lots of writing so if you don't like that then don't take this
most of my engagement had my TA, chris ramirez, as a liaison. he was pretty chill (easy grader) but he grades super slowly so beware that.
All work assigned took the form of an essay, there were four of them iirc, each around 2-3pg but sometimes more
he gives massive amounts of weekly reading, I never bothered with them and just found the relevant portions when writing each essay
the course is quite interesting and easygoing but if you are not ready to write then you will not do well

I took this class to knock off a couple of GEs and the diversity requirement and I would very much recommend it! The readings can get quite dense during certain weeks but for the most part, it was still doable and actually very interesting. It's definitely not one of those classes where you can put off to the side, you do have to put in some work to get a good grade.

The only grades that are put in are essays. I wouldn't consider myself that great of a writer but I still managed to get an A in the class (I'm a first-year and this was one of the first classes I took for the fall quarter, so this was my first time ever writing college essays). The essay prompts are pretty straightforward and you have all the information you need to write them. His lectures are very clear and helpful when it comes to writing essays, and you can tell that he is very passionate about what he teaches. He was also very kind and easy to communicate with. Also, your TA is grading all your work so be sure to attend discussions and actually engage in them, it'll help you so much in this course. I had a very sweet and engaging TA, she always tried her best to get everyone to participate in discussion and was very helpful. Some weeks I fell behind on readings but still managed to get all the information I needed with his lectures and discussions. If you're thinking of taking this class, just do it! You learn valuable information that can be applied to today's society and changes how you view the world as a whole.

****COVID EDITION****

Professor records his lectures. There are only four assignments.

Essay #1, Midterm, Essay #2, Final

Each paper gives you different prompts to choose from. Unlike other reviews, the final during covid does not require you to match quotes. Professor gave us two weeks in advance possibly one for each paper so you're very flexible. Please don't wait until the last minute because it is ROUGH!! Midterm and final are based on word count and the essays are based on pages.

Participation in discussion is mandatory! I took TA Giovanna Molina and she was really nice. I'm not sure if she was an easy grader or if I'm just a good writer. This class can be very overwhelming with all the readings especially with a time like covid. I don't think detailed notes on the reading are necessary just make sure you write down Names and specific quotes on laws, ideas, perspectives, and adjectives. Make sure you write the page number because it will be so helpful when you are writing your papers.

I didn't watch lectures after week 3. The professor loves what he does so he can often ramble but if you watch the lectures on 1.5 speed you can certainly pass right through it while also understanding.

The first three weeks of reading are highly recommended. Week 1-3 readings carried me through the first essay and the midterm as well. If you start to slack with the reading I would recommend going through Children of God's fire because they're short but pretty informative for you to talk during participation. I had many exterior issues with life and I think I will still be able to pass with a A-. I would also recommend you join the class group me because they are very helpful. It brings a sense of community even though its virtual.

I saw a lot of people in the groupchat say the TA David took long to grade but also graded fairly ok. If you're one to want your grades asap don't take him. TA giovana was understanding and she wasn't pushy during discussion. She would divide us into break out rooms and make us talk though.

Same as everyone else, the prof is sooo kind and honestly just a really great guy. He has office hours twice a week where you can go and ask whatever and also just chat with him. You can tell he's so so passionate about the course and it really showed that he knew things were wack with covid and so changed a lot of the course readings and final +midterm around.

In general, yes there is a lot of reading for this class, but if you figure out how to get around it it's really not bad. I didn't do any of the readings beyond like week 4 because I figured out that you only really need to read the sections relevant to the essays he assigns. When i took this class it was adjusted per covid so our grades were based on 4 essay scores (2 regular essays, one midterm, and one final). and I only did the readings needed for each essay rather than reading all the assigned sections each week. his lectures are very helpful and give you direct content to write about in the essays. you can tell he's really accommodating and inclusive and really makes a point to say that even if you aren't a good writer, your grade isn't based on how good you write but rather how much you understand the material.

i consider myself pretty interested in history and yes at times it is a tiny bit boring but overall was very interesting to read about and even more engaging to hear the prof's lectures. you can tell he's really woke and really wants to make sure that we understand how racist and imperialist history connects to today and i loved that he included that in the course. overall would recommend, i took this as a first year and was scared to do bad given it was my first quarter but the prof is kind, content is good, reading isn't heavy until you figure out what works for you, and grading is fair.

I'm selling the books for cheap bc i feel bad that there's a ton of books for this class (that was the only downside) and if you're interested email at *************

[Covid or distance learning]
Grade Aspect:
100%* determined by TA. Hopefully you get a nice and engaging TA. (shoutout to David F. Castaneda)
-2 essays
-1 take-home midterm (an essay lol)
-1 final (3 parts), also take-home (all essay-type responses)

Reading...of variable lengths...for better or for worse...
Oh my goodness...there was so much to read. Of course you technically didn't need to read it all since the only reason you needed to read was for writing the essays.
An overview:
W1: 8 readings
W2: 3 "
W3: 9 "
W4: 10 "
W5: 19 "
W6: 16 "
W7 and 8 since it was thanksgiving: 25 "
W9: 10 "
W10: 5 "
Some weeks are 100+ pages total, some of them are much much shorter.
My advice is probably to read what is interesting and what you think you will need for the essays, which is easier said than done.
(this advice might be useless for in-person learning)
Lectures were pretty helpful in some essays but in general they are all from one of the textbooks so it was definitely boring to a degree. (there are 4 texts) Though it's cool that he plays music at the beginning and sometimes at the end of lectures.

I am selling all of the books for this class for $20 total plus shipping. Books are in great condition with little to no writing in them. Email me for more details: *************

While this class was overall pretty easy, I did not enjoy the lectures as much as I hoped I would. I felt like there was not enough provided background knowledge in order to fully understand the primary sources. It seemed like Professor. Terraciano was just recounting his own visits and not actually teaching us the history. It was super tempting to skip lectures because even if I paid attention there wasn't anything to actually write down for notes that would make sense. However, there is a lot of prep for the test, so if you memorize that and do well in section you will be fine.

This was a very interesting class overall and Terraciano was clearly very knowledgable about what he is teaching. Overall, the class the pretty easy consisting of 2 papers, a midterm, and a final. Both papers were graded by TAs and it seemed like they were fairly lenient in grading. For both the midterm and the final Terraciano gives out a list of prompts and vocabulary terms to study from which a subset appears on the exam. In terms of lectures, they were often very interesting and well put together, however this is where one of my primary disappointments about the class comes from. Despite being a history class, Terraciano tries to integrate his political/ideological views into the class in areas that bear little relevance to the colonial history we were studying. It was disappointing to me that a he felt like it was necessary to imbue his lectures with his own political biases rather than spending that wasted time sharing more of his deep understanding of the class material with students.

I absolutely loved Prof Terraciano. He is very passionate about history and cares a lot about his students. There is a lot of reading involved but they're not hard. Would definitely recommend taking his class.

This was a pretty easy GE. It is a decent amount of writing, but most of it was just general regurgitation of the readings. The subject of the class is pretty interesting, and Professor Terraciano is a great guy. The lectures could sometimes get pretty boring though, as a lot of the time all the events and time periods we covered pointed to the same theme or made the same point, which made going to lecture seem not that useful.