SOC 3460

Overall, a chill course. Readings were very manageable and pretty interesting. On a weekly basis, there was not too much work. In class, Makarova goes over the material, there's usually a class discussion, and then people also discuss in small groups. Lecture was a bit dry at times but it was fine, and I generally liked this course structure because it was easy to get to know my peers, which made the class environment more enjoyable. That being said, I am also a bit socially anxious and did not really contribute to class discussions, but I did talk a lot in groups and did the extra credit at the end of the year, and considering I got an A in the class, I assume she did not totally tank my participation grade (which is ~20% of the grade). Anyways, you also have to write a 1-2 page journal every week, which is actually a great way to engage with the material and made me a lot more prepared for the exams. There are two exams, both are take-home and timed. You have 90 mins to write 4 short essays for the midterm and 3 hours to write 5 short essays for the final. This is a new class so she might change up the course structure in the future, so take this all with a grain of salt. Anyways, the exams are very fair. She gives you a list of questions for each section, and you have to choose one question from each section to answer, so technically you can also get away with skipping some readings. I am a very slow writer and struggled to complete the first midterm on time, but I prepared for the final by outlining my answers to all the discussion questions, which made it very easy to do the exam efficiently. For reference, she emails a list of discussion questions every week and the exam questions are based on the discussion questions, so if you have a thoughtful response for the discussion questions, you now have a thoughtful response for the exams (you'll still need to edit them a bit because the exam questions are slightly modified). Overall, very interesting and doable course. It was also enjoyable because pretty much everyone seemed to have a different major, which made discussion more interesting because people had so many diverse perspectives.