The class material itself is very interesting and the workload is very reasonable, but the professors can be hit or miss. This quarter we focused on the Holocaust, Armenian Genocide, and French colonialism. My favorite professors were Rothberg and McBride; I found their lectures genuinely very engaging and interesting. Rothberg’s approach to learning about the Holocaust honestly really fascinated me and I looked forward to his lectures the most. While I could tell Prof. Sengul was knowledgeable in her subject, her lectures were extremely dense and difficult to follow and were very hard to understand considering most of us had little background knowledge on Armenia.

Besides that, the assignments (which are mostly short written work) are very doable and helpful in understanding the content.
I’ve generally heard good things about most of the TA’s, and I had Yair (fall) and Stephen (winter) both of which I really liked. Both are very understanding and genuinely care about their students. Two hour discussions can be pretty tedious, but I felt comfortable enough to participate and we had plenty of breaks/group activities to change up the dynamic of the class. I recommend taking the discussion later in the week, as most written work is due before class, and that gives you more time to complete it. I also ended up taking the Nazi Hunting seminar with McBride in the spring and loved that class - easy workload, interesting topics discussed, and overall the professor has a lot of professional experience that is very interesting to learn about - 10/10 recommend.

This class was good. VERY interesting content, except I think how they organized it was really bad. You learned about each of the 3 cases each week, they each would get their own lecture. It was hard to keep your knowledge organized learning about so many heavy topics all at the same time. But it was still good. LOTS OF READING. LOTS OF WRITING. ADVERTISES NO FINAL, THERE IS A WRITING FINAL. If you’re interested in history, I would recommend it, but be ready for the absolute overload of information you’re gonna get, and for the kind of insane amount of reading / writing that’s ahead.

The professors are very knowledgeable! This year our case studies were the Holocaust, Guatemalan Genocide, and the Yugoslav Wars. Definitely dense material and can get repetitive at times, but overall a great class! Make sure to go to the extra credit events since they’re definitely the best part of the cluster program. If you’re a STEM major I 100% recommend it! Even if you’re not a great writer I don’t think it matters too much (our biggest essays were graded on content not writing style).

A few things to note:
(1) I’m an economics major but I’m thinking about double majoring in history/political science. Although I’ve really enjoyed the class thus far and I’m continuing it next quarter, if I had the choice again I’d probably choose an easy science related cluster since my major classes would already count for the GEs this cluster fulfills.
(2) The lectures are great and you should definitely go. That being said, the writing assignments we’ve had (3 writing “reflections” and a 5-6 page paper) this quarter aren’t that directly related to lecture. Attending lecture definitely helped me when it came to the final exam.
(3) The final exam is the hardest part of the class and is very easy to prepare for. The test pretty much tests whether you spent the past 1-2 days putting in the work to study and it’s hard to BS. The short answer questions are just definitions (which is why taking notes from lecture is important) and two long essay questions (they basically tell you what the prompts are). Know your definitions well and reference a few readings/facts from lecture and you’re fine!

I would 100% recommend this to any freshman looking to knock off a bunch of writing II credits & other GE's. McBride & Rothberg are AMAZING lecturers, Sengul's left a lot to be desired. Extremely manageable workload, if you show up to discussion & get the papers done on time, you will get an A.

enjoyed the content in the class, the grading was not bad but since the strike affected this quarter, everyone got full credit for the papers as long as they were turned in

Professor McBride was great but this is more of a review of the class itself. Definitely not as easy as the previous years of reviews make it seem like. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET SWAMPED WITH WRITING AND READING. Readings aren't used until the end when the final paper requires you to use past readings. The cluster also traps you by making you take all three quarters to get the extra GE and writing II, but in the end its not worth it, so go with the freedom and take GEs whenever you want. If you get a good TA like Cucharo, then class is manageable but with a worse TA like Glasberg, it's definitely not worth it. Honestly, one of my most regretful decisions so far in college is taking this cluster.

More details about the class if you want to read:
Fall quarter - about 60-100 pages of readings a week along with 4 one page response papers every week in first half, one 5-6 page paper in second half, and two 3-4 page papers given and due within finals week (hated my life when I was writing these).
Winter quarter - roughly the same amount of reading, two 5-6 page papers for each half, same thing for final
Spring quarter - not done yet but its been alright compared to the past two quarters, but still wish I hadn't even gotten to this point.

Professor McBride is a fantastic teacher in lecture. He is really engaging and often adds elements of comedy into his slides, for example he brings his dog onto zoom sometimes. He finds very interesting readings for the class and has a unique perspective to the material. Highly recommend.

I found the lectures for this class very interesting and I liked the topic itself, but discussions were painful. I had heard so much good things about this cluster but I really got messed up with my TA. I had Sharon as my TA. The discussions are nearly 2 hours of boring hell. Luckily it’s just once a week and you can easily bullshit your way through it, but still. She expects you to of read the readings, and when no one has, the class is just silent while she asks questions about them. It might of just been my specific discussion section not vibing, but Sharon herself lacks a lot of enthusiasm, too. For our major grade paper I had asked her in class about my thesis, which she said was good. But when she graded my paper, she gave me a B and said my thesis had problems. You said my thesis was good when I showed it to you and I didn’t change anything????? I never consider myself to be a great writer so I’ll take my B like a champ but it still sucks. Besides the weekly readings that aren’t assigned (but really are if you don’t want to look like a fool in discussion), at the beginning of the quarter there are 4 response papers over the readings where you basically just talk about the readings and note about something interesting (1 is a rewrite). Don’t overthink these, I got too analytical on one and my grade was worse for it. These response papers are worth 25% of your grade. Participation is 25%, the paper I mentioned earlier is also 25%, but you get 4 whole weeks to work on it with a part of it due each discussion section, so it’s really not a lot of work in the short term. Then our final was 2 essays we picked from 3 prompts worth 25%, but we got a whole week to do it and it was based just on lecture and reading content. Overall, if you get a good TA and a vibey section you’ll be fine.

Love Professor McBride so much!! He's an amazing professor and a really really great lecturer. All his lectures were so engaging and he really makes learning fun. He goes a LITTLE fast sometimes so there's no time to zone out during lectures. He also tries to arrange casual meetings with students outside of office hours and I really appreciate that. I was so emotional when this cluster ended because it genuinely was the best part of my first two quarters at UCLA. The workload for the class is a bit heavy because of the readings, but you can get by with skimming through them. Take Julia as your TA, she is quite literally the best thing that will ever happen to you. Overall, the class was really easy for me.

Strongly agree with the other reviews, this was one of my favorite classes I've taken so far. I wouldn't say that history is my favorite subject in general, but this cluster was still very compelling to me. I think this is because the lecturers are so knowledgeable in their respective subjects (Prof Robinson on Indonesian Mass Killings, Prof Sengul on Armenian Genocide, and Prof McBride + Prof Rothberg on Holocaust). The TAs are also all very knowledgeable and helpful (Yair = very cool guy). As one might expect the subject matter can be pretty heavy sometimes, but the class didn't feel overly negative or depressing. I have to also mention that people were more engaged in the discussion section than in any other remote class I've been in (at least for Yair's).

Homework in first quarter consists of weekly readings for discussion and short response papers, though the response papers stop in the second quarter. There is one longer essay (~5 pages double spaced) on Indonesia at the end of the quarter. No rewrites, just a first draft and then a final draft, but plenty of time to think about subject between lecture and discussion. Normally there would be two essays on the other two cases in the second quarter. I would say that lecture attendance is important since the lecturers are so good. Overall, not a bad workload, especially for a 6 credit class. There are even a few chances for extra credit watching films.

All in all, big props to this class. Would recommend to anyone looking for a cluster to work on GEs, or even just for the opportunity to take such a consistently quality history class.