Professor Salman just wants you to be engaged with the main themes of the course and strengthen your writing abilities. If you engage with the assigned text and participate in discussion, you will do just fine in this class. There are many books and articles assigned in the syllabus and discussed in class, but so long as you understand the main themes the authors are conveying, you should do well. You do not need to know any of the text in detail. By the end of the course, Professor Salman had greatly improved my writing style (this was reflected in papers I wrote for other courses as well). Professor Salman’s class is not an ‘easy A’, it does require some effort. However, put in the time and effort and you will likely get the grade you want and improve your skill as a writer along the way.

Professor Salman is a great professor. I took him for the lower division history seminar, we had three papers and a lot of readings, it was about American involvement in European colonies. He is very approachable and understanding. He is a hard grader and that's because he knows you can do better so he pushes you to doing better on the next paper. I enjoyed the class very much and learned a lot! Also, if you're shy don't take this class because it consists of the students engaging in discussion, he doesn't lecture, but he does push students into thinking critically, which can be awkward sometimes but there's no malice behind it.