Based on some of the other reviews, it seems like Dr. Rashidi has taken feedback to heart. Laptops are definitely allowed for note-taking, she posts all slides prior to class, and she now provides a study guide. In my opinion, she is very available for her students and genuinely wants you to do well. She provides a cheat sheet on both exams, as well as multiple opportunities for corrections and extra credit. She is always in her office hours and happy to speak with anyone who isn't understanding the material.

I will say, this class utilizes her background in physical anthropology and you will be studying and working with bones as well as expected to learn a good deal about the skeletal system, because that is how anthropologists are able to delineate between the different groups of humans as well as nonhumans. In my opinion, that is the super cool part of this class!

As with her other courses, the slides are very dense and she gets through a lot of material. The textbooks are an absolute must have as they go very far into detail on anything you might not have understood the first time around in class. Mark down what you didn't 100% get and look it up in the textbooks. Dr. Rashidi does provide all of the slides and a study guide, though, so if you follow along in class and put in the work to study, you will be fine.

Dr. Rashidi is an excellent professor, though I think this course suffers from a time crunch. The sheer volume of dense information relayed means there's little time for discussion. All told there were over 1,000 slides by the end of my semester, most of them dense. If you are a humanities major, beware that you are expected to enter the course with a working knowledge of human biology, or at least not get lost in the information as you jump right into it from day one. In my opinion, the class should be a bit longer or cover slightly less information. The tests are difficult to study for as they are completely write-in and encompass anything mentioned in the slides up to and including single bullet points buried in hundreds of pages of information.

However, with all that being said, Dr. Rashidi is a kind and wonderful professor. She records all the lectures in case you cannot make it, provides several extra credit opportunities, allows cheat sheets on the exams, and is available beyond her stated office hours and always willing to try and further your understanding of the material. While the tests are tough, she's a very fair (even generous) grader for the paper assignments.

My recommendation: take the course if you're interested or have an aptitude in biology and disease processes, or if you have the time and ability to really sit down and study full-time.

As someone more on the humanities side of anthropology than the hard sciences, this class was very difficult for me, but it is extremely educational. It's simply a lot of information to fit in the time frame of a single quarter. You'll need solid background knowledge of the human skeleton as Professor Rashidi jumps right into the material on day one. Grading was based on a few short homework assignments, a midterm exam, a cumulative final exam, and a research paper. I wish her study guides had been a bit more helpful, as they essentially boil down to "anything mentioned could be on the test", so you have to study a lot of material that won't even come up again. Professor Rashidi herself is a very friendly and engaging lecturer. I definitely recommend this class if you are interested in human biology, pathology, and anatomy.

i was nervous to take this class with Dr. Rashidi because of the previous reviews, but idk what happened during the pandemic bc I LOVE DR RASHIDI. she is so kind, so helpful, and so intelligent. this was my favorite anthro class i have ever taken at ucla. she is engaging during class and knows her stuff! she's always available at her office hours and explains things really well. yes, she can talk fast during lectures sometimes, but she records them so all the information is easy to access on canvas! the course comprised of a midterm, a final, a research paper, and a few very simple homework assignments. the instructions for the homework she assigns are very clear, and you can go to her anytime during office hours to ask clarification questions. she gives you so much time to think about your research paper and a lot of the homework assignments were designed to help you outline the essay so you aren't swamped at the end. (ex: one homework assignment was literally just our research question/hypothesis, another was 2 sources, another was the essay outline, etc.! super helpful!). the material is super interesting and the midterm & final were very fair and reflective of the lectures and slides. i really recommend this class, i learned (and retained! lol!) so much, and Dr. Rashidi is just the sweetest person ever.

Super chill professor, midterm and final are very straight-forward. Lots of memorization required involving anatomical locations, bones, and things of that matter. My TA was extremely helpful and discussion/labs are required but are only an hour every week. I did little to no reviewing prior to exams and did ok. If I did review, I honestly could've achieved an A.

I took this class summer 2022 for session c6. The first week, I thought I was going to have to drop the course because how information heavy it is initially. If you're not familiar with biology its a lot to digest in 6-weeks, I am familiar with a little but with my busy summer schedule I was spreading myself thin at times. To my surprise, the midterm was very easy as long as you used to textbook. Thankfully, the textbook itself isn't dense and cuts straight to the point for topics. I didn't take the final so I can't speak on that, she was VERY accommodating for my situation and I wasn't expecting that at all. The final research paper I got a "C" on only because I had written it on a topic that wasn't considered a paleopathological topic- which I wish she specified more in class what counts and didn't count because I didn't know until after my paper had been graded. Other than that, the class was interesting. I honestly would not take it again but I think she's offering workshops for fall since her summer courses were offered only online.

The first time I took this class I failed, and not because I didn't try but because there was just so much information that I could not remember it all. Her midterm is composed of multiple choice questions, definition fill-ins, and about 3-5 short essay questions and one big essay questions. The final is cumulative but it weighs mostly on the latter half of the course. The material she teaches is wonderful and engaging. But it is the way she teaches that makes this course so hard. She uses powerpoints which are helpful for visuals, but what she says takes precedence over the powerpoints. Meaning, not all the information you need will be on those powerpoints so attending lecture is crucial for passing this class. Also, she is a very fast talker and goes through all the material quickly. She does not bruin cast her lectures and she allows no recordings nor laptops in class and this makes it quite difficult to get down all the concepts and major factors when she speaks 1000 words a minute.
She requires a book that is quite costly, but honestly, I never read it and it wasn't needed for testing, so don't spend your money. You are required to know anatomical terminology and will be asked to conduct a research paper which is not hard if you chose a topic discussed in class.
As a professor, she is very responsive, and she does try her best to give you pointers on how to succeed in her class. She also gives extra credit which is a bonus. If you take this class, consider building up a study group within the class, take GOOD notes, attend all lectures, and read the dumb article that she posts.

I think it’s a great class, and Dr. Rashidi is incredibly knowledgeable. She’s very engaging, but don’t expect her to handhold you throughout the course. The slides are not always clear, and she’s a fast talker. But if you supplement lecture notes with the book, you’ll be fine. Electronics are not allowed in her class, which I think is great.
She doesn’t always come across as the most organized. At the end of the quarter we had to hand in a 8-10 page research paper- you have to come up with your own topic and it must be related to class.

I definitely enjoyed her class, and would recommend her- unless you don’t like to put in the work.

Getting an A on the first try is doable, but you have to put in the work!

I loved this class so much, and a year and a half later I still remember so much from it and it stands out as one of my favorites. Professor Rashidi is definitely a tough professor and this is definitely a college-level course. There is a ton of memorization involved and you really have to pay attention and be engaged with the lectures and review the slides. However, the content is so interesting and Professor Rashidi also helps make it interesting. I had no trouble coming up with a paper topic and I had so much fun writing it (I know that sounds so lame but honestly I usually hate writing papers but this one was so enjoyable).

tl;dr: it’s a difficult course and you have to put in the work and study and come to class, the material is so interesting and rewarding to study that it’s still been one of my favorite classes at UCLA.