This was a pretty fun class. We met 3x a week and had readings due for each class, ranging from 2-5 stories or occasionally a movie. We also had to get a certain number of participation points to get an A in the category overall, and she was pretty fair about letting us either participate in class or write a 350 word response. You could not participate a good number of times and still get an A as long as you were careful to keep track of your points. We also had a short quiz each day but they were very easy if you did the readings. There were also 2 midterms and a final paper. I actually found the midterms to be sort of difficult and I wasn’t sure why I lost points on certain sections because she seemed to take off points for no reason. You’ll have to study the slides really carefully to do well on the short answer section of the test, she tests for memorization of random quotes that are on the slides which you might not know even having read all the stories. I have no idea how the paper was graded because she took so long grading everything that she ended up just posting our overall grades the day grades were due and didn’t record the paper grades. Overall the class was pretty interesting and I learned a lot about Hans Christian Andersen. It’s not a super easy A because there is a lot of work but if you’re at all interested in fairy tales it’s definitely worth taking.

Awful class... Would not recommend taking any classes with Professor Ball... Most unreasonable professor I've ever seen. I don't know what the reviews on here prior to Fall 2020 are talking about, it was an incredibly difficult course.

At a time where the pandemic is affecting so many people, and all departments (Neuroscience, Molecular/Cell Biology, Physics, Chemistry... literally every departments) are giving take home exams and making their classes easy during the pandemic, this unreasonable professor decided to give a timed 50 minute exam (impossible to finish everything in time btw) graded incredibly harshly. Professor Ball is passionate about her subject and the class could have been very interesting and enjoyable, but she's a very unreasonable person, and the Scand department should be ashamed of itself for allowing her to do this. I hope students save their GPA and stay away from this terrible class and professor.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS.... If you care about your GPA and don't want anything below an A, avoid this class. Professor Ball doesn't seem to understand that she's teaching a GE, and should chill with how difficult she makes her tests. I've taken biochem, molecular bio, o chem, physics, and found those exams to be more doable than Dr. Ball's nonsense tests. Absolutely avoid at all costs if you want to maintain a high GPA and want an easy GE.

I took this class to cover some GE credits for the foreign literature in translation requirement, and I was under the impression if you did the reading and the work, you could easily get an A. With that said, although I got 100% on the reading quizzes for the quarter and a 98% on reading responses, I still ended up with a B in the class because her tests are unrealistically difficult. If you have zero knowledge of Scandinavian history, literature, or mythology, the amount of information that you are expected to know for the two exams (which are essentially a midterm and final, but the professor refuses to call them these things) plus the take-home final (yes, there are essentially two finals) is just insane. I studied an entire week ahead of time, writing out my own study guide based off slides and lecture notes as she instructed, and I still did not feel prepared for the exams, as many of the questions were on things that were mentioned once or twice in class very briefly, while some were things I do not recall going over at all. For my class, there were 40 fill-in-the-blank questions and 2 essay questions, and students were expected to finish both in 50 minutes. Yes, you read that right. Only 50 minutes, which was the normal running time of the class. While Professor Ball was very nice and even gave a few extra credit opportunities to help struggling students, I think her class would greatly benefit from a redesign of her testing methods, and perhaps she would not need to offer extra credit opportunities at all.

This course was incredibly interesting and I highly recommend it. Readings are easy to understand, lectures are insightful, and Professor Ball is very reasonable and kind. Exams were fairly challenging and had both MC and free responses. However, the responses were graded leniently and mainly depend on the quality of your insight and analysis. Overall great course!

I went into the class with zero knowledge about Vikings or Scandinavia in general, so this was my first exposure to the topic. I found the material quite interesting. The class is graded based on the following: reading responses, in-class iClicker quizzes, two exams (weeks 5 and 10), and a take-home final essay (4 pages, double-spaced).

The material covers a wide range of topics from social structure to religion. It's honestly very difficult to not be fascinated by the history. Most of the readings are taken from various sagas and can be read like any other fun story. The lectures are just like any other lecture, but they're interesting as long as you are paying attention. There are some details the professor goes over that aren't too specifically written out in the lecture slides, so you do want to pay attention, but it shouldn't be a problem since the topic is quite captivating.

There is some amount of reading due every day which can sometimes get rather lengthy, but you only need to do 10 responses in total, with a minimum of 350 words. It takes all of 5 minutes and if you do all 10 early, you won't have any left to do after less than 4 weeks into the quarter, giving you more time to focus on other things. The iClicker quizzes are incredibly easy; if you did the reading then you'll get the right answer, and you can miss up to 5 or 6 quizzes and still get full credit.

The two exams can be slightly iffy. You need to do 40 fill-in-the-blank questions and answer 2 essay questions within 50 minutes. But, if you had been writing decent notes in class through the lectures and go back to review them, there is absolutely no problem. It may seem like a lot, but it's honestly quite easy. The answers for the fill-in-the-blank questions should pop right out to you if you had done some amount of reviewing, and the essay questions are analyses/interpretations that you can very easily do if you had been paying attention in class. There is nothing in the exams that wasn't present in either the lecture slides, the reading, or the lectures themselves. Also, for the essay portion, it doesn't necessarily have to be a formal essay; you can use bullet points and sentences that aren't exactly full sentences. It's absolutely possible to finish the exam with a few minutes left over.

The final take-home essay actually kind of got me, as I scored significantly lower than I thought I would, but I don't think it was because it was difficult. It's only 4 pages double-spaced and doesn't take too long to do, so it's possible that I underestimated it. Overall, it shouldn't be too difficult to get an A in it if you spend more time on it than I did (a few hours).

I wouldn't recommend this class if you absolutely hate reading. If you can tolerate it, then I do recommend it. I'm not lying when I say they're interesting. The only real complaint I have is that there is an exam on week 10 and then a final essay, but it's not the biggest deal in the world since the week 10 exam is NOT cumulative and the essay doesn't take too much time, so honestly the total time spent for those two should be about equal to the time spent studying for any other one final exam.

Professor Ball is absolutely fantastic, though, so if you want to take a class that is quite easy and interesting with a great professor, this is a good one.

Good, straightforward class. Selling The Kalevala and The Poetic Edda, if interested text me at **********

I would say the content and the lectures were super engaging. However, the course's tests are randomly tough in the sense that the questions are random making the test tough. The participation comes from iClicker questions. The essays were graded really well and fairly. I actually got like a 95 on the essay and a 72 on the midterm, so I went with pass/no pass. I think passing the tests is the goal of the class. You only have a limited amount of time so know certain dates and people. I did learn a lot about vikings in this class, and I found that really rewarding.

Professor Ball is an amazing and engaging lecturer, and I really enjoyed going to class because of her enthusiasm. The information she presents during class is helpful for when you're writing your analytical essays so don't leave after the iclicker questions. There are three essays in total for the whole quarter, and your grade really depends on your TA but going to office hours will pretty much guarantee a solid grade. The readings were interesting as well, which makes this one of the best Writing II classes.

Lots of opportunities for grade boosting.