HIEU 3442

Schuker is an incredible scholar and teacher. He knows his stuff really well, and he addresses many topics throughout Europe that often are neglected. Definitely old school but a great class. Lectures can ramble at times though.

Without a doubt my least favorite professor I have ever encountered at UVA. Rude, unhelpful, boring. There is no objective criteria for doing well in the course. Lectures are as dry as humanly possible; he doesn't even use a powerpoint. Don't think the class isn't doable. It is. Nonetheless, it was an awful and difficult waste of time listening to him ramble off facts for and hour twice a week.

This was the most painful class i've taken at UVA. I generally enjoy history courses and I thought the subject matter would be fascinating, but Schuker is satan. I can't complain about his grading because I got an A on the only paper, but his lectures couldn't be more boring or hard to follow. By the end of the semester, no one even tried to take notes- people either messed around on their computers, doodled, or stared into space. Each lecture was a deluge of information, most of it in excruciatingly minute, irrelevant detail, delivered without a shred of coherence. The class was supposed to start in the 1890s but we spent two weeks on the mid-1800s, jumping between times and places. The reading load is absurd, I don't think anyone was close to completing all of it. That being said, the books themselves weren't entirely terrible, and I encourage anyone masochistic enough to take this class to crack them open- its not the worst time, and will help you on the final. Oh yeah, the final: one of two grades, the other being a paper. The only reasonable thing he did all semester was give us the final questions beforehand, allowing everyone a fighting chance. Four essays and 20 terms chosen from a list of hundreds. Bottomline: Schuker should be in a nursing home, take one of the other many awesome history courses here. Avoid this one at all costs. Peace.