Professor Lawson has clear, engaging, and comprehensive lectures that pair extremely well with his readings. He is willing to chat with me after class whenever I have questions. He helped me understand concepts I did not understand until I took his class. Highly recommend for anyone interested in HBE.
Best professor I've had at UCSB, really funny and chill. Amazing lectures w great studies, videos, and sometimes memes lol. Group presentations were straightforward. Do the readings or you won't know what's going on. This is my 2nd class I've taken w him and I'm taking a 3rd in Fall. Take any of his courses, he'll most likely bring his dog in too
Emailing him outside of class he told me "dont email me on Saturdays I don't work on weekends," we had a paper due on Sunday. No ruberic for assignments, and Killgalen marks off points for no reason, even when following instructions to a T. Ended with 93.7% and didn't round to an A or allow for EC, even tho syllabus mentions EC available. Just bad.
Professor Lawson is one of the most charismatic professors I have had at UCSB. His lectures are concise and very entertaining. The class is about 8 assignments and he drops the lowest score. The midterm was easy and the final is worth 30% of your grade which is a group project comprised of a presentation and policy brief.
The tests were unnecessarily complexly worded. When students asked questions in class or tried to answer his questions, he was pretty condescending.The class is mislabeled as Behavior Ecology on Gold but was actually a Hunter gatherer ecology class. I did like the limited amount of assignments, but just beware that they're graded harshly
His TA (Yoann Buoro) sucks. His TA will take away points for the dumbest things. I had so many points taken away for things that were not even on the rubric. If you want to be constantly emailing the TA about why you got the grade you did just for him to just say a lot of nothing take this class.This TA is so bad beware.
Professor Lawson is good at giving lectures, fairly funny but for people who struggle to understand the material, or try to ask for help in any way, good luck because you're better off figuring things out for yourself. He'll most likely tell you to talk to the TA or vaguely suggest to just try harder if you're not doing well on quiz's and tests.
Professor Lawson was so awesome! His lectures are super interesting, and class discussions were open ended and fun. Homework assignments were pretty straight forward and he drops one. 2 group projects, but graded fairly. The final was fair amount of work but a super interesting topic and format for a group project. Not an easy A but worth taking.
Dr. Lawson put in a good effort to keep classes interesting with his humor. All exams were open book and so were the weekly quizzes and there were not any trick questions; it was a pretty straightforward class. Graded by 2 essays, weekly quizzes, attendance, a midterm, and a final. It's an interesting class if you're in the bio anthropology major.
Prof Lawson + TA Kilgallen were an amazing duo for this honors seminar! The assignments and readings were interesting and relevant to the course. He encouraged class discussion on important topics and provided good lectures on his personal experiences with research. The group project was fun and manageable. I would definitely recommend this seminar
He is a really knowledgeable person and will show you the work he has done in Africa regarding health studies which was really interesting. He is pretty funny and his lectures were interesting. He does grade a little more harsh than I expected but he is a decent professor.
Gurven is very passionate and tries his best to make lecture interesting. Class is graded by 4 homework assignments (only 1 math), and a midterm and a final. He gave us 5 days to do the open book, open note midterm. There's a lot of readings but you can get away with skimming them. The class isn't a super easy A but it is by no means difficult.
Hands down the worst anthro class I've ever taken as an anth major. If you want to graduate or get a good grade, please don't take this class. The lectures and material are confusing and doesn't apply to the homework or exams. FYI, there's a lot of MATH required for this class. I was definitely not expecting an anthro class to assign math HW
He seems laid back and easygoing but that is superficial and not translated to the workload. That can also come off as unhelpful and a little condescending as its clear that he doesn't really like the class or care to be there. The assignments take up a decent amount of time outside of class, but there are no tests.
The actual lectures were pretty interesting, but did not relate directly to assignments. I had to spend a lot of time outside of class on projects and they were graded pretty harshly. The final was really hard to prepare for, long, and difficult.
An amazing professor! He really wants his students to learn and is super passionate. This class required a lot of readings but you could get away with skimming a lot of them - just know the main points! It's a discussion based class, but adapted to an online format really well due to COVID.
Gurven is one of those professors that makes you work for an A, but he does an amazing job of giving you everything you need to succeed. In this class, he did a great job building every week on previous topics and creating a bigger picture and a "why this matters ". He has a great sense of humor and cares about students. Took during COVID online.
I came in thinking this was going to be a difficult class and in many ways, the material can be a bit challenging. With Lawson however, he will stick with you until you understand the material. He emails you back fairly quickly if you have questions and gives feedback on every assignment. He's hilarious and a great teacher, just take him.
I was terrified to take this class, because I am someone who struggles in math. Professor Lawson somehow managed to make stats comprehensible and interesting though. If you pay attention in lecture and turn in your assignments on time, you are just about guaranteed an A.
Hard to follow lectures if you don't do & understand the concepts from the reading but still doable if you fall a bit behind. His office hours are very useful if you have trouble with the homework. 1 take home final and 1 paper. Paper was interesting because he lets you choose your topic. Don't wait to start the take home final it takes time.
There are 5 HW assignments that require knowledge in basic stats and especially excel, but if you've taken Anth 161 or Anth 9, you should be fine. It's very basic excel stuff. The final paper is 4-5 pages long and is very easy. There was no midterm and a take home final exam, which was easy, with the exception of a couple questions. Easy stuff.
Ugh. Gurven is so boring and unenthusiastic. HMWK directions are vague and Gurven proved to be unhelpful throughout the course. He's a smart man, but he is so dull. Going to class was torture since his voice put me to sleep.
His class is difficult. You have to turn in a 1-2 page paper every class, and the midterm is difficult. Requires a lot of in class participation, a very long take-home midterm, a final project and an optional presentation. Don't take this class unless you know for a fact your other classes will be easy.
yikes! He was intimidating and would randomly call on people. Tried to crack jokes, but always talked in a monitone voice. Some of the material was really interesting but I hated going to class, because he was so boring. Some of the information is really challenging especially when statistics and stuff comes in.
