SPAN 4700

Work: 2 5 page research papers. A midterm and a final. 5 page activity journal (5 activities and 5 movie reviews).

Professor Opere gave us a midterm on the day we got back from spring break with our first paper due a week later. Professor Opere did not even show up that week because he was still on vacation himself! What made this even more annoying is he said we would have a choose on ID's and we did not. He also made us go to a play and write a paper on it and then did not give us any points for it AT ALL. I seriously think this guy thinks we live for school. Opere does not give instructions or dates for assignments on the syllabus and only mentions the due date in passing in class. This is very easy to miss so make sure you at least have a friend in class if you miss because you could easily not even know 25% of your grade is due next week. He also does not really give any instruction on how to submit assignments or what he wants them to be about. He does not even give comments on your papers so you cannot even know what you did wrong. He also will not answer emails. You can email the TA Joseph who truly tried his hardest to explain to students what to do but it seemed even he did not know what Opere wants. Lectures were hard to follow and boring on top of there being no slides so you have to go to class. Opere often gave facts, dates and statistics in class that were straight-up wrong so you do need to fact-check what he says sometimes. He loves to include his opinions (which actually can be very interesting). Professor Opere flies through 200+ years of Spanish history in the first half of the semester. This all appears on the test which is 10 IDs (he gives you a VERY extensive list to study from) and 3 essays (pick 2) that he does NOT give ahead of time. Very difficult to know specific information with such a wide time frame given. I suggest just googling all the IDs. The reading is completely useless just look up what you need that immediately pertains to the subject you write your papers on and do not do the rest. He has this strange system of using index cards to call on people for participation but he does not use an order meaning some people end up getting called on all the time and the questions can get tough. Overall would recommend if you like history and Spanish culture as I do even if Opere is really annoying to learn from. The Spanish department in general is not great so at least Opere is a nice professor (he actually lived under Franco so he has some cool experiences), the subject is interesting and the grading was very fair.

Professor Opere is one of the most knowledgeable Spanish professors I've had at UVA. All he really wants is for you to immerse yourself in Spanish culture, which is why he structures the course the way that he does. His exams are straightforward and the research paper is not hard. Sometimes the class was a little bit boring but that was mainly due to the fact that a lot of students just didn't care about what was going on. If you show any interest in what he's saying and establish a personal relationship with him, you're guaranteed to love Professor Opere and have a really fun semester!

Professor Opere is hilarious and very entertaining. However, his lectures are all over the place, and he tends to ramble about a ton of different topics. He assigns so much reading, and expects us to go to Clemons and read a lot of books (and watch various movies) on reserve. Luckily, the majority of this reading and viewing doesn't seem (so far) to actually be necessary for success in the class.

Opere was an extremely passionate lecturer. He knew what he was talking about and wanted to get the class excited.

Throughout the semester he randomly will call on you to share a news article. This is his way to trying to get you to keep up with news in the world. You only get called on for this once or twice but it's partially an incentive to come to lecture in case he calls on you (since there's no particular order). Other than that there's a midterm and a final that are pretty straight forward but can be a little bit of a time crunch since it's a bunch of short answers and then a longer essay.

Overall I would say it was a fair class and was interesting material. Don't let his initial seriousness scare you, he opens up throughout the semester and is always willing to help you and chat.

Everyone into Spanish should take a course with Fernando Opere, he is really nice and interesting. I learned a lot of life lessons from the man and a lot about Spain because he is from Spain and he grew up in the later Franco years. I really enjoyed this class and the tests were not too difficult.

Great class, Opere might appear stern at first but he is a great professor and very approachable once you get to know him. Learned a lot.

Opere is so great. Love the subject and is really nice

Opere is incredibly passionate about what he's teaching (spanish and latin american culture and history in general). he's a poet, so he's really interested in literature, expression, and creativity. He can be intimidating at the beginning of a class about reading/summaries, but overall he's a very fair and understanding professor, with a great sense of humor. Definitely recommend him if you ENJOY spanish.