MUSI V2020

3 concert reports (you have to find the concerts in the city), some small assignments here and there, 1 final group project/presentation, no exams. Do everything including extra credit and you can get an A+. Do notttt use AI on your reports. He wants your own thoughts.

Definitely definitely definitely take this for Global Core. Ended up being one of my favorite classes I took at CU. Interesting lectures (attendance is required), but not overbearing. Easy to sort of relax and follow along. Prof is passionate about course material and knowledgable. Content was interesting. BE RESPECTFUL to the performers at the concerts!! And be knowledgeable of their music if you choose to speak with them.

Mandatory attendance to lectures, 3 3-page concert reports, 1 final project and presentation. Spent 2.5 hours/week going to lecture, 10 hours per concert report including attending the concert and writing it, and 10 hours on the final project.

I took Jazz and Salsa with Professor Washburne. His courses embody "you get out what you put in" in that everyone gets a good grade, so you can choose to learn as much or as little as you want. For me personally, having the stress of grades taken away is a rare experience at Columbia but effective in making the learning self-driven. Most people take the course to get an easy A, but having sat through all the lectures, gone to concerts, and done final projects of my own choosing, I have a new-found appreciation for these genres of music I used to know nothing about. I listen to jazz and caribbean music in a new way, and I'm grateful for it.

pretty easy A or A+ if you put the extra effort in to do the extra credit. attendance is mandatory (10%), so you basically just check in with your assigned TA at the beginning of class. a lot of people would just check in and then leave from the back lmao. we had 3 concert reports (16% each) where you had to go listen to a different genre of music performance and just generally write about your experience doing that and how it connected to what we have learned in class. tbh just throw in a bunch of terminology mentioned in class and cite the textbooks a couple of times and you should be set. it can kind of depend on how tryhard your TA is but most people get 100s on these concert reports. there's also other smaller assignments throughout the semester like an assignment to go eat caribbean food and another assignment to learn a caribbean dance. final project is a build your own adventure type of project worth 30%. you give a short presentation to a TA and the prof during reading week and then submit your actual final project a day or two after your presentation. you don't really need to pay attention during lecture (truly almost everyone was either doing other homework or online shopping during class). just jot down a couple of terms and songs that he talks about so that you can reference it in your concert reports.

pretty chill class that introduced me to a new genre of music and a variety of cultures. the prof spends a lot of lecture time showing us examples of songs and dances and just talking about these works. he sometimes throws in fun stories of his experience in this genre as both a performer and an educator. you really don't need to do the readings or outside listenings tbh just control f a few key words when you write the essays later so that you can reference it. the syllabus is lowkey a mess though because he can kind of go off in tangents sometimes and then get really off track so we literally spend like 80% of the semester talking about salsa and then had to rush through soca and reggae in the last two sessions of class. he would also sometimes post an assignment in a short timeframe before it was due so that could be stress-inducing especially if the assignment involved trying to find a concert to go to while also balancing all your other activities since you would need to go to these concerts on your own time and dime (though i think there is a fund that you can ask him about if you need financial help with attending these concerts). overall: chill class, easy A, does require some off campus excursions and some money used to attend the concerts (but if you plan ahead, you can usually find some pretty cheap/free concerts to go to)

3 concert reports, a few minor assignments, and a final project. All are graded leniently, and given the absence of comments on more than half of all my submissions, I don't even think my TA read my work. The final project can be pretty much on anything, and you're supposed to give that presentation to Washburne himself, but you may end up presenting to a few disinterested TAs instead, so your mileage may vary.

Washburne and the TAs put as much effort into this class as the apathetic seniors taking it. Standards are ridiculously low, and this was evident from the start of the semester when a large chunk of the class used AI/plagiarized their first concert report but could just redo it to receive full marks. Consequently, many students walked away from this class with very little knowledge or skills, but hey, at least they received two hours of online shopping time in Lerner Cinema each week. The grading by TAs can also be slightly inconsistent and verge on petty. However, it doesn't really matter because even if you get a "harsher" TA, your worst-case scenario involves getting an A instead of an A+. Admittedly, Washburne is one of the most engaging lecturers I've had, and I don't want to take away from that, but the course's organizational structure needs improvement. Perhaps it is simply the nature of such a large class, but then again, many of its issues are not inherent to its size. In a lot of ways, the class embodied and encouraged the essence of Columbia: pay money and do as little learning as possible to get a good grade. If you want to spend 100+ dollars on Washburne's book (which he should really give out for free), Caribbean food, and concerts throughout the semester to get an easy +A, take the class. If you are genuinely interested in Caribbean music, also take the class b…

3 concert reports (mostly light work), 1 final project which he gave us absolutely no direction for which also meant the grading was arbitrary, and a bunch of smaller assignments that were also light work. other than the fact that i had to pay for half of them it could've been much worse.

i took this class because it's supposed to be a guaranteed A, only to be met with the fact that everything is dependent on your TA. my TA was the pettiest grader i've ever had the displeasure of meeting in a class at columbia. also, i ended up paying over $100 to complete assignments -- he made us go out and eat caribbean food in the city, made us watch 3 different caribbean concerts with tickets sometimes upwards of 60 dollars??? why am i paying for a grade in this class. washburne is clearly incredibly knowledgeable about the music and everything to do with it, and his performance experience is probably one of the most padded i've ever seen, but the execution of the class just soured the whole experience for me. i also felt the class was way too big to be productive. i'd only recommend it if you're really invested in caribbean music.