[chryslad]

I just took this course last term (September-December 2011) and found it to be decently difficult. I had Dr. Quail for this.

The course was composed of an essay proposal (5%), 3 mini essays (3 x 10%), which led up to a final paper (25%), a final exam (25%) and attendance and participation (15%). The essay was all written about the same research topic. I actually ended up doing really well in this course, but a lot of my peers didn't. I got lucky, and was one of the few that the prof marked, rather than the TA. I found writing about the same topic over and over for an entire term to be really boring. I also really like Dr. Quail, but she seemed to be REALLY OFF this term. She always came late and she cancelled class on multiple occasions (which is a good thing I guess!). I feel like I didn't learn much.

I'm conflicted about whether this is a bird course or not. I guess if you're really good at writing (seeing as there's alot of it) you'd do well. She did say she was going to change the course around though after this term, because she recieved alot of complaints. She mentioned having a portion of the class being a debate. Not sure if she'll still do that.

Anyways, hope that helped some of you.

Good review of the course. I agree with not learning anything and I particularly didn't enjoy the lecture notes; they were more of skeleton notes than anything and the textbook was quite vague.

The birdiness of the course would depend on the marker; who was quite hard for this class. I would NOT call this class a bird course since it involved extensive amount of writing. Even the "mini essays" were not very mini in nature and required fluid and criticial analysis and strucure. Also, not enough time was given for the final paper of about 20 pages. I agree, doing the essays/project on the same thing over and over again got really boring.
The exam was alright - all multiple choice but nothing too easy.

As mentioned above, if you write well then this is the course to take. We did writing almost every other week. But she will change the course for the better though.

I figured I would attach the course syllabus as well. Enjoy!

Did anyone take this course with Dr. Mincheva? How is she and how was the course?

well looks like i won't be taking this course lmao