[BenScott]

This was the first history course that I took at Mac, and overall I enjoyed it.

The content was mostly enjoyable and engaging, with a focus mostly on West African cultures. My only complaint is the fact that so many civilizations are crammed into this course, its tough to appreciate them. Many African cultures simply are not discussed at all (i.e. Zulu) however I can only imagine how hard it is to sum up the entire pre-modern history of a continent into a single course!

I found the lectures to be a bit dry, and its easy to self-teach yourself from the text book. For the tests, make sure you know your stories and the names of the people discussed!

The TAs marked very inconsistently, but that changes from year to year so it's not a fault of the course.

The professor made some interesting points on historiography, and really opened my eyes to the bias in history. Cool stuff!

Changed to an appropriate course.

What was the format of the class like?

Originally Posted by ladyh

What was the format of the class like?

I took this course nearly 3 years ago so the format may have changed since then.

I believe I had 2 lectures/week and one tutorial/week. Tutorial marks were based on participation, so as long as you say something interesting each week you'll get decent marks. There was also a presentation in the tutorial.

I can't remember if there was a midterm, but there was a large final essay and an essay-based final exam. As long as you do your research, remember key people/events and can analyse the info you should be fine (as in any history course).