Professor
Seyed-Ali Mousavi
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - Take the class. Before the midterm and the final you're going to hate yourself and feel like you've put yourself on overload (especially if you wait to the last minute like me) but learn the material, be good at chronology and names. He is a very kind grader and he really wants all his students to do well. ABSOLUTELY do not cheat because he will catch you. He is a great professor and I'm happy I took 2 quarters or Iranian Civilization with him.
Spring 2018 - Take the class. Before the midterm and the final you're going to hate yourself and feel like you've put yourself on overload (especially if you wait to the last minute like me) but learn the material, be good at chronology and names. He is a very kind grader and he really wants all his students to do well. ABSOLUTELY do not cheat because he will catch you. He is a great professor and I'm happy I took 2 quarters or Iranian Civilization with him.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Overall, not a difficult class at all, but also not a particularly interesting one. It consists of a final exam and a short 5-7 page midterm paper. The paper is on a topic of your choosing related to archaeology, and the final is very very clear, short, and straightforward. You would have to actively try to fail to not get an A in my opinion. Prof. Mousavi is a little dry and boring, and often too serious, and he has a very strange obsession with proper pronunciation, to the point where he gets upset if you have the slightest American accent when pronouncing an Iranian term, which is ironic because he speaks English with an accent (which is obviously fine, just ironic that he gets so perturbed when somebody doesn’t say something like “Naqsh-e Rostam” perfectly). Overall, he’s not a bad prof or a bad guy, just stern and sometimes a little strange, and his class is straightforward and fairly easy to get an A. Just attend lectures, take notes, and study the material that he emphasizes in the review.
Spring 2020 - Overall, not a difficult class at all, but also not a particularly interesting one. It consists of a final exam and a short 5-7 page midterm paper. The paper is on a topic of your choosing related to archaeology, and the final is very very clear, short, and straightforward. You would have to actively try to fail to not get an A in my opinion. Prof. Mousavi is a little dry and boring, and often too serious, and he has a very strange obsession with proper pronunciation, to the point where he gets upset if you have the slightest American accent when pronouncing an Iranian term, which is ironic because he speaks English with an accent (which is obviously fine, just ironic that he gets so perturbed when somebody doesn’t say something like “Naqsh-e Rostam” perfectly). Overall, he’s not a bad prof or a bad guy, just stern and sometimes a little strange, and his class is straightforward and fairly easy to get an A. Just attend lectures, take notes, and study the material that he emphasizes in the review.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Honestly I enjoyed the class and the subject in general was very interesting. However, professor Mousavi can be a little unorganized and also very hard to reach over email. I had to email him twice in order to get a response out of him. The good thing about him though is that he wants you to pass with an A. I did very poorly on my midterm and he gave those of us who didn’t do well the chance to write a reflective paper to make up for the missed points. The reading honestly I found to be not that important because the questions on midterm were from his slides and lectures. As long as you show up and take notes you are guaranteed an A.
Fall 2022 - Honestly I enjoyed the class and the subject in general was very interesting. However, professor Mousavi can be a little unorganized and also very hard to reach over email. I had to email him twice in order to get a response out of him. The good thing about him though is that he wants you to pass with an A. I did very poorly on my midterm and he gave those of us who didn’t do well the chance to write a reflective paper to make up for the missed points. The reading honestly I found to be not that important because the questions on midterm were from his slides and lectures. As long as you show up and take notes you are guaranteed an A.
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