I took this class because I was admittedly looking for a relatively low effort GE, and it turned out to not be the case. Besides readings of various plays and the Odyssey, the readings are extremely dense, dry, and hard to get to, and unless you're extremely interested in the subject matter, you're not likely to be motivated to do them. Additionally, lectures are simply the professor talking at you, although I will say I like the way he organizes his lectures, because they lack active engagement from the students it was hard to pay attention to. The majority of your grade (35%) is made up of a group project, and in hindsight I wish I had consulted with my TA before submitting it. The midterm was fair, and I got a high A with only a couple days of preparation, and the same goes for the final. My biggest issue with this class, and what makes me not recommend it is the fact that full section participation, and full marks on all in class writing assignments are equivalent to a 95% and not a 100%. Although this may seem trivial, when it comes down to final grades, this unnecessary loss of points results in a 2% lower grade than one would have if full credit was rightfully graded as a 100%, which could be the difference between an A and A-.

Absolutely wonderful professor, great experience, and made learning Greek interesting and fun. He genuinely cares about students. It's a lot of information... but that's just like any new language when you start learning. I wish I could take every Greek class with him. I enjoyed it so much!

This class isn't difficult, the midterm consisted of identifying pictures from lecture slides, identifying short passages, and one short answer style question at the end. It was easy, but there was a lot of material to memorize for it. The TAs grade pretty weirdly and won't give you any sort of feedback unless you see them in office hours. There was no homework, only readings for every lecture and this quarter we had to do a project where we recreate an existing civilization from the readings/course material. Lecture-wise, this is with the dinosaur GE as one of the most boring classes I've taken here (as an Engineering major). The professor is pretty dry and it's hard to learn from lecture other than copying from the slides because it is difficult to understand what the point is behind what he talks about. I hate watching online videos but I dreaded going to lecture because it gets pretty boring pretty fast especially at 9am.

I haven't even finished this class but want to give a heads up to everyone, since all the reviews are old. Dr. Ellis is awesome and does have an amazing British accent- HOWEVER- I was not prepared for how much reading this class takes. We read things such as The Odyssey and The Theogony, which were actually super interesting, but then he pulls out random 80-page texts that SUCK to read. Like overall easy just very very material heavy. Midterm also consisted of a lot of memorization of images. Lectures are recorded and attendance is not mandatory.

Personally this class wasn't my cup of tea. This might not be the GE for you if you want something with minimal commitment since there is a lot of reading. I only kept up the first half of the quarter (pre-midterm) and after that the reading became too much for me. After the first midterm I completely stopped reading since the readings just got longer and harder to follow. Fortunately, Professor Ellis made the final optional and cancelled a term paper due to the strikes. I fortunately passed with a 91% solely based off a group project (which is easy) and the midterm. From what I have observed the people who consistently enjoyed the material and knew what was going on were people who already dabbled in mythology before. Professor Ellis isn't a bad lecturer by any means, he kinda looks like an older Andrew Garfield and he's British if that's an incentive to anyone (his photo here on Bruinwalk doesn't serve him justice IMO) and my TA Emma was really cool and made people feel welcomed. This might be a very easy GE for you if you enjoy reading and go to his lectures everyday, but again, as someone who had 3 other demanding STEM classes, this class became a drag for me and I was only lucky in the given circumstances.

I really enjoyed his class and the lectures were always very interesting. Sometimes I would say the workload was a lot but not out of the expected for a GE. It was just a lot of reading but a lot of the reading was very fun and the lectures would help clear up any confusion. The grading scheme was 20% section attendance, 20% midterm, 25% group essay, 35% final. However, there was supposed to be an individual 5-6 page paper, he had cancelled it and the final became optional due to the protests.

I would recommend this class to anyone with an interest in Greek mythology, otherwise the readings would not be fun to read. A little bit of prior knowledge of Greek myth is required to fully understand the texts.

There were a lot of assignments and reading for this class. Often times the readings felt unnecessary. The class can be fun, but when it comes to the assignments it can be confusing. I found myself wanting to get ahead when the assignments were posted, but then I would have to rework my drafts after he said something in class for what he was looking for from the assignment. He didn't go over the assignments with much detail, just briefly mentioning them in class and then moving on to lectures. The lectures have A LOT of text and it can be hard to keep up with what he's saying. He's very passionate about the topic and can keep you engaged, but I feel like this class would be more fun if the assignments weren't so hard. The study guide for the midterm had about 70 pictures to study and other key terms. It helps if you know greek, otherwise you will have to do a lot of flash cards and memorization. Quizlet was useful for the midterm and final for me. If this subject interests you I'd say it can be worth a shot taking this class, but I would only do this class again if I were only doing a maximum of 12 units to handle everything. There's a final paper and final exam so it feels like two finals around finals season, so keep that in mind too.

This class has so much work, blue book midterm and final, 2 writing assignments and final research assignment/paper. I don't know if it was worth it to take because the subject was really hard to find interesting. His lectures are not recorded and his slides are very text heavy. Lots of readings and many images to remember (ie: first midterm about 70 images to remember details about)

I really liked this class, and would recommend for anyone interested in mythology and people's belief systems. There was a moderate amount of reading to do, not too much but it would be difficult if another class you are taking also has a lot of required readings. The professor is really cool and makes the lectures pretty engaging. The workload isn't too bad, although there are two projects that require some creativity, which was challenging for me. The 'exams' were just timed analysis of some passages from what we had read and gone over in lecture.

I really liked Professor Ellis. His lectures are really engaging and he has a fantastic british accent. There are three PATs in this class, which are passage analysis tests where you have to respond to two quotations from the texts. If you go to lecture and read the texts, you'll be fine. It was kind of hilarious because my TA (Shoutout Lena) was lowkey beefing with him throughout the quarter over grading stuff, because he was apparently swooping in and giving people different grades than what the TA did. I didn't really notice any of this though, and didn't have any problem. Overall I really liked Professor Ellis, and he really cared about teaching and the subject matter.