HIST W1151

hundreds of pages of reading a week, looking for reasons to dock you on assessments even if you give her all the info she asked for. took me hours and hours per week leaving little time for other things I needed to do. horrific

A lot of reading (around 100 pages weekly) , but not too many graded assignments. One 7-9 page paper, one midterm, one final. Essay questions and IDs for the midterm and final are handed out in advance. Take good notes-- they are really important for the final. By the way, he most likely will not be grading you. His TA will do that. If you have Kate Pickering, count yourself lucky. She is a wonderful teacher and a very nice person (and not that bad a g

-Essay (5-7 pages on a historical novel) -Readings each week (fairly light but must-reads) -Midterm (ID's and 2 essays) -Final (same as the midterm but a little longer)

She is very disorganized in lecture, belittling, and elitist. Tbh she ruined history for me. The midterm she gives you 30 IDs and 8 essay questions to memorize. The final is double. She expects you to regurgitate to a T what she tells you in lecture and belittles you if you ask her a question or challenge her. For me, this class thus far has been an awful experience.

I don't think any of his students would call Prof. Woloch a *sweet* or especially *warm* man as I hear his wife (also a Columbia professor) is. He has a sharp edge, and he seems very intimidating at first. But he is an incredible teacher. He jampacks a lot of interesting information into every lecture, and I walked away from the semester feeling as if I had a really good base in European History. Clearly he cannot explore every aspect of this time period in one semester, but I think he did a great job of choosing important topics and examining them pretty thoroughly. This is a survey class-- and survey he did. Though sometimes long, I genuinely enjoyed the lectures-- Prof. Woloch is a great speaker and knows his stuff. His passion for history makes his lectures really engaging. I highly recommend going to his office hours. He's extremely receptive to you if you show that you are interested in the topics at hand and would like to explore the topics further. He always makes himself available to meet one on one with you. I was blown away by the fact that a man who is so prominent in his field and has so many students makes himself so accessible to students. If you want to get a solid foundation in European history and don't mind working hard, you will love this class. If you want an easy intro class without a lot of work, this is not the class for you.

I really liked Professor Coen—her lectures were clear, informative, and I was rarely (if ever) bored. With that said, if you space out for a few minutes, you will miss information, because she doesn't put the main ideas on the powerpoint on the board. Buy the textbook—it will fill in any gaps that lecture might leave, especially towards the end of the semester—she runs out of time occasionally. In terms of workload, the essay for this class was a royal pain in the butt—it was a 5-7 page paper about a historical novel chosen from a list of 6 or 7 books. It was spread out over a month and a half, and I wasn't able to finish the novel within 3 weeks like I wanted to in order to start planning the essay. Other than that, the readings are fairly light, but they are necessary, since discussion sections focus heavily on the readings 5x per semester. I tried to not do the readings, but after going to the first discussion and realizing how vital they were to the class, I did them religiously. The midterm is fairly easy—just follow your notes, the lecture outlines and key terms she gives you, and use the textbook.

A few short readings per class that are discussed in the discussion section (they are always very digestible). Midterm and final that have very clear expectations. One 5-7 page paper on virtually any topic that interests you (although she gives some suggestions).

Reading averages to about 100 pages a week, but it tends to clump together, with a few weeks of 30 pages each and then a 200-page book for one week. 7-9 pg. paper on any subject in European history since 1789. Tough but manageable midterm and final.

I would 100% recommend anyone take a history class with Tiersten. She is so amazing and knowledgable—classes are incredibly engaging and attendance is always high. She manages to fit so much detail into a survey course, all while keeping workload very manageable. If you are considering taking one of her courses (I've also heard Colonial Encounters is amazing) there are no downsides to Professor Tiersten!! You will know all the possible essays on the Midterm and are able to prepare accordingly. It is difficult to do bad on one of her exams.

This was a decent course, ideal for first-years getting their feet wet in history; if you have any history under your belt already, however, you might end up feeling somewhat unsatisfied, as I did. This is a vast span of time, so you won't really have time to go into any depth on any of it; we spent one day on the Russian Revolution, for example -- something that you could definitely study for your entire life. Maybe my dissatisfaction was more a matter of taste than of anything else. Woloch's lectures were good but dry. He's apparently a big name in French Revolution scholarship, which you can tell from his astute analysis of French history, but unfortunately it's hard to appreciate how subtle his analysis might be without having a really solid background in the subject, and (as I learned in this class) you just can't get that in a survey course.