The previous reviews don't accurately reflect how Grannis teaches his class. He did add discussion for this quarter, and you have two TA's. However, he did cancel his Monday class so you only get lecture once a week. I'm not sure why he does this, but you still get your 4 units.

Lecture and discussion are kind of separate and don't have much to do with each other. As for lecture, Grannis just talks about many different primate species. He often repeats himself, which is good because there's no lecture notes so if you miss something, you can catch it again at some point. The basis for learning about the primate species is for the take-home midterm, due 8th week. It's fairly easy, just be sure to take good notes and write down all key terms he mentions in class (those are the terms he always asks about in lecture). Unfortunately, he doesn't give back your take-home midterm so you never really understand how you were graded or what you did wrong necessarily, unless you go out of your way to retrieve it, of course.

As for discussion, your TA basically talks about the essays that are due in class, which are all irrelevant to lecture. You get three, 600-800 word essays (14% each) due within two weeks of each other. They're each based off a book you have to read for class (each book focuses on three different primate: gorillas, baboons, and chimpanzees). You technically don't have to read the entire book. You just have to read until you find something pertinent to your essay. For the essays, you get to choose between two topics: Either parallel a social behavior in the book with something you've observed or analyze a social behavior with a social theory (e.g. functionalism, Marxism, feminism, etc). Most people did the former, of course, because it requires no research. The final essay is 2,000 words (about 5-6 pages) where you compare three primates and a human society together. Your research can consist of the 3 books you've read, so it helps to make notes in all of them while you're writing your smaller essays.

It's a fairly easy class, but kinda strange at how disconnected lecture and discussion are. After the take-home midterm was due, we had one more lecture, where the professor talks about primates and their learning of sign language. It was utterly pointless since you won't be tested at all about it. Although I must say, the lecture was pretty enlightening, it was unnecessary to attend.

Overall, it's a simple class if you write well on your essays (just understand clearly what your TA wants to see in the essay!).

dont take this class!!!! stay away!!!

Unfortunately, my views seem to differ drastically from most of the reviews on this website. I would like to give my viewpoint for those who may have a similar style to me. I found this class to be of a very low caliber. I feel as though Professor Grannis does not show respect for his students or for academia. First, the class only met once a week for an hour and a half which I do not even think is allowed in terms of the unit it rewarded. There was no section, no TAs and he has no scheduled office hours. It was hard to feel connected to the course or care. None of the assignments connected with the material we were learning in class. You could learn by listening to him but I found his lectures to be obnoxious. I found his approach to students in e-mail to be very disrespectful and unapproachable. I do not think he created an environment conducive to learning. I really did not like this class and if anyone has similar learning styles to me, I would highly discourage you from spending the money and time on this class. I hope that he will one day improve it however because the topic could be much more engaging. Yes, it is an easy A, but it's an A that doesn't even feel good.