for the supplemental books you could definitely get away with pdfs or ebooks.

If you’re willing to put in time to prep for tests and to read, you’ll do great in this class! It’s a fun GE and the material is pretty interesting.

If you are someone who is interested in history, Professor Phillips is basically the best you can get. His online lectures are literally just him talking into a video camera, which if you are not into history could be boring. However, his lectures are very detailed and informative, and give a very clear a holistic view of the material being taught. I thoroughly enjoyed Professor Philips lecturing style and came out of the class with a very solid grasp on the material. The tests are easy, study guides are given out before hand and the tests do not deviate from the study guides at all. Discussion participation matters.

A lot of people are trashing Professor Philips for being boring but I honestly didn't mind. He was chill and I mostly watched his lectures at 1.5x speed. This class has a heavy workload yes but this is the only class I have taken that gives you the exact version of the test you will be taking. Scoring well boils down to how prepped you are. The better your notes the easier time you will have. The structure is an essay and 5 terms which can be people and or events for which you need to explain their significance. the essay is an essay on the various readings from the course. prepping everything ahead of time is so useful as come test day you can chose to focus on w.e you want. also my ta Katherine Capuder was super chill and engaging. she was the best part of the class for sure.

take this class if you have an interest in history and if you don't mind Phillips corny jokes and long lectures.

I have the textbooks (including the online Charles Freeman book online) and the coursepackets for this class. I'm currently in Westwood but I can also deliver them to you as well.

Selling all of them in total for $90 (I got mine for $160)

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Phillips is a great lecturer and knows his stuff. The lectures are very dense so make sure to pay attention to dates and names (Phillips is specific with dates). The class is composed of three exams and one final term paper. The exams are not too difficult because he will give you a study guide one week prior with literally everything that will be on the exam, you just have to know how to manage your time well. I had a great TA which made things great as well.

The class was really interesting and overall a great experience. Participation in discussions is very important. If you take this class, make sure to actively participate in discussion as much as possible. Readings can be lengthy, but tests and essays were graded vERY reasonably.

I am selling all the textbooks and course materials for this class, I will attach the list of all the materials and the price in the end

In general, History 1A with professor Philips was interesting and worth taking if you are interested in history/ancient civilization or looking for a relatively easy GE course. This course covers civilizations including Mesopotamia, Assyria, Egypt, Greek, and Rome, etc. Gradings: total of three exams: 60 %, discussion session participation: 20 %. One history essay: 20 %. Like being said in other reviews, the exams should be nothing unexpected, both the identifications and essays prompts were given a week prior to the exam date, and you just need to immerse yourself with all the materials before each hour exam. Professor Philips is, however, obsessed with dates which means you indeed need a good short-term memory to memorize dates for EVERY person or event. Besides that, the exams were not difficult and I personally scored above 90 percent on everyone of them without stressing too much about them. You do need to speak up once in a while during your discussion session with your TA, and the key is to persuade your TA that you’ve read your materials and know what u are talking about. The prompts of term paper were somehow ambiguous and confusing for me, and It made me get a B+ as the final grade. One advice for the term paper is to talk about it with your TA during their office hours, so hopefully you will gain a better understanding of all of the prompts. Overall this course is mind-opening and I highly recommend it as a Doable GE course.

All of the materials were required for this course, were mostly brand new with little to no writing on them.

Selling:
Readings in Ancient History: $85
Egypt, Greece, and Rome: $40
The Epic of Gilgamesh: $6
Two Lives of Charlemagne: $9
The Last Days of Socrates( brand new): $10
The Theban Plays( brand new): $10
Course pack: $8

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Dr. Phillips is very straightforward about what he expects to see on the exams. He posts a study guide before each one, and chooses 8 of the 40 possible terms to put on the exam as well as 2 out of 4 possible essay questions. You only have to identify 5 terms and respond to 1 essay question. All three exams are in this format and they are each worth 20 percent of your grade. The other 40 percent is your discussion section and your final paper. Participation in your section is important, and it really depends on what that means to your TA. As long as we read and tried, my TA was satisfied. Go to lecture! He doesn't bruincast, speaks quickly, and puts very little on his slides. Your hand will cramp a little.

Lectures are very interesting, and the professor can be funny at times. Not too hard, and you can get by without doing most of the readings if you want.