I absolutely loved this class and the professor. Professor Ball was excellent at explaining the material, and her class was always enjoyable. All the books and stories we read were interesting, and most were available online for free. For the class, attendance is required and checked with clicker quizzes that are very simple, but tied to the reading. I very much enjoyed how the participation was divvied up, allowing students to post on the discussion forum or speak in class. This was one of my absolute favorite classes, and Professor Ball remains one of my favorite professors.

I went into the class with zero knowledge about Vikings or Scandinavia in general, so this was my first exposure to the topic. I found the material quite interesting. The class is graded based on the following: reading responses, in-class iClicker quizzes, two exams (weeks 5 and 10), and a take-home final essay (4 pages, double-spaced).

The material covers a wide range of topics from social structure to religion. It's honestly very difficult to not be fascinated by the history. Most of the readings are taken from various sagas and can be read like any other fun story. The lectures are just like any other lecture, but they're interesting as long as you are paying attention. There are some details the professor goes over that aren't too specifically written out in the lecture slides, so you do want to pay attention, but it shouldn't be a problem since the topic is quite captivating.

There is some amount of reading due every day which can sometimes get rather lengthy, but you only need to do 10 responses in total, with a minimum of 350 words. It takes all of 5 minutes and if you do all 10 early, you won't have any left to do after less than 4 weeks into the quarter, giving you more time to focus on other things. The iClicker quizzes are incredibly easy; if you did the reading then you'll get the right answer, and you can miss up to 5 or 6 quizzes and still get full credit.

The two exams can be slightly iffy. You need to do 40 fill-in-the-blank questions and answer 2 essay questions within 50 minutes. But, if you had been writing decent notes in class through the lectures and go back to review them, there is absolutely no problem. It may seem like a lot, but it's honestly quite easy. The answers for the fill-in-the-blank questions should pop right out to you if you had done some amount of reviewing, and the essay questions are analyses/interpretations that you can very easily do if you had been paying attention in class. There is nothing in the exams that wasn't present in either the lecture slides, the reading, or the lectures themselves. Also, for the essay portion, it doesn't necessarily have to be a formal essay; you can use bullet points and sentences that aren't exactly full sentences. It's absolutely possible to finish the exam with a few minutes left over.

The final take-home essay actually kind of got me, as I scored significantly lower than I thought I would, but I don't think it was because it was difficult. It's only 4 pages double-spaced and doesn't take too long to do, so it's possible that I underestimated it. Overall, it shouldn't be too difficult to get an A in it if you spend more time on it than I did (a few hours).

I wouldn't recommend this class if you absolutely hate reading. If you can tolerate it, then I do recommend it. I'm not lying when I say they're interesting. The only real complaint I have is that there is an exam on week 10 and then a final essay, but it's not the biggest deal in the world since the week 10 exam is NOT cumulative and the essay doesn't take too much time, so honestly the total time spent for those two should be about equal to the time spent studying for any other one final exam.

Professor Ball is absolutely fantastic, though, so if you want to take a class that is quite easy and interesting with a great professor, this is a good one.