I took Anthropology 3Hi3 in summer 2010 with Karen Slonim. This is a course about medical anthropology. We examined health through critical lenses, (Ex. the political influences on health), and we also looked at health cross culturally, (Ex. Biomedicine, an approach to health that most of us see to be bias-free, was demonstrated to be a form of western culture that is based on western values). We also covered topics such as birth, nutrition and infectious diseases.
Course Breakdown:
Midterm = 30%
Case Study = 30%
Exam = 40%
Or
Midterm = 25%
Case study = 30%
Your choice of either: reading summaries, case study presentation, participation = 10%
Exam = 35 %
The instructor was very good at lecturing and seemed really nice in class. I would give her an 8 or a 9 for lecturing. However, I found her to be terrible in all other aspects of the course. Here is a brief summary of what I disliked:
- Notes were not posted on time (not really her fault but she didn’t solve it until the last lecture which was the only lecture where the note outlines were posted in advance)
- Unclear expectations for the midterm (She said that she wanted brief answers however she deducted a lot of marks even though the basic answer was provided by students)
- The prof skipped a lecture on traditional healing (kind of annoyed me because I was looking forward to it)
- Was not very responsive to emails
- Some of the readings that were chosen had too much jargon (CW was expensive too)
- Dropped the discussion part of the class… I think because one loud guy said he’d rather go home early in the beginning of the course
- Very subjective when it came to the marking of the case study
- Misleading about assignments; For example, the instructor said the second option of evaluation would be a good buffer for midterm and exam however this was not the case
Overall, I thought the course content to be interesting and valuable. The general takeaway message was that there are many external ways to how our health is influenced (Ex. How doctors are not always questioned, political and economic influences). The exam seemed alright because it was open ended.
Perhaps this course would be better administered in the fall as there would be more resources such as TAs and course administrators.