I took Professor Ball's class during the pandemic. SCAND 40 is not a class where you would have to spend hours studying for, but it's also not a class where you could breeze by without taking some notes. Participation is acquired either through a 350 word reading response forum before lecture or by live class discussion to which Professor Ball is very nice about making every answer's point heard. The lectures are recorded to watch later but since quizzes are live anyway, attendance still matters. They are very easy if you did the week's reading, something as simple as recalling the name of the main character. However, the exams were quite expansive compared to how slow and easy the class usually is. It's open note though and very much includes her slide information. What helped for me was having a table of what names were in each story in my notes as there are a LOT of names and they're too complicated to mentally spell out. Overall, not too hard except for the unexpected jump in difficulty during the 300 point exams that had MC and 2 Free Response questions.

I took this because I heard Scand classes were easy. I was so wrong. The exams were way too hard

This class has to be the biggest catfish in the Scandinavian department. I was dumb enough to think that this class was going to be as easy as SCAND 50W and boy was I wrong. It felt like an upper division class: archaic Scandinavian texts translated into English, so you're basically reading old English. You have to use iclickers to pretty much verify your class attendance, the lectures are very boring unless you have an ardent passion for slide presentations and scandanvian literature. The midterm was basically a test on memorizing all the names of characters, dates, roles, etc and it was a closed book exam so you ACTUALLY have to memorize scandanavian names that are very difficult to remember for people who are not familiar with scandanvian names. You also have to speak at least once a week for participation points, if you do not manage to speak( you probably won't because the class is to large for her to choose everyone) you have to write a 350 word reflection on the readings, and those readings are both boring and dense. If you think this is an easy GE I promise you its not. Don't take this class unless you want to fall into depression.

Awful class... Would not recommend taking any classes with Professor Ball... Most unreasonable professor I've ever seen. I don't know what the reviews on here prior to Fall 2020 are talking about, it was an incredibly difficult course.

At a time where the pandemic is affecting so many people, and all departments (Neuroscience, Molecular/Cell Biology, Physics, Chemistry... literally every departments) are giving take home exams and making their classes easy during the pandemic, this unreasonable professor decided to give a timed 50 minute exam (impossible to finish everything in time btw) graded incredibly harshly. Professor Ball is passionate about her subject and the class could have been very interesting and enjoyable, but she's a very unreasonable person, and the Scand department should be ashamed of itself for allowing her to do this. I hope students save their GPA and stay away from this terrible class and professor.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS.... If you care about your GPA and don't want anything below an A, avoid this class. Professor Ball doesn't seem to understand that she's teaching a GE, and should chill with how difficult she makes her tests. I've taken biochem, molecular bio, o chem, physics, and found those exams to be more doable than Dr. Ball's nonsense tests. Absolutely avoid at all costs if you want to maintain a high GPA and want an easy GE.

This course was incredibly interesting and I highly recommend it. Readings are easy to understand, lectures are insightful, and Professor Ball is very reasonable and kind. Exams were fairly challenging and had both MC and free responses. However, the responses were graded leniently and mainly depend on the quality of your insight and analysis. Overall great course!

Though I don't think this class was super easy, I really enjoyed it and I really like Professor KB. I think being interested in the material makes the class easier, so don't take this class if you have zero interest in fairytales/stories/reading. I actually learned a lot from this class and found KB's lectures informative. For the midterms, I recommend going through her slides and making flashcards about any information you could make a question out of. Also, it's much easier to raise your hand and get participation points in class rather than writing a writing response online. Finished with an A.

Course itself was not very interesting. I did not find Ball's lectures engaging. Her homework load is pretty manageable - just readings before class, usually they were not very long although there were a couple toughies. Daily quizzes are very easy if you do the reading. You need to speak in class a total of 10 times to get full participation points, and if you don't manage that then you make up by writing 350 word responses to a night's reading - one of these is equivalent to speaking once in class. MIDTERMS: 60 fill-in-the-blank questions and a response to a prompt in 50 minutes. Definitely not easy, but if you have a good memory and just go over the slideshows a day or two before (which is what I did), the FITB's are usually pretty straightforward and you should be able to do one every 30 seconds (leaving 20 mins for the response, which can be in bullet points if you like). Manageable if you can remember stories and class presentations well, and if you are ok with fast paced tests. Overall though, I wouldn't recommend this class. Take SCAND 50 with Patrick Wen instead.

Do not take this class unless you love reading. The homework for every class consisted of reading a couple stories and so much happens in each one that it's impossible to remember by the midterm. Sure, the in person clicker questions are easy if you've done the homework, HOWEVER, the questions that are asked in the midterm and final are just crazy difficult. Just imagine trying to memorize the plots, characters, settings, languages, meanings, and symbolisms behind 30-40 different stories that are not even in ENGLISH. truly regret taking this class.

Lectures: Professor Ball was a good and engaging lecturer. Sometimes, she would go a little fast, but because she records her lectures and posts the slides, it's not too bad. However, sometimes she forgets to record or there is an issue with the recording. Still, she mostly tests on concepts written down on her slides, so it's not too important if she misses a recording.
Tech: She doesn't allow technology (phones, iPads, etc), so you have to take handwritten notes. You also have to buy or rent a Clicker from the UCLA store. However, this is the only thing you need to buy because all of the texts are available online for free.
Quizzes: She gives an in class quiz every class that's answered through the Clicker. It's usually one question per class, and the questions are pretty easy-- as long as you did the readings, you'll be fine. You're also allowed to miss a few questions. The quizzes are mainly for attendance and to make sure you're doing the readings. If you get the question wrong, you don't get points for it though.
Participation: You need to participate 10 times for the quarter. You can talk during class or write a 350 word reading response. The reading response isn't graded on content, so as long as you write something original about the readings that's 350 words, you'll get the participation points.
Homework: The only homework are the readings and reading responses if you want participation points. The readings aren't that long usually, but they can be confusing sometimes. But, she goes over the readings in class, and you aren't required to understand everything about a text. I took notes on the readings, but they weren't that useful, so I don't think it's necessary.
Tests: The tests were 60 fill in the blank and 1 essay response in 50 minutes. There were 3 essay prompts, and you could pick the one you wanted to write about. She grades on content, not format, so you can write bullet points and don't have to write complete sentences. The prompts are all related to discussions we've had in class. She doesn't give feedback on the essay, so if you want to know why she gave you that grade or on how to get a better grade next exam, you'll have to visit her during office hours. The fill in the blank comes from the slides, so as long as you study the slides, relisten to the lectures, and take good lecture notes, you should be fine. Some of the fill in the blanks were easy (like character names), but some were more obscure (like filling in the blanks of quotes). But, they all came from the slides, and texts that weren't analyzed/ portions of the text that weren't analyzed in class weren't tested. The fill in the blank is rote memorization, so studying early/ not cramming is important.
Final: The final was a take home essay. There's no rubric (and again no feedback), but there are in depth instructions, and you can always ask her for clarification. If you did well on the essay portion of the exams, you should be fine.
Extra Credit: She gave 5 points extra credit for filling out the class evaluation.
Overall, I would take a class with Professor Ball again. She was a fair professor and a good lecturer.