professor wang was great! he definitely was fun to listen to and good at teaching. but my TA was horrible and they control all the grading. most of them were ridiculously harsh when it came to grading especially on what was supposed to be an easy GE. my TA was never helpful either so try to make sure you know the TA is supposed to be good before taking this class.

This class is not easy as a GE class. There are tons of reading each week, and I find it extremely difficult to get an A in this class. Professor Wang is a passionate teacher though. He always tries to teach his students to look at history from a different perspective, so this class might be helpful for those who are very interested in history. However, if you are taking it as a GE, the workload would be terribly tough. The weekly posting requires an in-depth analysis of the reading materials, and I never really quite understand how to get an A in the posting. The midterm was an essay, and the final consisted of analyzing 7 short passages and writing an essay. It took a huge amount of time to read all the materials and do the analysis, and the grade is unfair compared to the effort you have to put in.

Took this class to fill out a GE. Professor Wang was actually very accommodating and listened to the wants of the students. He uploaded his videos in multiple parts which honestly was a great move since it felt way more manageable. I believe him as a professor explaining material was easy to digest. The biggest problem however was the course was very reliant on readings. Lectures would build upon the readings in the sense that if you didn't read that week, you had a high chance of not understanding what was being taught as Professor Wang lectures assuming you did all the readings. What was more difficult was the increasing amount of readings each week which weren't gradual. Class consisted of weekly discussion postings that would ask you to analyze a reading of the week. Those were a little infuriating as the TAs flipped between what they wanted. Midterm and finals were essays that consisted of 2 prompts of your choosing. Fair warning, the TAs are harsh graders so I suggest you talk to them to ask what they want.

Class was quite interesting, and the workload of assignments isn’t bad at all.

There’s a ton of reading, and about halfway through the quarter I realized that to succeed you don’t even need to really do them. Just enough for the discussion postings. His lectures are definitely the only thing you really need to watch

Prof. Wang cares a lot about his students and made a ton of accommodations throughout the quarter.

His TAs did the same, however I found that they were incredibly harsh graders. I received a low grade on my midterm that I felt really wasn’t justified as nearly all comments on my essay by my TA could definitely be described as nitpicking. The same was done with the final, and I just couldn’t figure out why my grades for them was as low as they were. There’s never a super clear instruction on what is wanted.

I was able to be saved by him curving everyone’s final grade up a point after the final, but the harsh grading nearly cost me a good chunk of GPA.

Overall, good class that I’d recommend if you’re interested in Korean or East Asian History. The best part is Prof. Wang helped me learn to look at history in sort of a new way, and I’m definitely grateful for that.

Everyone saying there’s too many readings either went too in depth with them or didn’t realize they weren’t exactly critical to the assignments in class.

Fantastic professor. His lectures really make you think about history from a philosophical viewpoint.

I wasn't quite sure whether I would like this class when I chose it as my GE, but I knew that I would probably be able to get a good grade because I grew up learning about Korean traditions and history. In high school, I didn't really like my history and social studies classes either and just crammed to get good grades (as you do). This class, however, was really engaging and got me thinking about different historical perspectives and stories that I hadn't really considered before. Professor Wang is a very good lecturer, has well-prepared slides, is very knowledgeable on Korean history (which I guess is a given lol), articulate, and had an anonymous question bank for random questions about Korean history which led to a lot of interesting discussions. I am definitely interested in taking more history/cultural studies courses in the future thanks to this class.

In conclusion: 11/10, would absolutely recommend to a friend.

The midterm and final were take home essays but the questions are kind of challenging.

I really like how Professor Wang taught the course and split the lectures into separate parts so we could absorb the material better. He was very understanding to the needs of students and was receptive to our concerns. However, it was kind of difficult to understand whether we should be doing the readings before or after watching the lectures, which made lectures difficult to follow sometimes. The reading load was really large but it's manageable if you pick and choose which ones to read in detail (for discussion posts) versus which ones to scan. Discussions were relatively straight forward, but the grading for discussion posts were not. It seemed like the TAs had different expectations for posts every week and it was hard to understand what was expected since posts were due before discussions. Overall, I'd say this history course required much more work than other history courses I have taken, but it is doable if you put in a lot of effort and manage your time wisely.

Way too much reading, really hard to get an A with the hard grading. Don't recommend unless you write essays well and have time to read lots.

Lot's of upper classmen have told me that this class sucks and i agree to an extent that this class is a lot. It's a reading heavy class and the expectation for the midterm and final are that you really critically think about Korean history at large. plus theres a lot of information jammed pack into each lecture and weekly schedule. But I want to give the professor and their TAs (or at least my TA heejin lee <3) some credit. They genuinely want to help the students no matter what. If you go in to say that your struggling understanding a lecture or have questions on the final or midterm, the professors and TAs will help you. Also, the expectations for any assignment or test is really straight forward, for the final and midterm essay the rubric lays out exactly what they want/expect and as long as you hit those points you can pull out an A/A-. Other things like weekly tests or quizzes were based on completion so you don't have to worry too much about them (and the bonus is that the professor is lenient on due dates, as long as you get them done before week 10 your fine; but don't rely on that too much since the class was online this quarter). Also, regarding the heavy readings, tbh you don't really need to read the textbook; as long as you read through the primary and secondary sources and take notes on the lectures you get the same information (max i spent about 2-3 hours a week on the class readings). Keep in mind too that the readings and lectures are really the only 'assignments' you have to do in class.

Tips:
- show up to office hours, that's honestly how you get to know the professor and your TA which helps in the long run with this class. talking with the professor about the lecture and some personal inquires gave me a better idea of what the professor and TA's were expecting when it came to grading. plus they will give you a lot of tips and help for the final and midterm essay. also the professor has a really interesting perspective on the topic so if you get the chance, i recommend just going in to talk to him about the subject.
- prioritize primary and secondary source readings over the textbook... out of respect to the teacher, i recommend just trying to do all the readings. but in all honesty, you get the same information in a more condensed and better package from the class lectures than from the textbook; plus he highlights which parts are most relevant to the class.
- the syllabus is your best friend.... it lays out which specific pages on the readings to do which seems kinda obvious but i cannot tell you how many times i read the entire pdf document of 15-20 pages only to find out that the requirement was to read a 1/3 of the pages uploaded.
- stay on top of your online lectures and readings... this is the part that i feel like makes the class difficult... if you fall behind and skip even one day of lectures, it's going to hurt really hard trying to catch up on everything. so make sure you use those time management skills.