Loved this class. The readings were interesting and lecture helped to break down the historical back story. If you have a good TA and can keep up with the readings you will be fine in this class. Go to every lecture as Prof Lal points will help you construct your papers. Although he goes off topic sometimes about his personal experiences I believe this is his way of giving real life examples of how history has affected us in the modern era. The final and mid terms are all essays. It's not hard to prepare for as the TA usually gives you the general topics of the multiple essay questions Prof Lal will give.

Professor Lal takes a different approach when teaching history. He records his lectures, but he usually goes on tangents and doesn't really have a concrete plan for the curriculum. That said, he is still undeniably bright and he does care about student learning. He held an extra lunch for students to get to know him and he posts all of the lecture slides online before each paper. The grade distribution for last quarter was: a 2 page paper (10% of your grade), two 3 page papers (each 15% of your grade), discussions (20% of your grade), and the final, in which you pick 4 essays to write out of 10 options (40% of your grade). The class is pretty straightforward as long as you do your reading, which can get pretty dense (over 100 pages a week). Harrison is also a great TA, so try to take the discussion with him as well. The TAs do all the grading too so make sure you're not on awful terms with them and show up to discussion. Overall, the class is really interesting and challenges the way you view history, but it would've been nice if there was more continuity and organization between lecture weeks.

Professor Lal is an undeniably bright guy, and he weaves his own viewpoints into lecture. He looks at history through a more personal lens than most professors that I've had at UCLA. He considers the human condition while analyzing historical periods, and though his ideas may be unsurprisingly liberal, (as with most of the liberal arts department here) they can be eye opening as well. He uses slides, but his lectures are not super organized, and what he says not on the slides can be more useful than the bullet points on them. Take notes when he is just talking on a tangent, because it happens a lot.

The class has LOTS of reading, but it isn't boring and filled straight facts. You'll look at mostly primary source documents (like the Communist Manifesto and Haitian Declaration of Independence.) The grade was composed of three essays, discussion participation, and the final, in which we wrote four mini essays in class, but picked from 10 prompts. The class is pretty easy, but you have to spend a lot of time doing the readings. If you love reading and analyzing primary sources you'll do great, but don't read and you will suffer.

Learned a lot about Professor Lal's opinions, very little about History.

Light workload GE. Only 2 papers and a final, as well as mandatory discussions. The first paper was worth 15%, the second 25%, discussion 20% and 40% final. I didn't learn much from Lal but instead from my TA, who actually teaches what you need to learn. Lal ends up ranting on a tangent and about societal issues than actually covering what happened in history. Crazy amount of reading (150 pages/ week) , but the vast majority of people don't do it. It was a easy enough class.