RUTR 2350

Take this class! Stepanic is funny and an engaging lecturer. He's also an easy grader. You use TopHat to access the textbook, powerpoint slides, and class questions. Your grade is based on two essays reviewing films (he gives you a template and as long as you follow the template you get 100%), and answering questions during class and in the textbook. The textbook questions are easy and you have a week to read each chapter, but the questions are time consuming because for most of the questions, you'll have to watch 15-20 minutes of a film to answer each of them. But it's a small price to pay for a great, easy class. There is a historical lecture about a different decade on Wednesday, then you vote on a film to watch on Monday. Stepanic makes the history lessons interesting, and the films are pretty good. This also counts for non-western perspectives and humanities requirements. Highly recommend taking this class!!

STEPANIC. is the man. he is so funny! this course is great for a little break from my hard pre-med classes but still felt like i was learning. It is mostly tophat + 2 essays and making sure you stay up to date with the assignemnts on tophat! #tCF2020

I really liked this class! It was super chill and Stanley is by far the best professor at UVA. Class is based on a points system so there's no weighted percentages. Class is 2 days a week, the first day is basically discussing the films that you watched over the weekend that he assigns and the other day is a cultural/historical lecture. Not much work in this class except for watching the movies which can be super tedious if they're really really long and answering some questions about the film for completion and some problems from TopHat (the textbook). Highly recommend if you're looking for a chill class that isn't too much work. #tCF2020

If you want to take a fun, stress-free class and also watch movies at the same time, this is the perfect class for you. Honestly probably any class by Prof Stepanic will be enjoyable because he knows how to make his lectures entertaining but also is just a pretty flexible and chill guy in general. I was not familiar with Russian or any East European film prior to taking this class, and thought some of the films we watched were kinda weird, but overall, I'm glad I was able to expand my film consumption and also learn a bit of history as well. The class is pretty much taught through Top Hat, which if you're not familiar with, is a platform that has all the tools for classes, such as lecture slides, online textbook, and grades. Though Top Hat does have its flaws, I thought it was pretty manageable to work with, and Prof Stepanic's textbook was very organized and easy to read as well. As a side note the use of Top Hat made the class very easily adaptable to strictly virtual teaching, and it was pretty cool that he streamed classes on his YouTube gaming channel some days lol.