Only reason I'm giving an average rating is b/c of the TA. This class is very dry in my opinion and your grade depends more on the TA than the professor. The reading is a lot every week but after week 4, I just looked up summaries of each one. Mainly b/c participation mattered in discussion. There was a take-home midterm essay and two more essays. The final was some short answers and one long essay. Idk how I got this grade but if you take this class and get a nice TA, you should be fine. Just be warned that the material is kinda boring and that the professor is all over the place. Some of her slides still say from 2010. But I wouldn't say its necessary to attend all her lectures, just look over the slides after since she posts them.

I stopped going to lectures after week 3 as they were too boring to pay attention. Her lectures are not engaging, but her slides are posted and they give just enough information to do well in the class. Luckily the sections are engaging and interesting, and you can learn a decent amount from that There is a ton of reading that we discuss during section, but as long as you know the general overview of the reading you'll be able to contribute. We had a participation grade in section, but I am not sure how we were graded because I highly doubt he knew our names. The midterms are essays, so you are not forced to actually know the material until the final. As long as you follow the guidelines of the essay and use the sources they want you to, the grading is extremely easy. For her final, as long as you know general overview of things and most of the terms, you'll be set.

Her lectures were honestly kind of useless, not that it mattered since you were specifically told not to reference them for the essays. There is a lot of reading, which the mandatory discussions depended on, but you can get by if you pay attention to the discussions and have any kind of background on the 20th century to provide your own commentary (for participation points.) Grading was pretty easy on the essays, which make up the vast majority of your grade.

Soraya is super nice and really cares about student learning, lectures might be dry but that's because the readings are dense! Use your resources and utilize your TA's (shoutout to Courtney!) The class isn't that bad, you'll be fine.