SOC 2230

Truly just an amazing professor. He is extremely approachable and will do his very best to help you with whatever problems you may have. He is very passionate about the topic, and this passion definitely shines through when he is lecturing. This course became one that I truly looked forward to, and easily became one of my favorites very quickly. Each exam is 25 percent of your overall grade and there is a non-cumulative final. The reading was a great supplement, but was not entirely necessary (besides Burglars on the Job, which was very important to read). Overall this class felt more like a pleasure than work, and I felt like I was actually grasping the material because he has this amazing quality of making the sometimes confusing and dense topic both relatable to everyday life. He breaks up the lectures with these interesting stories and insights and it helps you grasp how these abstract ideas play out in everyday life. I felt like my essays (two on each exam) were graded a little harshly, but he does not grade these essays, a grader does it. When I spoke to him and told him that I felt I received an unfair grade, he was happy to discuss it with me. He does have a very unique sense of humor and goes on tangents, but I felt like this only added to the experience.

This class always has a 200 person wait list each semester because it is a unique course. It is not necessarily the "easy A" everyone labels it to be, but with hard work an A- or an A is definitely attainable. I did all of the readings for the course, but I found that the test questions were taken verbatim from the lecture. You have to make sure you write or type everything the professor says with his wording because that is the same way it will be phrased on tests. This may seem difficult but Professor McConnell has a way of repeating important information multiple times and he speaks at a slow pace which gives students enough time to take notes. Although this class isn't like NCIS, it is very interesting to learn about the criminological theories. The multiple choice on the exams are pretty straightforward with maybe 1-2 tricky questions. The only issue with the exam is the short answer. Although they are easy to answer, they are very open ended and require a student to write down every single piece of information they know about that topic. This past semester we had a TA who graded pretty harshly and would take off points without explanation. However, Professor McConnell looked over all of our essay grades and actually gave all of us extra credit for a whole essay question because he felt his TA graded too harshly. The key to this class is going to all of the lectures and taking very specific notes. If you can do this, you will succeed in this course!

You learn about why criminals commit crimes and its an interesting subject. Professor McConnell is good at transferring information and is funny sometimes, so if you show up to lectures and take good notes, then the assigned readings should not be necessary. Midterms were mostly fair, but some essay questions caught me off guard. Just study every part of your notes really well and you'll get a semi-easy A.

Professor McConnell is one of the most engaging at UVA. He's definitely a little weird but he always keeps your attention and makes you look forward to going to class. You don't really need to do the readings for this course, maybe just skim them before writing your discussion posts. Definitely go to lecture though and take good notes. Then before exams just study your notes and the lecture slides (he posts them on collab) and you'll be fine.

I have taken 4 sociology courses at uva (including this one) and I must say that this was probably my least favorite. McConnell is a great guy and knows what he is talking about and is clearly passionate about the subject, but it just wasn't for me.
I think what was annoying for me is that for this semester he decided to put all of the material into 3 exams instead of 4. Which meant that there was more material overall per exam (except the first one I believe). This made studying harder than before since he already focuses on minute details in his exam questions and can throw you off with a free response question on a topic that you thought was not important. His powerpoints are also visually unappealing and very boring with little information on it; so either you have to go to class and pay attention the entire time and rely on handwritten notes, hope that he puts lecture notes online (which I doubt he will next semester since it decreased his in class showing by more than half), or go to office hours. This class is also essentially a timeline of theories which could all be considered valid, so if you enjoy that kind of thing then this class is for you (I found it insanely boring).
For those of you that have had Wilcox, I would say this class is the opposite of him. The professor is great, but the lecture slides are terrible.
With this being said, I don't think the class is particularly hard. It requires a big time commitment for studying unless you are really good at memorization. By not putting emphasis on minute details too much, I ruined my grade on the second test. I would say take this class, but only if you are willing to pay attention every class for the entire semester.

It wasn't "easy-A" never did the readings, just based on the lecture, did the exams and ended up getting C