For music History 68 Beatles

Loved the class!! She was enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the Beatles and their music. Breakdown of the class is one midterm, 8 page paper, and final. The midterm and final are pretty easy. They consist of listening to the songs and identifying them, name, band, album and date released and two sentences significant to the song. then there are essay questions that if you go to lecture you are bound to know. the paper is not hard and for a non-music major it was easy to do; basically you pick a Beatle song and analyze it. She will show various examples of how it is done.
There are two texts required but only one really needed for the essay. Gould's Can't Buy Me Love. If you need a copy I have it email me *************
read it for she makes constant references to it and may appear on the midterm and final as "gould said this what do you think about it?" and the pages add up so keep up with the reading. overall recommend the class!!

So Professor Upton read yalls reviews on Bruinwalk so a few changes have been made lol. There's no longer a required book for this class, only a collection of short articles uploaded on CCLE. The 2 tests are now both take home essays. The midterm is a 'listening guide' of one of the Beatles earlier albums and the final is the same of a later album + 2 shorter questions about the impact of larger art movements/tech on their music. You have a week to do both of these and they're both turned in via CCLE/Turn it in. Because they just started doing it this way, what they wanted for the listening guide was a little unclear but if you listen to the advice of your TA you should do just fine. It's also helpful to have an outline done/ at least a working idea BEFORE you go to section to discuss the exams. I did better than I thought I deserved on both tbh

Besides these essays, you have to make 2 weekly posts to CCLE which are graded for completion. These were a breeze to do and took very little time/brain power to complete.

Lectures were a bit longer than I was used to and I felt it at times, but still were overall enjoyable. You don't really need to take down all the dates on the slides because the slides are uploaded. Mainly focus your notetaking on the larger ideas that Professor Upton expands on verbally (such as how art movements relate to the Beatles/ their influences/ etc). Sections will help drive home the type of things you'll be writing about for the exams.

Before this class, my Beatles knowledge was limited to what I absorbed just by being American but Upton's lectures + the exposure to their whole discography has made a new fan. You'll also pick up a lot of interesting fun facts that are fun to bring up in conversation :) I would highly recommend this class overall, it lives up to the hype!

I absolutely loved this class. It was super easy, just a lot of memorization, but if you like the Beatles or just music in general you'll actually want to remember everything! also I'm selling the book she assigns for $10 (it's like $18 on Amazon)! text me if you're interested ********** :)

Professor Upton is amazing! I actually know 0 things about the Beatles and I finished the class knowing quite well who the Beatles were. She is super knowledgeable in the Beatles and although it was a 9am lecture, I dragged myself there because her lectures are engaging and interesting. Listening to songs and short clips is an added plus for the lecture.

Please do go to lecture so you don't need to read the book, at least I did that and did well in this class. Truly a relaxing GE and an excellent break from the engineering weeder classes like Chem 20B, CS32, and physics 1A!

Very fun and relaxing GE. Being a true Beatles fan, I attended lecture often and even took my mom to one. But, to be honest, to do well in the class all you need to do is pay attention to the facts on the slides. Professor Upton is very passionate about the Beatles and makes the class enjoyable and fun.

Legitly the easiest class ever! Funny, engaging, and super fun! Professor Upton was very engaging, enthusiastic, and funny with the learning material.
The final exam and midterm were both very easy. The professor gives out study guides and is pretty straightforward with what material will be covered. For that reason, the book (Gould's "Can't Buy Me Love") and the readings she posts on ccle aren't really necessary, since you can google everything. (I will say I kinda really loved the book tho)
As part of the midterm and final, there are listening IDs where you identify the songs she plays and write something significant about it. You could use the Gould book to find the significance, but she also usually explains the significance in lecture.
There's an essay where you compare and contrast a Beatles song with a cover version, which was easy to complete. (It took me a couple of hours to complete, and I got a perfect score. ) The TAs did not seem to be too finicky on grading for ANYTHING. My TA graded our midterms and finals. For our midterms, no one seemed to duck below a 90%
We also answered weekly questions for a participation grade, but the questions were pretty easy (ex. the first one was to describe our music listening habits).

I really do wish I could keep taking this class over and over again! Super fun and super easy.

This is the EASIEST GE you could possibly take. I literally went to lecture 4 times and still got an A. All of the info can be found on wikipedia, and she posts her lecture slides. Her lectures were really interesting, but I could never wake up for the 9am, but it all worked out. Discussions were great, the TA's are music majors and therefore grade ridiculously easily (I'm a music major too-- we're not about that academic life lol).

This class is by far the most fun I've ever had! I occasionally missed lecture but was able to get an A on the midterm without reading the book. She gives you a study guide, so its honestly just memorization and your good. Highly recommend this course!

TAKE THIS CLASS! Even though it was at 9 am this year, I dragged my sometimes hungover, sleep deprived ass to class just to hear Upton talk. You can pretty much do whatever you want during the lecture, which is twice a week, but usually Upton is actually saying something interesting so you end up wanting to hear it. Her final words to the class were something along the lines of the government makes drugs illegal just so people can't have fun. The paper is mildly annoying but can be easily finished in a few hours, and the midterm and final are both fair. During section you get a lot of time to review. Totally worth it

Wonderful class! Wish I could take it again!!! Easy GE and fun!