<p>I’m a rising sophomore. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Favorite: Arabic 170: “History of the Arabic World in the 20th Century.” In the Near East department but it’s cross-listed with History and was taught like a history course. I liked it because I’m interested in the subject matter, can’t deny that. But I also liked it as a class because every part of it had a purpose, no less a smart purpose. For raw historical facts and summaries of events, you read the textbooks. For considering the broader historical context and deeper meanings of the information, you go to lecture. Then you have the juicy core of the class, the primary sources, which were all (well, ~90%) well chosen and interesting. Finally, sections were meaningful and helpful for discussion and Q&A. The TF wasn’t an all-knowing scholar and didn’t pretend to be; he was a grad student in the field that knew a lot and was prepared to teach it to us in interesting ways, e.g. “Class survey. Would you, a mid 20th century Levantine, rather live in a dysfunctional but relatively non oppressive Lebanon or would you rather live in a safe but totalitarian Syria, and why?” It sounds cliche, and it is, but it’s a great way to reinforce often confusing concepts like the nuances of Lebanese politics. Anyway, I went on for too long about this, but it was a great class and I never sat thinking, “This part of the course is totally superfluous.”</p>
<p>Least favorite: Expository Writing, because I think the program is set-up poorly and could go on for days about this. But since everyone has to take it, it’s meaningless to rant about it to anyone on here. I guess my next least favorite would be Spanish 50. I loved the TF, she was very helpful, but she didn’t design the syllabus, some professor did. I just didn’t like how you never really knew what the goals were. Day to day we would do things like have superficial conversations in Spanish, ala “When is it okay to tell a white lie?”, and we’d read some decent plays and short stories. But then one day it would just be like, “Oral test tomorrow on something unrelated to what we’ve been doing,” so there was a big disconnect between day-to-day activities and what your grade ended up being. No complaints there because it was my best class grade-wise but I think TFs teaching a class that they don’t themselves design is a bad idea.</p>
<p>Edit: ^Thankfully, this only happens in early language classes and math classes up through 21b. The vast, vast majority of the time, professors teach classes on some level.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Varied a lot. Sometimes during the semester I didn’t do any work an entire day. Sometimes I didn’t sleep, like when term papers are due. This is probably less a reflection of the class than a reflection of my study habits, since I procrastinate like nobody’s business.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I had a lot of free time, except before midterms (which are really like, 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through-terms) and during reading period/finals week. I did a lot of time-wasting stuff like drinking and video games and watching 24.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Already answered that, whoops. I also did ECs and worked. I just have one EC that uses most of my EC time, and one job that I only work 4-6 hours a week. Though the latter will change next semester since I need more money for my sandwich budget.</p>