This is the first anthro I've taken at UCLA. I'm an Anthro BS (premed) and have completed 2 years of premed classes coming into this class. Lets just say I had to turn the right side of my brain on for the first time since high school! The class has a lot of reading, something I'm not used to in science classes, but to say the least I did roughly half of the reading and had no problem on his tests. The tests are multiple choice, and if you've gone to lecture and taken really good notes you can get almost everything. The class has a few underlying themes (language in context vs. language in text), and if you figure them out, the questions all fall into place; skip lecture and your screwed, b/c the readings are too complicated to get out the info needed to succeed. The projects for the class aren't bad, and if you just complete what's asked, you're already at a B+. Prof. Kroskrity curves at an A-; that's right! Be above average and you have an A. I got an A+ and I wasn't even the high score on the midterm. I was totally freaked out coming into his tests b/c the material is so vague, but hang in there and if you understand lecture, you're golden.

Before I say anything I will say do not take this course with this prof during the summer, you will regret it. There are a ton of readings and they are very complicated, I am an anthro upper div. major and interested, and I still had a really tough time in the weeks alloted to get through and make it out. Kroskrity and his absolutely dreadful way of lecture (I started to realize I was noticing and JOTTING DOWN the "ah, um, aaaaah", yes, all in one sentence and about everyother sentence, sequences in his broken speech he was belting out every 20 seconds or so more than what he was talking about. For a linguist he sure has a hard time speaking clearly and to the point.) only makes you go even more insane. Out of the ocean of material you have to go through he gives lectures on powerpoint that are, truthfully, three to four sentences long and really make very little sense. When asked, as he was a few times at the begining, to clarify something he would abruptly and somewhat gruffly tell them to read the text (despite I and others who talked about it later had read the text and had the same questions). He did not answer any questions in this regard, not one. He is not helpful. So, with the huge and complex articles and the three to four sentence explanations you are given a test that is extremely detail specific and often seemed to come from some abstract part of the text or some brief, momentary mention of an example he gave. There is of course no review for exams and with all the readings it is daunting to try and take it all in for a test. His tangents, as others described go on and on and seem to have little to do with the material and are done, as is the explanation of the little he does go over, in such a way that one would think he was giving the lecture to a linguistics graduate class. There were terms upon terms, concepts and ideas, that I had not the slighest notion of and during a regular quarter it may have been possible to research but during a five week course??? He doesn't seem to understand that this is a GE undergrad course. He himself, as is indicitive of his speach, and the multitude of errors on the powerpoint and sylbs seems like a disorganized and sometimes confused guy. He does seem very nice but I gotta say I have never been this frustrated with a professor and class before. All things being equal look at his rating percentage...take this course from Duranti or anyone else during the regular year. You will save yourself a huge headache.

Do not take this class if you're not an anthro major. I took this class and dropped it. It was the first time I dropped a class so hopefully you'll get the point. The lectures were really boring. The readings were not only hard to understand but also too much for a summer class. The assignments were sooo vague and time consuming. I wanted to take this class as a GE but ended up spending more time on this class rather than my upper division major class. Stay away from this class.

He uses an old projector which can be hard to read. BUT, he is sincerely a nice guy and it comes through during the lectures and the overall structure of the class. He is also genuinely interested in subject matter and it comes through in lectures. He's not really an entertaining lecturer-- no flashy powerpoint presentations-- he'll crack an occasional joke or anecdote from the field but when it comes down to it it's clear this guy knows his stuff. He has fair grading policies and the courseload is decent. Take his class.