Prof Ortiz is incredibly organized and communicative and sends out a weekly email with the plan for the week with everything you need to know. She's an alright lecturer and kind of skims over things sometimes. I have a background in most of the topics she talks about but I assume it might be a little confusing if you didn't since she names events/terms without describing them sometimes. I also asked a question once and she was a little rude about it saying "I don't know why you're asking about this." Overall though, I would take this class again and really enjoyed the first quarter of this cluster. I learned so much that I didn't know before and appreciate how this class takes on a different perspective than one I had in high school. Discussions kind of suck and are so draining (2 hours), but lectures are mostly very interesting. Weekly readings can be a lot but you can skim the long ones (you have to leave one comment on the document to show you read it, but it can be anywhere and about anything. there are deadlines but they don't take off any points as long as you comment before the end of the quarter). The class is really easy after week 8 when the main paper is due.

The entire Cluster20A teaching team was extremely supportive and accommodating during COVID-19 times. They go out of their way to make sure students aren't being overwhelmed during the pandemic.
Content wise, I found this cluster really interesting, especially since I'm personally interested in these topics with the heightened awareness since summer 2020. But with that said, if this class does not sound interesting to you maybe don't take it, because you have two 1.25hour lectures a week, one 2 hour discussion, and a ton of weekly readings about interracial dynamics.
Again, I thought all of this was manageable and captivating because I thought the subject was interesting.
As long as you do the bare minimum you should get 100% on the participation portion which accounts for 40% of your grade.
The other 60% is from a paper (30%) about the book, Bad Indians, and the final (30%) which was 3 short essays tying in concepts learned throughout the quarter.
Because of this, YOUR TA basically determines YOUR GRADE, I had Laura Terrance and she was an absolute angel! So sweet, good discussions, always there to support you and recommends office hours, and a very fair grader. Definitely take her if you can!
My final grade in the class was about a 96.
You get 4 out of 6 of your GE's finished (if you are a STEM major) and also if you are in the college honors, this gives you 6 units hnrs collegium and writing II credit from the spring quarter.

For anyone interested in the topics covered by this class, I HIGHLY recommend you take it. Clusters are a great way to get GEs out of the way and from what I have heard, this cluster, in particular, is one of the better ones. In addition, the content included in this course is relevant and is certainly beneficial to you as a college student in the United States.

The course content is very easy, and the workload is what you make of it. Lectures are engaging if you choose to pay attention and the weekly assigned readings are bearable (most of the time). The only downside to this course is that there is a fair amount of reading. As I mentioned previously, there are weekly readings, and in addition to that, we had to finish reading a relatively short book by week 7. However, I can assure you plenty of classmates never even touched the reading materials, but it is in your best interest to actually read the book as your final essay is centered around the content of the novel. It is a decent book and as someone who hates reading, I found it pretty easy to finish.

Overall liked this cluster and it wasn't super challenging to get an A in the course since I am a pretty good writer. If you struggle with writing, this class could be tough. Midterm fall quarter is VERY EASY and pure memorization that you can do in two days. Final winter quarter is also fairly easy and can be learned in two days. Reading from the course reader is not entirely necessary you will come to realize. SELLING COURSE READERS FOR FALL AND WINTER QUARTER FOR $20 (this saves you over $100). Text ********** if you're interested!

Cluster 20A was probably the easiest class that I have ever taken. I took APUSH in high school and found the topics to be identical which was really helpful. I rarely went to lecture and it was only counted as 1% of the final grade so it didn’t matter (they started using iclicker partway through the quarter which location tags). Slides were usually posted and lectures were also available to zoom into so if you missed it wasn’t a big deal. Discussion was mandatory and participation was around 20% of the grade but that was fine as my TA was super chill. There was a lot of really long readings assigned but you only needed to leave a comment to prove you read it so workload was light depending on how much effort you put in. There was only 2 assessments, the first was a paper which was essentially a book report which they gave you weeks to write and then a 2 week revision period with TA advice, the other was a final paper which you had 2 days to write during finals week which was 4 short essays. These were graded very leniently ( the means were both over 95%). They also don’t do A+ so 93-100% was all just A. My only critique is that the material was very one sided which was fine but I found it to be a little hypocritical as the lecturers often criticized how one sided many curriculums are. For some lectures this made sense but I found when it came to recent politics - although I agreed with their views - I was a bit shocked by how polarizing their statements were. They actually cover interesting and important history although if you’ve taken a US history class you likely know most of it. Overall I highly recommend taking this if you’re looking for an extremely easy way to knock out some GEs.

Professor Ortiz (and the rest of the CLUSTER 20 teaching staff) are very passionate about race and its study and it reflects in their lectures. The material is pretty straight forward and similar to APUSH if you took that in high school. I wasn't at all interested in race before taking this course (math major) yet I still enjoyed this class. I had Antwann for my TA and he was INCREDIBLE. Get him if you can- he explains all the expectations for the paper and final extremely well and uses his section time to work out problems that are similar to the exam. He's also the one grading those papers so if you follow his advice, you'll be fine. Overall, there's a lot of reading (sometimes too much) but if you practice the art of skimming long articles and get the big idea, you should be okay. Writing is not too hard, just simple literary analysis and argument. Lecture participation is mandatory but only worth 1% of grade so take that as you will.

I loved Cluster 20A-C and 100% recommend incoming freshmen to take this. Personally, History and English are my favorite subjects in school, so the concepts in this class were all repeats of APUSH. Even if you're not a history or English person, this is a GREAT class to take if you want to knock out all of your history/cultural/diversity GE's.

Lectures were not mandatory and were offered through zoom/recorded. Discussion attendance is mandatory but as long as you have a good TA, these sections are super chill. I personally chose the same TA for all three sections of this cluster, and it really helped because I was familiar with her grading style.

There were absolutely no quizzes or tests in this class. Our final for Cluster 20A and 20B were to write 3 essays about different topics that we could choose from and you had three days to do it. Super manageable and graded very leniently. The only other assignments are a couple of additional papers, participating in discussions, and outside readings each week that you have to make comments on. Cluster 20C (since it knocked out the writing ii requirement) was a bit more writing intensive, but it was completely ran by a TA and you met once a week for 3 hours. Most of the students stayed with the same TA throughout the year, and it helped the structure of Cluster 20C be more comfortable since most of us already knew each other.

The whole purpose of this class was to not be so grade-heavy because they wanted students to genuinely be interested in learning something. Easiest A+'s in college I'll ever get. I wish more classes were structured this way. TAKE THIS CLUSTER!!!!

Very interesting and insightful to learn more about the history of race in our country, as well as the affect of racism and discrimination on minorities today. Course work is relatively light and provides a great chance to sharpen ones writing skills. Great class to take for the education and extra writing credit!

This class is a super easy A+. There are no tests, a midterm that is an OUTLINE for an essay, and the final being said essay, Due to the TA strike, the test part of the final was optional but even then, the final was supposed to be essays based on class content. I loved going to discussions that were more engaging than the lectures, to be entirely honest. I only attended two lectures but then stopped because it was not engaging but I still ended the class with an A+ due to my participation in attending discussions, completing perusal comments (only ever wrote one sentence), turning in lecture observations (only ever wrote one sentence), and completed the final paper (did not even read the book for the final paper). If you enjoy history, this class will be an easy A. If you hate history like me, as long as you attempt to participate in the slightest, you will be fine! Take this class if you are interested in a Cluster!

This class is great because it knocks out a whole lot of GE credits. However, this class (though it covered a great deal of consequential content) was progressively more and more boring. Lectures provided students with a whole bunch of information, but they often felt unorganized, as professors would often go off on tangents for a great deal of time. Honestly, if you read the Bad Indians book, and know a couple key details about each social group in society (Chinese Americans, African Americans, Native Americans) then you will be fine. Would not take again though.