HILA 2002

This class was pretty easy. You can do well with just skimming the readings and paying attention in lecture. The only grades for this class are two midterms, a final, and a discussion grade. The exams are just a list of ID's.

Wow, not quite sure what to say about this course. It's now Christmas and so an entire semester and summer have passed since, so hopefully I've had adequate time to process it all. Klubock himself is impressively capable and qualified in terms of his own understanding of the course content (go to office hours!), but his presentation can be lacking at times. A typical class more or less consisted of him lecturing alongside a sloppily-organized PowerPoint (for someone with multiple degrees from Yale, boy were there a lot of typos on those things) that may or may not contain useful information. Oftentimes Klubock would spend the first half hour on one or two slides, only to speed through, or skip altogether, the remaining ones -- though you were still expected to know the overlooked content. For this reason, in addition to his verbose and meandering lecture style, I found that readings and sections were crucial in this class unlike so many others at UVA. Pretty early on I made a point of doing all the readings and filling in the gaps on my own; it's very interesting and engrossing material, so I didn't find it too taxing to do. There were no take-home writing assignments for this class; instead, two essay-based midterms and final. This is where things really get dicey, and I think the TAs were actually more problematic than Klubock. From the first discussions, I found it odd that my TA (Stephanie; Adele was the other) placed such a premium on writing style over substance, especially for an in-class exam that allows just 25 minutes per essay. She devoted considerable time to delineating precisely how she wanted the essays structured/formatted; no joke, you will drop a letter grade if your paragraphs are too long. Because of this, it seemed like content was almost a secondary consideration. Perhaps by chance (it didn't feel intentional at the time), I frequented her office hours and tried to nail down a method to satisfy her expectations. During that time we developed a solid rapport, which MANY other students felt was impossible -- the consensus opinion was that she was cold, hostile, and uninterested. Regardless, it worked, and I came out with an A in the end. That's not to say I wasn't frustrated by the same problems everyone else confronted -- yes, it is true that up until 9 am the day of the final, we did not have a clear understand of what Klubock and the TA's expected -- but it wasn't insurmountable either. I include all of this here not because Stephanie and Adele will be teaching this class again, but because my sense is that this is a Klubock-rooted problem. He seems to give his TAs relative carte blanche to grade and administer their sections as they please, with little input/reinforcement/standardization from above, which is unusual for UVA. All things considered, I'd still recommend the class: it's a subject matter you with which won't have many other opportunities to engage, and for all its faults, you'll feel like you learned something important.

This class was disorganized and difficult. Expectations were not clear at all and the TAs and professor were not on the same page. I put A- effort and received a B+. Overall, very frustrating.

This class was recommended to me by a friend who took it during Spring 2016. While Klubock is a good professor, he tends to jump around a lot during lecture. Most importantly, the TAs tainted the overall experience in the class. It was evident that both TA's were grading on a different (and harder) scale than Klubock. Instead of going over the material during discussion, Adele only concentrated on how to format our essays for the exams. This may seem helpful, but they were being demanding with their expectations for an in-class exam. They were expecting take-home quality for an in-class exam. Unfortunately, I would not recommend this class if those TAs are still there. My friend loved her experience with Kimberly and Klubock during the semester of 2016. I cannot say the same for this semester.

While the material is interesting, this class has been a pain this semester. The exam format was changed to essay questions this semester and it is clear that there is no communication between the professor and TA's on the grading. The TA's (Lawton/Mcinerney) place way too much emphasis on structural details for an in class essay exam. During the final exam review, it was made clear that the TA's are operating on a different grading standard than Klubock. They have boiled down their advice to simply writing out the essays and memorizing them all. Why not make them take home essays if that's the basis for grading?
The class itself is interesting enough but there are a lot of readings at times. Just take caution on picking your TA's because it can make or break your experience.

I would not recommend this class. I was looking forward to it and genuinely thought the material was interesting, however Klubock's lectures left a lot to be desired. I liked how he used case studies to demonstrate regional trends, but he tended to be unorganized and go off on tangents that made the whole lecture confusing. In addition, his powerpoint slides (which he doesn't post even though they tend to have a ton of information on them) are exclusively black and white, small text, with no pictures. He assigns an impossible amount of reading from books that were often pretty boring. Also, avoid Stephanie Lawton AT ALL COSTS. She did not lead a helpful discussion section and her grading was EXTREMELY difficult and arbitrary, especially for an intro level class with lots of first years. I felt like it didn't matter at all whether or not I knew the information...our grade was simply based on the structure of our essay which is ridiculous for an in-class exam. The TA's and Klubock were definitely operating under different grading scales. In the final exam review the professor said that he didn't expect the essays to be any longer than usual, but then the TA's sent an email 1 DAY before the exam to say they expected them to be almost twice as long (for an exam that was waited equally as the others might I add). I thought this would be one of my easier and more enjoyable classes this semester but the grading and unclear expectations for the exam made this one of the most stressful classes I've had here at UVA. However, Klubock and especially Lawton are definitely anomalies, as every other professor/TA that I've had in the history department has been excellent.

Professor Klubock is a very engaging and knowledgeable professor. His lecture slides could be improved a bit (they're black text on a white background and often too small to see from your seat), and he talks quietly, so sit near the front. Prof. Klubock is relatively approachable and helpful if you have questions, and he offered a extra credit assignment worth half a letter grade for attending a conference on the Drug Wars in Latin America that I should have followed through all the way with.

The TA who runs the discussion section, Kimberly, is even more approachable and runs a pretty useful discussion section every week (whose format may be changed depending on what the class recommends half way through the semester). As a personal anecdote, she went above and beyond in helping me and other SDAC students with quiz and exam accommodations.

The only drawback of this class is the reading. Prof. Klubock assigns a lot of reading---expect 200-300 pages per week and about $200-300 for your textbooks. As an engineer, though I was interested in the content, I simply couldn't find the time to do more than skim the beginning and end of the novels many weeks, so I recommend trying to catch up over the weekends on your weekly reading instead of pushing it off till the work week if you have a similarly busy schedule.

All in all, a pretty great history class.

Great class; Klubock is a good lecturer who genuinely cares about his students. There is a fair amount of reading that is necessary to do well in the course, but it is manageable. Grade consists of participation in discussion, two midterms, and a final. The midterm and final format is identification/short answers of important terms taken from both the readings and lecture. He gives out a study guide of all the terms/questions that will be on the test beforehand. If you put in the work, you will get an A.

An excellent course and introduction to Modern Latin American history, although definitely with a greater focus on US relations than domestic issues. Klubock is an excellent professor and is really into everything he teaches. Sometimes he can ramble, but it's usually not too bad.

Very interesting class, however can be very dry for those not particularly interested in the topic. Midterms and final are easy, but a lot of reading is necessary

Klubock is a good lecturer, but you'll likely be bored and over-worked if you're not interested in Latin America. If you do the 200-300 pages (novel-size) of weekly reading, you'll do well. Even if you don't do the reading, you could still get a B+/A- if you attend all lectures and grasp key themes from discussion. Regarding course content, I naively expected an overview of each Latin American country's history from the 19th century to present. That's not what actually is taught, considering how much time that would take. Instead, Klubock uses case studies of certain countries during certain time periods (e.g. El Salvador during the conflict between the FMLN and the Military) as representative of regional trends. However, Klubock presents a biased, self-admittedly liberal take on history. Additionally, Mary Hicks was a decent TA, and you can cruise through the weekly discussion sections that mainly review the reading, which is often primary sources, if you simply show up and say a couple intelligent things each class. The grade consists of a midterm (25%), final (40%), a five to seven-page term paper (25%), and discussion section participation (10%). The midterm and final aren't terrible because they're writing-based, and Klubock gives you a sheet with all the possible questions on them beforehand.