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Anthro 1A03

 
Old 06-12-2008 at 11:17 PM   #31
lorend
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Anthro 1A03
This course is the easiest of the first year anthros. I found a lot of what was learned was simple common sense.

The prof who taught me is no longer at Mac, as she has moved on to chair a program at U Ottawa. The prof who replaced her (Rodman) I think has since now retired.Click here to read the entire review
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McMaster Combined Honours Cultural Studies & Critical Theory and Anthropology: 2008
McMaster Honours English with a minor in Indigenous Studies: 2010
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Old 05-15-2010 at 04:10 PM   #30
eleduc
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Taken: Winter '10 (Jan-April)

Course breakdown: Same as above posters

Content: The content of the course is actually interesting. I enjoyed learning about different cultures around the world and how conflicts arise crossculturally. The text is very informative, and organized ethnologically, covering topics from marriage customs to religion to changes within a culture.

Course load: While there are only a few assignments, the course is arranged poorly in my opinion, with little room for students to actually demonstrate the knowledge learned.

As stated above, the "online tutorial" component merely consisted of three short chapter quizzes, marked for COMPLETION ONLY. Often the questions online would contradict that in the textbook or in lecture, causing confusion. Also, many students had problems with the online portion, and because the service required an activation code, students who purchased used texts or were looking to do so were screwed over. The questions used in quizzes were not used for the exam and thus the knowledge was too specific and frankly useless. This portion counted for 10%.

Also frustrating and relatively useless was the use of iclickers. I have used an iclicker before and have never had problems with it. I personally don't agree with the use of clickers in the first place, subscribing instead to the thought that it is a professors duty to be engaging, which will in turn, produce attendance in lectures. However, my opinion was even further soured when countless people had problems with clickers and they weren't used more than they were. A significant chunk of lecture time was spent figuring out the damn things (or explaining how they work to the prof). Total waste in my opinion.

The essays, while interesting in topic, were poorly described and because of the online component, it was difficult to form a relationship with your "TA" and thus to seek the appropriate help. WebCT was often inundated with questions. Very dissapointing for a first year course.

Professor - It is my honest opinion that while Dr. Arratia is a perfectly competent anthropologist and very knowledgable with lots of practical field experience, she is incapable of adequately instructing a class of this size. I have other friends who have taken smaller class sizes (under 50) with her and report much better results.

Overall - I do NOT recommend this course layout with this professor. It is more headache than it is worth. I am a third year honours student with a 4.0, so I hope no one thinks I am merely griping because of a bad mark. I was honestly disturbed with how much money I was paying for such a poor experience. It is really unfortunate that a 1st year course is so unorganized. Lots of my classmates stated they would not take another anthro course because of their experience.

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Old 06-09-2010 at 10:10 AM   #31
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I dont know about Dr. Cummins, but Dr. Arratia was horrible. She couldn't teach, she would just read from the slides. She was also very rude when she replies to threads on ELM ( I agree some of the deserved it because they ask the most random questions). In-fact I stopped going to class by about late October. We had assignments which were due on Sundays which makes it that much harder to remember that you have an assignment due on a Sunday.
The Assignments had completion marks, so as long as you did them you get full marks. But on the whole I must say it is a fairly easy course.

Online Weekly Quizzes --> 20%
Essay 1 --> 15%
Essay 2 --> 25%
Final (multiple choice) --> 40%

Last edited by jajas : 06-09-2010 at 10:13 AM.

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Old 06-12-2010 at 01:12 AM   #32
kunaltandan
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Like a lot of other people said, this class was definitely NOT a bird course. The material learned was pretty straightforward; actually, it was pretty easy. The professor, on the other hand, wasn't very engaging with the class. She was very knowledgeable- that much was true, but she wasn't, in my opinion, qualified to teach a class. I thought she was an interesting woman, and if you talk to her, she'll respect you a lot, but if you get on her bad side, she'll give you glares and will call you out in front of the class.

By october, I stopped going to class 'cause what she taught was right out of the textbook and her notes were also mirror images of the text. Basically, the textbook is your teacher and she really isn't.

Also, last year she changed it to essays 'cause she was too lazy (that's what she said) to set up rooms for people to write midterms in. This was the biggest mistake 'cause the essays were a pain in the ass and some were extremely hard to write. If the essay component was taken out, you could easily get a double-digit mark. Also, the TA's were nonexistent. I'm not sure if we even had them, since we never really saw them and because we weren't given tutorial times, we never got a chance to know them.

Those are just my two-cents from a course I really enjoyed taking (it was really interesting), but didn't enjoy receiving a low mark in xD.
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Old 07-13-2010 at 01:28 PM   #33
amyclare
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Loved this class!
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Old 07-25-2010 at 08:55 PM   #34
merc67
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I had this course with Arratia, good course, interesting material pretty bird. There was weekly online quizzes 20% of mark, 2 short essays one 15% and one 25%, and a final exam. Easiest exam just READ the textbook before if you knew that u were golden. Good Luck!
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Old 08-12-2010 at 09:09 PM   #35
Schr0d1ng3r
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Took this course last year and found it ridiculously easy. Didn't go to lectures, only did 3/4 of the online tutorials, wrote essays the night before, and didn't study for the final. Got a 10 (full disclaimer: I am in engineering, not in soc-sci/humanities)
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Old 09-04-2010 at 04:53 PM   #36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eleduc View Post
Taken: Winter '10 (Jan-April)

Also, many students had problems with the online portion, and because the service required an activation code, students who purchased used texts or were looking to do so were screwed over.
Wow really?

I was thinking of getting a used anthropology textbook for 40 dollars.

Should I accept this or deny it and buy a new one to do the online portion?
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Old 09-04-2010 at 04:55 PM   #37
jhan523
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You should find out if you can purchase the service required. Usually you can, just visit the website that offers the service.
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Old 09-04-2010 at 05:03 PM   #38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jhan523 View Post
You should find out if you can purchase the service required. Usually you can, just visit the website that offers the service.
Yeah but I don't know which website it is. I guess I'll find out when classes start?
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Old 09-04-2010 at 05:18 PM   #39
jhan523
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lucy23435 View Post
Yeah but I don't know which website it is. I guess I'll find out when classes start?
According to the 2010-2011 Anthropology 1A03 course outline, there are no online quizzes anymore. The breakdown of the marks are as follows:

Quote:
Marking Breakdown:
MidTerm Test (multiple choice) 20% (Monday October 25th in class time/location TBA)
Discussion Papers 2X 10% 20% (Monday Sept 27 and Monday Nov. 15)
Research Paper Proposal 5% (Monday October 18))
Final Paper (format TBA) 25% (Monday November 29)
Final Exam (format TBA) 30%
Total 100%
All papers are submitted via the dropbox on avenue.

http://www.anthropology.mcma ster.c...A03%20Geer.pdf
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Old 09-04-2010 at 07:05 PM   #40
melodicdream
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For me, when I had Arratia, she warned us about the online service screwing up for those who bought it seperately. I didn't listen and did it anyway. Personally I didn't have any problems. I'm not sure about other people though. I guess its a hit or miss thing.
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Old 09-05-2010 at 04:30 PM   #41
lucy23435
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So, what do you guys think, should I buy this used textbook for $40 or wait for class and then buy a new one?


Last edited by lucy23435 : 09-05-2010 at 05:25 PM.
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Old 09-05-2010 at 07:21 PM   #42
melodicdream
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i say wait till class starts and figure out if there actually are quizzes. every prof tends to do things differently so you'll never know. In the previous year for anthro they had MC questions for their midterms but for my year, the prof changed it to two reports...
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Old 10-26-2010 at 02:10 AM   #43
Naml
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Right now there is only 3 hours of lecture, and NO tutorial!
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Old 04-12-2011 at 11:35 AM   #44
Phaint
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This class is super easy but honestly its so ridiculously hard to study for because the material is insanely boring.
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