It's a fairly easy A GE to take, but some of the requirements from Ball make it feel kinda like a high school class. You need to show up to most of the lectures because there is a quiz or two in each one that can happen at any point during the hour. You need an iClicker for the quizzes, but you can miss up to like 6 of them before it starts hurting your grade.
She grades participation by going through the list of all the students and calling on them to answer questions that relate to the readings, but you can avoid getting your name called randomly if you raise your hand to answer questions a couple of times because she pushes your name to the bottom of the list if you do that.
Lectures weren't bruincasted, but all the slides were posted. The only annoying thing was that her no technology rule was really strict, so you couldn't type your notes during class unless you have CAE accommodations.
Readings were interesting because most of them weren't normal history textbook readings. They were snippets of various Scandinavian sagas. However, some days the readings were a little too long in my opinion, although I'm a STEM major so my threshold for it is pretty low.
There were two multiple choice exams that were easy if you kept up with the readings and the lectures. The final was a take-home paper (even before COVID-19 got in the way) that was 700 words max and a chill prompt

DO NOT GET BAILEY BERRY AS YOUR TA. I almost got a B+ because of her harshness in grading essays. She graded the first essay maliciously as she could care less that it was the first essay and we did not really know what type of writing/analysis she wanted. Make sure you guys take annotating seriously as it is graded strictly as well but that is understandable. I expected to get an A in this class based on the distribution but last year was once in a blue moon. Or maybe I just got unlucky with my TA. This is still the best Writing 2 class to take though so TAKE IT!

I took Professor Ball's class during the pandemic. SCAND 40 is not a class where you would have to spend hours studying for, but it's also not a class where you could breeze by without taking some notes. Participation is acquired either through a 350 word reading response forum before lecture or by live class discussion to which Professor Ball is very nice about making every answer's point heard. The lectures are recorded to watch later but since quizzes are live anyway, attendance still matters. They are very easy if you did the week's reading, something as simple as recalling the name of the main character. However, the exams were quite expansive compared to how slow and easy the class usually is. It's open note though and very much includes her slide information. What helped for me was having a table of what names were in each story in my notes as there are a LOT of names and they're too complicated to mentally spell out. Overall, not too hard except for the unexpected jump in difficulty during the 300 point exams that had MC and 2 Free Response questions.

I took this because I heard Scand classes were easy. I was so wrong. The exams were way too hard

Professor KB is the best professor at UCLA. She truly cares about the students. I have taken her MANY times, probably all the classes she offers at UCLA. I transferred to UCLA with no SCAND knowledge, and ended up in 165B and instantly got hooked. KB lectures in a very engaging way, which you should take advantage of because the class is 100 times more enjoyable if you actually engage, plus you get points for speaking . HER CLASSES ARE FAIR!!! I love her class structure and all of her classes are structured the same way so no surprises if you take her multiple time!
15% Quizzes
10% Participation
25% Exam I
25% Exam II
25% Final Paper
You will get extra credit for doing the teacher evaluation!

The people complaining probably did NOT go to class. GO TO CLASS and you will be fine!

Grade is based on three essays. Each essay has points for two rough drafts and the final draft. The rough drafts are graded on completion. The readings are not super interesting but you can skim and be completely fine. Just work hard on the final drafts and an A is easy.

This class has to be the biggest catfish in the Scandinavian department. I was dumb enough to think that this class was going to be as easy as SCAND 50W and boy was I wrong. It felt like an upper division class: archaic Scandinavian texts translated into English, so you're basically reading old English. You have to use iclickers to pretty much verify your class attendance, the lectures are very boring unless you have an ardent passion for slide presentations and scandanvian literature. The midterm was basically a test on memorizing all the names of characters, dates, roles, etc and it was a closed book exam so you ACTUALLY have to memorize scandanavian names that are very difficult to remember for people who are not familiar with scandanvian names. You also have to speak at least once a week for participation points, if you do not manage to speak( you probably won't because the class is to large for her to choose everyone) you have to write a 350 word reflection on the readings, and those readings are both boring and dense. If you think this is an easy GE I promise you its not. Don't take this class unless you want to fall into depression.

Do not take this class if you’re expecting an easy A upper division. The class is straight scale with points on participation and exams. 2 exams, 1 take home essay. Professor Ball is very biased on her exam scores, especially for essay questions and the take home final. Maybe suck up to her a little in class because otherwise she will not give you a good grade. Your whole grade is basically based on your tests so if you mess up or she doesn’t like you, you’re fucked. It’s crazy how seriously she takes a class ON VIKINGS IN MOVIES. She needs to take the stick out of her ass. The movies were enjoyable and easy to learn, but no fucking point if she grades her class thinking this a fucking english literature class. This is supposed to be a GPA booster class, sis, it ain’t that serious.

I took Scand 40W and really enjoyed the class. The readings are very interesting and the classes give a good recap and give students a better understanding of the course. We had 3 essays which accounted for our entire grade, and the grading was lenient. What was a little annoying was the i-clicker questions at the beginning of every class which was based directly on the readings assigned, so we had to show up for class on time. This class was overall very enjoyable and intriguing.

I'm selling the Kalevala Book (required) for $10. Please text me at **********

This class is enjoyable and most of the movies are actually fun to watch. One of them is How to Train a Dragon, since it is a movie with Vikings. Grading is based on participation, in-class quizzes, 2 exams and a final paper. Highly recommend this class!