Okay SO. Only take this class if you are either a) Russian or b) super interested in Russian culture and history. The curriculum of the class is something I'm truly interested in and even so the lectures were not able to keep me super engaged in the class. The TAs were all marvelous lecturers, but Pilshchikov would spend the entire hour and 45 minutes (+15-20 minutes on top of that, he always went overtime) reading off the slides. It made me so sad because I was so excited for this class, but since his communication skills are limited (completely understandable as English is not his first language) it was difficult for us to understand and digest the copious amount of information necessary to succeed in this class. There is so much material covered in this introductory course-- you have to read so much in order to keep up (pages of the history textbook, plays, articles, etc., around 80 pages per week) which is a lot for an introductory course. I'm still very glad I took it, but if you're looking for a GE that's an easy A, I do not recommend this course.

Teacher has a super thick accent so hard to understand what he says and the textbook is super thick and boring but it's not a hard class but there are easier GEs unless you're into Russian History starting in 800 BC.