VERY EASY CLASS. This class is a great GPA boost because there isn't a tremendous amount of work to do. Basically the assignments in the class are limited to a five page paper and weekly reading responses (around 250 words).

Do not worry about having to attend lecture. However, make sure to read the textbook (whether you go to lecture or not) because his powerpoint slides and his lecturing aren't as reflective of the exams as it could be. Give yourself 30 minutes each day during the school week dedicated to reading the textbook and the historical documents and you should be totally fine.

I enjoyed this class. It was pretty much a review of the last part of AP US History, with a few lectures of some of the most recent history. Higbie is a good lecturer, but I didn't really feel like the lectures were relevant for the exams. There's one midterm and a final, both online "take home" and open book. However, they were quite difficult. Much of the material was little details from the textbooks rather than bigger themes or things we discussed in lecture. Discussion sections are mandatory for this class, but the TAs are nice and are engaging. Homework for the class is easy, just a 250 word response each week and a 5 page paper on how a moment in history has affected your current day life. Overall I liked the class and would take it again.

TL/DR: Good class, as a lot of people have stated it is fairly similar to APUSH, although I didn't know everything in it. Grade falls to basically a midterm, final, and paper, all of which are fairly easy and the professor and TA will give you assistance. For more on the grade breakdown + links to some of the textbooks, see my in-depth review (didn't want to clog bwalk page) https://docs.google.com/document/d/15vILblHwWrnV7KnB-sOFzTRnQE2QPA7nmHxj4gdNKBU/edit?usp=sharing

Higbie is great and super accommodating to students. He BruinCasts class so attendance is not mandatory, but honestly attending class is informative and he often gives hints about what will be important to know for the midterm. There are two cumulative exams, which are take home, open note and book, as well as multiple choice. After the exam, Higbie extended an EC opportunity to all students. He seriously wants students to succeed. There are weekly readings, but especially if you've taken an American history before, they are skim-able. Lectures are interesting and clarify what's important for the course. He also makes lectures interesting by incorporating various media and by being dynamic.

This was a really great class. I never would have taken it if not to satisfy a requirement for my minor and I'm so glad I did. Professor Higbie is HILARIOUS and you can tell he's extremely extremely intelligent. The lectures move really quickly which can be stressful at times because you're trying to write everything down. He posts the slides online but doesn't really lecture from the slides anyway, so it's not too helpful. The midterm consists of key terms, short answers and an essay, and you really have to read as much as the textbook as you can to get a good score. The textbook (Killing For Coal) is annoying because it reads like a novel, it's not so simple to find an answer in there. Also, there was no final exam, just a final essay, so you don't really have to read anything the second half of the quarter. The only extra credit opp I remember was from a game we played in section, so if you want extra cred you have to go to every section.

Professor Higbie was amazing. He loves what he is teaching you about and is passionate about the subject. Sometimes, I found his lecturing style a bit difficult to follow. His slides consists mostly of pictures so even though he makes them available to us, there really is not much helpful information. Also, there is not a textbook to the class so you never know what is truly important or what the main points of his lectures are. It was very difficult for me to keep up with the history component of it because since I am not a history major I did not have a lot of background to some of the historical periods he would talk about. If you know some history, I think you will be okay! In terms of workload, there are 3 books which to be honest were not very interesting to me and I found them quite dense and boring. Apart, from the books there are articles and excerpts that he gives out every week. I took this class to ease my schedule from my econ classes but I found it super time consuming . If you enjoy the subject, I think you will enjoy the class and the materials. Even though I did not like the workload, I always looked forward to Professor Higbies' lectures. He always related the material to the current issues we face as a society today. I wish the material would have had more of that.

Professor Higbie is an engaging lecturer and I would recommend this class. Structure:
3 online quizzes 10% each
Midterm take home paper 25%
Final take home paper 25%
3 Community engagements events 10% (10% total NOT each)
Strike Observation 10% (A strike took place on campus the quarter I took this class so we went during class and talked to workers)
Overall not too much work and I learned history I feel is valuable to know. The quizzes were only 10 questions so it was easy to lose points on them. The papers were not too bad. Very doable to get an A and the material is interesting.

I loved Professor Higbie! He's incredibly intelligent and a very clear and engaging lecturer. The material is actually really interesting and, for the most part, he makes everything relevant to today. His class is a manageable A, though not an easy one, but as long as you put in the time and effort you should be fine. Attendance isn't required, but if you don't go to lecture you're going to really struggle because his slides are mostly pictures and the content really comes from what he's saying. Assignments in this class are broken up as follows:
3 community engagements: You have to go to 3 events outside of class and relate them to class material in a short write-up with a selfie of you there. You don't have to find the events yourself, he emails you throughout the quarter of events you can attend to get credit)
3 quizzes: Be prepared, these quizzes are not too easy. They're 10 questions, roughly half lecture material and half reading material, and the questions are either extremely easy or extremely specific and you have a 1 hour limit on them. I'd advise getting e-textbooks so you can search for the textbook questions (there were 2 textbooks, and he usually specified in which book the question came from) and typing down everything he says in lectures (even when he's discussing an illustration, because sometimes he'll put an illustration from one of his slides and ask what it means/what it refers to)
1 in-class assignment: I guess this varies- for our class, we had to attend a strike that was taking place on campus during class and just write a 2 page write up on it
2 essays: It was originally 1 essay and a final exam online, but he switched the final and just gave us 3 prompts to choose from. Essays are really short, about 4 page limit. Your citations have to be from lecture and the books/online readings, so just keep up on the readings so you don't struggle with it (you should probably be fine if you just take note of what pages certain concepts are on so you can refer back to them for the essays, the readings are way too dense to take notes on)

Prof Higbie was probably the only Professor I had this quarter who was genuinely caring and sensitive for the student's well-being during the pandemic. The course was on "Re-Imagining the Post-Pandemic Economy" and I found it engrossing to have discussions about inequality and injustice in the US, and how the pandemic has shed new light on issues that used to not get talked about as much. He encouraged conversation among the students, beyond that of the course material, and I always had a good time in the course. It met only bi-weekly, which was really nice because there was lots of time to complete readings, but I loved the class so much I wish it could have met more! If you see his F.T. Higbie for any Fiat Lux you see, definitely take it. Excited to take one of his other courses in the Labor Studies department one day.

Professor Higbie is an absolute gem who genuinely wants all of his students to succeed. Your grade is made up of 2 midterms, each 500-750 words, and one final paper with 5-7 pages. These assignments are quite straightforward and he even provides a rubric. Although some students complained about the T.As grading, I found as long as you followed the directions you would get an A. I probably would not take this class again (even for me as a History major) this class was quite dull and lackluster. I feel like if I were to take this class in person Professor Higbie's charisma would have made this class 10000% times better. If you are in desperate need of an upper-division elective, this one definitely is not bad-as long as you are a strong writer and trust your writing skills.