AMST 2001

Fair warning, Fall 25' attendance was required and taken through iclicker which they made you pay for. There was also assigned seating which they keep track of. Grading is attendance/ participation, some "pop" quizzes (they may hint at one the preceding class), weekly journal writings on the weeks reading, and then pretty much your entire grade is on one midterm and a final. Both exams are a lot of writing and require good knowledge of the sources provided which add up quick since there is at least one reading assigned before each class. I can see how someone who cares more for the subject might enjoy the class more, but for me personally, taking this to fulfill a requirement is not really worth it because of the workload and required attendance.

Professor Ngo is not my type of lecturer, she tends to bluntly define terms given on a slide with little to no depth. Most all the readings she assigns are not mentioned during lecture and some readings you are left wondering why you read them. Lots of notes are required to be taken if you want something to study since her slides have little to no words and lectures are not recorded. If you have an assigned seat by the aisle and no one answers questions or provides input, she will absolutely put the mic in your face and have you say something without asking.

Professor Tapia on the other hand is a much better lecturer in my opinion. Tapia has more life in her lectures being able to make the content more personal especially in her unit on boxing. Readings are used as direct examples for explaining concepts provided making context easy to develop.

this class CAN be an easy A but its not like that easy, both lecuturers were fine, the weird thing is there was assigned seats in a massive lecture hall which could get awkward stepping over and moving people and attendence was a massive portion of your grade with iclicker devices to keep track, you never really had to read, it was important for discussion however to understand kinda what happened in the reading, but midterm and final, both essay style a huge portion of grade, they threatened us with pop quizes but only gave like two, so basically can be easy if you want it to be

So I heard that this class was gouing to be super easy and expected it to be. it was not. i got an A but contirbuted way to much time to this class, there were about 4 readings per week its like fine if you dont do it but all the exams are based on the random words and "ids" of the words. it is just super tedious and you will have to devote time the week of the exam but otherwise just go to lecture and discussion and try to learn how to write. the exams were way to long and none of my friends got our finals grades back at all and im honeslty supprised i did as well as i did, so i think that they gave up grading it. it was unorgaized and the TAs all graded so differently they had to curve some sections and not others. i think that if they taught this again they would have to change a lot of the structure beacsue it was way to hard for an intro class
the content was super interesting tho and i loved the presence of music, but again, if someone wasnt a fan of music, there was nothing about the course that suggested that is how they would teach.

Professors Ngo and Tapia co-taught this class and both were pretty good. The topics in this class are kinda scattered (slavery, immigration, boxing, suburbs, disco) and the terms used are often unnecessarily wordy/complicated. The midterm and final were comprised of term identification and essay questions, which were pretty easy. They'll give you a list of terms to study. The TAs are generous and kind, but the attendance policy for discussions is strict (1 absence allowed). The professors use iClicker to track your attendance and you can't log in unless you're actually in the building. For their class, iClicker is put on "focus mode" which tracks when you leave the app and for how long. Pretty annoying, but it's bearable for 50 minutes twice a week. If you have a pulse, you should be able to walk away with an A.