Lecture: The professor's lectures are very boring with him talking about dry material with slide shows largely consisting of pictures and few bullet points as reference. Also, attendance is mandatory as its part of your grade.

HW: The readings for this class can be very time consuming if you actually take the time to do them and fully process them. It is probably better to just skim the text or look up main ideas for the weekly reading responses.

Exams: The exams consist of knowing certain vocabulary (which is pretty managble) and also writing down an essay (which is much harder especially with the time constraints).

Overall, this class is a very middle of the road GE in that an A is defintely attainable for most, but it is incredibly boring

Really interesting class and no papers. Dr. Alexander was really kind too and gave me an accommodation on the final because I was sick. Josh was a great TA too. There's some reading and writing but it's manageable.

Wonderful GE! Absolutely loved taking this class as a distraction from my engineering workload, the lectures are engaging and very well thought out. Prof. Alexander has been teaching for so long that he's got the curriculum down to a T and it's a great experience as such. The weekly readings aren't really necessary for the midterm or final, but if you have time they can be interesting to read through (and they're necessary for homework). Exams aren't that bad, and my TA section with Max Nikol was insightful and fun. I highly recommend this class :)

Professor Alexander was an alright professor, and his class was an "ok" GE. Not my favorite class I've taken at UCLA since it was very Eurocentric and literally only mentioned one female figure (one philosopher's wife) throughout the entirety of the course. Professor Alexander tends to repeat himself quite a lot which is kind of annoying especially since we can't skip ahead 10 seconds in recorded lectures, but the content was pretty interesting. Insightful for learning about how the world has become what it is today, but also meaningless because everything we learn has since been proven false.
This class is pretty much AP European History and it's very easy to get an A. There are around 30 pages of reading assigned each week and you can skip some of them since they're just primary sources. Additionally, you have to write a paragraph answering a question of the week, but you can skip 2 to still get an A in the class. You definitely have to work to study and do well on the exams, but pretty easy if you like history.

tl;dr - fun class, interesting material, a lot of readings, good discussions, meh tests.

The teacher records attendance by having people sign in before class on a piece of paper. Some lectures aren't recorded. The lectures are generally interesting, but Alexander tends to start and stop sentences and be repetitive, which can just get boring after a bit. I kept with it because I thought that the general overarching themes that were being taught and the various important figures we were learning about were really interesting and I found the material engaging. Each week we had readings and had a paragraph response to a relevant question. There were 9 total questions and you only had to turn in 7 of them. Some of the readings were difficult to read and I just scanned them. It didn't hurt my grade. I didn't attend any office hours either, and missed a discussion session. This class is fun if you enjoy history and science and religion, but you have to be committed to taking good notes and reading notes. For the midterm, you define some terms and then write an essay (one of two choices) in 50 minutes. It was a bit tight. The average was I think 93%. The final was more terms and then two essays (of four choices). The prompts were all general enough that you could answer them so long as you knew they key important people and their ways of thinking, along with the general timeline. Dates aren't hugely important, just knowing who came first, then next, etc. I think it'd be better if the midterm and final were take home, but it wasn't awful in person.

Overall I would take this class again.

selling both textbooks for this class for cheap. message me 561-213-4481 :)

Class Structure:
Weekly reading responses: 20%
Section participation: 20%
Midterm: 20%
Final Exam: 40%

This class was a pretty simple and straightforward class. I wouldn't say it as an easy 'A', but it is extremely doable 'A' if you just attend lecture. The workload is really low, and you don't really have to do much.

The class itself was somewhat interesting if you want to learn about how science has evolved in the past 2-3 centuries. Professor Alexander would lecture the entire class time, and it was more of a story time lecture compared to others. As long as you take decent notes while he is lecturing, you will be golden for this class.

There were no essays for this class, but there were weekly paragraph responses (took about 1 hour to finish each). We were only required to complete 7 out of the 9 that he posts, and they were basically graded for completion. Discussion section was mandatory, but it mainly just a chat about our opinions on the content of the class. Pretty easygoing. My TA was Max Nikol, who was great.

The exams were all in person and were done through Blue Books (essentially a 10 page blank notebook you buy from the UCLA Store). The midterm was 4 term IDs and 1 essay (50 mins). The final was 8 Term IDs and 2 essays (3 hours). The term IDs were defining a few terms out of a word bank that he sends out a few days before the exam. He gives 2 essay prompts for each essay, and we only need to pick one of them to write about. They were pretty simple, and if you went to lecture you will be totally fine for these. There is a bit of memorization involved with this class (remembering years, names, important events, etc), but it is not at all horrible.

TLDR: Overall, good class, great professor, the content was kinda interesting. Very doable 'A'

This is the first time the class was taught in-person after the covid lockdown.
With that said, here's what you need to know about this class:
The professor is nice. He is not a good lecturer though. I am one of those students who always pays attention and asks questions, but for the first time I could not stop myself from sleeping in this class.
His slides just contain pictures. Granted, he has words/lists on there SOMETIMES, but I could probably count the number of times on one hand. His slides are mostly not helpful.
The readings are A LOT. Most people were able to go by without the readings, but I didn't skip them because I was scared I'd miss something important. Some of it IS really important, but some of it is super useless in relation to the class. The reading assignments get heavier as the weeks pass by. You are only asked to do 7 though, so you are allowed to skip on a couple.
After you read the typically 50+ pages of ancient scientists and science assigned, you are asked to write a "reading response," which will be graded by your TA. I had Luke as my TA and he is an absolute sweetheart, he helped me through office hours, email, in-person, and was always super nice about it. I'd say they are graded pretty easily, and I've heard people with other TA's say the same. Writing the reading responses did help in the long run.
Those were the only assignments; reading, and writing a response.
The midterm was defining 4 terms and an essay, and the final defining 8 terms and two essays. I'd argue there's plenty of time for both, and as long as you pay attention to what each scientist/philosopher/astronomer did, you'll be fine. I know people who slept through class and didn't do the readings who still got A's on the midterm (it just took some studying the night before though).
You can definitely study for it within one night. I studied for my final the night before and aced it.
I went into the class not going what it's even about, but came out pretty interested and knowledgeable of the material (the professor is super smart btw, he knows SO MUCH, just isn't the best at conveying it).
I'd definitely recommend this class if you're interested in the history of how modern science came about. Also, compared to other GE's, this one is REALLY easy/light (especially in terms of writing). Just a lot of reading (which you can arguably skip, but you didn't hear it from me).
Also, the midterm is 20% of your grade, final is 40% and the reading responses 40%.
I liked that this class only had that one HW assignment per week. Thinking back, if I could focus on the reading, the response would not take too long at all (but I couldn't focus bc ngl some readings are pretty boring-- I did like some of them though).

PS: I am selling ALL notes for this class (I did all the readings, so including reading notes) for $20, and also selling the two textbooks needed for this class for $40!! contact me if you are interested: 7473131105

Great professor, really cares about the subject and is always enthusiastic in lecture. Readings could be tedious but on the whole pretty interesting and engaging. No big papers, only weekly reading responses that were super easy.

Great professor, really cares about the subject and is always enthusiastic in lecture. Readings could be tedious but on the whole pretty interesting and engaging. No big papers, only weekly reading responses that were super easy.