*** I TOOK HISTM103A (NOT near east 599) WITH DIELEMAN ***

I LOVE this professor!

He is clearly passionate about the material, so lectures were detailed but he would also make jokes and show his own photos from his travel and work. He would sometimes go off on tangents or spend a lot of a lecture on one small detail - if you're not interested in ancient Egypt, you won't find this class interesting, but if you are, he is a wealth of knowledge!

Exams are easy - IDs, labeling a map, and essays. There are two textbooks - one is easy to read and necessary for tests, the other is dense and theoretical, but you only need to use it for the papers. The assignments for this class were fair but spaced out poorly. We had a midterm, a final 10th week, and two papers due finals week. He definitely should have assigned one of the papers for earlier in the quarter.

Ignore the course at the top, I had Jacco for AN N EA 130, Ancient Egyptian Religion, Winter 2010. It's always a plus to have a prof who loves his subject and Jacco LOVES egyptology. He's really nice, has a cool dutch accent and he explains things pretty well. Lecture was kindaaa boring though, and it felt pretty long cuz it's an hr 20 and sometimes he'll run over 10 min! Egyptian religion is pretty interesting, some of the concepts are a little difficult but its fine for the most part. The tests are kinda long. Maybe it feels longer because its made up of a bunch of small parts like identifications (one sentence definitions or just naming a god), short essays (describing an image or a concept) and then longer essays. Theres a lot of material to know, he gives you study guides for the midterm and final. They look really intimidating but as long as you go to lecture and take notes, you will be fine. You need the course reader. Its kind of a lot of reading. More so in the very beginning of the class, after that the pace is pretty fair. Reading before lecture is def better because Jacco elaborates on what is said in the articles so the reading and lecture is much more comprehensive if you read before. If you don't keep up with the reading, dont worry just read before the tests and the study guide or section will point out which ones you actually need to read. ALWAYS use his slide galleries on the course website to study for the tests, they are excellent and give a lot of info. There are 3 incredibly easy online quizzes the first half of the quarter. No papers.