Comparative history of how two great cities were transformed from pre-modern to modern; focus on architecture and design as well as politics, economics, and culture; emergence of new ideas about the very concept of "the city."
4
UnitsOptional
Grading1, 2, 3
PasstimeNot open to freshmen
Level LimitLetters and science
CollegeLecture
soooo boring. the lectures are extremely heavy and they are mandatory. if you miss one lecture you miss like an entire unit because he doesn't post his slides. there's also papers on top of midterm and finals. DO NOT TAKE THIS GE
Prof. Wittman is a great speaker but his lectures are clunky. He's knowledgeable and passionate, but the course isn't structured very well. You will be memorizing A LOT of material for few exams. Memorize what he says and you'll be fine. Exams aren't curved much and he doesn't bump grades. I would avoid this class if you want an easy A.
It is so important to take notes for this class. I really enjoyed this class and I found Professor Wittman to be interesting and engaging!! I would recommend getting notion or another app where you can insert pictures with your notes. Attend all lectures and use Quizlet to memorize dates, locations and sites. It is very hard for a G.E. though...
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If you have an interest in architectural history then Wittman is an excellent professor to take. His courses are lecture heavy but they are very interesting (personally, I find them enthralling). 142F was a new course for this quarter and he was a bit disorganized but I've taken several other courses with him and that's typically not an issue.
Lecture slides have little information on them, so be prepared to takes lots of notes (attendance is also mandatory). Had a midterm, in-class essay and final - midterm was supposed to be 5 IDs and two short-essay questions but he made it 15 IDs without telling anyone ahead of time. Getting a good grade is doable you just have to put in lots of work