I took this class out of pure interest since all of my GEs are done and I had room to take classes I liked, and never again. For a lower division course, it really doesn't need to be this difficult. Overall, the material is interesting and Prof. Wang's lectures are helpful but the number of readings you need to look over each week is beyond incompatible with other schedules. If you skim readings, you better read it over again because it will find a way to be used against you. My TA was absolutely horrible and grades far harsher than Prof. Wang. His class is honestly fun to learn about when you're going at your own pace but the assignments and how strictly they're graded suck the fun out of it. I'll admit that there are not many assignments but I'd say that's even worse since it impacts your grade a lot harder. We had to write a 2-3 page midterm and final paper which basically are the make or break. The other two graded assignments are weekly discussion posts and participation (which was just interacting with the course website). Because of how harsh Prof. Wang's TAs grade, you will most likely not get a full score on your discussion posts, which brings down your grade a lot. Office hours don't really help either, you're better off talking to classmates about the material. But, I will say that I like Prof. Wang as a person: He's a nice guy, hears out your problems, tries to help in the best way he can, is responsive to emails in a timely manner, and is very lenient with deadlines. I just wish his TAs and grading rubric would make the experience a lot easier

Prof. Wang is a wonderful and passionate instructor. Throughout the quarter, he made adjustments to the structure of lectures as to make them more organized. Assignments included weekly polls, a few quizzes, a few worksheets, weekly discussion posts, as well as a take-home midterm and take-home final. Midterm was an essay, and the final involved discussing 7 passages and writing one regular essay. Discussion is required and participation was very much emphasized.

I don't know if I would consider this an easy GE, but I enjoyed this course nonetheless. Weekly blog posts felt a bit demanding but were manageable. For the midterm and final essays, you're given two prompt options each, but as a whole I considered the prompts to be quite challenging. Prof. Wang as well as my TA were very helpful in answering questions though! Wang even created a forum for us to send in anonymous questions about Korean history, which I thought was very considerate :)