GEOG 6
World Regions: Concepts and Contemporary Issues
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Interdisciplinary and historical approach to modern peoples, their differences in wealth or poverty, and their local origins of food production. Brief introduction to physical geography and biogeography of each region. Discussion of each region's peoples, languages, foods, prehistories, and histories. Letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - This class was completely online for Winter quarter 2022, so this review may not reflect everyone's experience. I enjoyed this class a lot, though I'm not sure it met the high expectations that I had knowing the professor. While Jared Diamond was an interesting lecturer, the lectures did tend to drag on sometimes. Additionally, both lecture and discussion had participatory parts, where speaking was necessary. The workload was fairly easy: the only homework was 10 weekly 'mini-papers', which were about 500 words, centering on the weekly readings. While they took a bit of time to write, they were fairly straightforward and graded easily. Everyone also had to do a presentation for one of the 10 weeks, though this was fairly easy as well. The midterm and final were both two short essays (about 1-2 pages) regarding overarching themes from the course. They were very easy, though this may partially be due to the course being online. Otherwise, participation was also graded during the discussion sections. Overall, I'd recommend this course for anyone who wants a fairly easy GE with an engaging professor. Be prepared to participate in discussions and have some minor work on the side, however.
Winter 2022 - This class was completely online for Winter quarter 2022, so this review may not reflect everyone's experience. I enjoyed this class a lot, though I'm not sure it met the high expectations that I had knowing the professor. While Jared Diamond was an interesting lecturer, the lectures did tend to drag on sometimes. Additionally, both lecture and discussion had participatory parts, where speaking was necessary. The workload was fairly easy: the only homework was 10 weekly 'mini-papers', which were about 500 words, centering on the weekly readings. While they took a bit of time to write, they were fairly straightforward and graded easily. Everyone also had to do a presentation for one of the 10 weeks, though this was fairly easy as well. The midterm and final were both two short essays (about 1-2 pages) regarding overarching themes from the course. They were very easy, though this may partially be due to the course being online. Otherwise, participation was also graded during the discussion sections. Overall, I'd recommend this course for anyone who wants a fairly easy GE with an engaging professor. Be prepared to participate in discussions and have some minor work on the side, however.
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Most Helpful Review
Professor Wilford's lectures are very, very dry and boring. However, his powerpoints are very organized and can be found on the course website. Although I didn't have an easy time staying the whole 3 hours for lecture, my bigger problem in the class was discussions. I had Alice as my TA. She was really nice and helpful as a person. Yet, I think there was about 50 pgs to read per week, and the discussions are 2 hours long. The thing is, you MUST be prepared to answer the questions about the readings every week. (The readings are not interesting at all - much about laissez-faire, econ stuff;no social-cultural stuff). There is 1 midterm exam, 1 paper, and 1 final exam. At first glance, the exams might not seem hard, but the TAs expect A LOT OF DETAILS on the exams. I ended up with a B- (and heck yeah, I was thankful because I got a D on my midterm). Don't take this class if you were looking for a SOCIAL/CULTURAL class as the description suggests. If you're interested in reading some economic aspects about the "western culture" and the "non-western culture" then take it. Definitely not an easy GE though.
Professor Wilford's lectures are very, very dry and boring. However, his powerpoints are very organized and can be found on the course website. Although I didn't have an easy time staying the whole 3 hours for lecture, my bigger problem in the class was discussions. I had Alice as my TA. She was really nice and helpful as a person. Yet, I think there was about 50 pgs to read per week, and the discussions are 2 hours long. The thing is, you MUST be prepared to answer the questions about the readings every week. (The readings are not interesting at all - much about laissez-faire, econ stuff;no social-cultural stuff). There is 1 midterm exam, 1 paper, and 1 final exam. At first glance, the exams might not seem hard, but the TAs expect A LOT OF DETAILS on the exams. I ended up with a B- (and heck yeah, I was thankful because I got a D on my midterm). Don't take this class if you were looking for a SOCIAL/CULTURAL class as the description suggests. If you're interested in reading some economic aspects about the "western culture" and the "non-western culture" then take it. Definitely not an easy GE though.
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