The tradeoff for this class is that it's boring, but also very straightforward and easy. I appreciated that. Schachner is a G.

Overall this class was pretty chill, but chill as in you don't have a constant workload weighing on you but you'd still have to study pretty hard for the quizzes because they are open book but they're on a time limit and you WON'T have enough time to find individual answers.
The class structure is best 4 out of 5 quizzes given every 5 weeks, weekly discussion assignments -- maybe a short 3-4 question quiz or just discussion board posts and one garbology inventory (pretty fun). There's also a paper that counts towards 30% of your grade, it's basically comparing a janky buzzfeed type of clickbait article with it's original source from a journal, best 1 out of 2 papers, so if you do well on the first you can just ignore the second one.
Lectures weren't too heavy but I HATED the Australopithecus ape shit and did the absolute worst on that quiz, got about a 87/100 and 100 for the other quizzes (so don't underestimate the work you gotta put in for the quizzes tbh).
Lectures were okay, a little monotonous sometimes and he reuses recordings from previous quarters so it might be a little noisy and scratchy but not that big of a problem.
To me it was an easy A in terms of if you put in the work, you'll score.

This is one of the easiest GEs I took, I definitely recommend taking the class! Lectures were pre-recorded and posted every MWF. Sections are mandatory and participation is required, accounting for 20% of your overall grade. I had Eden as my TA, and she was incredibly nice and accepted answers in the chat as participation. There were 5 bi-weekly exams and the lowest one was dropped; they accounted for the other 80% of your grade. The exams were 1-3 short-essay questions and you had a maximum word count of 700. Although no textbooks were required, Schachner posted 2-3 articles that you have to read. These articles usually pertained to the exams, but I mostly used command-f to look for the answers. The grade you receive for each exam is 80% based on content and 20% based on writing style. I think Eden is a pretty lenient grader, considering I'm not the best writer. I got 3 As and 1 A-, so I didn't bother doing the 5th exam. I got an A as my section grade, even though I feel like I barely participated, and an A as my overall grade. If you have a heavy workload in your other classes, I definitely recommend taking this as a GE since the exams take about an hour each week (max 2 hrs if you're a bad writer like me).

TAKE THIS CLASS. Professor Schachner was amazing. You can just tell from the way he talks how much respect he has for others and is just an incredible person. Why you should trust my review? I'm from south campus and took this just wanting the easy A. It was an easy A but also was very interesting and kinda makes me want to minor in archaeology now.

Grading: An essay every other week based on the previous two weeks material. Roughly 700 words each and he drops the worst one aka if you do well you only have to do 4 short essays out of the 5. Also participation in discussion is mandatory but my TA (Eden Franz) always had an engaging discussion filled with extra tidbits which was interesting and helped with the essays. Basically just 4 essays and show up.

This class covers the dawn of humanity up until the conquistadors disrupted American civilizations and focused on how material culture and sites explain human behavior. I always associated archaeology with Indiana Jones as in find some cool shiny stuff and put it in a museum but this class really focused on the humans behind the objects. My mind was absolutely blown with how cool the past actually is. We watched how stone tools were made (called flint knapping!) which changed my perspective from dumb humans hit some rocks together to actually viewing them as skilled craftsmen who carefully fine-tuned their tools. We also learned a little about what research is like as Prof. used his own pictures to teach us what surveying is and the other tools archaeologists use in the field. This class also tackled the importance of archaeology today and how to respectfully work with the direct descendants of the artifacts/sites studied, aka how to not continually shit on native and First Nation people. We covered some modern policies that help them reclaim the bones and artifacts that we stole from them as well as the struggle between science and respect. This class just brought up so many different points that forced my mindset to open as I had to imagine who the people behind shiny objects were and I highly highly recommend if you wanna learn about cool things without the stress of a grade.

This class was still online for me Fall 2021 with in-person discussions and a few virtual discussions. I was in the virtual discussion.

The class was easy enough. 5 shorts papers with the lowest grade being dropped along with discussion attendance making up your grade. I would definitely take the class again if I could.

Only downside was that the professor did not have the best mic quality and I often felt like someone was screaming in my ear when watching lectures.

The lectures were 100% remote this quarter, and were posted asynchronously. He broke them up into shorter videos, which was very helpful. The lectures can be a bit monotonous at times, and I lost interest in the material towards the end, but overall this class is an easy GE. There are five "quizzes," which are 700 word essays which you have a couple of days to complete. He drops the lowest score, so you can skip on altogether if you want to. I was able to finish the class 2 weeks early because of this, as the final was just the fifth quiz. I found the discussions to be very interesting. I definitely recommend taking this if you're looking for an easy GE with a light workload, it was about half as much work as my other classes.

He is a very knowledgeable professor and very cute! The things you have to do in this class to get an A.

1. Attend Class and take notes, he has power points online but he has said himself those are there to help him!
2. Memorize sites on a map, they will be on the exam.

He has two papers for his class, both are two pagers. Really easy in my opinion. He will have you summarize two articles he picks and have you synthesis them in a cohesive well written manner. Just don't be lazy and write them a night before.

His exams aren't that difficult it is just a lot you have to memorize. I stopped reading the book after 4th week, but sometimes if you are stuck on a concept the book will help.

Took this while still in online format. Course consisted of 5 exams throughout the quarter, one of which you could drop. Your best four exams were worth 80% and just going to section was 20%. Exams were 2 page short essays that you had three days to complete. Solid GE. Lectures were not very engaging but material was interesting at points. Recommend 100% Schachner a G