Professor Terraciano was incredible!!!!! This class was asynchronous, but it was so easy to digest. I will say there are a lot of weekly reading assignments, but its helpful to set up reading groups with classmates. The class was basically 2 essays, a midterm, and a final. Its all pretty straightforward as long as you take good notes and pay attention to lecture. 10/10 would recommend :)

I took 8A with Terraciano on Fall 2015. He is certainly one of the best professors I have encountered at UCLA. In class, his lectures are certainly interesting. Just by the way he talks, you get an understanding of the great commitment he has towards his students
I visited him a few times in office hours, and he strives to get to know the name of every student that visits (he has a sign in sheet, and if he recognizes you in lecture, he'll nod and say hi to you as he walks in). In office hour, he is really friendly and expands on the material presented in lecture.

TA: My TA was Thabisile Griffin, who was certainly very cool. She explained in detail every aspect of the class and before each major assignment

The class assignments were: A final exam, a midterm exam, 2 papers, and a reading response due for each section.

- Reading Response: They were 200-300 word reading responses on the readings assigned for the week. Around week 7 my TA decided that we didn't have to turn more in.

-Papers: The paper's are straightforward, there are no difficult prompts or difficult material to work with. There are 3 prompts (I think 4 on the 2nd) for each paper and you only have to answer one of them. Three page papers. His lectures after the prompts were given out discussed each one of the prompts, so you would have basically a full lecture dedicated to prompt 1 material, another one for prompt 2, etc

-Midterm: The midterm for the class consisted of a matching section ( you get terms and definitions and you have to match them) which was extremely easy. There is also an essay component, which is very, very simple. It is composed of 3 or 4 prompts, and it is basically a response, no essay structure is required. My TA said no thesis was necessary.There was also a bonus question, something a bit trivial but that he mentioned in class. I ended up getting 100/100 (could've gotten 101/100 but missed the bonus)
As a bonus, Terraciano gives out a study guide, which comes with the prompts of the exam, and the matching terms. He gave out like 40 terms but only 25 show up, and the prompts remain the same (I think, unless he deletes 1 of them). There is absolutely no way to be caught off guard for this, as he gives you the necessary material to get an A in that exam

Final Exam: This exam is composed of 3 sections.
Part 1 is a full, well-structured essay that was 50% of the final exam grade.
Part 2 of the exam is divided into 2 responses. You only have to answer ONE of them, you get to pick which one.
Part 2A: A response (like the response from the midterm) based on an image. The image will be pulled from any of the sources or lectures and will come with some historical background to it. Then you will be asked to answer a question about it.
Part 2B: A passage will be taken from any of the books assigned for class. You have to read this passage and answer a prompt relevant to it.
Part 3: This part is a matching section. You are given a list of authors (like Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Columbus, Cortes), and you have to match those authors to some quotes. This section is much more difficult, since it can appear that some writings can be attributed to more than one writer. Some are obvious but others will be a hard pick. Best thing to do is to get an idea of what every author (taken from the Red Reader) talks about (Guaman Poma de Ayala=corregidores, Sor Juana= Education or women).
Terraciano gives out a study guide for this final. His study guide came with the prompt for Part 1, and it showed up on the final exam just like it was on the study guide. For Part 2, it only comes with examples of what can show up for those responses, it does not include the actual picture or response that will be on the exam. For Part 3, he gives a list of the authors that will show up on the test. This is good, since it helps narrow down the list of people you have to study. On the exam though, he gave around 28 quotes, for 12 (I think) authors. So some authors are repeated more than once, but all of them show up at least once.

All of these assignments are fairly straightforward and Terraciano gives you all of the necessary things to do well in class.

The class was not bad. You do have to put some effort in for your grade but its definitely not the worst class I have taken. It is kind of boring sometimes and the type of class that you just wanna skip lecture all the time. The professor wasn't that great in my opinion. I am selling the course materials (a few novels and the course reader plus some midterm/final study aides) for a fair price. email me: smtorna@gmail.com if you would like to buy them.

I loved this class and Professor Terraciano! He was so passionate about what he teaches and clearly wanted all of us to succeed. He would always make lighthearted jokes and play music before every lecture. I highly recommend this class, and it was a pretty easy GE. There is a lot of reading, but I stopped after like week 3 and I did fine. There's 2 essays, a midterm, and a final. He gives a study guide for the midterm and final, and as long as you complete the study guide, you should be fine. The final was pretty tricky though, because we had to match quotes from one of the books to the author, so if you're going to read one book, read the red reader. All in all, this was a fun and pretty easy class!
I'm selling all the books for this class! Contact me for more info! 818-239-9844

I took this class because of the reviews and ratings on Bruinwalk. This class is in fact an easy GE and I highly recommend taking it! However, your grade largely depends on the TA you get, so hope for a relatively nice & easy TA.

Overall: I came into this class thinking it was going to be a boring history class but it was actually pretty interesting. The professor is passionate about this material and conveys the information well.

Workload: There is a lot of reading in this class!!! There are 5 books that are required for this course and reading them all can be a pain. Some weeks you are expected to read over 120 pages! I did all the readings until the fourth week. After that, I would only read the books that seemed the most related to the two in-class exams and two out of class essays.

Assignments: There are two out of class essays. Both are short (3-4 pages double spaced) and are relatively easy. The professor gives you well over 2 weeks to work on each one. There is one midterm, which is comprised of 25 vocab matching and an essay. Lastly there's the final, which is made up of an essay, a short essay about a given image or excerpt, and 25 quotes that you match up with a list of authors. Both the midterm and final are easy as long as you complete the study guides, which go over literally 90% of what's on the tests (the professor gives you the study guides a week in advance).

Grade: 10% Participation (discussion section with TA)
40% (both essays combined)
15% Midterm
35% Final

The best part of this class was Professor Terraciano: he's so sincere. Although he's passionate about exposing injustice, it's clear that he believes the world is an inherently good place.

The class itself was a breeze. There were two essays, a midterm, and a final. I did precious little reading this quarter (i.e. I selectively read sources to find quotes for my essays), and didn't even buy the books. I used the library reserves and borrowed the course readers from friends. I did, however, go to lecture and take good notes. I know people who took the opposite strategy, but you really only need one to succeed.

Terraciano's gives out study guides for both the midterm and the final. These include the essay questions, so we could make outlines of the essays beforehand. I went into both the midterm and the final knowing what I was going to write about, so that made things a lot easier. I did a bit of light studying for the vocabulary section (midterm) and author-quote matching (final) and snagged an A in the class.

CLASS IS AMAZING. I took this class as a GE and I absolutely loved it. Being my first quarter at UCLA, he was very clear and helpful. Material is engaging and you can tell he loves what he does.

Professor Terraciano is an extremely talented lecture. He is also incredibly knowledgeable about his field of study, so he could answer any unprompted question on command. Only got an A- because I screwed up on one of the papers, but overall it was an easy class. Would definitely recommend.

Honestly, if your Latin american take this class, if not he's racist and won't give you an A.

Great professor! He starts each class playing some music and goes on to lecture in a rather engaging way.
He definitely conveyed an intense passion for Latin American history.
There are 2 papers which I found to be very reasonable. Just be sure to write it with enough time to show a draft to your TA.
He gives you possible prompts for the midterm and final--so helpful!
There is A LOT of reading, but I found most of it very interesting. I actually did all of the reading, but I know a lot of people who didn't and they seemed to get off with somewhat decent grades.
I received an A+, and I really learned SO much from this class!