RELG 2210

I took this class as a second writing requirement fulfillment and I actually ended up enjoying this class more than I thought I would! I found the lectures and readings to be very interesting and felt more knowledgeable about environmental problems and ethics in general. Professor Jenkins was a good lecturer and he structured the class in a asynchronous manner with weekly due dates which I enjoyed. 50% of your grade was basically 100% as long as you watched the lectures which had questions embedded and did the reading and discussion posts. The other 50% were 3 essays where the first was 10% and the other two were 20% of your grade. I found the prompts for the essays to be intriguing and not too hard to write about but I generally scored around a B to B+ on these essays. The essays weren’t graded as easily but you did essentially get 50% of your grade just as participation. #tCFspring2021

I was pleasantly surprised by this class. I mostly take STEM classes so I'm always wary of classes of this nature, but it was actually really interesting. The course goes over a ton of different environmental issues through different lenses based on specific religions or ideologies. There is a lot of reading, usually three per lecture and each anywhere from 10-50 pages. If the reading was short, I'd read it through, but the longer ones I'd skim or just read the introduction or conclusion. Reading responses were also due before each lecture, so you have to go through at least one reading in enough detail that you can write 200-300 words. There were also discussion posts which was the TA asking some open ended question and everyone posting their thoughts. That was also 200-300 words were generally based on something Professor Jenkins said in lecture. All of that was half the final grade and based on participation. The class doesn't have exams for the other half, but three essays of around 1500 words due throughout the course. The essays were also fairly open ended and you could write about pretty much anything as long as you could fit it into the prompt. Grading on the essay was pretty lenient (I got two A's and a B and I'm not a great writer) and the TAs are pretty understanding about extending deadlines a few days if something comes up. I enjoyed the class overall, though I'll be honest I didn't expect to, and it counts for a writing requirement so I get to check that off my list. Overall a decent class for anyone to take, regardless of background. Good luck :) #tCFspring2021

Best class and best professor at UVA! Jenkins is passionate and enthusiastic about the topics and readings for the week, and his attitude makes class more enjoyable than it already is. The grade is three papers, in class poll participation, and completion reading responses/discussion posts. 40 percent of the grade is purely completion, and the TAs were fair graders but were not great at communication. Each week, you learn how religion and traditions are intertwined into everything around you, and it forces you to stop and rethink your stances on many issues. Highly recommend to absolutely anyone, as it counts as multiple requirements such as second writing and a few disciplines. Please take this. #tCFspring2022

Not a fun class, but I took it as a huge stem guy who is not a fan of the humanities at all. Reading responses are due every class with about 50 pages of reading; however, I got away with picking the shortest one, reading the first page, and making up some BS - they're completion grades as long as your responses are coherent and long enough, I doubt the TA's even read them. Discussion posts are due every week that there isn't an essay due, also pretty much completion as long as it's long enough and coherent.

Class lectures have participation credit via questions asked in lecture, but you can do them from home and they're usually opinion-based or T/F. There are three essays due during the semester (1400-1700 words) on a given prompt - 10%, 25%, and 25% each, with the other 40% being participation. Grades for these are based on your TA - I didn't do great on my second essay and I thought the grading was kind of unfair, but it is what it is.

Didn't love the class lectures, I thought that they were mostly full of buzzwords without saying much of real substance and the overview of the religions we covered outside of Christianity were kind of surface-level and not terribly accurate (at least in my own experience with the religion I grew up with). I wished we'd focused on Christianity less.

In summary, not my favorite class but a decent somewhat easy 2nd writing requirement. The 95% cutoff for an A is kind of stupid as it is for most CLAS classes. Professor Jenkins is clearly passionate about his work, and his lectures are decent but again full of buzzwords without much practical or actionable information. #tCFSpring2022

I've seen a lot of different reviews so I thought I'd give a more recent one for people who are taking it closer to now. This class is comprised of 3 essays (1400-1700 words, not bad if you're used to humanities like me), reading responses for every lecture, weekly discussion posts, and lecture questions. So 40% of the class is just participation, the other 60% are those essays. Grading is totally hit or miss. I'm an English major and expect high essay grades, and not to say mine weren't high, but that my TA was a bit of a harsh grader and provided almost no communication or feedback, especially on the second essay. Makes it very hard to improve in this class when the TAs aren't doing their actual work.

As an English major, I didn't think the reading was bad, but I'm used to reading a ton. Yes, it's about 30-50 pages per lecture, but I thought most of the readings were pretty insightful. As others have said, you can easily get away with reading just one page and bsing a reading response if you want to. I did have to do that when I had more work, but I did like most of the readings I actually read. It's an interesting class if you do the readings.

Jenkins is a nice guy but he uses too many buzzwords—as a person who is used to English profs, that's saying something—to the point where I'd look at my notes later and have no idea what he meant. And as I said before, TAs aren't great at communication, so I'd be unnecessarily confused most of the time. If that lecture doesn't sound like something you plan on writing about in one of your papers, just don't go and do the lecture responses from home. It'll save you a lot of time and confusion. All in all, I have mixed feelings about this class. It's an interesting class idea but has poor execution if you ask me so take that how you will.

material was interesting but an EXCESSIVE amount of busy work, 50+ assignments over the course of the semester as well as three papers that were called "short papers" but were 1500 words each - busy work is a ton of reading responses for every reading and discussions, poll everywhere questions everyday for attendance; took it for 2nd writing requirement because i didnt want to do a seminar and was the only lecture i could find. still would've rather done this than ENWR or a seminar but the busy work was excruciating - will edit when i get my final grade back