ARCH 2150

This class is very interesting. There's lots of guest lectures, which really help to contribute to class understanding and provide more perspectives about sustainability. The class is structured with 3 pop-reading quizzes (which are 15 minute timed in class essays), attendance at 2 films, the final exam, the final project, and class attendance/participation. There's daily readings, which are crucial for the reading quizzes, and there are clicker questions, so its necessary to be in class every day. The readings are pretty interesting though and really contribute to course understanding. However, Professor Jones can have an attitude problem sometimes. While she is knowledgable and encourages student participation, she can sometimes have unrealistic expectations of the class and can be slightly condescending towards her students. Not a horrible professor, but not the best either. In addition, the semester project (which you work on in partners to plan a sustainability project) can be a bit of a nuisance; while it does contribute to course understanding, it is also a little frustrating and the expectations of that project are a little too high. Overall, I would recommend this class and it's not too difficult--but it does require a good amount of work and can be frustrating at times.

Carla's a fantastic professor, love this class and learned a lot- although tbh she only lectures maybe 3-4 times. Otherwise guest lectures are awesome and keep the class fascinating. Main advice: Do the readings and take notes. Not extensive notes, but brief and key points. This will serve you well on the final and the 3 pop readings responses. Same goes for lecture notes. Final project is really not that bad if you divide the work, just gets a bit tedious, so pick something you're interested in! This is really not a difficult class to do well in if you put in minimal effort.

I had mixed feelings about the class (mostly because of the tedious project), but overall I would recommend taking it. The structure was very unique in that most lectures were guest lectures with Carla teaching a few lectures. Carla is young and a super sweet, caring professor. Some people thought her expectations were high, but I don't think she was asking students too much when she asked students to stop coming the films drunk and rescheduling meetings with her so they could go out (which they explicitly told her in their e-mails). The guest lectures and readings are super interesting. There is quite a bit of work with the semester project, but it's just tedious at times, not difficult and it's a pretty cool project overall. You can easily get an A in the class if you just do the work and take basic notes on the readings. The class is relatively new so there are still kinks being worked out here and there but overall it really changes your world view and is probably one of the most influential classes I've taken at UVA. Plus Pheobe Crisman will be teaching the class now instead of Carla so I'm sure the class will much different (maybe even better).