HIST W3719

Overall, pretty solid class; not the easiest, but a doable A with lots of time and effort. This is a super popular class because it fulfills the Global Core requirement, Prof. Khalidi is the best in his field, and the subject matter is relevant and important to current affairs. It's such a big class that you'll likely have a couple, if not 10-15 friends in the class too. Professor Khalidi is an awesome lecturer. I found his lectures engaging and extremely informative. It was refreshing to learn about the Middle East from an actual Middle Eastern professor/someone who's lived there – he throws in personal anecdotes about famous heads of state and events we learn about, like meeting King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and his fathers' work in the UN. It's pretty cool to learn from someone whose own life experiences and family background is ingrained in what we're learning. Grading is entirely based on discussion sections that happen once a week. The midterm and final are each two papers written over a five-day period – so they're definitely very time intensive and require prior knowledge (cramming during the five days is hard – I tried doing that for the midterm and got a B+). If you do the readings, pay attention to lectures, and talk to your TA, you should be okay. Make sure to participate in your discussion sections. I ended up with an A overall in this class, although it did take a…

I think this course is really overrated. The lectures were really poorly organized. Perhaps, this was because of the online format but Khalidi lectures without a PowerPoint and wasn't writing on a board or anything, so it was not super coherent. He would lay out what he was going to say at the beginning of the class, but often he wouldn't follow it or would jump back and forth between topics. Khalidi's family is clearly very important in the Middle East, but some of his anecdotes about his family history came off a bit like brags (he talked about how he was brought to see the king of Saudi as a teenager when he was about to go to Yale for no apparent reason). The readings were quite uninteresting and for the most part very textbook-y. There was also a strangely (considering Khalidi's politics) biased pro-Israel history of Israel text. We also read the entirety of his book on the Cold War which was really badly written (he quotes the same passage twice in 20 pages) and he often quoted his own book when discussing this topic. I agree with the other review that said this is not a comprehensive history of the Middle East class, we barely talked about pan-Arabism, north Africa, or countries apart from Turkey/the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Iran, Israel/Palestine, and Saudi at the end. Another thing I did not like about the class was the grading. It was 20% Section Participation (Based o…

Proceed, but with some caution. As a freshman and found it possible to get a good grade without suffering, but not without three important things: 1) go to class, I can't repeat it enough, or at LEAST borrow notes, because you're more likely to know the info that will show up on a test; 2) DO attend the discussion sections, because those boost your grade 10% even if your TA sucks, 3) worker smarter rather than harder when it comes to readings--Bulliet subtracted most of the books on the syllabus (except his own and Khalidi's, big surprise*.*) and added books right before the midterm as well as the final. Therefore, don't waste your time buying books early, count on him to switch, make changes, and if you can, buy books from Barnes and Noble's general section (not the textbook section) so that you can read up and return it, having not wasted money you don't have. Although reading is heavy, pay attention to what he talks about in class and the terms that TAs give you before the exams, and the material is there. No homework of course except for readings as well as discussion readings and discussion attendance. You only have a midterm and a final, but both--especially the latter--are very rigorous, involving several essays (some of which may be based on the reading) and IDs (identifying a group of terms, like "intifada" and "PLO", and explaining how it relates to other terms). Tho…

Midterm and Final. Both extremely rigid with little compassion for deadlines. Way too much reading.

midterm (25%), final (40%), 2500 word paper (25%), 10% participation in discussion section.

Honestly, this class was 100% based off of the TA you got. My TA was Nada Khalifa and when I tell you this was the worst TA experience I've had at Columbia, I'm not kidding. She was unnecessarily strict, boring, and honestly a bit rude and stuckup. Khalidi's lectures were okay but definitely not worth waking up at 8:40 for. All the information from lectures were in the books, and if you read them then there was no point to the class. This class isn't really history of the modern middle east, it's basically an Egypt and Iran class with bits and pieces of other places like Palestine. Honestly this class is overhyped. The MESAAS department has a legacy of "dudebros" and Khalidi is one of them. Wouldn't recommend taking the class to anyone. If you're actually interested in the middle east, read the books on the syllabus on your own time and don't waste it taking this class. Way too overhyped, and biggest regret of mine at Columbia.

probably the best professor at columbia. he admitted, more than once, that he taught us how to bullshit. His lectures are really interesting, although some had a hard time appreciating them. This is a great global core class to take.

not bad. lots of reading but it's interesting. midterm and final, and discussion participation. discussion required weekly discussion posts.

A lot of reading (including 5-7 books that were not initially on the syllabus that we were supposed to go and buy or print off of courseworks) that isn't totally necessary (some is, though); required section that was soooo useless; midterm, final, final paper.

amazing, wonderful, smart, intelligent, brave seriously the best prof ever his lectures are super interesting, he's incredibly knowledgeable (has been called the foremost US historian on the Middle East) isn't afraid to say what he thinks