ANTHRO 3
Culture and Society
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; fieldwork. Required as preparation for both bachelor's degrees. Introduction to study of culture and society in comparative perspective. Examples from societies around world to illustrate basic principles of formation, structure, and distribution of human institutions. Of special concern is contribution and knowledge that cultural diversity makes toward understanding problems of modern world. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - This was probably the most "easy" catfished class I've ever taken. The professor was very off-topic the majority of the time, yapping about Yap, trying to relate it to the topics at hand, but would end up rambling about his time there. After the first few lectures, he just so happened to mention that some of the stuff relating to what he talked about in Yap would be somewhat relevant to the midterm and was never clear as to what specifically. He also said the slides he reads from would be important to mark down, slides he'd be going through at 100 mph and not even let some of us finish due to shortness of time. Time he'd waste yapping about Yap. He didn't post his slides OR record his lectures, which made it much more difficult and made it clear that in order to retrieve any information we missed, we'd have to go to him personally and review his slides. He had one midterm, 2 papers, and one final. He'd produce us a study guide for both exams, but simply a list of topics that we'd have to review from the notes taken by ourselves. The papers were pretty unorganized in terms of what they'd ask for and were never specific. When asking TAs for examples, they were very stingy in letting us read any past papers or a simple paragraph example. I'm sure no one would've been dumb enough to simply copy off an already used paper. Overall, I feel like for a typically "easy" class, this was unnecessarily overcomplicated.
Fall 2025 - This was probably the most "easy" catfished class I've ever taken. The professor was very off-topic the majority of the time, yapping about Yap, trying to relate it to the topics at hand, but would end up rambling about his time there. After the first few lectures, he just so happened to mention that some of the stuff relating to what he talked about in Yap would be somewhat relevant to the midterm and was never clear as to what specifically. He also said the slides he reads from would be important to mark down, slides he'd be going through at 100 mph and not even let some of us finish due to shortness of time. Time he'd waste yapping about Yap. He didn't post his slides OR record his lectures, which made it much more difficult and made it clear that in order to retrieve any information we missed, we'd have to go to him personally and review his slides. He had one midterm, 2 papers, and one final. He'd produce us a study guide for both exams, but simply a list of topics that we'd have to review from the notes taken by ourselves. The papers were pretty unorganized in terms of what they'd ask for and were never specific. When asking TAs for examples, they were very stingy in letting us read any past papers or a simple paragraph example. I'm sure no one would've been dumb enough to simply copy off an already used paper. Overall, I feel like for a typically "easy" class, this was unnecessarily overcomplicated.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Professor Yan is a good professor. He speaks very slowly so his speaking is very clear. However, lectures can feel long and boring because of this especially for someone like me who is not super interested in this subject. The readings were sometimes long and uninteresting to me but they were manageable. Towards the end of the quarter I stopped reading all of them because well they were long and I was lazy. I recommend you read most of them so you can have something to talk about in discussion. Otherwise you will have a very boring and awkward time in zoom discussion meetings. Also, Professor Yan did not make us purchase a textbook which I always appreciate. The midterms and final were straightforward and there was a lot of information to pull from in the readings. There is a one page writing assignment every week and you are required to attend discussion for participation points. It's a slow paced class and an easy GE that does give you an appreciation for anthropology.
Winter 2021 - Professor Yan is a good professor. He speaks very slowly so his speaking is very clear. However, lectures can feel long and boring because of this especially for someone like me who is not super interested in this subject. The readings were sometimes long and uninteresting to me but they were manageable. Towards the end of the quarter I stopped reading all of them because well they were long and I was lazy. I recommend you read most of them so you can have something to talk about in discussion. Otherwise you will have a very boring and awkward time in zoom discussion meetings. Also, Professor Yan did not make us purchase a textbook which I always appreciate. The midterms and final were straightforward and there was a lot of information to pull from in the readings. There is a one page writing assignment every week and you are required to attend discussion for participation points. It's a slow paced class and an easy GE that does give you an appreciation for anthropology.
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