Course: First Civilizations

You will work for your A in this class. I believe it is also a writing class so there are a couple essays that Smoak likes to focus on more than anything else. His midterm was multiple choice with a short essay portion and his final was a you-know-it-or-you-don't multiple choice. His lectures are very easy to follow but we've had about 5 guest lecturers who present with a questionable train of thought. Record his lectures and listen to them in your free time; it will help. His lectures are very easy to take notes for: when he wants you to know something, he's say "What's important is ..." or slow down his voice. He's a great person and professor and he will joke around (he compared the fall of Ninevah to the fall of USC in our recent football game, pictures and all). Bring a laptop; he talks a lot. It's a great GE class but not an easy A. The work is worth it in the end though.

UCLA senior/History major, fall 2012. Overall GPA 3.58

course: Middle eastern studies 50 (fmrly known as NEL 50)NOT the writing one.

With ALL honesty, i have alot of mixed feelings about this course. While professor Smoak is an excellent lecturer, this is not ALL that matters. I never missed a lecture, and i only took this course because i needed units for graduation. It is a lower division course. His tests are generally easy, but there is ALWAYS going to be 5-8 questions that are extremely tricky and arent from his lectures or readings, their just flat out of blue. This is why i got an 89-90 on midterm/final. The TA's are really smart but they wont i repeat WONT read your papers, theyll read your thesis statements (lol ok that doesnt help for shit). Like your a TA its your JOB TO READ MY PAPER THATS WHAT I PAY TUITION FOR. anyways, i ended up with a B+ which severly brought down my GPA. Why? I dont know, im a senior history major that knows how to write very effectively. I got SOLID A's in both my 97 and 191 seminar courses...so why do the two papers i wrote for Smoak get low B's (82 to be exact)? i dont know, really stupid tho. So in my opinion fuck this class, dont take it with its heavy workload.

Smoak is a genuinely nice guy and a good lecturer. I did think the material was a little boring, but that just depends on what you're into. As far as tests go, they are very fair and as long as you have the important terms memorized you'll be good. Smoak and the TAs hold your hand through the two papers, making it easy to simply reiterate what they said about certain quotes and put it all together. Overall a pretty easy GE. I BARELY read any of the texts and studied an average amount and got an A-

South Campus major (EE), but I am a closet writer and I really liked this class overall.

The online quizzes were super, super easy and reused on the midterm/final. The trip to LACMA was really fun and super informative. There was one group project that required analyzing one of the main writing systems of the world (i.e. Mayan, Chinese, Mesopotamian, Greek, Latin, etc), so keeping up with your group and having Smoak constantly check up on your progress is key, as this is a huge chunk of your grade.

This was a nice class to ease back on as a STEM major, and I recommend it.

ANE 10W

This class was tough, even for a south campus major. Naturally as a writing class, the readings and essays took up more time than did my other, major field related classes, so prepare for that. Professor Smoak is an excellent lecture and tries to stay impartial by offering a more analytical perspective of the history of Jerusalem, although I disagree with a few points. Material was fascinating, but readings did feel a little out of place. Armstrong was basically the only book that offered any ancillary information on top of lectures. Essays were tough and made up around 70% of your the grade. Essays are also dependent on the TA, so pray that your TA does not grade harshly. Midterms and finals were short with a little bit of everything in them (mc, short answer), but are only worth 10% each or something, so please, put a huge effort in them. Overall, I probably would not retake the class because of the massive time commitment, but it was a very interesting class.

I personally do not why this course gets high points and all the positive reviews. I feel it is a horrible writing class for students who do not have much background towards this area of study. So if you do not have that related knowledge about religion and you are not very interested in this type of topic, DONT ever take this class, it will be way more difficult than you think.

Prof. Smoak could be a good teaching faculty for some others but not for me, he taught you by using indirect, obscure and difficult language that you cannot follow him in every words. Also, the worst of all is that he won't put any slides on the course website. So if you lost in the lecture, bare with it because you thought it was a easy class.

I would say the best part of this class is that only 70% grade dependent on papers so not too bad if you are not a good writer. But we all know who would decide this 70% , TAs. They can be either a great one or a horrible one. Unfortunately, I met with the TA who was unfriendly, not professional and very unhelpful.

Just during the very first week, this TA sent us email said that he could not make up the discussion. Okay, it was kind of good that we could have a cheat day, but it was the first week and he already skipped once his responsibility to teach and to guide us.
Overall, the discussion session could be your peak of boredom of a week. Because of the inorganization and insipid style of teaching (I do not even think what he did could be said teaching), no one was paying any attention to what he said. But you got to show up because participation of discussion counts.
Also, my TA was very irresponsible on grading papers. On our first draft of first paper, he simply gave the comments with less than 20 words and graded in a low score. We all know writing paper is not as easy as someone else thought. I felt all my time and hard work were just wasted if it was graded by a totally irresponsible TA who did not really care about and read your paper then simply put a grade on your paper made no sense.
I ended up with a B and I felt ok, because after all the experiences and feelings related to this course I felt B was enough, surely I would and should not expect with an A because of the lack of background knowledge, no slides to study and my horrible TA.
By the way, my TA is Tim Hogue, I do not mean to throw shades on him, but I just want to give you guys a hint that you could switch to another discussion as soon as possible if you are in discussion session with him.

My comments may seem like a complaint from a student getting a low grade. Well, it could be. But I do want to tell you, I chose this course back before I took this based on all the positive comments, however, after me really taking this course with Prof. Smoak and my TA Tim, I do not think it is a easy class. Also the emotional experience was very bad, I went to every lecture because of there was no slides posted online, but every time when I went to the lecture, I felt bored, struggled, sad, and sorry for innocently believed all the positive comments about this class.

Sharing my personal experience to you, but the right to choose is within you. If you are good at taking notes, actively listening, writing really well and have the best luck to take this class with a good TA, then surely you can do that. Still lots of people say this is an easy and great class. But just to clarify, as a Senior student in my last year, this class could be my worst nightmare among all other classes, even it is not my only B class.

The course is great- if you go to class and do the readings its mostly about 2 essays and you actually get to turn in and then revise. He basically outlines a number of options in class.

One of the best professors I've had at UCLA. Smoak is a clear lecturer who presents information in a very unique and interesting way, and is very approachable. The course structure is very reasonable, with appropriately paced and interesting readings, a manageable group project, and a rather easy midterm and final. Overall, one of the best GEs I've taken, and I would definitely recommend this class with Smoak when it becomes available again.

I'm surprised all the reviews on here are so positive. Dr. Smaok is a really nice professor and is pretty fair. However, the work load for this class was excessive. It's a GE and there were two reading quizzes, weekly reading assignments, a project that requires you to go to LACMA and write about it, a large group project, a difficult final paper, a midterm, and a final. Also, he tests small details so you need to know random specific things. He did try to make it interesting but personally I found the material to be very dry. Dr. Smoak was helpful and the TA's were considerate, but overall I recommend avoiding this class if you can. It's just too much work for a GE and the material isn't material I can see myself needing to know ever again.

FALL 2016 Grading Scheme:
Discussion/Attendance/Quizzes: 10%
Midterm Exam: 10%
Final Exam: 10%
Paper #1: Draft (10%) + Revision (20%) = 30%
Paper #2: Draft (15%) + Revision (25%) = 40%
Book: Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths by Karen Armstrong ($3-5 for a used one; he tries to make things affordable for us!)

He gives us a midterm study guide, a final study guide, and every single thing you need to write for the essay (you really shouldn't be getting anything lower than an 80% for any assignments).

Quizzes are 10-15 questions of multiple choice for the most part, some fill in the blank. All are memorization such as dates and events. You get all of the information from the main book you will be reading and your TA/the professor will emphasize on what to study for them. It's an easy quiz and it's just to show if you're reading. They give you 10 minutes in the beginning of discussion to do it.

In discussion, you will go over the essays, revisions, how to make them better, study guides for final/midterm.
Oh, and attendance for discussions are mandatory and only 1 can be missed (for those who don't like going).

Pros: As a political science major, this class gave me a grasp of what analytical and close reading is. It definitely made my writing skills better in a span of 9-10 weeks. The lectures are anything but boring: he makes jokes, visited Jerusalem himself, and is knowledgeable. Literally, ask him any question and he knows how to answer it.

Cons: Prior to the class, I had no knowledge of the Bible other than what my friends have told me (sorry, I'm atheist) so I had to pay even more attention to the lectures than other students. There aren't really any other cons since I'm pretty open to any topic to learn. But if the Hebrew Bible.

I thought this subject sounded boring prior to the class, but after it, I'm interested in it a lot more. Probably because Smoak is such an amazing teacher. Handsdown the best I've taken at UCLA thus far for my 2 years here. 10/10.