Overall this class was extremely easy, but I attribute that to my TA Jewell rather than Prof. Smith. While Smith's lectures were somewhat engaging and useful, she tends to stray off topic and going into a lot of detail about her own work rather than the material being covered, which is interesting I guess if you're into archaeology. She responds to emails and office hours pretty diligently, but tbh isn't the most helpful.

Grades are based on 4 papers with an optional 5th paper that takes the grade of the previous papers. Each essay is about 750 words long, and honestly, you can probably knock them out within 2-3 hours if you skim the readings and lecture recordings. Each paper is 20% of your grade, and the discussion grade (last 20%) is mostly based on attendance, but you end up sharing and contributing to the discussions naturally.

I would suggest everyone at UCLA take this course as a GPA booster, as a respite from other classes with heavier workloads, or just in general, as I personally consider this the easiest course I've taken so far, but your grades are largely determined on your TA, which I know could be hit or miss.

I overall thought this class was super interesting and easy. The class criteria were clear and simple and our grades were completely based on our composition of 4 short papers. Each paper was 750 words and corresponded with assigned readings and lectures. We were allowed to complete an optional final (which was a 5th paper) that would replace our lowest score on any previous paper. The discussion sections were also mandatory, but only have an extremely insignificant amount of weight on final grades. The lectures themselves included compelling materials but were sometimes very dry and boring. I often found myself falling asleep in class simply because the energy in the room was dry and unengaging. Nonetheless, if writing comes easy to you, I highly recommend this class. It's an easy A for anyone who can write a basic response to research papers and has an interest in archaeology or anthropology.

discussion required
4 papers (all 750 words)
optional final paper (20%) - extra credit (can only help your grade)

overall: boring class but it is a relatively EZ GE only if you have a good TA.

I took this class as prep for the Anthro minor, but I highly recommend if you're looking for a chill GE! Prof. Smith does her best to make the material (which can be dull, at times) super engaging. She's an amazing lecturer with mad jokes. The fact that this class was asynchronous with pre-recorded lectures made it super easy to catch up at all times. The grade breakdown is 20% each for four papers with an extra 20% from participating in section. There is no mandatory midterm and final! The essays are very straightforward and Prof. Smith basically outlines exactly how she wants you to write them. They're only 2 page essays, as well. As for section, it is mandatory but Prof. Smith does her best to make it fun with little show-and-tell type ways to get participation points. Finally, she offers an extra credit paper on some fun archaeology movie (Indiana Jones, The Dig, etc.) AND an extra credit final to replace up to TWO paper grades! The best part of this class was that the final mandatory paper was due week 8, so I could check out those last two weeks lol.

To be honest, this is not an easy A GE. I changed to PNP while at last I got 93/100 which is an A...... During covid, the final grades break down to four papers and discussion participation grade. Some of those papers had very tricky prompts, which lots of students deviate from what professor Smith and the TAs expected, which will possibly give you the grades you didn't intend.

Professor Smith is the most interesting professor and the best lecturer I've ever met. Her lectures were so intriguing and the workload is not that heavy. I personally like the contents of this course and probably will take other courses of her in the future. Taking her class will definitely help you learn something interesting about anthropology!

Overall, Professor Smith's lectures are awesome and the workload is not that heavy. However, the grading of the papers and the prompts of the paper can be tricky, which means this class is not an EASY A class, especially for STEM students like me. In order to write great papers and get an A in the end, you'll have to make some effort, can't miss the lectures and will have to finish the readings.

An interesting and easy GE! We write a 750-word essay every two weeks and if you put enough sources in each paragraph of your paper, you'll most likely do well.

Absolutely loved this class with Professor Smith. Lectures were asynchronous and uploaded every lecture day, while discussions were in-person and mandatory for participation (one discussion grade is dropped). I think this class was run really differently this quarter, so my feedback might not be so helpful.

The discussion portion is worth 20% of your grade, and the rest is divided up among four essays, which were due every two weeks in the course.

Professor Smith is a really engaging lecturer, I honestly didn't know much or care about archaeology before this class, but I learned a ton and really enjoyed the course. Discussions are fun and collaboration based, we discussed some prompt every week that related to course content.

For essays, there's a ton of room to improve your grade if you did bad in the beginning, there's an extra credit essay that can replace one of your essay grades, and there's also an optional final (also essay) that can replace another one. There's no makeups for discussion, so I'd make sure to go.

Essays are a little open-ended in the prompts, which can be challenging, but I really enjoyed writing them. The rubric is not really handed out so it can be a bit ambiguous at times, but go to the professor's office hours and your TA's as well. One tip is that be sure to include as many of the written text sources as possible, they are grading on whether or not you can synthesize information from the class, not just rewriting the lecture. All in all, great class!

Took this class for my last GE and I highly recommend it if you're looking for something easy. Class was entirely recorded with a weekly discussion section (If you can get Britt Florkiewicz as your TA, DO IT. She is without a doubt the best TA I have ever had, truly a wonderful person.) if you participated once, even in the chat, you got full participation points for that section. Aside from the participation grade, which made up 20%, the other 80% was made up entirely of essay grades. There were 4 essays, only 750 words, covering the topics we had gone over in the last week and a half or so. Graded quite leniently. There's an optional final and an optional extra credit assignment.

Incredibly easy to get a good grade in the class. I will say, because everything except for the discussion is online, it did feel very impersonal and there is definitely no relationship built between you and the professor or any other students.

Dr. Smith is one of the cutest and kindest professors I've met <3 Her lectures are informative, organized, and she really cares about her students. This is a great GE class to take and if you put efforts into studying the course materials and spending time on the essays, you will do well.

DO THE EXTRA CREDIT. It's like 5% of your grade and it's so easy and she's probably gonna give you full credit.

If you gotta take this class, then do the extra credit. Okay, now that I've said that... I came into this class thinking I was interested in archeology but very soon found out I was not. This class was basically a history class. The lectures were incredibly boring and Monica speaks insanely slow and uninterestingly. We briefly talked about how archeology works but mostly it was such social anthropology and ancient human stuff. Also, a lot of people thought this class would talk about fossils and stuff but it's just human bones, beads, and pottery.

Also, the paper is graded insanely and unnecessarily hard and will tank your grade, so I changed it to a P/NP class.