This class has the potential to be an economics-related major elective. Recommended to Econ students in freshman and sophomore. I am a student who doesn’t know about classification and management of courses, but in my opinion, even though named “Geo 4”, it is mainly economics, some history, and a few geography. This course is helpful to introduce a student to some general and applicable ideas on the economic development of nations and the logic behind it.
Easiness: If you are looking for an easy GE and are not really interested in economics and history, I don’t recommend you to take it since getting an A in this class involves engagement with course content and extension based on issues discussed(although not a very deep one). However, this course is a treasure to those who want to get an idea of and maybe delve into the history of human economic activities from feudalism to globalization, why countries trade and compete in the way it is in today, and how the future in an economic sense can be in face of different issues. Some knowledge of AP microeconomics and macroeconomics is surely helpful but not mandatory to succeed in this course. An A in midterm and final indicates that you clearly know the core concepts with their important details and can articulate them to answer related questions, and it is better if you can give examples from your own knowledge. The group project is based on the presentation of your own understanding of one week’s reading materials and lectures. As long as you provide a good summary and valuable perspectives, you will usually get an A on it.
Workload: The workload is not low, but it can’t be considered as high in my perspective. There is no weekly homework or quizzes. All you need is to listen to lectures, read the materials, and think about the meaning and applications of the concepts. Besides a presentation, midterm, and final, there is just a 500-word writing response to summarize and provide insight on a week’s content. Some research on concepts you are interested in can help you to increase your scores on the presentations and exams as long as you show your understanding of them.
Clarity: The courses’ content is relatively clear. The professor will go over all the concepts in PPT but sometimes he moves to lots of examples that are sometimes not apparently relevant. Still, if you do what is mentioned above, you should get a good understanding of what the professor wants to elaborate on.
Helpfulness: Professor Agnew is quite a knowledgeable, kind, and enthusiastic professor. His office hours are after class so sometimes you can discuss with him about your thoughts right after the class is over. He is also willing to share his view on globalization and discuss the implications of this course. By the way, from related information on the internet, he seems to be a top expert in his field for many years.

Grade composition:
Midterm: 20% no multiple choice, all open ended, partial points granted
Final: 40% no multiple choice, all open ended, partial points granted
Discussion: 40%
He does not curve
No extra credit
Attendance not mandatory
The midterm and final are recycled so the questions are not abnormally difficult, but if you do not include specific points in your answer you don't get the points. Slides are posted, so you don't have to go to class, but majority of the slides are all pictures and they are not useful. He has such a monotone voice and not an engaging lecturer so don't go to lecture by the midterm if you are not getting anything out of lectures. I've put my head down in class and woken up to see myself drooling on my own laptop. He gives you a study guide and practice midterm and final which are SUPER helpful and so many questions on both midterm and final were IDENTICAL to the practice test but a ton of people still did shit on both. I think the average for the midterm was a 75%??? It's really useful that they are very similar, but it makes you feel bad if you don't do well, since you don't really have an excuse. Ask your TA to go over the practice midterm and final because they will literally spoon feed you what they are looking for. I regret not doing that for the midterm and got a 73%. The midterm and final question are only on lectures so you don't need to do any readings :) No homework expect a presentation that summarizes the readings for the week and a 500 word reflection on a weeks topics. Everyone gets into groups and presents a different weeks readings, so if you just take notes on everyone else's presentation, you don't have to read. If you are taking this class as a GE, please go find an easier one because this is not an easy A, other than that this class is doable if you lock in for the midterm and final

Selling midterm (handed back with corrections), practice midterm and final with solutions and study guide with all the information $20
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I took this class Fall quarter of 2021 and our only grades in lecture were the take-home midterm and take-home final (both of which weren't timed). Lecture slides were posted for us online so ~technically~ you didn't have to go to in-person lectures (though he often did verbally add additional information not on the slides). In discussion, we had to do 2 reading summaries out of all 10 weeks' readings, but they were easy to complete. I had Feldblum as my TA and he was super nice and helpful. We also had a group presentation in discussion section, but that wasn't hard. This was an interesting and easy class and I would recommend it to anyone looking to get a GE out of the way.

John Agnew and this class have legitimately made me want to become a geography major.

Professor Agnew posts the slides, but they're often just pictures of graphs, which I absolutely would not have been able to interpret myself if I hadn't gone to the lecture. Not an easy GE overall, and the final was worth 40%. I had Nott as my TA and she was super helpful and knowledgeable though, so try to take her if you can!

Honestly, I feel this class was not the best. It wasn’t terrible but I feel like it’s flawed. The grading on the exams is ridiculous. My answers were very detailed but i didn’t put one key word and lost all the points. I thought I had aced the exam and was stunned when I got my score. Questions were very subjective and there were for sure several answers that were valid but you only received points if you put the one Professor Agnew believed. Agnew was not very open to hearing answers for alternatives. The workload is not terrible just a reading reflection and a 5 min presentation. As someone who has gotten basically an A in every pre-med class this was my lowest grade I had received in UCLA which i believe says it all. Honestly, the content is by no means difficult but ridiculous grading makes it worse than just having hard content. I would try very hard to avoid this class.

Super easy. Great and interesting material. Quiz/assignments are easy. I think an assistant prof was in charge, since all of the material was already recorded. She was pretty good too in communication
Definitely recommend.

I don't like geography at all but I really liked this class. Although the professors slides were very lengthy in text, he was super funny and a very good teacher. The course material was easy to understand and I felt like I learned a lot. The midterm and final consisted of short and long answer questions and he made them pretty lengthy, but both the midterm and the final were take home so it wasn't horrible. I didn't attend office hours because it wasn't necessary, but in lecture he was super kind and helpful.

If you're an Econ major or interested in history in general, I would highly recommend taking this class. The workload is super chill: just some basic readings that you can skim for discussions, a group presentation, and a take-home midterm and final. Agnew can be a slow speaker, but he's pretty funny and engaging with his material, so I'd say lectures are worth going to. He bruincasts everything, but sometimes the beginning or end of his speaking gets cut off. The class covers the history of trade and economic organization between countries over almost all of human history, so there's a lot to dig into. He even throws in some general micro & macro economic terms which can help put them into a historical context. TLDR: This is a soft econ + history GE that's interesting and not too difficult, so you should definitely take it.

I really liked Agnew, he was very funny, and his slides were easy to follow and understand. When I took it, the tests were take-home, which made succeeding in the class pretty easy. I don't like history at all, but I found is class pretty fun tbh. Easy A.