CLASSIC 20
Discovering Romans
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Latin not required. Study of Roman life and culture from time of city's legendary foundations to end of classical antiquity. Readings focus on selections from works of ancient authors in translation. Lectures illustrated with images of art, architecture, and material culture. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Professor Vasquez is an absolute gem!! She is so incredibly sweet, genuinely wants her students to do well, and has been extremely accommodating with everything that is going on with COVID and Zoom school etc. Her lectures are engaging and the homework load is pretty light. There are only three major assignments, which are three essays that she gives extensive instructions for so as long as you try on them you will do well. My TA was also really helpful and she offered to give us feedback during office hours on portions of our essays before we turn them in to make sure we were on the right track. There is no midterm, no tests throughout the course, and the final was optional. Overall, I would definitely recommend taking this as a GE, I had a great time and I was never even much of a history person in high school.
Fall 2020 - Professor Vasquez is an absolute gem!! She is so incredibly sweet, genuinely wants her students to do well, and has been extremely accommodating with everything that is going on with COVID and Zoom school etc. Her lectures are engaging and the homework load is pretty light. There are only three major assignments, which are three essays that she gives extensive instructions for so as long as you try on them you will do well. My TA was also really helpful and she offered to give us feedback during office hours on portions of our essays before we turn them in to make sure we were on the right track. There is no midterm, no tests throughout the course, and the final was optional. Overall, I would definitely recommend taking this as a GE, I had a great time and I was never even much of a history person in high school.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - As a STEM major, I was really looking forward to taking this class as a GE. I was also counting on this class to be a bit more manageable than my other three classes, one of which included a 6-unit psychology course. I did NOT expect to get a worse grade in this class than my major and minor classes. Let me start by saying this: Professor Vazquez is one of the LEAST understanding professors I have had at UCLA. I am convinced that her and the TAs believe this is a graduate-level Roman studies course, or else they would not have such ridiculously high expectations. I took this class in the middle of the pandemic (Fall 2020), and she was not accommodating at all. Her emails were stand-offish and rude, and I found it hard to get in contact with both her and my TA. My TA never elaborated on the writing assignments in our discussions, and we seemed to have conversations that were not very relevant with what we went over in lecture. Speaking of lecture, the slides were ridiculous. They were filled with pictures and sentences (very hard to read), but all of this information is useless! Our entire grade was basically based on the three written assignments (2 page papers), and the grading was completely arbitrary. We never received enough information to know exactly what to do for the papers, and both Vazquez and my TA, Carly, lacked clarity in explaining the expectations for the assignments. When we got the papers back, there was no explanation for the grade, and no feedback. They were only 2 pages, so it seemed like they would be graded relatively simply. I had no idea how to improve or what I even did wrong on each paper, and that was basically my entire grade. When I brought up my concerns with my TA and Professor Vazquez, my TA took weeks to respond, and even then she was on the same level as my Professor: it is what it is and “trying your best” does not mean “being accurate.” On top of this, there was an optional assignment (movie review worth 5% of the total grade). I was on the borderline of an A and an A-, so I decided to do the assignment, thinking it would boost me up just a couple of points. Nope. I got a B+ on it (A 1-PAGE PAPER) despite spending hours on it and genuinely putting in the effort to follow the ambiguous rubric. So this optional assignment ended up hurting my grade (secured my A-), and Professor Vazquez refused to consider changing her method of grading, and my TA never even explained what I missed points on. My main point is: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR VAZQUEZ. The content was interesting but she is a HORRIBLE and unsympathetic professor with unhelpful TAs. (Funny enough, I got As/A+s in all my other, much more difficult classes that quarter. That should tell you enough about taking this as a GE.)
Fall 2020 - As a STEM major, I was really looking forward to taking this class as a GE. I was also counting on this class to be a bit more manageable than my other three classes, one of which included a 6-unit psychology course. I did NOT expect to get a worse grade in this class than my major and minor classes. Let me start by saying this: Professor Vazquez is one of the LEAST understanding professors I have had at UCLA. I am convinced that her and the TAs believe this is a graduate-level Roman studies course, or else they would not have such ridiculously high expectations. I took this class in the middle of the pandemic (Fall 2020), and she was not accommodating at all. Her emails were stand-offish and rude, and I found it hard to get in contact with both her and my TA. My TA never elaborated on the writing assignments in our discussions, and we seemed to have conversations that were not very relevant with what we went over in lecture. Speaking of lecture, the slides were ridiculous. They were filled with pictures and sentences (very hard to read), but all of this information is useless! Our entire grade was basically based on the three written assignments (2 page papers), and the grading was completely arbitrary. We never received enough information to know exactly what to do for the papers, and both Vazquez and my TA, Carly, lacked clarity in explaining the expectations for the assignments. When we got the papers back, there was no explanation for the grade, and no feedback. They were only 2 pages, so it seemed like they would be graded relatively simply. I had no idea how to improve or what I even did wrong on each paper, and that was basically my entire grade. When I brought up my concerns with my TA and Professor Vazquez, my TA took weeks to respond, and even then she was on the same level as my Professor: it is what it is and “trying your best” does not mean “being accurate.” On top of this, there was an optional assignment (movie review worth 5% of the total grade). I was on the borderline of an A and an A-, so I decided to do the assignment, thinking it would boost me up just a couple of points. Nope. I got a B+ on it (A 1-PAGE PAPER) despite spending hours on it and genuinely putting in the effort to follow the ambiguous rubric. So this optional assignment ended up hurting my grade (secured my A-), and Professor Vazquez refused to consider changing her method of grading, and my TA never even explained what I missed points on. My main point is: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR VAZQUEZ. The content was interesting but she is a HORRIBLE and unsympathetic professor with unhelpful TAs. (Funny enough, I got As/A+s in all my other, much more difficult classes that quarter. That should tell you enough about taking this as a GE.)
Most Helpful Review
Walser is really interesting- he definately knows his stuff and he makes lectures enjoyable. After his class, I plan to minor in Classics. His reader is great bc everything is in there so you do not have to take notes in class if you just listen. I wouldn't call his class easy- if you do all the readings (do not wait until the end bc it will be impossible) on time and come prepared to discussions. If you fall behind, it is really hard to catch up. The quizs were kind of hard bc you have to memorize so many terms and only like 4 are on there. There are no surprises in his class, you know exactly what to expect on his tests. He does expect a lot on essays. I definately recommend this class, especially the honors section. I was not going to take it bc I was a freshman and I had not taken a history class in 2 yrs but it was worth it bc Walser leads it and you have a great discussion w/people who actually did the readings. You do not do any additional reading and you only have to do one essay that is 10 pages that is due at the end of the quater. I got an A in this class but I did all the work so I wouldn't say it was easy but it is not hard.
Walser is really interesting- he definately knows his stuff and he makes lectures enjoyable. After his class, I plan to minor in Classics. His reader is great bc everything is in there so you do not have to take notes in class if you just listen. I wouldn't call his class easy- if you do all the readings (do not wait until the end bc it will be impossible) on time and come prepared to discussions. If you fall behind, it is really hard to catch up. The quizs were kind of hard bc you have to memorize so many terms and only like 4 are on there. There are no surprises in his class, you know exactly what to expect on his tests. He does expect a lot on essays. I definately recommend this class, especially the honors section. I was not going to take it bc I was a freshman and I had not taken a history class in 2 yrs but it was worth it bc Walser leads it and you have a great discussion w/people who actually did the readings. You do not do any additional reading and you only have to do one essay that is 10 pages that is due at the end of the quater. I got an A in this class but I did all the work so I wouldn't say it was easy but it is not hard.
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