Professor Alim was an amazing professor to start the year off with. His lectures were interactive and he always had something knew for us to learn. We watched a movie in class and a Netflix Original where the producers came and answered all of our questions. The tests are multiple choice online and there were two essays that were due. Apart from that my TA was great, he was super well spoken and made everything clear. I will say there are a lot of readings and vocab to learn which is important to study. Professor Alim loves to interact with his students which made the lecture feel like a discussion. Overall, I recommend this class for anyone looking for a good starter class at UCLA.

This was the best intro survey course I've ever taken at UCLA. Professor Alim is clearly dedicated to his students' success. He explains concepts clearly, introduces multimedia content into lecture, and provides review guides for each and every exam. His office hours are extremely helpful, and the TAs also review lecture in section so be sure to attend if you are confused. The weekly readings are often dense.

For the class breakdown: Section attendance is 20%, there are 2 short papers worth 10% each, and each exam is worth 30% (midterm and final). Professor Alim refers to his exams as "celebrations of knowledge" and does his best to alleviate any stress over these exams. Exams are multiple choice and straightforward so a brief review of lecture will review if you've attended every class. If I were looking for an interesting GE to take, I'd choose this one!

This class is a 100% take again! This was my favorite class this quarter. I will say there was a lot of reading involved this quarter so if you don't like to read... lols. But Alim's slides were very helpful and got the overall concepts of the reading. He goes pretty fast during lecture so make sure to have your phone out ready to take pictures. The weekly homework was simple as well, just a summary of the week's reading. The TA Erick, Matus was hands down the best TA! He seems to really care about everyone passing with an A and is so laid back. His discussions were nice to sit through especially when he played videos relating to the concepts we were learning. The midterm and final were take home also! Honestly if you just do the readings and go to lecture this class is an EASY A! 1000% recommend!!

TAKE THIS CLASS! Super interesting and easy GE. Professor Alim is awesome! He is super engaging and clearly wants his students to do well. The course is broken down into attendance to the discussions, weekly discussion posts, 2 short papers, a midterm, and a final. Attendance to the discussions is super easy and free points that make up 10% of your grade. All you have to do is go! My TA was Brienna Johnson-Morris and she was amazing. The weekly discussion posts are also super easy and make up another 10% of your grade. They are called 3-2-1s and only take like 15 minutes but you might have to do some of the reading to complete them. The two short papers each make up 10% of your grade, so 20% in total. I would say they are the "hardest" part of this class but really not challenging at all. You are given very clear prompts and only have to write 2 pages, plus they are graded very easy (at least my TA did). Lastly, the midterm and final each make up 30% of your grade so 60% in total. They are online, multiple choice, and super easy as long as you attend lecture. Also, the final is not cumulative, just based on the content learned since the midterm. Overall, this class is very easy to succeed in as long as you just show up to lecture and discussion because Alim does not post his slides or record his lectures. Professor Alim will tell you the EXACT topics on the midterm and final at the lectures right before them. As long as you attend lectures and take notes, you really don't need to do any of the readings because Professor Alim does a great job summarizing them. I never did the readings and got 100% on both the midterm and final. Seriously take this class if you are looking for an easy GE that is also really interesting.

I found the discussions to be the most important portion in the class, as the lectures can be very long and often can be summarized in a few sentences. Definitely know specific names of certain cases and documentation to do well. However, keeping up with the class overall is not difficult and you should do fine as long as you show up to discussion each week.

TLDR: I recommend this class if you're looking for an easy social analysis GE (or just looking for an interesting class to take)

Class structure:
• Asynchronous lectures (recorded zoom lectures from like 2020) -- bulk of material, helpful in understanding the weekly zoom meetings
• Weekly readings -- imo very long, but not necessary if you watch the lectures
• Weekly zoom meetings/OHs -- should attend because Prof Alim basically gives out the answers to the exams and papers; even though he records them, he doesn't post them for some reason
• In-person discussions -- mandatory

Exams (60%):
• 1 Midterm + 1 Final (called them "celebrations of knowledge"), 30% each
• Super, super easy MCQ exams. Pay attention to his lectures, and you will be completely fine getting at least a low A on each exam. I did the readings in the beginning, but tbh you can get away with not doing them at all.

Discussion (20%):
• Participation (10%), Attendance (10%)
• Please attend your discussions because they are mandatory lol. However, they're not too bad, if not a little boring because it's basically content review. Prof Alim goes over the material already in zoom + recorded lectures
• Participation includes appearing as if you're paying attention to class, as well as weekly 1-2-3 assignments, which are basically reflection on the readings. You can probably just skim each of them and write whatever as long as it's somewhat relevant and coherent.

Papers (20%):
• 2 papers, 10% each
• 1-2 pages long, single-spaced, including citations
• It honestly depends on your TA, but all of the readings and Alim guide you toward an answer, and you can kinda ramble as long as you have a point. This is probably the hardest part of the course, but they're honestly not too bad either.
• It's worth noting that because of the TA strike this quarter, the second paper was optional, so you got extra credit if you wrote it. Normally, he doesn't give extra credit.

Very easy class. The readings will look intimidating at first (something like 100 pages a week) but they aren't actually necessary to do well on the tests, that said they can be pretty interesting. The midterm and final are very easy because he reviews all the material on them if you just go to the sessions you will do fine, the essays are also graded generously (usually). Overall it was a very interesting class, it goes over some interesting social issues and ideas. A good choice for a GE.
2 - 2 page single space essays, bibliography included in page count
2 - 2 multiple choice midterm/ finals 25 question each

Great class; I think everyone looking for a no-fuss GE should absolutely take Anthro 4 with Alim.

I'll start with my one (small) complaint: when I enrolled in the class, there was no indication that lectures would be online and asynchronous. I was a bit disappointed to learn this after the fact, but Alim's lectures proved to be quite interesting and engaging regardless of the fact that they were pre-recorded. However, I do think that in an in-person lecture setting, Alim's great teaching and amazing passion for the subject would be even more inspiring, so I have to say it's somewhat regrettable that we never got to be taught by him in person.

Aside from this, Alim does a great job of preparing his students for his exams (he calls them
Celebrations of Knowledge"). The tests are online and not proctored, and extremely doable if you review with the study guides/notes that others in the class will make. The only other grades are participation in discussions, which includes a weekly discussion post that is pretty much only graded for completion, and two short (~2 page) essays that were each due a week after the two exams. The first essay did not require any of your own research; you only needed to cite papers that had previously been assigned as weekly readings. For us, Alim decided to make the second essay extra credit, which was likely in part due to the TA strike. I'm sure grading of the essays varied slightly between TA's, but my TA graded very fairly: it seemed like as long as you followed the requirements and showed a decent understanding of the readings, you got full points. The grading structure was 10% for each essay, 10% for participation (5% for discussion attendance and 5% for weekly posts), and 35% for each exam.

As far as the content of the course, it has a pretty big focus on African American language, especially in hip hop culture, as that seems to be the subject of the majority of Alim's work. Readings are assigned from other linguistic anthropologists as well as from his own papers and two of his books. The books are considered required texts for the course, but I was able to find a PDF of one and was honestly completely fine without ever purchasing the other. If you have any particular interest in old-school hip hop, I would encourage you even more strongly to take this class with Alim; he has to be one of the more prolific researchers in that niche. The content of the readings can be quite wordy and may require re-reading paragraphs to try and understand them, but I found it not to matter much because Alim's lectures did a great job of highlighting the main points in a much more comprehensible way.

Overall, I found the class to be extremely manageable but still stimulating and engaging. I definitely came out of the class with a slightly more informed perspective on the world, despite it not being too challenging at all.

When I took this course, it was online, which made it relatively easier. It consisted of 10 online modules you would have to work through over 10 weeks. There were attached readings to the online lectures. The course is heavy in readings, however, a majority of them are quite interesting, and if you at least skim all of them, you will be 100% fine. Make sure you stay on track of the readings, as it just makes the midterm (online) and final (online) easier to work through. Additionally, there are 2 one-page papers where you have to apply the vocab into it (very easy).
There are discussion sections, where your TA will go over the readings, so if you don't understand anything in the readings, it is usually explained in these sections. The lectures are prerecorded, however, he does hold one-hour live zoom sessions (not required to attend) that are EXTREMELY useful. He discusses exactly what will be on the online tests on the zoom call, so you know exactly what to study for. You can really tell that he wants his students to learn and will make you succeed in the class. I highly recommend this class if you want a light GE overall!!

I loved ANTHRO 4 so much!!! Professor Alim was super funny and engaging during his interactive zoom lectures and was always transparent on exam content, basically handing out As. I thought his exams, or celebrations of knowledge as he calls it, were fairly easy and a high or even perfect score is very attainable as long as you have a decent grasp of the readings. The readings were a little rough at the beginning of the course just because they were pretty theoretical and dense but they're genuinely interesting and you just need to understand the basic ideas. The workload was just the readings and one short weekly writing assignment for section, as well as 2 short papers that you were given at least 4 weeks to write. Overall a fun, easy, and insightful class, take ANTHRO 4 with Alim if you can!