COLA 1500

I had Professor Webb for ELA 2500. This was an extremely rewarding course to take. There were weekly readings and bi-weekly papers that were pretty interesting and never hard to write since it was all self-reflective. I learned a lot about being a person in this world and it'll teach you life lessons that aren't learnable in other courses here at UVA.

I feel like the name of this class should be changed to “a study of habits and how they form our lives” because the focus of the class really was on habits rather than “finding your inner compass”. That being said it wasn’t a bad class. You have readings each week that are usually pretty interesting but the discussions each class can sometimes be a drag. The meditations and different meeting places throughout the semester made the class unique. The few writing assignments are very easy and if you show up to class it’s actually hard to get a bad grade. I recommend it to anyone looking to see what a cola is like and to get an easy credit.

Ms. Webb is a great professor and she’s a really friendly, nice, and approachable person. You can tell that she wants to make sure her students succeed. The thing I loved about this class is that it taught really important life skills, such as habits, emotional intelligence, and finding happiness and purpose in your life. In this class, you’re going to learn stuff that you probably won’t learn anywhere else at UVA, so you should DEFINITELY take it.

Sometimes, class discussions were boring, but I really enjoyed the readings. My favorite reading was “What Makes a Leader”, which talks about how your emotional intelligence and ability to lead people, motivate them, and make them happy is much more important than your analytical or technical abilities.

Also the papers were great because they were totally stress-free; all you really have to do is self-reflect, and you’ll definitely get 100s on them as long as you put a good amount of effort and thought into them.

Professor Webb is knowledgable and interested in helping her students improve. Her COLA focuses on habits and habit loops and occasionally dives into other topics, such as happiness and emotional intelligence. There are required readings from a book per week, which involves writing two discussion questions per reading. These are pretty low stress and the readings themselves are quite interesting. The papers she assigns are also relatively relaxed and require little to no research, just your own thoughts about some class topics. Class can be pretty boring sometimes, but the meditations at the beginning of every class are quite interesting and good at making one feel relaxed, and occasionally, meetings at important locations on Grounds, such as the library or 1515 on the Corner, offer a change of pace. Attendance is required, however, as the class runs on discussion, so you can only miss one class before your grade begins to suffer. Overall, this is a pretty stress-free, low maintenance COLA that I recommend to anyone who wants to take one.