This class is not easy as a GE class. There are tons of reading each week, and I find it extremely difficult to get an A in this class. Professor Wang is a passionate teacher though. He always tries to teach his students to look at history from a different perspective, so this class might be helpful for those who are very interested in history. However, if you are taking it as a GE, the workload would be terribly tough. The weekly posting requires an in-depth analysis of the reading materials, and I never really quite understand how to get an A in the posting. The midterm was an essay, and the final consisted of analyzing 7 short passages and writing an essay. It took a huge amount of time to read all the materials and do the analysis, and the grade is unfair compared to the effort you have to put in.

professor wang was great! he definitely was fun to listen to and good at teaching. but my TA was horrible and they control all the grading. most of them were ridiculously harsh when it came to grading especially on what was supposed to be an easy GE. my TA was never helpful either so try to make sure you know the TA is supposed to be good before taking this class.

Class was quite interesting, and the workload of assignments isn’t bad at all.

There’s a ton of reading, and about halfway through the quarter I realized that to succeed you don’t even need to really do them. Just enough for the discussion postings. His lectures are definitely the only thing you really need to watch

Prof. Wang cares a lot about his students and made a ton of accommodations throughout the quarter.

His TAs did the same, however I found that they were incredibly harsh graders. I received a low grade on my midterm that I felt really wasn’t justified as nearly all comments on my essay by my TA could definitely be described as nitpicking. The same was done with the final, and I just couldn’t figure out why my grades for them was as low as they were. There’s never a super clear instruction on what is wanted.

I was able to be saved by him curving everyone’s final grade up a point after the final, but the harsh grading nearly cost me a good chunk of GPA.

Overall, good class that I’d recommend if you’re interested in Korean or East Asian History. The best part is Prof. Wang helped me learn to look at history in sort of a new way, and I’m definitely grateful for that.

Everyone saying there’s too many readings either went too in depth with them or didn’t realize they weren’t exactly critical to the assignments in class.

Way too much reading, really hard to get an A with the hard grading. Don't recommend unless you write essays well and have time to read lots.

I really like how Professor Wang taught the course and split the lectures into separate parts so we could absorb the material better. He was very understanding to the needs of students and was receptive to our concerns. However, it was kind of difficult to understand whether we should be doing the readings before or after watching the lectures, which made lectures difficult to follow sometimes. The reading load was really large but it's manageable if you pick and choose which ones to read in detail (for discussion posts) versus which ones to scan. Discussions were relatively straight forward, but the grading for discussion posts were not. It seemed like the TAs had different expectations for posts every week and it was hard to understand what was expected since posts were due before discussions. Overall, I'd say this history course required much more work than other history courses I have taken, but it is doable if you put in a lot of effort and manage your time wisely.

Took this class to fill out a GE. Professor Wang was actually very accommodating and listened to the wants of the students. He uploaded his videos in multiple parts which honestly was a great move since it felt way more manageable. I believe him as a professor explaining material was easy to digest. The biggest problem however was the course was very reliant on readings. Lectures would build upon the readings in the sense that if you didn't read that week, you had a high chance of not understanding what was being taught as Professor Wang lectures assuming you did all the readings. What was more difficult was the increasing amount of readings each week which weren't gradual. Class consisted of weekly discussion postings that would ask you to analyze a reading of the week. Those were a little infuriating as the TAs flipped between what they wanted. Midterm and finals were essays that consisted of 2 prompts of your choosing. Fair warning, the TAs are harsh graders so I suggest you talk to them to ask what they want.

Fantastic professor. His lectures really make you think about history from a philosophical viewpoint.

The midterm and final were take home essays but the questions are kind of challenging.

I wasn't quite sure whether I would like this class when I chose it as my GE, but I knew that I would probably be able to get a good grade because I grew up learning about Korean traditions and history. In high school, I didn't really like my history and social studies classes either and just crammed to get good grades (as you do). This class, however, was really engaging and got me thinking about different historical perspectives and stories that I hadn't really considered before. Professor Wang is a very good lecturer, has well-prepared slides, is very knowledgeable on Korean history (which I guess is a given lol), articulate, and had an anonymous question bank for random questions about Korean history which led to a lot of interesting discussions. I am definitely interested in taking more history/cultural studies courses in the future thanks to this class.

In conclusion: 11/10, would absolutely recommend to a friend.

Prof. Wang was absolutely hilarious. He always made class engaging and accessible. Lecture was in person, on zoom and recorded. All the exams were online asynch. and open note open book. The assignments were always engaging and fairly easy, especially if you paid attention to the slides. The book was completely unnecessary, I don't even remember if there was a book honestly. Highly recommend!