PLAP 2030

Final exam was the day after Thanksgiving Break and it was 35%. I had it as a 2 hour lecture which dragged by since she's not super engaging. I wouldn't recommend if you're not in EVSC or politics as a major- it takes too much time away from required classes and won't help your GPA.

Professor is difficult to communicate with outside of class. Advertises office hours during lecture, but seems disinterested and bothered when you go. Tests are reasonable, final essay isn't bad. A lot more like APES (+ some policy) than expected.

I really enjoyed this class. Prof Thompson is really engaging and really knows her stuff. She has a reputation for being very cold, but that didn't come across in lectures. I didn't ever go to her office hours because I thought the TA (Lillian-- she's great!) was more approachable. Exams were really difficult and I had to study very hard to do well. One 5-page paper at the end of the semester, not too bad. VERY reading intensive but the discussion session is really helpful for reviewing the readings and parsing what's important. My favorite class of the semester!

Do NOT take this class, for the love Mr. Jefferson and all that is holy.

I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed kid when I took this class during the first semester of my first year. I was thinking about going into the Environmental Science or Politics arena. This class made me want to run away as fast as I could from either of those disciplines. The teacher was arrogant, lectures were brutally long and boring, and the absurd amount of reading assigned made it nearly impossible to study well for the extremely difficult exams. Added that, the course ends ridiculously, too. Until finals week, our main grade was derived from a single mid term about 6 weeks into the semester (as well as a discussion grade, but its effect on grades is minimal). I had an okay grade on this, but about 70% of our grade was determined in the final week: our wonderful professor gave us a final exam the day before finals week began and had a long research paper due at the end of finals week. I worked hard to prepare for the exam and even visited the professor at her office hours to go over the midterm. This 15 minute interaction is one of the most unpleasant interactions I can remember in my last 20 years of life: the professor was overtly rude, I didn't feel listened to, and I felt like I left knowing less than I did when I entered her office. She even admitted that some of the points I got taken off on my midterm could've been given back, but that it didn't matter because it was only a few points. I also spent weeks on the paper, and visited my TA multiple times for feedback and advice. (I am a strong critical writer who has excelled in several 3000+ level writing-based classes since I've been at UVA). Anyways, grades didn't come in until about 2 weeks into winter break, and I received a grade worth about .8 GPA points less than what I expected my lowest possible grade could be. What made this especially jarring was the fact that I never got any feedback on that last exam or my culminating paper. This is a class where you get feedback on only about 30-35% of your final grade. It makes it easy for the professor and the TA's, because they don't have to actually deal with the students, but if you're a student like me that actually wants to learn, it makes it very difficult to do that. I'm obviously upset about my final grade and what it did to my GPA, but I don't write negative reviews about classes that are simply difficult. The level of academic disrespect that was displayed by the professor is why I am writing this - she was happy to talk about all of her books and research and show her photographs in lectures every Monday, but when it came to actually teaching and interacting with students, you could tell she thought it was not worth her time. The professor operates in a manner that is in direct opposition to the Jeffersonian ideals that this University was founded on.

Do NOT take this class, for the love Mr. Jefferson and all that is holy.