hmmm. I enjoyed this class, but in my opinion it was so difficult for absolutely no reason. This is ANTHRO 1; most students taking this course are probably taking it as a GE and possibly will never take another anthropology class again. Although Professor Wood is not the most engaging lecturer, he obviously is extremely knowledgable in the topic and is very good at articulating and explaining concepts. I would attend in-person and enjoyed lectures. He also has a very subtle but funny sense of humor hahhaa.

Anyways.... my main issue with this class (as many other people have pointed out) was the exams. I actually did pretty well on the midterm (I think I got like a 95%) but man that final was roughhhh. I don't think I've ever walked out of an exam feeling that unprepared but the thing is I studied a lot for the test too! I just don't think that it is reasonable to expect students to memorize all of the freaking taxonomic names of the different monkey, ape, chimp and what not species that were literally in greek and sound like gibberish to me. AND we had to memorize all the names of all the different skulls that we studied and there were soooo many. And the names were like ardipithecus kadabba??!! like how am i supposed to remember that. Anyways, I think a simple solution would be to let the exams be open note so we can emphasis understanding and learning the concepts rather than memorizing the ultra-specific names. Especially as an under division and GE course.

Honestly I know a lot of people complained about this class because of the fact that the midterm and final was basically all that you grade was made of but I honestly really liked it. My tip is if you are the type of person who thinks they don't need to do the reading or just doesn't feel like it, you probably won't get a good grade in the class. The final has a LOT of material that is covered in depth in the book. I found the readings interesting though. People in other comments also complained that there was no curve but he does adjust the grading scale so that a 88 is the minimum for an A and an 83 for an A- which I think is very fair.

Do not take this class as a regular GE, especially with Brian Wood. His voice is so monotone and boring. It seems like he doesn't even care about his students, especially because his office hours are shorter than the TA's. The course also has one midterm and one final that accounts for ~75% of the grade. If you bomb the first midterm, you have no chance in receiving a good grade in the class. He also gives no extra credit and tells everyone in the beginning in the class that this class isn't about effort, only material learned and memorized. Keep in mind he expects us to remember minute details from a 400 page textbook along with a long list (around 20 pages long) of fossil/primate characteristics. I feel like having a notecard available during the exams, splitting it into two midterms and a final, or making it open book would make this class more fair. ALSO, keep in mind the average grades were from when the exams were open note online during the pandemic. Would not recommend this class with Brian Wood, even though the topics are interesting.