HIEU 2162

This course is pretty light writing wise, but there is a TON of reading that you need to do each week, especially if you've never taken a Russian history class before. My discussion sections with Nicholas Lindberg were fun and incredibly helpful in breaking down the readings, but you do need to read in order to follow along most times. The course includes three short 2 page double-spaced essays throughout the semester, which are usually graded pretty harshly at first because you need to be able to fit a ton of information into a small number of words and use the language that the TA is looking for, but your grade should get better with every essay. There is also a map quiz and a mid-term which aren't difficult. The final exam, however, was very extensive and most people used every second of the three hours given. There is a lot of studying and preparation necessary. For example: You're given 40 ID terms to memorize and on the final exam you only have to write about 10 of them. They do give you a study guide which is SUPER helpful, but you end up studying a lot more than what actually shows up on the test. Studying the guide is worth it though because the test questions and essay prompts are copied and pasted from the study guide. Professor Rossman is a super knowledgable and always encourages questions during class because he moves very fast. Sometimes it is hard to keep up, but all in all he kept the class super interesting and I learned a lot.

Although the material itself was quite interesting, the lectures were boring at best and felt very dragged on. The 3 papers were pretty fun to write but only worth 15% of your entire grade. Participation in discussions was 25% of the grade which seemed unnecessarily high considering the three papers were just worth 15% in total. Overall would probably not take this class

I highly recommend this course if you are interested in history/Russia but do not want a class that is very writing intensive. The lectures and textbook are very interesting and the professor assigns a few interesting films to watch throughout the semester. I found Rossman very engaging although the class sometimes felt impersonal because the large lecture is the only time of interaction with him. Discussion is led by a TA and is required to go to and is a significant portion of the final grade. 15% of the grade is also made up of 3 2-page essays which were graded fairly leniently and did not take too long to write. There were times it felt like there was too much reading but it was always very interesting. The midterm was a timed essay and 6-8 short response questions. The final was the same but with an extra essay.
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