ENWR 1510

Professor Shaman is a pretty decent professor and one I would recommend for anyone taking ENWR 1510. Our class followed the art of observation, having us go outside to observe different things around Grounds. And while it initially started, for me at least, as something I thought wouldn't take me anywhere, I did find myself eventually applying what I learned from the class to the outside world. There are only two essays for the course, however, there is consistently a reading before class and a discussion post after class about what you observed that day. A lot of these ENWRs emphasize an open curriculum, and Shaman's does just that.

Prof Shaman is the best! He really and truly cares about his students deeply and wants to help them get acclimated to college life. Most classes are very discussion based and rather lighthearted (we spent almost the entire first class talking about the UVA crossing guards iykyk), with the last 30-45 mins of class being time to go out of the classroom and observe. There are several times throughout the semester where you'll ask "so what's the point of this" after walking out of class, but you will definitely gain some new skills by the end of the semester.

Decently easy A. Grade consists of discussions that are due after each class that take no more than 15 minutes and are basically a participation grade, along with an actual participation grade that together are 50% of total grade. There are readings due before each class that are usually pretty simple, not very long, and just meant to spark discussion in class (so do them!). Then there are two papers that are graded very fairly and are each 6 pages plus a reflection that will be a couple of pages, and each of those are 25%. The hardest part of these papers is just getting started, but once you're a paragraph in the page limit will fly by.

Both papers are rather unconventional, with the first being basically a synthesis of all your observations in-class that are focused around a specific topic, and the second being a more traditional research paper but is almost exclusively based on identifying and posing a problem related to your topic from the first paper, rather than trying to solve said problem. As I said though, these are pretty easy to write once you get started.

I would definitely recommend this class and Prof Shaman to anyone, as he made my transition into UVA much easier!