AAS 1010

The lectures in this class are not required since grades are entirely based on out-of-class readings. As a result, attendance is poor and mainly limited to students genuinely interested in the subject. Those taking the class for a Gen Ed requirement typically don’t attend, leaving the lectures sparse. However, if you do go, the professor is engaging, passionate about the material, and willing to answer questions.

The professor offers a lot of extra credit—up to 8%—for attending guest lectures, which are usually an hour long and sometimes interesting. Attending these also gives you a chance to interact with her more, and she’s very nice.

Grading is done entirely by the TAs and is overall pretty easy.

40% comes from two weekly summaries: one on a book and one on the assigned readings.
25% is participation, which is based on speaking during discussions, not the quality of what you say.
10% is a short 3-page essay; completing it almost guarantees an A.
The final is worth the rest and consists of two 4-page essays where you cite readings from the semester. While it’s tough to get an A, getting a B is easy.
Overall, this is a relatively easy class for a Gen Ed or GPA boost, as long as you can dedicate a few hours each week to the writing assignments.

The professor is nice; however, the lectures seemed a little unorganized and sometimes hard to follow. The class is lecture style so she lectures with a powerpoint; attendance wasn't taken in class but discussion attendance was required. There was only one formal paper (outside of the final) that was essentially completion and we had weekly discussion & blog posts. Biggest part of your grade is the final exam, which wasn't super difficult but takes a lot of time (two essays; timed 3 hours, ~ 8 pages). The class is pretty standard for an intro class and you do have the opportunity to gain new perspectives, which I liked. There were about 2-3 readings/articles/sources per class varying in length and depth. Overall, the class wasn't super difficult and it could be great to get a feel for AAS with this class. The professor is a great professor but I do think there are other professors that teach the class (when available) that bring more fire to that class that makes it more interesting and enjoyable.

Blyden is a really engaging professor, I took her course fall semester 2023. I really enjoyed the topics that she talked about and just how she spoke about them. This course really helped fill the missing gaps about African American history and showed the misconceptions of slavery and just African culture as a whole. She really put an effort in teaching, and I just overall really enjoyed what she had to teach. When it came to the readings, they genuinely were a lot for me, there were 30 pages plus of different reading a week and plus a book and reading for discussions. Lectures weren't mandatory but if you're going to half-ass the readings please go because they come in handy when you have to write your papers and just understanding the main ideas. You can't really get away from not doing the readings because you have to site them in your papers, and you need to be very detailed and precise and also offer your own thoughts on the topic. I think there were 2 or 3 papers about 8-pages long. For the book you read there's weekly writing on the chapters your read ( 1page). I played around with the fonts and sizing sometimes. Overall interesting, can be a little overwhelming but I really enjoyed it. Blyden also appreciates participation in lectures. The TAs are super smart and pretty nice, they give extensions if you ask/need it.