MDST 2010

Christopher Ali is to lecturing as Mike London was to time management in the fourth quarter...

Granted I am really interested in the subject, but I thought Ali is a fantastic lecturer! He is also very different (and better dressed) than a significant portion of professors everywhere. Lots of reading but a really interesting course with applications to our daily use of media and technology.

Professor Ali is hilarious. His lectures are always entertaining and the material is interesting. Your grade consists of a take home midterm and final, as well as weekly online quizzes, and participation in discussion. This class is not as easy as you would assume (not an easy A), but it is very interesting. I enjoyed this class the most though out of the Media Studies major pre requisites.

I really liked this course but Christopher and the TA's grade really hard so it is hard to get an A. The information is really interesting and I recommend taking it.

This class is pointless. If you have taken a media studies class before (especially Intro to media Studies, which most have) the vast majority of the information is nothing new. Christopher Ali and Bruce Williams act as foils to each other in this department. Bruce might seem like kind of a jerk, but he's actually a nice guy who genuinely cares about his students and their improvements. Ali, on the other hand, might seem like a cool guy but really does not seem to care about his students. I understand that this course has higher standards than some, and that's fine. The thing that irks me is that there is no reason for Ali to not allow late submissions or even allow REQUESTS for extensions on assignments. Additionally, the quizzes do nothing: whether or not I do the reading for the course I perform the same. There is very little incentive to do reading both because of this and because there is such a needlessly intense amount for a 2000-level class. This should be a 3-credit class with a third of the reading and no discussion.

I enjoyed the material in this course, but it was way too much reading. The course consists of 5 question weekly reading quizzes, bi-monthly blog posts, discussion section participation/attendance, take home midterm, take home final and a cumulative e-portfolio. I rarely missed lecture but kept up with the reading and built a relationship with my TA and got an A-. It definitely depends on your TA since they are the one grading everything. I had Stacie Thyrion and I really liked her because she was very inquisitive and allowed for a lot of group conversations.