Couple of books to purchase from amazon for lecture. TA (Jess Wood) graded the papers very harshly, lectures were very boring and the professor went on excessive tangents that were not related to the material. Only one exam, final, was easy to study for once given the study guide. Lectures did not really do me any good in learning the material.

Zimmerman was a good professor who cares about what he's teaching. He goes on tangents at times and I found some of the lectures to be dreadfully boring, but he's funny and does his best to make class engaging. TA Jess was AWESOME and wanted us to succeed, so would highly recommend going to office hours for help. The 2 essays/final aren't too hard.

Two 5-page papers, a final, reading quizzes, & class participation. Lectures are conversation style & follow useful handouts from Canvas. Zimmy loves the subject & he emphasizes genuinely engaging w/ the material in essays vs. just checking boxes. Final is long & difficult and he is difficult to reach outside class.

It was all good until the final exam. Be prepared to write until your fingers cramp up bc he'll have you write for the entirety of the 3 hours. Gotta say the final exam is a complete 180 from the rest of the course in work load.

Zimmerman was a great professor, truly cared about the students and was a very engaging lecturer. Great class overall, but be wary of TAs because mine graded super harshly for absolutely no reason. So if you are looking for an easy A be careful as a TA can make a big difference.

This is my second quarter at UCSB and this professor was nothing short of an AMAZING lecturer. I would take another course by him 100%. He is so knowledgable and if you just give him 100% of your attention during lecture you will learn. Good GE course, only graded by 2 papers and 1 final exam. I would definitely recommend this as a GE!