The summer 2020 version of this class was asynchronous, which I thought was a good way to take it since we could work at our own pace. There were no big tests (midterms/finals), just a quiz or two on each module we went through. The quizzes are definitely based on the videos/reading, and they often mention specific examples found in the textbook or points he made in the video, so look out for that. Overall, the quizzes were pretty straightforward and the professor was responsive and helpful.

Professor Snyder is a fun guy and is very passionate about what he is teaching, so his lessons are quite engaging. However, if you're too lazy to get up for class, he posts all of his powerpoint slides on CCLE and the TAs will go through the more important concepts during section too, so it's alright to not go for lecture. I missed almost half of his lecture and still got an A. The test is not tricky, but can be hard if you can't memorize. Professor Snyder will also moderate if the average is too low (e.g. on the second midterm, he gave everybody ten extra marks to pull up the average). He's a really fair professor. The TAs also grade by effort, not by how correct your answers are, so that was very stress-relieving for me.

Overall, if you're looking for an easy science GE to take, I would definitely recommend this. I liked the class material especially the part about race (except when it reached hominids) and I definitely find this a more interesting option compared to other science GE classes.

Professor Snyder has created a very interesting introductory class to human evolution.

I learned so much in this class and still remember everything he taught a year later.

It is easy to do well in this class as long as you go to lecture and pay attention. As in most classes, you get out what you put in so it's important you do the work. Definitely read the textbook! He uses it for test questions!

This class has a ridiculous grading scale that takes the focus away from mastering material and makes the goal of the class memorizing verbatim the words of the professor. With all the exams the points were distributed not based on content but based on word choice and presentation. I learned nothing from this course other than standard points that on the exam i received average credit for. Multiple choice questions are confusing and unclear. Though his lectures are well prepared and presented, due to the grading system of the course it is hard to appreciate the work of the professor.

selling How Humans Evolved 6th edition $35

Dr. Snyder’s ANTHRO 7 on human evolution is a cool class. We go over the driving forces of evolution, then talk about human evolution, and finally talk about some of the ramifications of the topics, such as for mate selection and race.

Most people consider the class an easy A if you do the work, which there is little of. The information is all in the lectures (or if you prefer, the book) and there is a small weekly assignment on some review problems in the text (and the answers are all online). The exams are a bit of do or die, though. There are only a few questions on the midterms, so if you lose a few points your score goes down by a lot. The questions aren’t hard or tricky though—straight from the lectures and assignments. The final was long, with a bunch of free response questions. Based on the distributions for the tests, I think only about 50 of 200+ people ended up getting an A in this class. I seriously don’t understand why it would be that low.

For me, the class was too easy and not that engaging. This is college, so I think we could have handled going more in depth about human anatomy and the different hominid species. (There's some good stuff of Coursera or edX if you're also interested.) Not that many people would show up to the lecture because you could get by without it.

Dr. Snyder himself is a cool guy. He makes himself clear and is friendly. He even has a sense of humor. As for my TA, Mr. Justin Myrick was awesome. Smart and fun!

I took this class fall quarter, so I don't know if the grading method changed for winter quarter.

Pretty much, if you want to do well, look over the study guides and make lists. Memorize the lists. If the study guide tells you that you should know the evidence for meat-eating, make a list of the evidence for meat-eating (cut marks on bone, vitamin A poisoning, etc.). It's pretty easy to get 100% on the exams if you memorized the right stuff. But that also means it's easy to get a C on an exam if you don't lol. Regardless, the material's interesting and the textbook is very easy to read. Overall, the class was very fun and the professor's cool. Use the study guides to prepare well for the exams and you'll do fine.

He was a cool guy and the class was interesting, but it had the most capricious and just stupid grading system I've ever seen. Even if you know every single answer on the tests you'll get points off because the rubric for each question is super random. It doesn't test your understanding, it just asks you to regurgitate facts. But even if you regurgitate the facts 100% accurately you'll get points off for no reason.

Hmm. This class could have been hard, but, for some reason, it seems intentionally not.
The exams are easy. Really easy, but then you can get points off for not using exactly the right term for which they were looking. Kinda lame.
They should really just make the tests harder and stop being so nit-picky about us using absolutely the precise terms. That method just makes people memorize bullet points instead of actually learning about the material.
Another thing about this class is that the professor seemed really thrown any time anyone asked a question to the point where people just stopped asking questions.
I don't get that. Since his lectures were just reading the PP slides and the PP slides were directly out of the book, what are we doing in there if we can't ask questions? Couldn't we just read the book and not
bother with the class at all?
Anyway, if you're going to take this class, just look at his "exam study guides" and search for all the prompts in the PP slides. AND MEMORIZE THEM.
Lame, but true.