STS 2500

This class is actually an exercise in guessing what Neeley wants you to say. The disparity between the syllabus and the actual material covered in this course is outrageous. I felt like I was showing up to a free association session every time I came to class. The readings are almost unbearable to do and while interesting in theory, end up being drier than the wine you'll learn about .

Jefferson Wine and Democracy was a very interesting course and a good selection for my STS 2500 class. One of my gripes with the course was the lack of feedback on writing assignments. Paper reviews were limited to one or two sentences and it often felt like she would spend only 2 minutes reading the paper after waiting 3 weeks to return the essay. Lectures are pretty boring but largely discussion based and easy to get through. The exams were also a little bit frustrating as they had very little to do with relevant material for the course. The Thomas Jefferson test specifically mentioned questions that were never discussed in class, nor were they relevant to essays or topics. Professor Neely is awesome about office hours and super helpful when it comes to the research paper. Definitely a great course to take, just be mindful of the short writing assignments and sometimes sporadic testing material.

Professor Neeley is a great professor! She is very engaging and the subject content (Jefferson Wine and Democracy) was interesting.

Wine in Virginia was a great way to fill the STS 2500 requirement for engineers. Kay Neeley is an excellent professor--one of my favorites at UVA so far. You can see that she is genuinely interested in the subject and enjoys teaching.
J-term classes are really compressed (only about 8 days of class), so it is a lot of work in a short amount of time, but the the amount of reading and writing you are asked to do is reasonable and the subject matter is interesting. You get to travel to a working vineyard and winery and meet current experts in the industry.
This is a very good class taught by an excellent professor, I highly recommend it.

This class focused on Science, Technology, and Imagination. We read parts of Milton's "Paradise Lost," Michael Crichton's "State of Fear," and other short articles or poems, including the lyrics of "Highway to Heaven" and the movie "Southpark." The subject matter was extremely interesting. We were graded on class discussions, short (very, very short) essays (about 7 for the entire semester), and a final project (about pretty much anything you wanted to research). I got the feeling that only one person in the class got an A but then many students got A-'s and B+'s. Just expect to spend a lot of time reading, but if you email her before the semester you can read a lot of the books over the summer or Christmas break.