ANTH 3590

I honestly hated this class. The topic itself was interesting and most of the readings were, as well, but I could not stand the professor or the class. It seemed like she had absolutely no idea what she was doing and made everything up as she went along. Her lectures were all over the place and I don't really think she even knew what she was talking about. She gave no feedback on any of the short assignments, and the feedback that she did give for the projects contradicted her own rubrics. She would wait to tell us about projects (that were most of our grade) until a week (at most) before they were due, and would change the requirements as late as the day before it was due (ex: we had a project that included a 1 page essay that she changed to a 3-5 page essay 2 days before the due date). She was very vague in her instructions but they didn't even matter that much considering she would give you a bad grade if you didn't say exactly what she was thinking or what she wanted to hear; it was just generally extremely subjective. I would not recommend this class.

She's clearly a great person, with great ideas, but I would not recommend this class to anyone. Professor Fraser is incredibly disorganized--there was no syllabus, she basically just made it up as she went along, and basically just didn't make sense a lot of the time when she was speaking. The good news is that the readings are moderately interesting, and you don't really have to do them, because the course is entirely project based-- no exam or tests. Overall, however, a complete waste of time.

This class definitely covered a lot of very interesting material, and overall, it wasn't too hard, but it's not really worth your time either. There's readings due every single class (often 2-3 chapters). You don't necessarily have to do the readings, but you will struggle on the exams if you don't do them. There are two exams: a midterm and a final, which are all short answers/essays format. There's also often random "creative" projects that aren't actually that creative. She gives little instruction on them, and makes them seem like open-ended, creative projects, when in fact, if you don't say exactly what she wants, she takes off points. Also, her grading seems to have little rhyme/reason to it. She doesn't specify any type of rubric or anything of the sort for any of the assignments. There were a couple group projects as well, which she doesn't tell you about until about 2 days before it is due via email.
Overall, the class and the material itself is not very difficult for a 3000 level course, but her teaching style is what's lacking. I wouldn't recommend taking this class for fun or if you don't need it.