The class consisted of three papers and participation. The readings were a bit much depending on the week, but if you can find your way around them you should be fine. Discussions just went over the readings. The professor gave us enough time to write the papers and the prompts were pretty interesting.

The class was simple and consisted of three main essays. Ended up with an A but the TA graded my two essays quite harsher compared to other people. Consisted of a media analysis (which was interesting), pandemic diaries (super simple and straightforward, and an ethnography.

The grade for this class consists of 3 papers
Mini-ethnography (4 pages, 30%)
Media Analysis (4 pages, 30%), my personal favorite
Pandemic Diary (7 pages total, 1 page journal entry everyday for one week, 30%)
Participation in discussion (10%)

Overall this class is pretty easy, coming from someone who does not like writing at all. The discussions were based off of weekly readings which were manageable. Some were more boring than others. The lectures were honestly pretty useless. The first few lectures were necessary in understanding what anthropology actually is, but afterwards I would say you did not need any of the information from lecture. The ethnography paper was based on your own observations and analysis at an outside place of choice. The media analysis paper was based on a film that we watched for class and watching another movie that connected to that film. The pandemic diary was pretty open ended, where we wrote about our day while connecting it to the pandemic as well as general concepts of the readings/lectures. While the topics were pretty eye-opening, I did not feel the need/want to sit through lecture due to it being useless in the actual assignments itself.

I really liked Professor Aciksoz. He had engaging lectures with powerpoint slides and the material isn't hard to grasp at all, while also being interesting at the same time. However, your grade in this class is very dependent on your TA, and I got stuck with a TA that graded my midterm and paper (called a "mini-ethnography") extremely harshly where friends in other sections got graded very easily. The midterm was not difficult if you pay attention in class, but it is entirely up to your TA as to how nitpicky they want to grade. Overall, this class was interesting and I would take a class again with Aciksoz but just make sure I get a reasonable TA!