10/10 class. At first, I took this class to satisfy a GE, but Professor Ellis made this topic very interesting. The slides are organized in a very understandable way, and the professor is very good at lecturing. The lectures are all recorded, and it is possible to ace the class without showing up to most of the lectures. However, I recommend going to the lectures.

I truly loved this class. If you are into mythology and enjoy reading, this class is genuinely fantastic. Dr. Ellis is a British professor and is insanely knowledgeable about everything he lectures on. This class in particular focused a lot on Homer. We read only the Odyssey, not the Iliad, but we did read many Homeric Hymns and Hesiodic works. Dr. Ellis has us do a large-group project, but if you make sure each partner's piece interweaves with the others, you will get an A. All lectures are recorded and posted on BruinLearn, and I couldn't recommend this class more for a GE with Dr. Ellis, and if you can, TA JT Thomas (I could go on and on about how much I loved him as a TA because he clearly loved what he was teachin,g and to me, no TA gets better than that).

was a lot of fun! imo one of the best ways to satisfy GE credits especially if you find classical greek history and / or literature cool
there is a wide variety of topics covered so you will probably end up finding a few things you like.
also, tests let you choose questions so you can study things you find interesting and throw away a couple things you dont care about

I really enjoyed this class! I loved learning about ancient Greeks and professor Ellis was just amazing. He answered emails quickly and answered questions very well! I would 100% take this class again.

Grade Breakdown:
1. Section Participation 15%
2. Section Critical Responses 10%
3. Midterm 15%
4. Plotting a Polis Project 35%
5. Final Exam 25%

I had the best TA, Elisa Migliaretti. She was extremely helpful, very lenient, and gracious when grading critical responses and exams. We had a critical response every other week, completed during section in 10 minutes. The questions were always straightforward, and as long as you attended lecture the day of discussion, you would be fine since the professor usually covered the topic that same day. One thing to keep in mind is that the highest possible score on the critical responses was a 95.

The midterm was very easy, most people finished within 30 minutes. We had the full 50 minutes during lecture in week 5 to complete it. Professor Ellis does a great job breaking down material during lecture, and you are only tested on what he covers during lecture! The midterm covered weeks 1-5, and it had three sections, the 1st section was picture IDs (had to answer 6/8), short text excerpts to identify and comment on (3/5) and one longer passage analysis (1/2). The picture/text IDs if known you had to identify relevant information/author/date/place and you cannot write more than one sentence.

There are a lot of assigned readings, but I did not keep up with them. One of them was The Odyssey, which was difficult and time consuming. Rather than reading it, I relied on summaries and analyses from course hero, which helped a lot but there were some small details that were often missed. I would watch these before lecture and then the gaps would be filled with the content presented in class. Professor Ellis does an excellent job presenting The Odyssey in lecture in more detail, so as long as you attend lecture, you’ll be fine.

Plotting a Polis was a group project that was fun but time consuming. We had to choose a community Odysseus encountered and create a myth, festival, and set of law codes. At first, we didn’t really know where to start, but discussion sections were extremely helpful. Each week focused on one component of the project, and we had plenty of time during discussion to work and ask our TA questions.

The final exam was the most challenging part for me, mostly because I set myself up. After the midterm in week 5, I didn’t attend another lecture until the last day of week 10 (attendance is not mandatory). The final was not cumulative (only weeks 6–10), and we were allowed a cheat sheet (front and back, could be printed or hand written). I watched all 12 lectures I had missed the day before the exam and made my cheat sheet the morning of the exam (I do not recommend this). While I felt somewhat confident going in, the exam asked for VERY specific details, especially names, which I struggled with. The exam had two sections, Section 1 required answering 4 out of 6 image/text-based prompts (each with 3 questions) and Section 2 consisted of short essays, where we chose 2 out of 5. The essays were straightforward since we practiced that format all quarter with the critical responses.

My advice would be to go to every lecture and don’t fall behind!! The class itself is very manageable, I just made it harder than it needed to be. The lectures are genuinely interesting, and Professor Ellis is a great lecturer (plus his British accent makes them even more engaging). All the information you need for exams/discussions will be in lecture!!! Overall, this GE was easy, the workload was manageable, and as long as you attend lecture, you’ll be fine, even if you don’t complete every reading.

Sorry for the long rant!

I took this class thinking it would be a low effort/ easy GE, well little did I know i was getting catfished by the 1 review from 2014! This class isn't necessarily hard, but its a lot of work. Ellis assigns SO much reading between every class (which I never read and had chatgpt summarize for me) and his lectures are just not that interesting, along with the fact that they're at 9 am. Luckily, they aren't mandatory and they're recorded so only around 1/3 of the class shows up, which made me kind of sad bc Ellis is so wholesome and you can tell he's so passionate about the topics (God knows how he knows all this). Honestly I'd zone out for like 30 seconds somewhere in the middle and and end up completely lost and just scroll on my phone for the rest of class. The midterm was unfortunately on Halloween and I spent 3/4 hours the night before memorizing 80 photos from his slides of random pots, artifacts, and landmarks before giving up on studying for the text ID and critical response portions. Fortunately, I finessed an A after using chat gpt to summarize every one of the texts he made us read. The critical responses are in discussion section around every 2 weeks and pretty easy to bullshit. I only read the summaries for each of the texts and lowk knew nothing, but my TA was a very generous grader so I got all check pluses (note that these only translate to 95/100 in the grade book even though it's the best grade you can get on them). The Plotting a Polis project definitely depends on your group, but as long as you put in effort you should get a good grade. I think I probably only spent 3-4 hours on my section. Since I never paid attention in class I studied hella for the final, but we were allowed a cheat sheet. Studying for this class made me crash out because it covers so much (useless) content that I'll never need to know again, but overall I feel like this isn't the worst GE you can take, its just definitely not the free GE I thought it would be.

oh richard... you silly man. the only thing i truely enjoyed about this class was the sound of RE in my ears at 9am in dodd 147 or in my airpods late at night in my dorm. i was looking for a fairly easy and light GE, but i was surprised to be hit with many many readings and a big group project. tbh, i only read the odyssey and the random excerpts/passages he assigned, and only opened the textbook once. if you can retain info from an audiobook or youtube summaries and pair that with the lecture, you will know enough to do good in this class. for the stuff i did not learn from not reading the textbook, i just paid attention to those lectures (and RE's soothing British voice) and i learned enough to get by. i honestly did not expect to do this much work for a GE however. at least the information is pretty interesting so it didn't feel like the biggest chore in the world. we had 4 critical responses in section, 1 every couple of weeks, where you get a snippet of the reading assigned and then write a paragraph based on the prompt, graded by check +, check, and check -. you could honestly do fine by not even reading the work and just watching a video summary the morning of, but thats just my preference. there was a midterm and a final, with the midterm having picture IDs and critical responses, and the final having an ID section and two essays. i put a little bit of studying in them and did perfectly fine. ellis isn't trying to trick you, you just need a little basis of knowledge and you'll do good. with this being said, lecture was boring most of the time but i did like this professor a lot. he is enthusiastic and kind and so nerdy. he is really passionate about what he teaches i like it. if you are looking for a easy GE to take, this may not be your best bet, but if its all you can get, you will still be okay!!! you may get the chance to see RE in his white sweater and it will be a pleasant experience and will make all your late nights reading Homer worth it!! XOXO RE

I LOVE RICHARD ELLIS SO MUCH! I NEVER IN MY LIFE THOUGHT I COULD GET A NEAR PERFECT SCORE ON A FINAL I WAS SO UNPREPARED FOR! That being said, as others have said this is isn't the easiest mickey mouse ge if your looking for that. I often found myself stressing to do the readings (or chat summarizing them for me) and they were super long---though sometimes pretty interesting if you have any background in greek mythology etc. It is not merely a greek mythology class though so don't be fooled--you get all that sparta, athens, and plato stuff too! Richard ellis is the cutest most kind man ever and I will forever mourn his presence at 9am in Dodd Hall speaking like that one tiktok sound "I PUT THE HELIPAD OVER HERE! I PUT MY OLYMPIC SIZE SWIMMING POOL OVER HEERE" I JUST LOVE IT! i didnt study until last minute for both exams and maanged to get an A on both--- a 98 on the final too (although it was 2 straight hours of writing so hand hurts from that and as a left handed girl it smeared led everywhere...) but if you do take this class take with ellis!! just be prepared to pay attention just a bit in class or when watching the lectures bc they are recorded; or else you will be stuck cramming which is really not fun; especially for a ge....there was also a group project but that was pretty chill and we had so many weeks to do it!! REIGN IN VICTORY RICHARD ELLIS JUST LIKE THE GREEKS IN THE GRECO PERSIAN WARS---GOODBYE XERXES HELLO RICHARD ELLIS

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-. This is exactly what happened to me, I will end with an A- instead of an A because the highest possible grade for participation and writing assignments was a 95 not a 100.

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.