This class is naturally asynchronous, as all lectures take the form of prerecorded podcasts. Your entire grade consists of three essays—4 pages on an ancient artifact, 4 pages on an ancient primary source document, and an 8 page synthesis on ancient religion—with no homework, projects, exams, or anything else. The weekly workload consisted of two hour-long lecture podcasts, about four supplementary documents, one chapter of the textbook, and one discussion section. Conceivably all one has to do to get an A is read all the supplementary documents relevant to your essay topics and listen to the one lecture podcast associated with it—you can honestly get by without listening to most lectures and completely ignoring the textbook, though I wouldn't recommend doing this as it creates bad habits.

The workload as described above is very, very light, and if you're an able writer with any remote interest in ancient history or religion in general, this is the GE for you. I've heard that some TA's for this course are rather harsh and nit-picky graders though; I had Cristi Whiskey as my TA and I thought she was very fair and accommodating, I would definitely recommend her.

I enjoyed Islamic Mysticism (Sufism) with Professor Green. He is a friendly person as well as a very knowledgeable scholar. The whole class was discussion-based: each session, we just discussed 100-150 pgs of readings the whole time. I would have appreciated more structure and historical context, because it felt more like literature analysis than history. It was a cool class and I'm glad I took it.

I took this class in the fall when it was asynchronous. I would definitely NOT recommend taking this class if you need an easy A. The class is easy in that it takes almost no work to complete. You literally just have to write 3 papers. The 3 papers count for your entire grade though, and it definitely didn't seem like the professor and TA were on the same page about what the paper was supposed to be about.

The instructions for the papers were just one or two questions that you had to base an entire 4-8 page paper on. My TA definitely had no idea what was going on in the class or how to grade the papers. There was no rubric, and she didn't know what the heck she was talking about in discussion. I got an 86% on my first paper (which was 25% of the overall grade) and I asked the TA what I did wrong, and she cited things that she told me to do, such as putting "/" between quotations. I emailed the professor and he said there was nothing he could do about the grade and that he and the TAs thoroughly talked over how to grade the papers.

It definitely didn't seem like it because the TA was telling us to write a different prompt than was given by the professor.

Overall, the workload is easy. Just read whatever you want to write your paper on, and write 3 papers over the quarter. But be warned, the grading is whack, so you better get a good TA.

I took this class for the extra units I needed so I honestly didn't care for the material. I found it so boring. The professor doesn't record his lectures or post his slides so be aware. I stopped attending lectures after the midterm because I realized they weren't necessary for the midterm or the final. The professor himself is very passionate about what he teaches but I just couldn't get into the topic. I got a good grade without attending lectures so it's doable. For the midterm and final, just memorize what you're going to write and practice timed writing because you only have 50 minutes.

Other reviews for this class are legit. This class isn't too hard of a class and the workload is on the light side. The grade breakdown goes like: 20% discussion participation, 40% midterm, and 40% final. The participation points are easy to get (based on reading assigned primary sources beforehand and come to discussion sections to discuss them; the vast majority of the students got above 90% for this. The readings are not heavy either. Both the midterm and the final are basically timed writes—you have 50 mins in your discussion to write an essay that answers the prompt. Both prompts are assigned to you at the beginning of the course. They are not super hard to write but the only downside I think is that both exams worth so much of your overall grade that messing up one will be overly detrimental to your overall grade. My suggestion is to prepare for those in-discussion essays ahead of time and go to your TA's office hour to ask for guidance on what they are looking for and how to write solid essays within such a short time. Both essays require you to analyze primary source readings so my suggestion is to keep up with your weekly readings as the weeks go by. Don't get lazy and skip them—they really contribute to you getting a good grade. A lot of other reviews here say that lectures are not important and that you don't have to go—I have ambivalent feelings toward this take: I agree that since content taught by Professor Green during lectures are not tested in any way you don't necessarily have to go to them to do well in the class; but at the same time the lectures are very engaging and Professor Green teaches you a lot of interesting historical materials (though very broad and have little depth since this is a survey course that covers all of human history up to 600 CE). I went to every single lecture and did not think they were wasteful. Going to lectures and learning the materials can also be helpful for your midterm and final because you learn the historical context behind the primary courses you read, which will give you more stuff you can write about in your essays.

Not too hard of a class/GE overall. Take it if you don't mind in-class exams for your midterm and final.

This class is definitely an EASY GE. The professor is obviously very passionate about the subject and while attending lectures is not important, doing so felt appealing just because of the passion that exudes off him every class. He doesn’t post the slides, which may feel like a dealbreaker, but honestly all you really need is to attend the discussions. Success in the class is basically done by doing the weekly readings (you don’t need to buy a book, he posts screenshots of the texts and they’re also not particularly lengthy), participating/taking notes during discussion (strictly about the readings), and preparing for your midterm and final ahead of time (you literally know both prompts from the first day of class). If you’re still on the fence, JUST TRUST ME and TAKE THIS CLASS!!!