SOC 2320

This class is pretty easy to get an A in because the material you learn is pretty much common sense/basic knowledge. Having said that, I didn't learn anything new from this class other than some interesting statistics (sidenote: she throws in a lot of stats in lecture). Workload: couple quick short assignments, one research paper and two exams. Professor Blumberg gives out lecture outlines in lecture so readings aren't necessary. Just go to lecture and your discussion class and you'll do fine without much effort.

Long story short, Blumberg needs to retire. She is a very scattered lecturer who spends 5 minutes every class looking for her glasses. Your TA really makes or breaks you in this class; I lucked out with an awesome TA (Alida Goffinski). Blumberg passes out "handouts" every class, and make sure you get those. Honestly, just heavily skimming the readings and looking over those handouts is more than enough to get you a good grade on exams. If you have ANY background in WGS, you'll do great in this class. The midterm is half multiple choice and half short essay, and the short essays are open note and done at home. It's a really easy class and definitely felt like it was a 2000 level.

Prof. Blumberg's lecures are almost impossible to stay awake for, and the handouts that she gives every class are written so that only she understands what in the world they say. This was my first sociology class and I went in with high hopes to learn something cool about gender, but I will definitely not be returning to the discipline after this course since my humanities is now complete. So so so so boring and Blumberg takes an extremely historical and economic lens, so if you don't know much about the history of the economy like myself, the second half of the class will make very little sense. The assignments are fairly simple though, and my TA (Alida) was very kind.

Props to whoever can stay awake during the lecture for this class, because I had to fight to keep my eyes open. I came in thinking I would learn interesting things about gender and society, but it turns out the class' only focus is on how economic power is the most important factor for gender equality and how Rae has been to however many different countries. My TA was the bright spot in this class (Alida). She deconstructed the readings and helped us all understand what was going on. Despite how agonizingly boring it was, this class is an easy A. You can use the lecture as a study hall and do work for other classes, then skim the readings and go to the Professor's study session before the exam and you will be fine.

I absolutely loved this class, would take again. It was the original class that inspired me to pursue a Sociology major. Professor Blumberg is still one of my absolute favorite professors. She is interesting, knowledgeable, and generous (both with answers and grading). If you go to lecture and at least skim the readings, it should be hard to get anything lower than an A/A- or so. My TA was also fantastic, Alida Goffinski is incredibly sweet, helpful, of course knowledgeable, as well as a good grader. If you are looking for an interesting class that won't kill your GPA, take this one.

First of all, the reviews about not being able to stay awake are so true its scary. I attended basically every lecture but I might as well have stayed in bed for most of them as all I did was sleep anyway. I will say that attending lecture, while painfully boring, is helpful in the long run, since she loves to repeat information and you will basically internalize whatever statistic or point she repeats week after week. Also, she prints her slides out as a handout every class which is helpful. Her review sessions are super annoying and just as difficult to get through as her lectures - because she just reads off the lecture handouts and gives away some of the multiple choice answers. Discussion and lecture are two different classes. On one hand, this is good b/c lecture sucks. On the other, 50 minutes is not always enough time to go through all the content your TA needs to teach. There is also a lot of reading assigned each week, but you really don't have to read much of it. Your TAs will tell you want you need to get from the readings they assigned, and most of the readings Blumberg assigned were from her own writing and she says the same things she does in lecture. Finally, the book Dealing with Desire. Honestly it seems like a very interesting read but I don't know why I even bought the book because both Blumberg and the TAs go over what we need to know about it. Blumberg also gives a ton of extra credit. On the day before thanksgiving break she gave all the students who attended (which was barely anyone) an easy extra credit assignment in addition to the 3 points of extra credit we could already earn. Overall, this is a class that's not too hard to get an A in, but at the cost of your own sanity.