This review is for Spring 2020, the first COVID-19 remote learning quarter. The textbook should be free and provided through Norton. Think of it as similar to LaunchPad, but a bit better. At the end of the chapters, you'll also be assigned to Inquizitives which is basically interactive quizzes that you need to take about the chapter you just read. Good thing is that you can keep on answering questions until you get 100%. Don't sweat about this. The midterm was a bit tough and some parts were ambiguous, but they were open note and open book. They were a combo of MC and short answers. Discussions are mostly just the TA talking about the week's content and filling out some short worksheet. We were tossed into some break out rooms, but no big deal. If you have taken the LS series, there will be some themes that are extremely similar to LS7B (Hardy-Weinberg, genetics, etc) and ecology as well. I didn't bother taking the optional final because for Professor Wood, the breakdown was an 84%+ was an A and had scored a 99 on the midterm.

Please keep in mind that this review is in the context of the circumstances of this quarter! Overall, a great class and I learned to appreciate and love primates.

I took this class as a major requirement and really had no real interest in the material. That said, there were a few things that I thought were really interesting despite my lack of initial interest. Dr. Wood is really a great professor and he worked really hard to make this learning environment accessible to everyone this quarter. An 84% was an A, the final was optional, and discussion sections were really relaxed and flexible. My TA, Brit, was the best!! We had weekly discussion homework graded on completion, participation based on attendance, and weekly online homework (similar to launchpad). I got a 99% on the midterm and did not choose to take the final. The class is definitely doable, I just thought it was dry because I wasn't really interested in it. Dr. Wood had to take a leave of absence mid-quarter for personal reasons but Dr. Selza took over around week 5 and was just as great:) There were a lot of challenges this quarter but all the professors and TAs were really flexible and understanding.

Pass on this professor. While the class material is pretty simple (just memorization), Wood did a pretty bad job when it came to making and grading the exams. There are just weekly homework assignments, but they took a decent amount of time and were only work 5% of the grade overall. When it came to his exams, you could definitely tell he didn't revise them to make sure they made sense or were clear because he often had to send us emails DURING the exam to clarify what he meant because he would just exclude crucial pieces of information (luckily a bunch of kids would notice and have to email him during the exam so he could clear things up). He's the type of professor to have multiple right answers for multiple choice questions but ask you to choose the best one even if what he considers "best" doesn't align with the information in the textbook. He also had to tell us if the information in his lectures didn't match up with the textbook, then we should trust the textbook, which was a hassle bc then we would always have to double check his slides and lectures, which took up a lot of time. The questions seem easy but it's like he purposely messes with the wording to make it more confusing since it's the only way to make the material difficult. I would have rather had more difficult material with straightforward testing. My advice: choose a different professor if you have the chance.

If you're interested in human evolution at all, definitely take this class as a GE. All the lectures are recorded with both video and audio so if you have to miss a class, you can just watch it later. There were a couple chapters of the textbook to read each week, accompanied with short asynchronous quizzes where you can just keep answering questions until you get 100%. The only other weekly homework is a 10 minute response to a textbook question or two (for section). So, in my opinion, the workload was pretty light, and if you're genuinely interested in the course material, the readings are really interesting. As for the midterm and final, yeah, they're worth a lot of the grade but honestly if you just actually do the short readings, and then rewatch the lectures and go over the detailed study guide he gives you before the tests, you will be fine. Also, Prof Wood has a good sense of humor and seemed extremely passionate about the topic. I feel like other reviewers interpreted his kinda monotone vocals as a lack of interest in the subject, but I don't think that's the case. So, moral of the story is don't let the other reviews scare you - take this class if you're interested and you will get a good grade if you just do what is required of you tbh

Honestly this class was time consuming. For me the lectures weren't as helpful as the textbook, just because the professor didn't get into the details of everything, but he expected you to know all these details for the exams. Each week the professor went over two chapters. These chapters were definitely long but in the end when it came to the exams I found that since I read I already knew where to find most of my answers. I ended up getting an A- on both exams. The midterm free response was definitely graded more strictly than the final (thank goodness). In addition to the lectures and readings, we had these online game-style quizzes that we had to complete. There were 3 levels to each quiz and you had to get a certain amount of points before reaching the next level. You definitely had to use the book to get through these (you aren't really penalized if you get wrong answers, it just takes you longer to finish the quiz). I found that if I read the chapter right before I took the quiz I was able to go through it much faster. Because the class grade is highly skewed towards what you get on the exams I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND getting 100% on all quizzes and in discussion section. This way if you get a lower A (like I did) on the exams you know you will at least get full points in the other areas.

Here is the breakdown of the course:

Midterm: 40%
Final Exam: 40%
Inquizitive: 5%
Discussion Section (short textbook questions): 15%

Overall, I didn't think this class was awful but like others said it would be super difficult to do in person because of all the details this course entails. I also think he made it much more detail oriented because we were online and the exams were open book, so it could be different in person! Shout out to Kim who provided notes for discussion section!

I honestly wouldn't recommend this class; it initially sounded like an interesting course but not only is the content kinda dry, the professor is also SUPER monotone and speaks pretty quietly which makes it impossible to focus without nearly falling asleep. The midterm and final are each about a third of your grade, they aren't insanely difficult but some of the questions are structured weirdly. The only pro to this class is that the homework assignments are ridiculously easy, though there's only 5 of them and they're only worth a combined total of 35% of your grade.

hmmm. I enjoyed this class, but in my opinion it was so difficult for absolutely no reason. This is ANTHRO 1; most students taking this course are probably taking it as a GE and possibly will never take another anthropology class again. Although Professor Wood is not the most engaging lecturer, he obviously is extremely knowledgable in the topic and is very good at articulating and explaining concepts. I would attend in-person and enjoyed lectures. He also has a very subtle but funny sense of humor hahhaa.

Anyways.... my main issue with this class (as many other people have pointed out) was the exams. I actually did pretty well on the midterm (I think I got like a 95%) but man that final was roughhhh. I don't think I've ever walked out of an exam feeling that unprepared but the thing is I studied a lot for the test too! I just don't think that it is reasonable to expect students to memorize all of the freaking taxonomic names of the different monkey, ape, chimp and what not species that were literally in greek and sound like gibberish to me. AND we had to memorize all the names of all the different skulls that we studied and there were soooo many. And the names were like ardipithecus kadabba??!! like how am i supposed to remember that. Anyways, I think a simple solution would be to let the exams be open note so we can emphasis understanding and learning the concepts rather than memorizing the ultra-specific names. Especially as an under division and GE course.

Honestly I know a lot of people complained about this class because of the fact that the midterm and final was basically all that you grade was made of but I honestly really liked it. My tip is if you are the type of person who thinks they don't need to do the reading or just doesn't feel like it, you probably won't get a good grade in the class. The final has a LOT of material that is covered in depth in the book. I found the readings interesting though. People in other comments also complained that there was no curve but he does adjust the grading scale so that a 88 is the minimum for an A and an 83 for an A- which I think is very fair.

Do not take this class as a regular GE, especially with Brian Wood. His voice is so monotone and boring. It seems like he doesn't even care about his students, especially because his office hours are shorter than the TA's. The course also has one midterm and one final that accounts for ~75% of the grade. If you bomb the first midterm, you have no chance in receiving a good grade in the class. He also gives no extra credit and tells everyone in the beginning in the class that this class isn't about effort, only material learned and memorized. Keep in mind he expects us to remember minute details from a 400 page textbook along with a long list (around 20 pages long) of fossil/primate characteristics. I feel like having a notecard available during the exams, splitting it into two midterms and a final, or making it open book would make this class more fair. ALSO, keep in mind the average grades were from when the exams were open note online during the pandemic. Would not recommend this class with Brian Wood, even though the topics are interesting.

Professor Wood was horrible, tests were worth 80% of your grade and were overly specific. I feel bad for anyone who takes this class as a GE