I definitely recommend taking this class with Professor Terraciano. There were 4 assignments the whole quarter, two essays (first one is worth 15% and second one is worth 25%) aside from the take-home midterm(worth 15% of your final grade) and take-home essay (worth 35% of your final grade) . I recommend Sofia Yazpik as a TA, she made the discussion section very useful and definitely helped to go over the readings. There are a lot of readings assigned but you can get away with not reading everything. For your essays most information you can be guided through the lecture slides which he also posts on BruinLearn after class. There are 4 main books for this class, two are free, and two you have to purchase but they are not expensive. I also feel that you can get away with not purchasing those two books and still doing good in the class. Overall, this is an easy GE.

For anyone looking for a GE that completes a historical analysis and the diversity requirement, I would recommend this course. Professor Terraciano is great and is truly passionate about his field of study. This class consisted of four essays: Essay 1, the midterm, Essay 2, and the final. However, the midterm and final were less formal essays in my opinion, and were more just a response to questions, images, etc. Participation in discussions is also included in the final grade. Although discussion sections are required, you do not need to go to lectures since he records them and uploads them to BruinLearn. Although I went to every lecture I wouldn't say it is entirely necessary especially since the recordings are offered online. Despite this, the last lecture was very helpful for the final and I do not think he uploaded a recording for that lecture.
Besides the essays, the professor assigned weekly readings. I started by reading all of the readings every week but found there were just too many and I ended up not reading them at all. I didn't find the readings to be entirely necessary since we talked about them during discussions and sometimes in lectures. For me, I simply just read for the essay prompt when essays were assigned. Although this may have taken me a bit more time, I thought it was better than reading the entirety of the readings every week.
For this class, the essays are graded by the TA only. Although I do not know much about all of the TAs, Sofia Yazpik was great and incredibly helpful. She was willing to read your thesis and even look at an outline for your essay. I would highly recommend her.
Overall, my experience in this class was pretty positive and if you are looking for a fairly easy GE, take this course.

Easy GE and Professor Terraciano is great. He truly wants students to succeed in his class, and the workload is manageable (not counting the excessive amount of reading). But, I would recommend not worrying about doing all of the readings since you can just look through the specific excerpts that apply to your essay prompt. There were only 2 essays, a midterm, and a final for this class and the prompts applied to what was said in lecture, discussion, and the readings. I would say that discussions are pretty important for this class since they are a part of your participation grade and they were the most helpful for essays. All of the essays were graded very fairly, which depends on your TA. My TA (Sofia Yazpik) was amazing and I highly recommend her as she will help fix/reconstruct your essay theses and look at an outline to provide comments. Overall, this class was great and I definitely recommend it.

Overall, I enjoyed this class and I liked my professor and TA. Terraciano seems to be passionate when doing his lectures and he's nice. He always used slides and would upload them to bruin learn beforehand so you could follow along or go back to slides during lectures. These lectures would go over the general information from the New History white textbook and were helpful to understanding what happened. He would also show lots of pictures of places and people during lectures and list primary source places for certain topics if you wanted to look more into that. The primary sources he listed in lectures are also helpful for essays btw since all of the essays ask you to incorporate primary sources. I liked that he didn't go too fast during lectures so I actually had time to write stuff down in my notes, but even if I missed something, I could go back and look at the slides he uploaded. Especially when he would start showing pictures, I used that as my time to write down more stuff. He also records lectures too so if you're absent, it's not hard to get caught up. My grade was based off essays and they were all take home and there were no in person exams or anything like that. Usually, he would post them Friday evening and make them due Monday by midnight.

One of the biggest downsides would probably be the amount of reading, but I didn't do all of the readings in time lol. When the time would come for essays, I would catch up or re-read stuff. I also stopped reading the New History text since that's what he talked about during lectures, but you can still go back if there's stuff you want to review. Discussions were also helpful for understanding and knowing what happened. For my discussion, you were supposed to be prepared and do the readings beforehand, but if you're not able to finish all the readings in time, you can just talk more about the stuff you actually did read. If you go to his office hours, he might mention some good sources too and can help you, but a lot of the times, he would ramble on something about history and have intellectual conversations with curious ppl so your TA office hours might be better for understanding the material while his might be better for getting sources.

Same as everyone else, the prof is sooo kind and honestly just a really great guy. He has office hours twice a week where you can go and ask whatever and also just chat with him. You can tell he's so so passionate about the course and it really showed that he knew things were wack with covid and so changed a lot of the course readings and final +midterm around.

In general, yes there is a lot of reading for this class, but if you figure out how to get around it it's really not bad. I didn't do any of the readings beyond like week 4 because I figured out that you only really need to read the sections relevant to the essays he assigns. When i took this class it was adjusted per covid so our grades were based on 4 essay scores (2 regular essays, one midterm, and one final). and I only did the readings needed for each essay rather than reading all the assigned sections each week. his lectures are very helpful and give you direct content to write about in the essays. you can tell he's really accommodating and inclusive and really makes a point to say that even if you aren't a good writer, your grade isn't based on how good you write but rather how much you understand the material.

i consider myself pretty interested in history and yes at times it is a tiny bit boring but overall was very interesting to read about and even more engaging to hear the prof's lectures. you can tell he's really woke and really wants to make sure that we understand how racist and imperialist history connects to today and i loved that he included that in the course. overall would recommend, i took this as a first year and was scared to do bad given it was my first quarter but the prof is kind, content is good, reading isn't heavy until you figure out what works for you, and grading is fair.

I'm selling the books for cheap bc i feel bad that there's a ton of books for this class (that was the only downside) and if you're interested email at *************

I am selling all of the books for this class for $20 total plus shipping. Books are in great condition with little to no writing in them. Email me for more details: *************

Taking this class with Terraciano was an incredibly good move on my part. While I am a history minor, there were many people who took it for a GE and still thoroughly enjoyed the material and the professor. He genuinely wants people to learn and pass the class, and he is so well informed on the topic that any question thrown at him can get answered. The textbooks were all used for the class and while it looks like A LOT of reading, you can get away with completing about 80% of the reading (I strongly suggest a focus on Children of God's Fire and the Red Reader but the other two books are also useful for certain prompts and exam questions). Discussions were mandatory, but they weren't a drag, especially if you have a good TA. I had Amanda for my discussion and she was very funny and down to earth but also very helpful and not a hard grader (because she told you the essence of what she wanted). Overall, I would definitely recommend this class to other people for a GE.
*SELLING THE BOOKS REQUIRED FOR THE CLASS for $50 as a pack* or
Children of God's Fire- $12
Letters and People- $12
MesoAmerican Voices- $10
Red Reader- $10
White (Blue) Reader- $10
Email me at ************* if interested.

I'm selling Mesoamerican Voices, Children of God's Fire, Letters and People of the Spanish Indies, Prof Terraciano's Red &Blue Course Reader all for $50 or each for $15. Email ************* if interested and can meet on campus for drop off. Good luck in the course and grade all depends on TA!

Honestly one of the best classes I've taken at UCLA. Terraciano can be boring in lecture, but if you do all the readings and the study guides its an easy A. Selling all the necessary books email: ************* if interested.

"Took the class in Fall 2015. Selling Mesoamerican Voices (bought it brand new), Children of God's Fire, Letters and People of the Spanish Indies, Prof Terraciano's Red &Blue Course Reader notes, all for $60. Email me at ************* if interested. "