HIST 2212

Good course. It’s unlike any other history course I’ve ever taken—if you’re super into memorizing obscure facts and maps, this should be your jam. Not hard to succeed. The readings are mostly unnecessary, and essentially all the exam content comes from lecture. Although it can be a bit dry sometimes, my lecture notes helped me succeed on both exams.

This semester, we visited the special collections library to view antique maps. Very cool opportunity, it was a fun UVA bucket list item. Matt was a great TA! He was a good facilitator and definitely passionate about the content.

This course is basically a nerdy professor’s brainchild—it’s definitely endearing how much Edelson appreciates and understands map history. However, if you’re more interested in other forms of history, this course may be a bit boring. #tCFF24

I liked this course and I would recommend it if you're interested in this area, or honestly even if you are not. It is not hard to end up with a good grade, and the professor does a good job if making class interesting. It ends up being a lot of reading, but you don't actually have to do it if you really don't want to. There's three papers, a midterm, and the final, as well as some TA points.

A lot of CS majors in the class. The material is really dry and hard to pay attention in class when he doesnt have slides or anything. The material is based off the readings a lot. Theres like 3 essays and 2 exams. Just a really boring class but the prof is really interested in the topic. Really easy to do well and get through the class #tCFS24

Maps is a pretty good course to take to fulfill a requirement (including a CS requirement apparently, I'm not a CS major but a ton of CS students were in the class). If you don't like maps/map history at all, don't take this course. Readings are mildly interesting but not really necessary, and the lectures are pretty much the same every time. Grade consists of 3 papers ranging 3-6 pages, weekly discussion posts, one midterm, and the final. The midterm and final were essentially ALL memorization plus some at-home writing assignments (prompts released beforehand), so if memorizing history isn't your thing, maybe steer clear. I had to study kind of a lot for the midterm and the final, since the in-person portions of the exams were IDs of maps and class terms with no notes. It was a lot of work up front, but the exams are really easy to ace if you put the work in beforehand, and each one is worth 20% of your grade. Edelson clearly loves maps and map history, although he didn't always do the best job of making me feel as excited about maps. Nice guy, though, and pretty approachable–I had a conflict with the midterm and he was happy to let me take it another time. The only TA for the course was Bethany McGlyn, who was competent and communicative. She graded all the work for the course, was a fair and gracious grader, and even offered to read paper drafts before their due date. Although discussion sections for this class were (by nature) kind of dull, Bethany was easygoing and helpful, which made section more tolerable. I believe she is TAing for Edelson in a different course for Spring 2023, and they make a good team. I'm not sure I learned a single thing in this class that is applicable to any other academic pursuit I have, but it was a cool class and I think it's a totally manageable A.