As a person who had never taken an anthropology/archaeology class before, I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed this class. The professor is an engaging lecturer and follows the slides so it's not hard to keep up. There are weekly readings but you don't really have to read every single one since she goes over them in lecture. There were two essays that were fairly easy, and a third one for extra credit. The midterm and final are both multiple choice. You'll do fine on them if you pay attention in lecture and have a grasp of the overall timeline.

A lot of your grade depends on your TA, as they are the ones who will be grading your paper. The helpful thing to do is to go into office hours and have your TA read over your paper before turning it in. This was, they'll tell you what you want. Do the extra credit ASAP, you can get a boost of 5%. Overall, the midterm and finals are super easy. Both are multiple choice.

This class is an easy A if you do the extra credit as early as possible. You can get up to 5% of extra credit for visiting a museum and writing a reflection. The reflection doesn't have to be a good essay, just show her that you went there and give some thoughts about it.
Professor Smith is very funny. Her lectures are engaging. You don't really need to talk during discussions, you just need to be there. My TA often let us out early.
The readings are too much. But you would probably be fine even if you don't read them because she goes over the main ideas of each reading in lectures. She would not test you the details on midterms and finals. But I would suggest reading Liberman because there were some specific questions on the tests.
The two papers (each 4-5 pages) were stressful to me. I hate writing and I procrastinate a lot. But I made it to TA's office hour before due dates, which were really helpful. The grades of the papers kind of depend on your TA. My TA was super chill (Ulises). So I did fine. If you don't have a great TA, go to your TA's OH several times and revise your paper the way he/she wants.
The tests are super easy. You just need to pay attention to every lecture and take notes. (BTW, every lecture is bruincasted, so technically you don't need to go to class) I found making a timeline table very useful.
I would recommend this class to anyone who wants an easy A! Remember to do the extra credit ASAP!

Overall, Anthro 2 was my easiest class this quarter, and I took it as a GE. The class is graded based on 2 essays (20% each), 1 midterm (20%), discussion participation (15%), and a final (25%). There is also extra credit for up to 5% of your final grade.
Monica is a very enthusiastic and engaging lecturer in my opinion, and she provided slides to complement her speaking. Realistically, if you copy down her slides' bullet points you should have all the material you need to succeed in the class. She provides a few bullet points at the beginning of each lecture to review the previous one, which I used as a study guide for exams. Both the midterm and final were multiple choice, and in my opinion, extremely easy. All I did to study was read my lecture notes and focus on the review bullet points the day before and received A's on both exams. Plus, the lectures are all Bruincasted, so that was awesome.
As for the assigned reading, I actually did all of it, but you really don't have to. Doing all of the reading can take a while, so I really don't know if it was worth it. She goes over the important points from each reading during lecture, so as long as you are familiar with those, you should be set.
The essays in the class were also fair in my opinion. Monica tells you the format she wants (it's a basically a compare and contrast), and encourages you to have your TAs look at your rough drafts. I personally wrote both the day before they were due (she gives the prompts 2 weeks before the due date), did not have my TA (Eden) proof either of them, and got A's on both.
The extra credit required you to visit a nearby museum and answer a few questions about it in an essay format. The visit took my probably 20 minutes to gather the information, so it's relatively simple. If you do it earlier, it counts for more of your grade.
Overall, this class is great for an easy, low-workload GE, and I highly recommend taking it!

Overall, this class was pretty good. Monica tries to lighten up the lectures on a pretty boring topic with the occasional joke and the lectures are bruincasted for when you really don't want to go to class. Also, you never have to do the assigned reading to get all necessary information which is great. The TA grading was pretty uneven for the two papers, so try to get Jaime Vela if possible. The midterm and final are both multiple choice and VERY easy. She also offers up to 5% extra credit, so I actually ended with over 100% in the class. Overall this was a fine class, not a super interesting topic but we love Monica and it's an easy GE.

hard to imagine how I could attend every lecture, participate in every discussion, and study very thoroughly for the final and end up with a such a bad grade.

don't expect the professor to answer your emails.
do expect this to be another GE that should be easy but is graded ridiculously by TAs who seem to have a problem with every single person in your discussion section.

don't expect that your hard work will pay off in this class. if you're already enrolled in this class, well, good luck Charlie.

If u think it is a easy GE, do not take it. If u dont have interest in anthropology or archaeology, do not take it bc it will be a disaster. The stuff was so boring and made me fall asleep. i went to lectures most of the time but i did not learn anything more than my friend who seldom went attend class. The essays were graded harshly and although TA promised to help review the first draft, he got impatient and said that was all i can help by throwing me two sentences which were not constructive suggestions. Plus i got points distracted for both papers for the APA format. I swear that i checked the format online and even asked people in the writing center and did that following instructions carefully. I really wonder what is the TA's problem.

The essays in this class are graded very subjectively by the TA's and Monica didn't care much when this concern was brought up by multiple classmates. It is helpful to bring your rough draft to your TA and get feedback. Make sure to memorize important dates for the midterm and the final. Some midterm questions are reused on the final, so review them. Most if the material comes from lectures, with a little bit from the weekly readings. Overall, not the easiest GE if your TA is a harsh grader.

As a fourth year anthro major, I thought taking this class would be a breeze. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
There was 2 papers, a midterm, and final.
The grades I received did not reflect on my investment and work I put in for this class.
The TA’s graded their sections and the essays were graded very subjectively and who you had as a TA affected your overall performance. ( I had Eden)
This is the first class at UCLA where I had received lower than a B on a paper so I was very shocked to see my performance on the papers.
For the exams, they were way too specific and some questions did not reflect on the class. I had a hard as well on the exams.
Overall, do not recommend to take this class unless it is required.
Welp. I only have one quarter left... If I don’t pass, that’s another story.
I hope professors and TA’s take these evaluations in consideration.

TL;DR: The class was interesting and well taught, but only take it if you're OK with reading through a lot of dense academic papers. Otherwise, I thought the class was easy enough, but grades can depend heavily on the TA.

I took this class as a GE for my first quarter and enjoyed it. Lectures were funny and engaging, and I thought Prof. Smith explained things very clearly.
There are 2 midterms and a final, the lowest of which is dropped. The final is all multiple choice, and the midterms consist of MCQ, SAQ, and an essay. I felt all the exams were pretty manageable, but it seemed that scores depended heavily on how the TA graded the essay; I know a lot of people scored nearly perfect on the MCQ and SAQ sections, while missing nearly all the points on the essays. I think my TA was generous with points and graded easily, but I know people whose entire discussion sections got less than 50% on the essay portion.
Our final project was on AI image generation. It was very easy (generate a few images and write a few hundred words on each) and could be completed within a few hours for full points.
The main draw of the class was the quantity of reading. There was one reading assigned per lecture (3 per week) and they probably averaged around 15-20 pages each (ranging up to 40+ pages). You could get away with skimming the readings, especially because Prof. Smith went over it in lecture as well, but readings had to be cited using the author's name (by memory!) on the midterm essays. The vast majority of my study time was dedicated to memorizing lists of names and topics from the readings.
There is no extra credit offered as of Fall 2024.