STS 2500

Professor David Slutzky is the best professor I have had to date. The course material was relevant and interesting, and Professor Slutzky really knew what he was talking about. It was a unique opportunity to be taught by someone so knowledgable in the subject material. It was really impressive that, as someone without a technical background, Professor Slutzky was able to talk to engineers about the technical and ethical problems they will face in their practice. Professor Slutzky, in the midst of the chaos of this semester, was the only professor to show genuine care towards his students in matters outside the course. This is refreshing as many engineering school professors lack the basic understanding of and compassion towards the stresses and struggles of students.

The course requires only a series of writing assignments and presentations, which Professor Slutzky thoroughly prepares you for through his in-class lectures. Additionally, materials are provided on Collab to facilitate research. Overall, the course provides valuable materials for engineering, business, ethics, and a multitude of other fields.

Excellent professor. As you probably know by now, the quality of your STS experience is based on your professor and Slutzky runs a great STS. I just sort of wanted this requirement over with and I'm actually glad I took this class. No homework, no required reading (but you'll probably be compelled to at least look over some of the optional articles/readings). It's a class based entirely on lectures, so taking this class means going to class. But that's not hard at all. Even without required attendance you'll want to go to class because Professor Slutzky is a genuinely interesting guy and interesting to listen to.

So what ARE you graded on? A series of papers...I think like 3 or 4 (the final is just your last paper). All under ten pages. I found that they were graded pretty easily. The only thing that will get you bumped down is not following the few instructions he has. I think one of the papers was supposed to be 4-5 pages and mine was 3 (almost 4, in my defense) and that got me knocked down pretty far from an otherwise perfect paper. Kind of hand in hand with the papers are the two minute presentations, graded almost exclusively on your presenting ability (do you engage the audience? did you speak clearly? was it 2 minutes or too short? etc.).

There's also his own personal grade, somewhere between 10-20 percent I think, that he gives out for class participation. That's just because he encourages open discussions during class and wants a way to not give an A to someone who never shows up.

He's super flexible with the few graded things he has. So if you're swamped with other work he freely gives extensions on the papers (you just have to make sure you ask, which I think a couple people in my class didn't and got penalized for it).