His grading is horrible.

His class was set up to have two papers, one midterm and one final. I guess my one complaint was that the midterm and final were all multiple choice, which I feel is an insufficient method of testing period. He tries to make his lectures a little funny with his dry humor. Good TA's helped a lot with writing the papers and studying for the exams. Overall, an alright professor. Nothing especially good, but he also wasn't bad at all.

One of the best teachers I ever had. Tests are easy if you study. All the material is online. And the papers are easy, as long as you get your TAs to revise them. Great class and I hate anthropology, I took it as a GE.

Good professor, good class for a GE. Selling my Human Past textbook really cheap: $20. Text me at **********

In the most recent review, I meant to put Winter 2015, and my overall grade was an A.

His class, "The Politics of Past" has been one of my favorite classes at UCLA so far. If you think you are considering a profession in archaeology, this class is a must.

Not only did I learn a lot about museums, collecting, NAGPRA, etc., but you learn so much about how archaeology really gets done -- and how so much of the field really isn't about just the science of it.

This class has a decent amount of reading each week, but its not too dry. Class is structured as a "seminar" of sorts. Generally, Professor Schachner lectures or shares stories for part of the class. Then the class usually breaks up into groups to discuss, or there is just a general class discussion. Overall, class wasn't too boring, and was sometimes pretty entertaining.

Your grade in the class is based off of participation, a take home midterm, a museum project, and a final paper. None of these were overly difficult.

The Professor always responded to my e-mails in a timely manner, even on Saturdays, and gave great feedback on papers. He cares a lot about writing, and that shows in his grading. However, he recognizes hard work and improvement.

I got an A in his class and I definitely recommend this class to others!

One of the best professors I've had at UCLA. He's very articulate and does a good job of presenting technical, somewhat abstract concepts in ways that are easy to understand. You won't be able to slack off, but it's definitely not the hardest class I've taken. I took Anthro 8 and 110P.

Readings: Readings aren't super necessary, especially in Anthro 8. A bit more so in 110P, but I skimmed the chapters and got an A.

Tests: I had to make up my midterm and final due to scheduling conflicts in Anthro 8 and he was very understanding and flexible. Tests in Anthro 8 are multiple choice, in 110P they are essay based and very fair. He gives you a list of review questions, and the ones on the actual tests are very similar, if not the same. He'll give you a list of 6-7 and you have to pick 4 or so to write, so you do have some choice. He's more concerned with general concepts rather than specifics, so you don't need to waste time memorizing sites.

Other assignments: He gives a few short (ie. 1 page) papers in 110P and drops the lowest grade. You definitely have to think about the material, but it's not too hard to get to the main idea.

Let me start by saying that I am a south campus science major. For me, this class was beyond boring. Perhaps it was the material, perhaps it was the professor - in all honesty it was most likely a combination. I think Professor Schachner definitely could have done a better job with his lectures. I walked out everyday not knowing what the hell I had just listened to for 50 minutes. He is very monotone...very little excitement at all... which made it hard for me to pay attention. He also has a little habit of walking down the aisles while he is lecturing which really annoyed me for some reason.

I do however like that he posts his powerpoint slides online. Alot of people take advantage of this and skip lecture...I personally still went to every lecture (only missed one), although in hindsight I think I probably could have done okay if I just showed up for the midterm and final. He also posts readings online, but I didn't do any of them...and I got an A. So save yourself the time, because the book goes into way too much detail about things you will never get tested on. You can probably get away with not buying the book because there is a website for the book that has really detailed chapter summaries - I found this site really helpful for studying, although it can also go into too much detail.

Grade is based on midterm (50 questions mult choice), final (75 questions mult choice), 2 five page papers, and participation. Papers were quite time consuming, but the mean and median were about 90 for both.

I personally thought the tests in this class were frustrating. First of all, they were really hard to study for because it was nearly impossible to predict what exactly we needed to know. There were tons of dates, places, and other random things to memorize. And the professor was always really vague when telling us what to study. In fact he was actually misleading because he would say not to focus on specific details, but then alot of questions on the tests were related to little things that he maybe brushed over for a minute during lecture. TA's didn't really help either. If I had to give some advice to someone taking the class, I'd say memorize the powerpoint slides and also look up all the sites that he has pictures of on the slides and have a good understanding of those.

Alot of the time I felt like I was in a history class, not an archaeology class. That was my main beef with this course, and I'm not sure if the blame goes to the professor or the department. You would think you'd be learning how archaeologists relate pottery, etc. to sites and how they make general conclusions based on their findings. But instead we were trying to remember if the people in Mesoamerica were cultivating corn or tomatoes in 5000BC. /end rant

Winter 2014 Grade distribution:
Weekly discussion section 10%
Paper 1 15%
Misterm 25%
Paper 2 15%
Final 35%

Professor Schacher
The professor's voice isn't so monotonous as not too unique. Lectures were done with a powerpoint which was posted online as well. It was also podcasted so you could honestly never go to class and learn by yourself. If the podcast doesn't work one day, you can get notes from a friend who actually attended. You do not need the book, so don't buy it. Everything you need to know if given in lecture and his powerpoints. I thought he was a good teacher given the uninteresting content.

Weekly discussion section grade: A
Discussion attendance was mandatory. I has Gwyneth Talley, and she was a pretty cool TA. She was helpful in going over content and was pretty chill and approachable. As long as you attend and participate, you should get an A. At the end of the quarter she even bought us donuts because a majority of us sent in evaluations.

Paper 1 grade: A
The papers are really straightforward and easy. My TA told us exactly how she wanted our papers formatted, with the length of each section of the paper noted. You basically just pick a prompt covering the material, find an article (one discussion is dedicated to showing you where to look for one), have your TA approve it, and then answer the prompt according to your article. I usually procrastinated and waited until the last minute to do both of my papers, and I still got an A. As long as you're thorough, then you should do well.

Midterm grade: A-
The midterm was two parts: 20 multiple choice and 2 short answers out of four prompt options. It was incredibly easy and I finished way before the end time. As long as you go over lecture notes and his powerpoints you should be more than fine.

Paper 2 grade: A
The second paper was about the same as the first one. Very easy and straightforward.

Final grade: B+
The final was very similar to the midterm. 1/3 covers material before the midterm and 2/3 covers the rest of the class. It was 40 multiple choice questions and 3 short answers out of 6 prompts. He never wants you to know exact dates, just time frames relative between each event.

Overall
Overall, this class was fairly boring, but incredibly easy.

The class wasn't too bad, considering my lack of interest in archaeology. The class was fairly straightforward and mostly based on lectures for exams. Exams are short-essays.