<p>has anyone taken this class before? I'm going to be a freshman at berkeley and I was looking on the Haas website for prereqs and this course was on the list for the lit/writing requirement so i was wondering what it's like?? thanks in advance!</p>
<p>With Professor Varsano the class is very difficult, and can range from very interesting to absolutely boring, depending on your personal interest in the material. What I will say is that Professor Varsano is a fantastic teacher who really cares about her teachers and students, and the GSIs she had were very good as well. There is a lot of rather dense reading and a lot of discussing (so it is important to do the reading), and weekly assignments as well as two 5 page papers. </p>
<p>If you do end up taking the class, do not be alarmed when you are getting your first grades back - I feel that they end up being much more generous with the final grades than they are with the weekly assignments. Also, make sure to go to both your GSI and Professor’s office hours to clarify questions and just to talk to them. If you’re willing to engage yourself with the material, it’ll be a good class (this coming from someone who ended up not particularly liking the material, but working hard at it and enjoying the class nonetheless). If not, I would highly recommend skipping it for another.</p>
<p>thanks for the reply! yeah i saw that varsano was the professor last year but this year it’s :CSIKSZENTMIHALYI. he’s not on ratemyprofessors.com so i dont know anything about him haha. can you tell me a little bit about what the class is specifically about? i read the description but it’s a little broad.</p>
<p>ah, that’s a shame that she’s not teaching it again. Well, the textbook is a massive collection of Chinese poems and short stories (and excerpts from longer works) that you read from. The main focus of the class was to analyze the main themes of each time period of Chinese literature while seeing how it progressed (we started learning about the i-ching and the oracle bone stuff and the myths about how chinese language was invented). With Varsano the class was very focused on poems, but I feel that it might have just been from her own personal preference. It’s also important to note that some of things you read don’t read very well - they’re translated so not all of the poetic elements come through fully. Still some really interesting stuff, if you’re into literature.</p>
<p>ps that professor has quite the last name, lol</p>