Really chilled class. All we had to do was 6 one page essays for the entire quarter, with none of the essays reflecting anything in lecture. I didn't go once to these lectures after the second week, and got an A. All you had to do was write 6 one page essays. Would do it again

Lecture:
Professor Mcclendon is an enthusiastic professor who really loves history. With that being said, during the Winter 2018 quarter, the class did not have a midterm or final. Many people stopped going to lecture and only showed up to turn in their papers. She said that she probably would not do this again in the future, but I highly encourage you to attend lecture regardless. She uses lecture slides as an outline while she expands on it greatly with her immense amount of knowledge and passion for the topics. I thoroughly enjoyed her speaking and felt that it was one of the most engaging GEs that I have had thus far.
Grades:
While midterms and finals were not given during this term, we still needed to work for our grade. You will need to write 6 one-page, single-spaced papers based on prompts that are released about one week before. Each week, there will be readings posted on CCLE and the papers typically ask that you draw on evidence from the readings to support your paper. The papers were spread out over the 10-week course. The papers due at the end of the quarter are worth more than the ones due at the beginning. While my TA graded very easily and made it possible to get 100% on almost all of the papers, I heard that some TAs are more picky, especially about grammar errors. There are two in-class workshops which are mandatory, so you will have to turn in a written, ungraded assignment at the end of that lecture. One of them was about how to read primary sources, and the other one was about how to write a history essay. The assignments were to fill out a worksheet on how to read primary sources, and to take notes on how to write a history essay. There is one online quiz that you have to take after going to the special collections exhibit at UCLA. All you need to do is sign in and check out the exhibit. I highly recommend that you take thorough notes on what you see because the quiz that you take afterwards is detail-based. Overall, it was easy for me to get an A in this class, though that might have just been because of the TA that I had.
Grade Breakdown:
Participation in Discussion Section: 30%
Papers 1 and 2: 10%
Papers 3 and 4: 20%
Papers 5 and 6: 30%
In-Class Workshops and Online Quiz: 10%

Professor McClendon was great. She was a really engaging and funny lecturer and the highlight of my Tuesdays and Thursdays was to see her struggle with her "awkward technology switches." I am a history major so I had to take this class, but I'm really glad I did. If you aren't a history major, I would still recommend it because you don't really have to study for the midterm or final - you just have to know your primary sources and the information surrounding them for the most part. There really isn't that classic "history memorization" to this class - you either know the material or you don't. The final and midterm are just essays written in class. There is only one paper, but it's really short and is just a primary source analysis. I had a lot of fun in this class. I also loved how organized the syllabus was and the fact that all the primary sources we had to read were on the website from the beginning of the year so it is quite easy to work ahead. I had an excellent TA as well, which made the class even more enjoyable. Overall, I would recommend to both history majors and non-history majors.

I absolutely LOVED Professor McClendon. She was very funny and knowledgeable, and she presented the historical material from perspectives which I had never heard before by drawing broad connections and having us look at it from new angles. This made the class very interesting and engaging! She also used this class participation website which was often very funny. Her slides are pretty useless though, so you need to go to every lecture and take good notes. The midterm and final were not bad at all, just study the primary sources and know the major events that you can put into a broad essay. Such a great professor, I recommend any class that she teaches!

She is a good professor with fair exams. The only frustrating part is that she doesn't give study guides for the midterm and final and if you ask what will be on it she just says everything. However, the exams and broad enough that if you know some things you'll be fine. To do well in this course, study the primary sources a lot. Skimming the textbook is helpful but not necessary. You don't need to buy the book. Discussion is fine, but mandatory as it's 30 percent of our grade. Overall not a bad GE. She is very nice and helpful and very accommodating to students.

selling the western experience textbook, the prince, and chronicles of crusades. message is interested **********

Professor McClendon was an interesting professor, she always started out by asking the class on their personal activities, such as asking how the classes' weekend went. Professor McClendon then continues with a scripted lecture that involves the importance and the reason as to why the topic is important. Professor McClendon's power points are somewhat bombarded with unnecessary topics/people/events, so it is hard to distinguish what is 'going to be on the exam'. McClendon does ask for writing assignments during lectures but it is usually only three in-class writing assignments and she assigns them randomly. The online quiz was quite easy it is mostly observation and a quick note it is important to take notes on what the guest lecturers say about the exhibit for the online quizzes. It is correct that most of your grade will depend on the T.A, however most discussions were quite unnecessary since it did not expand on the material nor did it provide any help with the course. The midterm consisted of 8 i.d's and you may pick 5 of the i.d's. The I.d's consisted of a person/event/place/organization. Each i.d is graded by 8% and the i.d section is worth 40% of the midterm. For the i.d's you must answer the order of 'who,what, where, when, and why'. The essay is a document analysis where they will give you a passage and you must analyze it, providing the century, person who wrote it, audience, and then of course your thesis and analysis. The final was 8 i.d's out of 12, then a chronological order, where you are given two events/person and you have to distinguish which one was earlier than the other, and finally a document analysis that is similar to the midterm. There is also a paper, McClendon usually changes the topic of the paper, my paper at the time was focused on the Black Plague or Christianity in the Middle Ages. For studying the midterm and final I used the lectures' powerpoints to make notecards out of them then I answered the 'who,what,where,etc.' by using the book or online sources. I also included some of McClendon's analysis or information given during the lecture onto the notecards. Quick note, some of the i.d's were not random they were important topics but the final was cumulative and it did have some random topics. Overall, the class is pretty manageable, it may seem as if McClendon is 'planning the course as she goes' but she is a fair professor and is quite insistent that you come to her for any needs. McClendon is always considerate of the class, for example she brought cough drops for people who were sick. McClendon also tries to keep the lectures entertaining by adding lego figures in order to 'lighten the mood' of the class. Fair warning, she is a fast speaker and she does not slow down because there is a lot of information to discuss. The T.A's are all fair graders as well but try to get one that truly expands on the material. Returning graded materials usually takes one or two weeks prior to when the assignment/midterm/final was taken/turned in. They also have a policy that you must wait 24 hours until you can approach the T.A of your graded work.

For a history professor, she is really average. She doesn't bring history alive. In other words, her lectures are very dry. She occasionally adds some interesting pictures in her slides such as Lego renditions of the Crusades. She always likes asking us "how was our weekend" to the class every Monday and its nice to see such a friendly professor. I think the most interesting part of the class is when she starts talking about England (as that is her field of study) and stops reading from a sheet of paper.

The class is not hard. I felt I had an easy TA because I got full scores on both the paper and the midterm. I had a great TA so I guess it all depends on your TA. I had a friend in the class whose TA, on the first few days, said that he would be very hard and critical when grading their papers. Mine was quite relaxed and open to any ideas you had, as long as you made good sense and analysis.

The paper was a document analysis. Most people chose Chapter 17 from The Prince. The midterms consisted of an ID section, where you had to identify and explain the historical figure, and then choose-your-essay-topic question where she gave you 2 questions to choose. The final was a matching ID, a picture ID (not too hard, very obvious pictures and frequently talked about in class, just attend class!), and 2 essays.

I had a heavy workload when I took it so I did not have enough time to carefully read the documents and the textbook. So, I just skimmed the documents. However, I did take careful notes (as long as I did not daze off) in class and notes on the textbook. Definitely READ THE TEXTBOOK! It will save you! There are a lot of readings and I definitely would not recommend this class if you do not like European history, or do not like writing analysis essays/paper.
Definitely take it if you're interested in the culture of Europe or if you like expressing your opinions on historical events!!

Class was interesting. This was the first time I took a European history class and it kinda filled that void of not knowing the past of western history. Overall it was an easy class and got an A. You just review the key points and youll do fine...

course: His 1B
grade: A

large class, long hot lectures. she is a very well spoken women and seems to enjoy what she does. however, there are a lot of bulletpoint slides and long dry explanations/breakdowns. your grade/success/enjoyment will be completely reliant upon your TA. mine was helpful and funny - i actually didn't mind going to discussion.