This class was very boring. I guess you could say it's easy - the workload isn't much and it's mostly memorization. If you're bad at memorizing, good luck.

You HAVE to go to lecture because Megan's slides do not cover the themes and differences in the different "key projects" that she will then have you write a timed essay about for the midterm and final. That's all her talking so you need to be there since it's not bruincast. The slides do include the key terms and projects though, which by the way, you will have to memorize for the midterm and final as well. I had a flashcard deck as thick as a brick for both exams.

There were also 5 assignments where you had to read PhD level papers about architecture and then write about a page response.

This class is pretty interesting in terms of content. However, prof. Meuleman's lectures are pretty boring. Moreover, there are 5 readings that you actually have to do to write an analysis which can be pretty hard and not strictly related to lecture (they're graduate level readings). The grading of this reading analysis depends, as in many other GEs, on the TAs, who are always a kind of lottery. To help in that sense, I can say TA Kathy gives pretty good grades. The midterm is made up of 3 parts (identification of key projects, key terms and an essay). This requires a lot of memorisation but not a lot of reasoning. It's like, you put in the time on quizlet, you get a good grade. Final was going to be the same, but the virus made the professor change the format to 2 essays in 1h and 30 minutes, which was harder than the midterm (it should have been the same). A good thing is that the class is not cumulative, so the midterm is on the first half of the course and the final only on the second half. participation matters so go to discussion and talk.

As a GE, this class is definitely do-able, with a very manageable workload: 1 250-word reading response per week, 1 midterm, and 1 final. The final only covers the material after the midterm. For our year, each closed-book exam traditionally had three parts: slide identification (giving the key project's name, architect, country/political body of origin, date of origin, etc), key term identification (no word bank provided, but you just have to provide the name based on the definition), and one essay question. However, due to COVID-19, the final ended up being two open-note essay questions, which I honestly preferred.

The reading material for the reading responses is usually very long, dense, and boring, but the responses themselves should not be too time-consuming. Preparing for the exams is A LOT of memorization, but also definitely do-able in a day. The professor provides a study guide a week before which is helpful, and you can look up quizlets from past years to help memorize key terms/key projects.

To be completely honest, the lectures are probably not incredibly engaging to the average non-architecture major, and she does not upload her lectures to Bruincast. The slides mainly consist of pictures so it's not enough to study based on those alone. If you're really set on not going to lecture, I would recommend making a friend or two and alternating lectures. The notes you take during class are only important for the essay portion of the exams.

Unlike lectures, discussion attendance is mandatory and participation is usually graded. I really liked my TA, Luke, and enjoyed my experience in discussion.

If you want free access to my notes/study guides, just shoot an email to shirleelarson@gmail.com! :)

Just a really mind-numbingly boring class. Probably an easy A under normal circumstances, but given the changes in finals due to COVID-19 we basically lost an easy 50 points on our final, and had to write two essays in the time we would ordinarily write one. And given that lectures got way more monotonous after the first midterm, that was a difficult task. This is not a difficult class, but my God is it boring. Additionally, I had Katherine as my TA, and would highly recommend her.

I feel like this class has the potential to be far more interesting but it just falls short. In the first couple of weeks, each lecture consisted of maybe three key projects. They were literally just caves and yet we spent like 20 minutes analyzing each one. But when we got to Renaissance and stuff, it was like 10 key projects per lecture and you would get like two facts about each? Megan doesn't write her points on the slideshows (there are only pictures) so you need to come to lecture or get the notes from someone. There were 5 reading responses to 30 page long, phD level dissertations that took forever to read. The midterm and final consist of memorization of key terms/projects and an essay. The memorization was pretty easy. I just memorized them all the night before using Quizlet. Your grade for this class is heavily dependent on your TA. I feel like it would have been better if there was more consistency between them.

This is literally the most ridiculous thing i've ever seen in my life. The class goes over a few 3-4 prehistoric architecture projects ( think huts and caves) and the lecture material is light, doesn't cover anything in depth, and honestly never answers the questions. I guess because it's a prehistoric period nothing is known for sure, but it bugged me so much whenever the professor would ask a question from the class and go on to say "yeah, i dont know it either because no one knows and we can only assume stuff". whatever, so the lecture is already freaking dry as it is. THen comes the glorious reading responses that are to be based on ur reading of some PhD LEVEL reading material that revolves around the ethical philosophy of preservation culture, and monumentality, and elaborate descriptions of contemporary engineering projects, which are all very difficult to understand ESPECIALLY when literally none of that was dicussed in class. Like, I could just read a random difficult architecture article online and decide to analyse it on my own but im not gonna pay a 60k a year to do that like what? Isn't the lecture supposed to dive into the reading responses or at least in the very least be in the same range of topics? Imagine learning to add 2 and two in class, and having to do calculus for a homework. Ha no