This is the easiest class I've taken. I think it was designed to be online which is why it worked so well during COVID. Everything is pre-recorded so you can go at your own pace. You do have to complete the readings and attend discussions (which was the biggest pain) but other than that it was great.

This class had some pros and cons, but overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to my fellow history students. Professor Worger is hilarious and his lectures are basically a conversation with the class which I find to be more interesting and easy to follow. Unlike many history professors I've had here, Worger doesn't "dump" a large amount of information on you and except you to mindlessly memorize it. His class is centered on main ideas and I feel like I've learned what was important about the apartheid era.

Worger's laid back attitude worked great for lecture, but I think the structure of the class was a little too relaxed at times. The readings he assigned were amazing, most were novels plus an easy to read textbook that he wrote. However, half the time, most of the class did not know what we were supposed to be reading when since there's no assigned page numbers on the syllabus. In addition, we didn't have due dates/topics of papers weren't given to us until a couple weeks in advance.

The work load wasn't too bad, grades were based on an in-class midterm, two papers and a take-home final. Worger gave a study guide for the midterm in advance and allowed it to be open book, which was really generous of him. One of the papers was about a current event and another more involved class material and was due a couple weeks after the midterm. The take-home final was three two page essays which were not too hard to write.

Final verdict: Take the class! It's a fascinating topic and Worger is just the right professor to teach it.

Professor Worger is one of the best professors in the history department at UCLA. He is thoughtful of other students and cares for them to succeed. He was always extremely invested in everyone's success and understanding of the material at hand. I wish he taught more upper-div history courses!

Great class. I hadn't taken any history classes at UCLA, so it introduced me to academic history writing. My TA was strict, but that helped me improve.

Literally the easiest class you can possibly take.

Selling textbooks "Africa and the West A Documentary History 2nd Edition Volume 1 & 2 text **********

Selling course book: Africa and the West volume 2 by William Worger, Nancy Clark, Edward Alpers.

If interested email me at *************

The class was online asynchronous which worked great for me. Besides that, the class is honestly so easy.
- It consists of you watching the lectures each week and completing a quiz based on that week's lectures/readings.

- There are two textbooks required which are written by the professor and for us he ended up providing us with pdf versions of the textbooks as well as the rest of the material is also provided to you.

- There are 4 assignments spread out throughout the quarter, which were pretty easy, my TA was just such a harsh grader.

- Discussion posts due every other week (one week discussion, one week assignment) that are not really based on the readings/ lecture. They were fun ones tbh such as " pick an African Country that starts with the first letter of your name and post what you found interesting."

- Since it was asynchronous, attendance in discussion was required and there you talk about the readings of the week

OVERALL ITS A 10/10 CLASS

Professor Worger is such a passionate and charming professor who clearly has immense knowledge about Africa and its history. He presents the information through short presentations, and uses the analysis of primary and secondary sources as his main tools for helping students understand the themes covered in the lectures. Given that African history is broad and impossible to cover in its entirety in the duration of 10 weeks, I am impressed by how much I was able to learn during the course of 10 weeks. Not only have I learned a lot about the beginnings of African civilizations, their culture, language and tradition, but also a lot of interesting facts surrounding Africa that may not have been related directly to the course. I highly recommend taking this class as it is both easy and incredibly interesting.

TL/DR: As others said, this class is appallingly easy. The lectures are all recorded, you don't need to read absolutely everything, and the assignments are pretty quick. For more info on the grade breakdown (+ links to all the textbooks, don't buy them lul), see my doc (didn't want to clog bwalk) https://docs.google.com/document/d/15vILblHwWrnV7KnB-sOFzTRnQE2QPA7nmHxj4gdNKBU/edit?usp=sharing