This course was probably my favorite class the semester I took it. Professor LaViolette is very passionate about her work and extremely open to helping and advising students. She makes an effort to give you opportunities to do well and makes herself available to meet with students. Ekaterina is also a great TA who is very good at articulating ideas and clarifying the topics discussed in class.

So this class is fine if you keep up with the readings, specifically the article readings, the tests are based off of the articles. I think Ms. Laviolette is really interesting. She is very passionate about what she does.

This class should be really interesting, but it's not. Laviolette is a decent enough professor, but her lectures are very dry and boring. The quizzes were also ridiculously hard too, based on really nitpicky facts. The grade comes from two quizzes, final, midterm, and discussion, and they're all weighted equally which is also dumb. Overall, only take this class if you're an anthropology/archaeology major.

There are two quizes for this class, both of which are extremely fact based and require you to study both the readings and lecture notes. The midterm and final are both take-home and in the form of multiple essay questions. Overall, while a lot of work, I absolutely loved this class, equally because of my interest in archaeology and LaViolette's passion. She really wants you to succeed, but doesn't shy away from asking hard questions.

Great introductory course to the subject of Archaeology. Class comprised of two quizzes and two take home exams (midterm/final). With effort, an A is manageable- in between the two quizzes/midterms, little to no outside work is done. 100% recommend!


(I am also an archaeology major, so I may be slightly biased).

Professor is friendly, really knowledgeable, but she isn't a very good speaker. She's not boring (quite the opposite), but she seems to have a hard time finding the right way to explain things. The quizzes are detailed, so definitely study hard for those. The midterm and final are open notes, and asks you to write about certain big concepts, and are not extremely difficult. Otherwise, a really interesting class to take.

Entering this class I thought it would be one of the more interesting classes that I would take here. However, Mrs. Laviolette did not do Archaeology a justice to the class - you could read a lot of information out of the book and do relatively well on the tests. In addition, she isn't the best lecturer either (not very engaging).

This class wasn't "easy", but I was still able to make an A. You just have to do the reading and make sure you leave at least 3 days to study for an exam. It is a lot of information to memorize, but by no means is it impossible.

If you are interested in archaeology, the class was very worthwhile. I learned a lot and it was definitely an interesting subject. The professor is very passionate about what she does, which makes the course more interesting. I'd recommend the course to anyone.

Don't let others' reviews scare you away from this class. This class was really not that bad. Yes, you had to memorize some things, but they were very straight forward. It was a little dull, but it's an into arch class. Do the reading and leave 3 days to cram for the exam and you will get an A.

No papers or homework, just 2 essay based midterms and a final. Can be boring, and there's a lot of reading that you have to do if you want to do well on the exams. Material was pretty dry sometimes, but I guess that's to be expected in an intro class. Laviolette is pretty fair though, and enthusiastic about her work. Palazzo was nice but I didn't find discussion super engaging.