I honestly enjoyed this class. The grade ONLY composed of 3 essays throughout the quarter (90%, each essay worth 30% of your grade), with 10% coming from your participation in discussions. The grading of ur essays really depends on your TA, but im pretty sure the averages on all the essays this quarter were above 90%, so i would say they grade it pretty fairly. Discussions were rlly boring (at least with my TA) and felt kind of useless ngl, but they are required. I did not attend more than 5 lectures all quarter, and still managed to get an A+. The writing assignments are not related to what is taught in class, and as long as you are able to write an argumentative based on some academic papers/documentaries, you should be fine. I recommend going to office hours to work on your thesis with the prof/TA because theyre kinda picky with how your essay should be structured. Also, lectures are offered on zoom and inperson, but they are not recorded.

I took this class in Fall 2025. In a matter of the volume of workload, yes this would be an easy GE considering it’s only three essays. But qualitatively, if you aren’t already a strong writer, this is not exactly an easy GE. You need to be good at interpreting and dissecting long sources (12-30 pages) and creating excellent arguments from that. The sources are often written in an academic style so if you don’t have experience in archaeology research you might struggle understanding the material. I was definitely one of the students who weren’t already good at writing so I had to struggle a lot with writing good essays. As one review had already written about this course said, your grade is definitely dependent on who your TA was and how harsh their grading was. Some of my friends had more lenient TAs while I had a hard one who had very specific guidelines. In my experience, my TA didn’t do a very good job of explicitly explaining what their specific guidelines (was very vague about it) were regarding thesis, evidence, etc, and I didn’t know until my first paper grade came back. Since your grade is based on three essays, if you do really bad on one of them, it’ll tank your grade. If I were to take this class again, I would definitely go to office hours early before the first paper is due to really understand what is expected of my TA. Regarding the lectures themselves, they are not directly needed to complete the essays. Although they might be good if you need background context or historical knowledge that might aid you, they are largely not relevant. Luckily, the professor is very knowledgeable and experienced in his field, and he is a very nice person. He generously gave many people extensions to the essays and was very understanding of student concerns. Discussion sections are mandatory and generally just reinforce some of the material learned in lecture. If you participate 3-4 times answering questions I’m sure you’ll get full points for the participation grade. Overall the class is very manageable and I did manage to get an A in the class (it was very close). I feel like I did learn a lot about pre-classical Greek history and archaeology in general, and the class did make me a better writer at the end. If you’re a good writer or up for the challenge if you’re not, I recommend taking the class.

This is an easy GE, but if I were to review it like a class, I have a few notes. The professor is a super kind and knowledgeable guy, but the structure of the class is pretty flawed. I think this was one of the first quarters trying out the three papers system. The lectures aren’t related to the papers, except for on one day and on that day there won’t be any necessary information provided. I went to lectures at the start but became increasingly unmotivated because of the lack of through-line between them and their missing relationship with the papers. The papers themselves have confusing prompts that the TA’s had to awkwardly rework, and they admitted it too. My friends who weren’t as strong in writing struggled. I see so much potential in this professor and his good TA’s (shoutout Aidan) — just needs a restructure. Overall, easy GE and nice professor, I would recommend if you need a class to check a box and are a solid writer, but not if you want an engaging experience.

Despite only going to two lectures this class was quite boring. Although Professor Papadopoulos seems to be passionate about this material he literally just reads off the slides. I seriously fell asleep in class. Plus the lecture is also on zoom and attendance is not taken, only in discussion. There is only three assignments and participation in discussion is also graded. 30/30/30/10. That being said, you have to do really well on the essays to secure an A. Two of the essays were about sites that the professor worked on so it seemed a little conceited to me but either way the essay topics aren't the most thrilling. Maybe Professor Papadopoulos likes to have students glaze his work? Decent GE if you are good at writing.

Highly recommend this class if you need it for a GE. Your grade is dependent on three 5-page essays. I stopped attending lecture after the first week because it had nothing to do with the essay topics. However, section attendance is mandatory and 10% of your grade. I never did the readings for this class except for the ones you need to cite on the essays so I didn’t have to spend too much time on this course. This GE is an easy A as long as you put in some effort on the essays.

This class was the most boring GE ever, unfortunately. I wanted to like this class so bad as I am very interested in Greek mythology, but they should genuinely rename the class to ARCHAEOLOGY of ancient Greece. the whole class was based off of 3 essays, so it was insanely easy, but I never once went to lecture and I just wish it was a more interesting class to take. If you like archaeology take the class though.

if you care about art, not archaeology, don't sign up for this class. it's pretty much all archaeology based from all around the mediterranean not just greece. lectures are pretty much useless i stopped going a few weeks into the quarter and most people did too. lecture content is not at all related to the essays which are the entire grade.

Honestly such an easy GE.
There were 3 writing assignments all year which honestly had nothing to do with the lecture so I honestly stopped showing up around halfway. He would assign readings per writing assignment that were discussed in the lecture but were repeated off the book/ readings he assigned. He also had his lectures through Zoom so I did still attend those but didn't bother taking notes as it wasn't necessary for my grade. I got an A-, didn't attend lectures and if I was on Zoom I didn't pay attention and still managed to get a good grade.
If you scored worse on the first essay, if your TA sees progress in your writing they will take the greater grade and the first essay would have a smaller weight on your overall.

30% 30% 30% and 10% participation

This class was very interesting for those who are inclined to the topic. Professor Papadopoulos is a great lecturer who is clearly very knowledgable and practiced in his field. I really enjoyed lectures and the class materials. Your grade consists of 3 papers, which all have topics that are very interesting and enjoyable to do. However, if you mess up on one paper it effects your final grade a decent amount, as that is what your entire grade is based on, so beware! But overall this is a great class that I would recommend and enjoyed taking!

The class itself wasn't terribly interesting to me but he was obviously very knowledgeable about the subject. It's definitely art & ARCHEOLOGY, the only real mentions of art are when they are dug up and they are kind of mentioned as an afterthought with very little delving into the art itself and instead making inferences about what it's exsistance implies about the people. Which depending on how you feel about art is either a good thing or a bad thing but as an art history major it was definitely a negative imo. The essays were short and decently straightforward, and there is no final which is suuuper nice.