Professor Philips teaches what is likely the most boring class you will ever take. I mean truly mind-numbing. That being said, it is also incredibly straightforward with no confusion whatsoever about what is to be expected of you.

Lectures are actually comically bad. He speaks a list of facts (names, dates, locations, etc.) at you for the full 50 minutes. There are no pauses, no breaks, and no questions. This is all done with no slides or any other aid to his speech. He does not slow down and he does not repeat things. If you didn't hear it the first time, tough. As for how to spell things in the ancient languages, good luck, he does not write anything down. I cant convey in text how boring these lectures are.

For exams, you are asked to produce the definitions of a few terms that he has covered in lecture as well as a short essay. A list of about 50 terms as well as 4 essay promps will be posted prior to the exam. The exams are a selection of a few of the terms and 2 of the essay prompts (you choose 1 to write). Because of this, all the exams are very easy if you can remember stuff well. Though, the terms are only covered in lecture and perhaps only covered with a few sentences. This means that, in order to have notes for all terms, you have to nearly transcribe the entire lecture. There is no good way to research terms outside of lecture, because he quizzes you on the dates and events that he talks about in lecture, which may be different than dates and events in other sources.

If you are ok with completely mindless copying of what he says during lectures, then the class is incredibly easy. The entire grade is 4 exams, discussion participation, and a final paper. The exams are as described above and are very easy if you can memorize things. There is assigned reading for discussion (and a lot of it), but you really don't have to do it. Just look up summaries online and you're fine, its sometimes covered in lecture as well. The final paper is like 9 pages, we were given 4 prompts and could choose 1. Its mostly based on the readings and some of the prompts had material that was just not covered in class at all.

The class is a very easy A if you are good at memorizing stuff, but is so damn boring that I would almost rather get a worse grade with a different prof.

With Professor Phillips, History 1A is probably one of the most straight-forward classes you will ever take. All the lectures for the entire quarter were posted at the beginning of the class, so it's very easy to get ahead in this class. I will say that there are a lot of required readings for this course, so it may be difficult to keep track of/afford all of the readings. The most important material was covered in the lectures, so I was able to be successful in the class without reading the textbook (Freeman, Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean, 3rd edition (ISBN: **********924) [EGR]) but the most important reading was N. M. Bailkey and R. Lim, Readings in Ancient History, 7th edition (ISBN: **********587) [B-L] and the course pack. To be honest you do not really need the other readings to be successful, but you do need to understand the content and the significance of them. There were 3 major exams, which were easy to prepare for since he provided a study guide. However, the study guide covers a lot of content (40+ terms to identify and 5 prompts, but only 8 of the terms and 2 prompts were on the exam), but as long as you thoroughly complete the study guide, you will do well on the exams.

I really liked this class (maybe because I'm a history major). The content is interesting and you get to read a lot of primary source texts that are cool (like the Iliad etc). There is a lot of weekly reading though and we had 2 midterms as well as a final. The exams consist of a few short answer identifying key terms and then an essay based off a prompt. You're given a list of all the possible prompts and terms so you can prepare pretty well. We also had a final paper which was very open ended so you could pick a topic that you find interesting. Overall, if you like history this class is has good writing practice and the lectures are funny. If you don't like history, don't take this class for a GE.