COLA 1500

This class was somewhat rough. The books we read were interesting and educated on a lot of race issues, as well as how to deal with these in real life. However, race was not talked about as much as it probably should have been in the class. We talked a lot about mindfulness, which was also part of the class, but it seemed to overpower the class. Some assignments were never posted on Collab and it was stressful a lot of the time to not know how certain things would impact your grade. Professor LaFleur is a good resource though. She knows a lot about advising and can help with any questions you might have.

The topic of this COLA was "A Mindful Introduction to Antiracism," specifically dealing with anti-Black racism. I am Black, and she did tell me that the class was more geared towards teaching ally-ship during my first advisor meeting with her, so I did go into the class knowing that. Professor LaFleur is a nice person who puts a lot of careful thought into her words, however she tends to be (for the lack of better words) scattered and disorganized at times. This reflects a lot on the way she teaches the course. We are supposed to do readings and discussion board posts, but she would often forget to post them. It was very stressful because we had to do a certain number of posts to achieve an A in the class, but, luckily, she was kind and flexible enough to automatically excuse those discussion posts and lower the amount we had to do to get an A.

It may be because I'm Black, but honestly thought the best classes were the ones where were discussing academic things such as how to fulfill our credit requirements, what each library is for, etc. It was the only classes where I felt like I took away something that I didn't already know.

I'd say this class is a decent way to take your first steps into ally-ship if you're not Black, but not very useful if you're Black and decently versed in Black social issues.

This course was titled "A Mindful Intro to Antiracism," which sounded incredibly cool. I regretted enrolling within the first few sessions, though, and later, regretted not dropping the course. Definitely way more work than one credit warranted- weekly readings (you have to buy two books) and written reflections, plus further reflections on real-world events, meetings with advisors, etc. Just not worth it compared to how much UVA encourages you to take COLA classes. Being a POC, I learned absolutely nothing in this class. There was reflection and good discussion sometimes, but I took absolutely nothing new or valuable away from this course. Would be better to have a class full of non-POC instead. COLAs are marketed as ways to easily make close friends in your first semester. Absolutely false, we didn't get much time to interact/bond and although it was a comfortable sharing environment, nobody really cared about each other. Professor LaFleur is white, and she acknowledges this and is very mindful about what she says/how she phrases things, which is nice. She's kind, energetic, and understanding-- only thing is that she often just rambles on and on and makes class a little boring. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this class; it wasn't horrible, just absolutely useless to me. Couldn't skip either because attendance is recorded.