I feel that the experience of this subject was definitely subjective based on whether or not you were able to attend lectures. As somebody who wasn't due to clashes, I was missing the discussions and lecture tasks that the lecturer insisted on being within the lectures rather than within the tutorial, making only 1/3 of the lecture actual new material with most new material being learned instead from convoluted readings. Regarding the subject content itself, "Alexander the Great" is definitely used as a hook to get people in, as Alexander himself is only really relevant in the first half of the subject before the focus moves to aspects of Hellenistic society overall. It seems that the subject has been more engaging in previous years, and I have enjoyed the lecturer Lieve in other subjects so it may have just been an off year or the way they have chosen to organise this subject specifically that I don't enjoy. The assignments were two essays - one with several question prompts and the other a free choice research essay, with good feedback given by the tutor. Still, I would not have recommended to take this subject this year, and instead wish I had done Beyond Babylon.

Anonymous, Semester 1, 2023

The classes and lectures for this subject are entertaining, and intellectually stimulating. There is a lot of freedom in the subject for you to explore your interests despite a narrative emphasis on Alexander the Great. The subject is also research-essay focused, and demands a good grasp on how to write a good essay to get a H1.

Anonymous, Semester 1, 2019

The topics of this subject covered in the lectures are interesting as they covered a variety of areas from the Peloponnesian War to the different empires that came from Alexander the Great's death. However the subject coordinator Dr Gijs Tol marks really harshly and this is not helped by his feedback for the weekly 200 mini-essays being generally unhelpful as they focused on pointing out the flaws of your responses without offering much constructive criticisms on how to improve writing your responses. In addition, the readings are more focused on narrative accounts of historical events relevant to this subject that feels like you are reading a stream of consciousness that jumps from topic to another without much indication and makes it hard to do a critique on them. Don't do this subject unless you are absolutely keen on the history of ancient Greek culture and the Mediterranean World.

Anonymous, Semester 2, 2016