Prof. Hirano was a great professor for a GE class. He formats this class based on "themes" rather than the usual history class (no memorizing dates, no memorizing historical figures). I also liked how he ended his class with current issues in Japan (eg. Nuclear Power). Especially with the protests going on throughout this quarter, Prof. Hirano was very flexible and understanding of our situation (and of the TAs striking). I am not sure how a usual quarter would have been with him (the format of midterm/final changed a lot for us), but if you put in a okay amount of work I think you will be able to do well in this class.

Hirano was a great lecturer, the workload was so manageable (short 1 page paper due every week in discussion, and papers due as the midterm and final). Obviously if you don't love reading & writing, this probably is not the course for you. However, if those are your strong-suits, the course material was very interesting and the class was not hard at all.

One of the best classes I've ever taken here at UCLA. Hirano is an amazing lecturer and my TA was just as great at discussing the course material. The class was graded with two papers, and weekly assignments that are mainly used to think about the readings, alongside attendance. Whatever the workload may be, it is 100% worth it. The detail and stories that Hirano goes into will want to make you do the readings; this was one of the classes I've put full effort into reading every page because the sources and lectures were amazing. Highly recommend.

Pretty easy class, but all history courses grade essays harshly. Felt difficult to get an A, as the TAs loved to give out Bs and B+s on essays. The workload and content are pretty low, and the class is not bad for a GE, but there are easier and more interesting options. Not an easy A, but an easy A-, if that's what you're looking for.

Even though I ended up dropping this class after the first two weeks, I strongly feel that this was a class that had a lot of potential to be taught well but the professor made me absolutely hate it. If you're the type of person who does not like to be taught in lectures and just likes to hear your fellow peers talk about what they thought about the concept then this class is for you. I took this class when classes were online for the first few weeks of the quarter, the professor was extremely accommodating, he refused to record classes for students who could not attend, as a student who was in a country with a large difference, attending classes at 5 am was very challenging. He would make students read his slides out loud and then talk about topics that have nothing to do with his background slide. He also wanted our cameras to be on for the entire lecture and discussion section. The only circumstance I would recommend this class in is if you like participating in class and want to learn on your own rather than being taught by a professor.

I thought this class was super engaging because I learned about a topic that is super important in understanding inequality in the modern world. The only thing about this course is that he refused to record lectures during covid due to participation, but I thought that the lectures were pretty manageable. My essays (in my opinion) were graded pretty fairly. Chul was a pretty good TA and facilitated good discussions. Professor Hirano is also a very good lecturer and it's very easy to understand him. The readings were pretty heavy but I thought some of them were interesting. I don't think you had to necessarily read all of them in order to write good essays because the essay prompts usually made you use a few of the readings which was nice. Some readings were more difficult to understand than others, but that wasn't too big of a deal. You also have to write a one-page reflection on the readings for the week. They were graded on completion, so you don't have to try too hard on them. He also gave out extra credit if we could write a 2 page paper on the Haitian Revolution graded on completion. Also, in regards to the Bruinwalk review saying that he forced us to keep cameras on, I don't know where that came from since the entire class practically had their cameras off. Overall, I would recommend taking this class!

Honestly I was really nervous for this class because I've only taken a few history courses in the past. I was only taking the class because it was my last enrollment pass, every other class was taken and I needed to fulfill a GE requirement. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this class. To be honest, you really don't have to do ALL of the reading (which is an absurd amount). I probably read the first 5-10 pages of each reading that was assigned and just payed good attention in lecture + discussion. You do have to participate in discussion but if you just pay attention to lecture/read a couple pages of the reading you'll be set. Theres only two 1-page reading reflections a week (due before every lecture) that are grades on completion. The best part of this class is THERE IS NO TESTS only two papers (1 midterm paper and 1 final paper) and you get to choose your prompt out of like 5 choices. Just choose the easiest one to write about HAHA! Oh and just pray you get a good TA because they do the grading on the essays, but a heard that the professor tells them not to grade them TOO hard. Trust me take this class, it was super lightweight and interesting. I actually am thankful that I took this class because it taught me about an important topic that previously didn't know a lot about.