VERY EASY CLASS. This class is a great GPA boost because there isn't a tremendous amount of work to do. Basically the assignments in the class are limited to a five page paper and weekly reading responses (around 250 words).

Do not worry about having to attend lecture. However, make sure to read the textbook (whether you go to lecture or not) because his powerpoint slides and his lecturing aren't as reflective of the exams as it could be. Give yourself 30 minutes each day during the school week dedicated to reading the textbook and the historical documents and you should be totally fine.

I enjoyed this class. It was pretty much a review of the last part of AP US History, with a few lectures of some of the most recent history. Higbie is a good lecturer, but I didn't really feel like the lectures were relevant for the exams. There's one midterm and a final, both online "take home" and open book. However, they were quite difficult. Much of the material was little details from the textbooks rather than bigger themes or things we discussed in lecture. Discussion sections are mandatory for this class, but the TAs are nice and are engaging. Homework for the class is easy, just a 250 word response each week and a 5 page paper on how a moment in history has affected your current day life. Overall I liked the class and would take it again.

Professor Higbie is an engaging lecturer and I would recommend this class. Structure:
3 online quizzes 10% each
Midterm take home paper 25%
Final take home paper 25%
3 Community engagements events 10% (10% total NOT each)
Strike Observation 10% (A strike took place on campus the quarter I took this class so we went during class and talked to workers)
Overall not too much work and I learned history I feel is valuable to know. The quizzes were only 10 questions so it was easy to lose points on them. The papers were not too bad. Very doable to get an A and the material is interesting.

I loved Professor Higbie! He's incredibly intelligent and a very clear and engaging lecturer. The material is actually really interesting and, for the most part, he makes everything relevant to today. His class is a manageable A, though not an easy one, but as long as you put in the time and effort you should be fine. Attendance isn't required, but if you don't go to lecture you're going to really struggle because his slides are mostly pictures and the content really comes from what he's saying. Assignments in this class are broken up as follows:
3 community engagements: You have to go to 3 events outside of class and relate them to class material in a short write-up with a selfie of you there. You don't have to find the events yourself, he emails you throughout the quarter of events you can attend to get credit)
3 quizzes: Be prepared, these quizzes are not too easy. They're 10 questions, roughly half lecture material and half reading material, and the questions are either extremely easy or extremely specific and you have a 1 hour limit on them. I'd advise getting e-textbooks so you can search for the textbook questions (there were 2 textbooks, and he usually specified in which book the question came from) and typing down everything he says in lectures (even when he's discussing an illustration, because sometimes he'll put an illustration from one of his slides and ask what it means/what it refers to)
1 in-class assignment: I guess this varies- for our class, we had to attend a strike that was taking place on campus during class and just write a 2 page write up on it
2 essays: It was originally 1 essay and a final exam online, but he switched the final and just gave us 3 prompts to choose from. Essays are really short, about 4 page limit. Your citations have to be from lecture and the books/online readings, so just keep up on the readings so you don't struggle with it (you should probably be fine if you just take note of what pages certain concepts are on so you can refer back to them for the essays, the readings are way too dense to take notes on)

Prof Higbie was probably the only Professor I had this quarter who was genuinely caring and sensitive for the student's well-being during the pandemic. The course was on "Re-Imagining the Post-Pandemic Economy" and I found it engrossing to have discussions about inequality and injustice in the US, and how the pandemic has shed new light on issues that used to not get talked about as much. He encouraged conversation among the students, beyond that of the course material, and I always had a good time in the course. It met only bi-weekly, which was really nice because there was lots of time to complete readings, but I loved the class so much I wish it could have met more! If you see his F.T. Higbie for any Fiat Lux you see, definitely take it. Excited to take one of his other courses in the Labor Studies department one day.

Professor Higbie is an absolute gem who genuinely wants all of his students to succeed. Your grade is made up of 2 midterms, each 500-750 words, and one final paper with 5-7 pages. These assignments are quite straightforward and he even provides a rubric. Although some students complained about the T.As grading, I found as long as you followed the directions you would get an A. I probably would not take this class again (even for me as a History major) this class was quite dull and lackluster. I feel like if I were to take this class in person Professor Higbie's charisma would have made this class 10000% times better. If you are in desperate need of an upper-division elective, this one definitely is not bad-as long as you are a strong writer and trust your writing skills.

The professor is super nice and caring, but this class was a mess. The TA's and professor were on different pages and all of the students felt confused about the grading scale. It seemed nearly impossible to get an A with such different feedback that often contradicted itself. I would take this professor again if he had better TA's.

The lectures were both live and recorded, so we were free to watch them on our own time. Professor Higbie was very open and personable, and the class was not difficult overall. The instructions for our three papers were very clear and seemed straightforward. However, many of us were confused by the rubric and the vague feedback on our papers. Not to alarm you- workload was very reasonable, it was the grading that was a bit unclear. I'd recommend going to office hours.

This was a really great class. I never would have taken it if not to satisfy a requirement for my minor and I'm so glad I did. Professor Higbie is HILARIOUS and you can tell he's extremely extremely intelligent. The lectures move really quickly which can be stressful at times because you're trying to write everything down. He posts the slides online but doesn't really lecture from the slides anyway, so it's not too helpful. The midterm consists of key terms, short answers and an essay, and you really have to read as much as the textbook as you can to get a good score. The textbook (Killing For Coal) is annoying because it reads like a novel, it's not so simple to find an answer in there. Also, there was no final exam, just a final essay, so you don't really have to read anything the second half of the quarter. The only extra credit opp I remember was from a game we played in section, so if you want extra cred you have to go to every section.

I really enjoyed this course! It was really interesting to learn about working class movements and their significance. Professor Higbie is a great lecturer and made them very engaging and easy to follow. The workload was pretty light with two 2-3 page (double-spaced) assignments, random short discussion posts/replies, and a 7 page (double-spaced) maximum paper. There was a lot of assigned reading (and they're really interesting!), however, you can get away with relying on lectures to keep up until it's time for the paper, but the syllabus and slides he provides allow you to pinpoint which readings would be important in your paper so you can miss others if needed.