To be totally honest, Berend is not a great lecturer. Her points tend to lack organization and its extremely easy to tune her out and doze off, which has nothing to do with the lack of slides because many professors are engaging without them. There are better, more simplified ways of expressing the points she makes and the TAs do a much better job of doing that. If it wasn’t for discussion section and her lecture outlines, the class probably would have been much more convoluted. I took the approach of ignoring her during lecture and just copying down the outlines while sitting there. The quizzes are easy but the wording is a little annoying and I always felt like all the answers were similar but I got 100% on all of them so they’re easy to figure out anyways. Go to discussion, go to office hours if necessary, and read the outlines. It’s a manageable class, you probably just won’t be very motivated to make it to lecture.

Final was harder than midterm. If you want to take this course with this professor, study hard !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was getting A- before Final, but I got F and barely passed. Lots of extra credit and easy to pass, but the course material could be hard for someone who cannot fully understand the lecture and notes.

The important thing to remember about this class is that you have to stay ahead of the workload. I made the mistake of not doing the readings until week 7, which put more pressure on me to do well on the final to get an A in the class. If you do the readings every week (I know it sucks, but just do it) then the quizzes and tests are way easier. Also, participate in discussion! My discussions were always silent and awkward af bc no one ever did the readings. If you do them, you'll stand out and you'll have a better grasp on the subject. So the class had 4 quizzes (based on the readings), 2 reaction papers, and 1 midterm and 1 final. The final wasn't cumulative so it's whatever was after the midterm. They're taken from readings and lecture notes so make sure you pay attention in lecture because, although she provides lecture outline, she says a lot of extra things in class you need to know and should write down. Lectures aren't very engaging bc there're no visual aids, so it's easy to zone out, but try to stay focused bc it helps you later when you're studying. No clicker questions, lots of extra credit opportunities. Overall, easy to get an A if you stay on top of the work.