HIST W1020

Midterm, Paper, Final, 4 maps, some reading which can be skimmed, discussion section

Weekly reading can be pretty heavy but it's not necessary to do the all reading on time, just make sure you look everything over before the exams. One 5-7 page paper on the scholarly debate of a subject of Rome. TA's grade everything and he makes it pretty clear that if you have a problem with a grade a TA gave you, he will probably be harsher when he has to grade it.

Midterm, Final 2 discussion session essays (not hard, just analyzing some primary sources) A quiz in February (10 questions, answer 5 of them). Really simple if you study his powerpoints before hand.

Very fair. A good amount of information to absorb as the course covers about 1000 years, but it's not bad at all so long as you attend and really pay attention during lectures. Otherwise, weekly readings with a particular emphasis on primary sources. One midterm worth 20% (definitions and one essay); one 6-8 page paper worth 40% (a primary source analyses); final is worth 30% (more definitions and one essay). Overall, everything is very straight forward and you are given a chance to do great.

A ton of reading if you actually bother to do it all. In reality, you can actually get away with doing none. The textbooks will, however, be useful when preparing ancient sources for exam essays. No paper, which is almost unbelievable in a history class. 2 quizzes (20 IDs choose 10 or something along those lines), midterm (IDs, one essay), and final (IDs, emperor IDs, 5 essays choose 3). Recitation required. Overall, light for a history class.

Prof. McDonnell is a very nice guy and ridiculously knowledgable about Roman history. That being said, the class could get boring as you realize that over time Roman history just endlessly repeats itself. He also fell quite behind on the syllabus and ended about 200 years short. He also packs a ridiculous amount into each lecture; I would have 6 or 7 sides of pages filled each class. The workload is not bad, a midterm, a final, a paper, and 4 maps. There are some reading but just skim them, though the total amount is not really that bad anyways. There is a discussion section; if you can, get James. All in all, a basic history class that should not be too bad, you just might get bored.

This was Professor Pilkington's first time teaching this course, I believe Professor Harris has always taught it in the past, and I was presently surprised. I took this course to fulfill a survey course credit for my Barnard History major. I had never taken an ancient history class before and I'm glad I took this one. Professor Pilkington is incredibly knowledgable, funny, and overall a great professor. He is trained in archeology, so he kept it interesting by not following the typical historian view, as I understand Professor Harris used to teach. His exams are fair and there is one paper assignment that's fairly doable. He doesn't grade anything, however, so it entirely depends on your TA. I had a tough TA and will probably receive a B+ in the course but if you attend every single lecture and do the reading on time, it might be relatively easy to get an A in the course. He posts the notes online in PowerPoint, so it's really not necessary to attend every lecture, just the important ones. Pilkington is entertaining enough that you might actually want to attend every class, though.

Doing well in this class has nothing to do with going to the lectures. I went to one lecture, saw how absurdly boring it was, and never went back. I got an A. How? Well, the exams are essays, for which he gives the prompts well in advance (a FREAKING MONTH in advance in the case of the final). So, you just take the textbook, pick a prompt, and just write an outline of the essay you're going to write based straight off of the textbook. Oh yeah, the people who grade the test will pretty much ace you if you stick some information about primary source authors in there, so memorize that stuff as well. I'd say I put a good 3 - 4 hours of work (2 hours before each exam) into this class. Oh yeah, the discussion sessions are required. They're weekly, and aren't so much discussion. They're 50 minutes long, and half of it is the TA presenting a powerpoint to teach us what Harris was supposed to but didn't. The rest is meak discussion which no one was interested in, not really even the TA. Take this class if you have to for your major/minor. Not otherwise. You get nothing out of it but 3 credits and probably an A if you know how to troll the exams.

Professor Billows is wonderful. He is kind, respectful and helpful to his students. It seems he actually enjoys teaching and sincerely cares about his students which, I believe, is not always the case of Columbia Professors. He is also a good lecturer and actually pretty funny, which can be useful as not everyone naturally gets excited about Ancient history. This Ancient Roman History course covered about 1000 years but Professor Billows did a great job structuring it. Just note that he particularly enjoys focusing on military history. Yet, he does make sure to cover all major topics but, as any lecturer, he focuses more on what he enjoys whenever possible. I would definitely recommend taking this class. It will be a pleasure, you will come out with a good understanding of Roman history and especially a better idea of how to work with ancient primary sources.

Even as I write this, I have extremely mixed opinions about this course. The lectures are bland at best. Professor Maiuro stumbles on and on in his limited English, leaving the class in a stupor. He reads directly off his powerpoints, which, while bullet-pointed, very often simply amount to a full paragraph of block text per page. The second half of the course is organized by concept instead of chronologically--this may sound like a good idea, but it's a nightmare later on to try to piece the historical events in order. I don't recommend not going to lecture, however, since fairly often a concept or a person only briefly touched upon in lecture and never really mentioned in the notes appears in the ID section of an exam. Speaking of which, there are four "exams" in this course-- the midterm, two quizzes, and the final. The quizzes are IDs and the midterm and final are IDs and essay questions. More than anything, you have to know the ancient sources to do well on these essay questions. You don't necessarily have to memorize quotes, but you have to name-drop ancient authors and their works throughout the essays in order to get a good grade. In other words, it's very difficult to cram for the essays. Plan out your studying accordingly and you should be fine. I don't want you to get the idea that Professor Maiuro is a bad professor. He's a bad lecturer, but an incredible man. Talk…