Overall good class and pretty easy. You have to show up to every lecture, but there are only two short (3-4 page) essays and two very easy in-class quizzes which count for 10% of your grade. I liked my TA and thought the material in the class was interesting, but I can see why people wouldn’t like it if they get a bad TA. Porter is a really nice guy, but pretty tough to listen to at times and can be awkward. Pretty easy class to do well in if you put in some effort, would recommend for a GE.

Super boring class. I could have gotten an A if it wasn't for my TA who gave me a "B" on both of my essays. Keep in mind that each essay is worth 25% and you have to write 2 essays so if you don't get an A on at least one of your essays then you most likely won't end up with an A in the class. I used to pay attention in lecture but realized you don't need to. You don't even have to do the readings, I would just skim over them when I was going to write my essays. Professor also keeps on talking when the class is supposed to end so be prepared to always be let out 5 minutes later. Lecture is mandatory because he has a daily question you have to answer and turn in at the end of each class. You can easily look up the question online. Workload is extremely easy, and this class is a GPA booster.

Very easy class. All there is is 2 short quizzes which he gives you the questions to, 2 short essays, and a few reading responses. If you do the bare minimum you can get an A.
However, the lecture is quite boring. I really did not pay attention to any of his lectures, I would just go online during the entire time.
You should take this if you want an easy GPA booster and do not care about having a boring lecture.

This class is extremely easy. It is a bit tedious - grade is determined by 2 short in class quizzes (he literally gives you the questions a few days before), 2 four page essays, 4 short one page reading responses, and then class participation in the form of showing up to discussion and lecture for 10% of your grade (attendance is kept with a daily question in lectures). If you can deal with a bit of an annoyance on some of these assignments, then you can get an A with minimal effort. I took a nap every day of class for the last 4 weeks of the quarter (seriously, every day).

This class is easy, but it is not interesting. Dr. Porter's slides and lectures are incoherent and the class had no direction or flow whatsoever. Although material sometimes was interesting, it was so hard to follow.

Professor Porter is probably the nicest man I've ever met, but he just lack public speaking skills. His lectures are interesting in their content, but he has a horrible habit of stuttering and going off on tangents. If you can bear through his lectures, which are sometimes a pain to get through in order to answer the question he provides at the end in order to prove your attendance, it is a fantastic class. His tests are short answer and he sends out a list of around 15 possible questions beforehand. Plus, 60% of my midterm was writing my name on the page and it was also 80% of my final. Other than the the only work the whole year was 3 essays of reasonable length (about 5 pages each) and and work assigned by the TA's.

Great GE course. Not very demanding of your time and has easy quizzes. It is easy to lose focus however.

This class is a great GE because it is not very rigorous or demanding of your time. You are graded based on 3 papers, and your "midterm/final" are just comprehension questions to see if you went to lecture. Attendance in discussion was mandatory, but that's really minor. Professor Porter never finishes his lectures on time or early, so I would recommend leaving a comfortable time gap after his lecture. Everything from lecture is posted on the website, so its great to review. The monotonous tone of voice can sometimes overshadow the important and intriguing parts of lecture, but overall, this is not a course that you will have to stress over.

He's such a cute person. He is like awkward cute, and when he makes jokes, it makes me so happy. I've noticed that he does change the grading of the class every now and then so this time it was 3 900-1200 word papers that were each worth 20% of your grade, a midterm and a final that were each worth 10% of your grade (as he was passing the final out, he was like "good luck, but really we all know that most of you are going to get a 100%."), and going to discussion was 20% of your grade. I had Daniel as my TA who was really nice but also kind of awkward. I personally did not fun find the information in this class super interesting except for the eugenics section, but I know others did! In this class you focus on Darwin's family ties and relations with others, then eugenics, you focus a lot on the world wars, and end with environmentalism and DNA. This class has SO much reading - about 100-120 pages a week, BUT because of my TA I did not have to actually do it, so I didn't read since like week 2. Reading is always mandatory but you just like skim a few pages here and there to get whatever you need. My other friend had to do all the reading because she wrote page long summaries in her discussion every week. It really depends on your TA.

Great professor. He posts slides online but attendance is graded. Most of your grade is based on 3 short (3-5) page papers. Midterm and final are extremely simple. I would definitely recommend this class as a pretty easy GE.

I'm not sure why or how the reviews have reflected this professor and his class the way they have. He was not a bad lecturer at all. I guess you could say he was a bit mono toned, but he made an honest and respectable effort to get the classroom engaged. The slides were well organized, easy to read, and delivered all the pertinent information for quizzes and papers. Readings were pretty dense, as they were mostly original sources that deal with relatively complex subject matter, but I liked them and feel like I got a lot out of them. The sections are designed to force you to bring your discussion A game- if you have input you have to cite what you're talking about by page. But other than that I found the essays to be more than fairly graded and the tests not hard at all. Great professor, great class.