<p>Anyone know anything about this class? The ratings of the professor I've seen have been very conflicting. How difficult? Is the professor knowledgeable? Approachable?</p>
<p>I took this class. I thought it was pretty interesting and the professor certainly is very enthusiastic about the material. </p>
<p>It is not like most US history classes that most people have taken, though. The assumption is that you're mostly familiar with the general history of the time periods (~1890s-1990s) & the major people and events. There's not much memorization of facts or specific details at all. There's a definite major focus on labor & social movements, especially the first half of the class which is a lot of labor/class issues.</p>
<p>The class is <em>very much</em> based on "themes" and your ability to analyze primary documents (both readings and movies) and secondary sources (people writing about history). You watch a lot of movies in class, some of which are interesting but some are kind of dry.</p>
<p>There are 3 "short" writing assigments, midterm+final(both are mostly an in-class essay), major term paper (10-15 pages, opportunity to raise your grade if you work hard on it) on your choice of topic. And mandatory attendance in both lecture & discussion :)</p>
<p>In all, probably more challenging than some of the easier cat-6's but potentially more interesting, and I thought the writ-140 topics were a lot better (cause you could write about movies, which made the 140 essays more interesting to me at least). I took 225 as my P/NP GE, though.</p>
<p>Steve Ross is an interesting fellow. I liked the class, although I wish I had time in my jam-packed schedule to put more work into the class -- but I came out with an A- so I'm happy.</p>
<p>Unlike the typical know-everything history class, you can choose the themes are eras/subjects you find most interesting and focus on them, because you get to choose what to write about for a lot of the short answers/essays on tests/papers.</p>
<p>My TA had a forced-participation grading scale where you had to talk in discussion or you'd only get 1 point for coming, and I thought that led to some good discussions because we all threw in our two bits. And once again, we could choose what we wanted to talk about when we contributed, none of that, "Here's a question, tell me the answer from the textbook" nonsense.</p>
<p>It is a lot of reading, but choose your interest areas and focus on them, rather than trying to read every sentence of every chapter -- it will take much less time and you'll actually do better.</p>
<p>Doesn't fill diversity requirement, but does fulfill a requirement for the Visual Culture minor, for those interested.</p>
<p>My son took it and said he loved the course.</p>
<p>oh, and I have some of the books, course reader, if anyone wants to buy used instead of bookstore pricing, hit me up :)</p>