HIUS 3071

I came into this class not really knowing a lot about Antebellum America and thinking it was pretty boring, but this class really proved me wrong. The required texts are all pretty easy to read and digest (I actually ENJOYED reading Liberty and Power, and thought Apostles of Disunion by Dew was a great addition for the last couple of weeks), and while there could sometimes be a decent amount of other sources to read, I felt they helped add to the course enough to justify. Professor Varon is an extremely knowledgeable lecturer who weaves a story with the lecture itself. Some of the material can be a bit dry, but she likes to change up the perspectives often enough to where you're not hammering the same point over and over again for too long. She also is extremely enthusiastic to answer questions to the best of her ability, which makes for a more relaxed environment open to discourse. The workload for us was discussion section/participation grade, term paper, midterm and final I believe, and all of them were, in my opinion, pretty reasonably graded, however that is up to the TA and how they want to grade things (shoutout to Jeremy). Great class, great professor, it's really worth taking it if you can.

Prof Varon's lectures are so good that after I graduated, I literally went back and watched their recordings on Collab just to relive this incredible learning experience. Her lectures are articulate, full of information, and fair and balanced regarding a seriously loaded subject. This is fascinating stuff. There is a moderate workload, though.

This is a course that has a lot of writing that is not disclosed up front. The midterm is 2 (5-6 )pages and so is the final. There is also an 8-10 page paper. I liked professor Varon and thought she was a good lecturer. I found the class pretty boring as a history major and the lectures did get repetitive. I wouldn't recommend this class because there are much more interesting history classes than this one. #tCFfall22

This class was okay at best. Professor Varon is a very nice person, and the structure of the class was fine—two 50-minute lectures and one 50-minute discussion per week. My only complaint about this course is the grading. While the weighting of grades was perfectly reasonable, the TA didn’t upload any grades throughout the entire semester. I only found out my grade by checking SIS an hour before grades were due. Personally, I don’t enjoy being left in the dark, especially when it comes to my grades. However, if that doesn’t bother you, this course could still be a good fit.

This class was pretty cool if you want to learn more about antebellum politics. Professor Varon was very knowledgeable and the TA Kat was amazing and so kind. The classes are a straightforward lecture and the primary workload is two 4-5 page papers for the mid term, a 10 page paper 3/4 of the way through the class, and a final paper of about 5 pages. Beyond that the only real work was readings before discussion each week. It probably depends on the TA but I found that the primary sources were most important to read before discussion, and these sources were not too long.