Jacoby's lectures are typically not helpful and have you questioning why you are even there in the first place. However, the class is very manageable if you read the textbook. There is one midterm and 2 two-page papers and both were pretty easy. I got super behind on the readings before the final but crammed and still managed to get an A on the final, so I recommend this class.

TA Sam Kelley is amazing! He will make this class worth it, Jacoby is above average but almost all my learning came in the discussion sections.

Professor Jacoby is often humorous during lecture, but you'll learn much more if you just read the textbook. The supplemental readings help you a lot on the midterm and essays, as well as the final. While the slides are posted online, usually they're just images with a title and no description, making them mostly useful.Your grade depends almost entirely on your TA, so be sure to ask them plenty of questions during discussion. Overall, the class was pretty easy, but the lectures were not always worth attending.

Jacoby is a great professor. Definitely my favorite at UCLA so far. His class is not that hard and as long as you put in the work there is no reason you should get anything lower than a B. A lot of people get A's.

If you took AP Euro in high school and remember a reasonable amount then this class will be very easy for you. Because the TA's will be grading your essays and tests your grade might be very dependent on the TA you recieve. I think all of the TA's were very good from what I heard, I really loved going to discussion. However, comparing the grades I got on my midterms and essays to those of my friends, I would definitely say I was very lucky to have an easier grader. Jacoby is a funny guy but he is one awful lecturer. He knows his stuff but his lectures are really disorganized and he seemingly rambles on with trivia and jokes. The one time a TA had to take over the lecture because Jacoby was sick or something was the most informative lecture I went to the whole quarter. The workload was pretty light, usually a whole textbook chapter and 3-4 primary sources that were about 2 pages long for each source. Primary sources were pretty interesting. The two essays were only 2 pages long which was pretty nice. Midterms were not hard at all, essays were kind of vague but not too tricky. Overall I would really recommend this class if you like history but don't want to put an absurd amount of time studying it. It was really nice having one of the easier GE's at UCLA when I was struggling in my math class. Beware though if you get a TA that grades harshly you might have to put in a little more time.

class itself is
25% discussion
2 15% papers
15% midterm
30% final

lectures are pointless, you cant even tell half the time if he is telling a joke or telling facts

grades are heavily dependent on your TA so hope you have a good TA
overall, its up to you to just read the textbook and go to testbank to get the old midterm as it is pretty similar to the one he gives out

The grade is based on a midterm, a final, and two 2-page double spaced papers (so short!) where the TA basically told us exactly what they wanted. I had a really hard time staying focused during class, although when I was able to make myself pay attention Professor Jacoby had some interesting things to say...overall though, didn't love the class but it was a pretty easy A.

Please take this class with Jacoby, it is extremely easy. I got an A+ without trying, I was late to class by about 15 minutes every day and missed hardly anything. If you cram even slightly for the midterm and final, you'll do fine.

Jacoby isn't a horrible lecturer, but he is very unstructured and inconsistent with the material. He would spend multiple lectures on one topic, and then speed through a bunch of other topics in just a few minutes. The course overall is not too tough, though. There are two short papers (2 pages each) based on readings, a midterm, and final. The terms for the midterm and final are given ahead of time, so I would focus more on broad themes than trying to memorize everything in the textbook. Other than that, just do the weekly (non-textbook) reading, show up to discussion and participate a little bit and you should be fine.