RELC 2360

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU ARE NOT A RELIGIOUS STUDIES MAJOR.
Professor Jones is an alright professor who is kind of entertaining and funny, BUT HE WAS LYING when he said you didn't need any prior knowledge about Christianity/religion to do well. The readings are super dense and if you didn't know even at least a little bit about the Bible like I did, you would have been so confused. This class's material is so dry and boring but because I wanted to do well, I forced myself to do a majority of the readings.

Your success/happiness in this class entirely depends on your TA, and at least my TA was PURELY AWFUL. He NEVER let his students talk during discussion, obviously cared much more about his PHD than educating us, and when it came to essay grades he absolutely DESTROYED US. I can handle harsh graders, but my TA (Eric Hilker) gave absolutely NO CLEAR GUIDELINES on how to write good papers, give NO GRADE UPDATES whatsoever (literally, the grade book was blank on collab and you had no idea how you were doing in this class), and acted as if everything was okay when secretly many of us were getting Bs/B-s. I ended up with below an A-, and this is coming from someone who genuinely tried in class, did all the readings, went to office hours, and actually participated in discussion when everyone else was stone-cold silent.

This is RIDICULOUS for a class that is supposed to be INTRO LEVEL RELIGIOUS STUDIES. MARK MY WORDS, YOU WILL NOT GET AN A IN THIS CLASS MAYBE UNLESS YOU ARE A RELIGIOUS STUDIES MAJOR.

Jones is a good professor in that he does a great job of explaining the concepts and summarizing the readings, but that is only if you can stay awake. The material itself, in my opinion, is very boring, and his lectures aren't all that entertaining, so unless you are particularly interested in Christianity, don't take it. Isn't too difficult, 100% based on writings which come from understanding the readings, so unless you use a reading when you're writing an essay, it's absolutely worthless. Also, coming from personal experience, writing an essay on a reading you barely skimmed is a terrible idea, so my advice would be to read, and read throughly, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the readings, and don't even open the other ones. Don't buy the course book, it's $7 for one reading. Chris was my TA, kinda a dick, little bit of a God complex (pun intended) and made you feel like an idiot throughout discussion, but generally a fair grader in my opinion, so he could've been worse.

Jones was a great Professor, and I’d highly recommend taking this class if you are looking to fill an area requirement. It’s not an easy A, but the workload is manageable and you can easily get an A-. Jones makes the somewhat boring topics fun and cracks some good jokes. He reminds me of James Corden

This class contains many dense and dated theological texts in the first half of the course before transitioning into more contemporary works after the midterm essay. I found many of the early readings to be incredibly dense and incomprehensible at times, but Prof. Jones does a good job of clarifying what the authors are saying. The discussion sections tend to be somewhat dry, and I found the grading (done by the TAs) to be inconsistent and very subjective, especially considering 4 written assignments make up 85% of the overall grade. Certainly not an easy A; I did every reading and spent multiple days crafting the essays and received minimal feedback and a B+.

Professor Jones is truly wonderful. This course usually requires weekly readings, but they're not that bad. Professor Jones does a really great job at explaining them in lecture. He does his best to make it interesting, even when you can tell that even he is about to fall asleep. I did genuinely enjoy his lectures, though. He is passionated and entertaining. There are usually 4 papers total all semester: 2 short response papers and 2 long midterm/final papers. These can be a little challenging, but Professor Jones will meet with you or answer questions to help out. I would recommend this course to anyone looking to fulfill their second writing requirement, or anyone who just wants a basic introduction to christian theology.

The class itself is great, but the star of the show is truly Professor Jones. He is very kind and understanding, and took time to get to know me this semester. My TA, Blair, was also great. Both were eager to help and were very kind.