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Learner Reviews & Feedback for The Ancient Greeks by Wesleyan University

4.7
stars
1,989 ratings

About the Course

This is a survey of ancient Greek history from the Bronze Age to the death of Socrates in 399 BCE. Along with studying the most important events and personalities, we will consider broader issues such as political and cultural values and methods of historical interpretation....

Top reviews

TK

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Absolutely fantastic course with a wonderfully calm lecturer who delivers complex situations in an understandable way. The course material is superb and opens up avenues to explore. Thank you so much.

BB

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Super interesting, Andrew Szegedy-Maszak was an amazing teacher, the course was great, well condensed but it was so interesting that I would not mind a follow up course with more detail !

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501 - 525 of 582 Reviews for The Ancient Greeks

By Ken K

Mar 28, 2021

A broad overview of Ancient Greek history from about 1500 BC to Alexander the Great. The professor is obviously qualified but seems uncomfortably self-conscious on video. The ten minutes estimated for the reading assignments are a gross underestimation if you actually attempt to complete them, and many of the links to the reference material do not work. Still, as a free course it is a pleasant alternative to a history book. The quizzes at the end of each module help focus learning.

By Elsa A

Sep 7, 2015

Excellent course! Very knowledgeable professor, yet easy and pleasant to follow. The programme is well structured and the content approached with some depth (considering the introductory nature of the course). I would have loved to see, though, a focus more on philosophy (pre- and post- socratic), visual arts and the Hellenistic period, as it is most of the times neglected, even in today's historical accounts. Hope to see more courses on Classical Studies soon at Coursera.

By Linda S

Jul 27, 2023

Very, very difficult for an 83 year-old but I did it with the Lords help. It was fascinating to learn all the facts that I did. As far as the review quizzes were concerned it would have been a help if on the questions which said "mark all that apply " I knew how many of the choices you wanted. Thank you for the opportunity to retry the quiz. Is there any certificate offered with this course? Also thank you for the opportunity to take these free online courses.

By Elizabeth O

Nov 22, 2017

lectures were excellent--comprehensive, well paced, interesting. I wish that there had been more of an introduction at the outset that framed what we would be learning in the course (date ranges, that it would be focused on Athens, etc.). For a learner completely new to Greek history, understanding these boundaries at the outset would have been a nice framework. Otherwise, excellent course--thank you!

By José E S V

Jun 13, 2017

El curso ha sido muy interesante y ameno. He aprendido mucho y sobre todo me he divertido. El profesor (los videos) ha introducido los conceptos más interesantes de forma corrrecta y el material del curso es bueno; por decir algo me hubiese gustado que alguno de los recursos fuese en español aunque entiendo que ello sea muy difícil. Me gusta la historia y solo aprendo por hobby.

By BARANIAK

Jun 11, 2020

Ces cours m'ont redonné une bonne vue d'ensemble sur l'histoire de la Grèce ancienne

et fait découvrir des aspects que je ne connaissais pas ou que j'avais oubliés.

Merci à notre éminent professeur pour la clarté de son exposé, son calme et sa bonne prononciation

qui m'a permis avec un sous-titrage en anglais d'améliorer ma compréhension orale de l'anglais.

By Yashvardhan A

Jun 5, 2020

This was one of the best online courses that I have been part of; The course was enlightening and informative and the teacher put it forward in a way that was easy to digest and interesting. The teacher himself is an interesting figure. My only complaint would be that some of the reading links that were given not viable to read or access anymore.

By David F

Sep 10, 2015

Good introduction to the period - balances political history with wider social and cultural topics. Well supported by original source material. Maybe the expectations of weekly reading are set a little high for many students. I personally found the sections on early Greece particularly interesting as I was least familiar with that era.

By Crystal H

Dec 29, 2023

Truly excellent course on Ancient Greece. Depth and content of lectures is remarkable. The only reason I did not give the course fives stars is that many of the links to the required readings do not work and I had to search for the primary sources myself in order to complete the readings. Highly recommend this course!

By James G

Jun 7, 2019

Good value for money. It provides a backbone structure for the 1000 years or so of Greek history. beware of the time requirements for the assignments - the course says a reading assignment is 10 minutes - for 100 pages of Thucydides - I often found it was more like a month! The course took me about 9 months to complete.

By Andreea D R

Nov 15, 2015

The course was very interesting. My recommendation would be to also include videos as resources, where possible. For example, I found videos of 'Medea' and 'Antigone' on Youtube and watched them and loved them! Since it's theater, it's completely different seeing the play than just reading it.

By Roberto G G

Jul 16, 2020

My only concern is about the quizzes in general. Be prepared to questions about details that aren't the most crucial thing to understand the big frame of History, nor were they emphasized in the lecture. It's a kind of a tricky question. Besides this annoying thing, the course is helpful.

By Bradford K

Jul 12, 2017

Very interesting course! Combined aspects of art, architecture, military conflicts, political developments, literature, and philosophy into a wide-ranging overview of ancient Greece. Helped to put a lot of things into perspective. Good use of visuals and supplemental reading material.

By Suzanne M Y

Oct 25, 2015

I had forgotten how much reading there is! I didn't have a lot of time, but I enjoyed the lectures a lot and it revisited my interest in history and ancient civilizations. I think I learned more from this than the Ancient Civ class I took many years ago in college! Most enjoyable!

By S. A S V

Dec 5, 2020

Muy difícil para mi persona. Se me dificultan mucho los nombres de personajes, lugares y guerras en griego. Ofrezco una disculpa. Las exposiciones del profesor son excelentes. Las lecturas se me dificultan por ser tan extensas y mi dificultad para leer en la computadora. Gracias.

By Felipe D

Mar 27, 2021

very integrated and profound course. a great experience overall. the only problem i must note is that there is no feedback in the questionaries: sometimes i had problems figuring out what was i wrong about. with that aside, i believe this was a wonderful and enlightening course.

By Sue B

Jun 6, 2020

I enjoyed that, but would have liked it to be longer and therefore more informative. I would particularly love more about the literature and philosophy during and after the Peloponnese war, and subsequent events e.g. Plato's trip to, and involvement with, the tyranny of Syracuse

By B. S

Mar 3, 2023

Excellent course. The professor clearly loves the subjects and explains clearly and with a lot of a very subtle passion that I really enjoyed.

My only problem with it is that a lot of the links for the reading material don't work. Only reason I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5.

By KayeDowning@Comcast.net

Nov 20, 2021

What detracted from the course was the many reading assignment broken links. You could not do the assignment because the assignment was not there. Fix this problem and you will have a great course.The lecturer was excellent. I would like to take another course from him.

By Grace P

Sep 2, 2022

The lecturer was brilliant, and the lectures were easy to understand as an aspiring ancient history student. A lot of the links to readings didn't work, but I managed to find other versions online. Timings for readings were way off though, I spent roughly 1hr on each

By Víctor H A G

Jun 4, 2017

Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, es un gran profesor de historia Antigua. Su didáctica es ágil y amena, posee un adecuado manejo de los conocimientos que logra eficientemente transmitir. He aprendido mucho sobre la historia antigua de Grecia. Gracias profesor Andrew.

By Anthony L

Aug 28, 2017

Great romp through Ancient Greece. Lectures are wonderful. Note that there is a fair amount of reading required, and the time required to get through the readings are very understated. I would recommend this course to anyone interested in this topic

By Colin H

Jan 22, 2021

Throughly enjoyable course & the course content was well spaced and presented. Slight annoyance at some of the background traffic noise in a few of the lectures, but this didn't spoil my overall enjoyment of the topics being discussed.

By Wendell H

Jan 16, 2020

I very much enjoyed the lectures and wish there were more of them. The only “criticism” I can offer is that the description of the reading assignments as requiring 10 minutes each to complete is woefully immaculate and misleading.

By Rafael M

Nov 23, 2015

It is a good course and the instructor is very knowledgeable on the subject. It´s just that, after a while studying about wars it seems that there´s no ending or purpose. It is a very good analisys though.