There are weekly two page informal papers which I thought would be annoying but I actually sorta liked and wasn’t too much on my plate. That was pretty much the only homework besides the readings which I never did but that hardly ever affected me. Burke is engaging and nice and I always felt like if I needed to I could talk to him. Took it for a GE and hated the material but still didn’t mind this class one bit.

SELLING TEXTBOOK required for the course! Epic of Gilgamesh by George (London: Penguin, 2003). Contact me at johntheghost@g.ucla.edu!

Despite me passing both the midterm and final with an A+, I failed the class. This is primarily because of the weekly papers that were due which were graded as if it were English essays. Overall, the class is very easy especially if you're interested in ancient history, but the 2 page papers were very annoying and didn't help at all.

This class had a heavy workload for a GE, but I learned so much. The weekly readings are complicated; skimming and taking a few notes are all that is necessary. I enjoyed lectures and discussions and found all the topics interesting. Any lapse in clarity was due to the ambiguity of the records available for such ancient history. I felt that this class was comprehensive without focusing too much on one place (we jumped regions from the Near East to Egypt to the Mediterranean a lot).

The class has one midterm and final (define terms, short response, primary document analysis w/ questions, long response), participation in section and 8 weekly reading responses that required us to include 20 key terms from the week (lowest grade out of 8 was dropped).

SO. MUCH. INFORMATION.

The professor does not make clear the important information, there is no study guide provided for the midterm or final and the amount of weekly readings are ridiculous.

I personally did not do all of the weekly readings until it came to studying for the midterm and final, but I would skim the required section readings so I could participate in class.

Generally, the lectures are a good road map for what is important to study but even then it is important to also read/skim the weekly readings.

I went to my TA’s office hours at least once a week to get the main points of that week’s lectures, and I honestly do not think I would have gotten an A+ without their assistance.

While I enjoyed the course material I wished the information for the midterm and final would have been clearer by the professor because I would have saved a lot of time from studying.

I’m a north campus major, poli Sci, and I took this as a GE. I would not recommend putting in as much work as I did for a GE, but if you are genuinely interested in the course material and are willing to put in a ridiculous amount of time to study then you should take it, otherwise I would advise you to think of taking another course.

For a GE, this class had a pretty heavy workload: a midterm, a final, and two papers. There was a lot of reading assignments but they weren't necessary to do well in the class. The midterm and final both had a lot of terms to memorize, but creating a group and dividing the terms up made it much more manageable. As long as you were familiar with all the terms and their connections to one another, the tests were not difficult. It did require a lot of memorization. The papers were rather long and did require reading multiple books. I wasn't extremely intrigued in the topic but still found it to be interesting, although lectures could get a bit boring. I would like to sell the book needed for this class, The Epic of Gilgamesh, at a low price, contact me at (951) 534-4969 if you're interested.

This was a class where despite trying to follow along with lectures and getting extra help, the tests could screw you over really easily. The study guides had 90 terms and suggested knowing the who, what, when, where of all of them - but the midterm and final focused on 20 of the terms at most in depth. The tests included key terms, short answers, and a short essay (no multiple choice) so in the end I knew a little about all 90 terms but not enough to write a substantial amount about any of them. Also two papers due within a week of each other at the end of the quarter. The only reason I passed was because of the help from my TA, and I'm not sure whether the others help in the same way.

As someone who is interested in anthropology and history I figured this class would be cool. I was sorely mistaken though, and honestly have a lot of disdain for this course. The lectures feel super disjointed/underdeveloped. Prof Burke definitely cares about the subject but class is not a very engaging experience. There are a whole lot of readings assigned, most of which are difficult to interpret and analyze because of the language/style used. The readings are not discussed thoroughly during section; section also kinda feels random. I read a very minimal amount of the readings and got an A+ on the midterm, which sort of begs the question of how necessary it is to assign so many. Overall, I would not suggest this course to anyone unless you already have a deep and abiding love for ANE/Mesopotamia/Gilgamesh/incoherent lectures.

I took this class because the ancient near east is a pretty interesting subject to me and I wanted to learn more about it. Burke is cool and you can tell he's passionate about the subject but I feel like the lectures sort of dragged on sometimes. The workload kind of sucked as we had to write two three-page papers (one on an art piece from LACMA and one on a lecture attended outside of class) and a seven page paper comparing the perception of kingship in two out of three ancient texts, in addition to a midterm and final. Those papers were all due towards the end of the quarter so it's definitely easy to procrastinate and feel overwhelmed. I felt like the midterm and final were really easy if you just studied the study guide. It was a lot of names to remember but it's really not that bad. Having Danielle Candelora as a TA was awesome. She was super chill, approachable, and willing to help with whatever you need. Overall it was a decent class but if you're looking for a super easy GE, I'm not sure this would be it.

Burke is very passionate about history and especially the Ancient Near East, but he is absolutely terrible when it comes to spreading that passion among his students. He is a very dry and boring lecturer, and if you are not a history buff you will not enjoy this class. I could hardly keep my eyes open and eventually stopped attending lecture completely. The papers are relatively easy, but the 7 page one can be a bit tedious especially if you don't read the books. The midterm isn't too bad since it's a mix of multiple choice, fill in the blank, map, and short answer. However the final was completely multiple choice, with TONS of names that all sound the same. If you aren't prepared to study your ass off for the final just make sure you get good grades on everything else and you'll walk out with at least a C.