Andrew Schonebaum

You know those people you think about when you're gnarled and old and thank God you learned from? Andrew Schonebaum is one of them. He has a contagious passion for anything East of the Ural Mountains and displays it with humour, erudition and a genuine interest in his students' opinions. To illustrate, he always encouraged discussion, and on the rare occasions when (usually during midterm season) he was the one doing the talking, he would reprimand himself and pass the baton to someone else. The readings were generally very light, and class discussions were focussed on themes, not details. There were weekly posts, and it was evident that Andrew read them carefully because he would bring them up in class. It's a pity that Andrew will not be teaching at Columbia anymore, because he is truly the stuff of a Great Teacher Award, and this is my minor tribute to him. I truly believe that my classmates and I made an effort to work for this class because Andrew was so understanding and easy-going: he didn't frighten us into performing, but rather encouraged the cultivation of the intellectual skills that he believed we all had and were capable of using.

Andy is such a smart and great professor. He's very interested in what he teaches and obviously loves to share his knowledge. He is very relaxed and understanding. Don't have any reservations about him, he's wonderful. Reacting to the Past itself is a very good class, it's informal and really helps your speech-writing and speaking skills as well as your ability to tear one text apart over the course of a few weeks.

Horrible! Don't take for major cultures. Boring and stupid. Totally unorganized and harder than it should be considering you learn nothing. They force you to bs by not teaching you anything and then grade you poorly for it. Avoid at all costs

Andy is just the best. There's no other way to describe him. His section of University Writing (a class which should be just a HUGE drag) was fantastic. Not only is he phenomenally brilliant, but he's so down-to- earth and...young. He was working on his dissertation while teaching this section, so he's totally sympathetic to the role of student. Andy was always accessible when I needed help on anything or had any questions and made this stupid course a hell of a lot of fun. He's an amazing professor and just an awesome guy. He's a winner.

Hey Andy, what happened? It's true that you are definitely one of the best professors I've come across here at Columbia but why make life difficult for (the most of) us? I'm satisfied with my grade, but I think it's lame that you are so inconsistent with the requirements of the course. First, you mentioned that the final was going to be a 2-3 page take home essay. Then it suddenly became a 4-5 page essay at the last minute. It was supposed to be due 5/9. Suddenly, it was due on 5/7. And then you were trying to persuade us to sign us for your summer courses! Why? Is it because when 20 or more students enroll in your summer course, you'd be eligible for a bonus from Columbia? This was definitely one of the most interesting classes I've taken but remember Andy, not all us are EALAC majors. You can't expect us to cough up supreme essays, especially when you've mentioned how much you hate teaching this course! (And if you are one of his prospective students this summer, make sure you are able to regularly deal with Andy's many last minute changes to the course syllabus)

Andy is awesome and this class was the best one I took this semester. It was a ton of reading (the book is 2500 pages long), but it was well worth it. Every class discussion was interesting; not once did I fear falling asleep (unlike Lit Hum class, the hour and 50 minutes flew by every time!). Andy is approachable and very enthusiastic about the book. He has a good sense of humor, too. He responds quickly to emailed questions with helpful answers. I also met with him outside of class once and he was very patient and helpful. Because I have a quiet/shy personality, I struggled with participating in this seminar-style class (often discussion was dominated by one half of the class while the other half said nothing the entire time), but I learned so much just by listening and Andy did a good job with keeping the discussion focused and on track. The book itself is amazing--one of the best I've ever read--and Andy's knowledge of it is extensive. I hope Andy stays at Columbia because I would take another class taught by him in a heartbeat.

His lectures are very condensed (not his fault, since the class covers thousands of years of history in one semester), but his sense of humour really adds some life to it. The lecture is basically just history, and the readings are mostly primary sources. Sometimes they just seem ridiculously irrelevant (translating Chinese can be hard, but sometimes the translates are just plain bad). It's hard to truly appreciate the primary works, especially if they require a large amount of background. Readings are excessively long, but it is not necessary to read everything. Of the two books of primary sources used, Ebrey and Mair, it seemed everyone pretty much just read Ebrey. The class was mediocre, but the professor made it more enjoyable.

2 papers and a final. Weekly readings and posts. Two drafts of the first two papers were supposed to be submitted, the first reviewed by the writing center and the second one edited.

The name of this class is a bit of a misnomer; it should really be "East Asian Influence in America". There is really very little discussion of American influence in East Asia because there is no time for it. I hope Andy changes the class' name. Also, Andy is a tad disorganized - but hes been improving that steadily through the semester and now writes the topics for every class on the board, and similar small steps to organize the information. Those are the two flaws of this course and professor. That said, Andy is THE BEST PROFESSOR I HAVE HAD AT COLUMBIA. He knows his stuff thoroughly, and yet is open to different interpretations of the same texts. Many teachers tell you that they do not care about what conclusions you reach in your writing, they only care about your logic. In my experience, most teachers do not put that notion into practice. Andy does. He strongly disagreed with the conclusions I reached in a paper - and told me - but graded it based on its style and reasoning (thats not me being arrogant - its the only conclusion I can reach since he disagreed with my thesis, but gave me a decent grade). Furthermore, he combines sophisticated theory with personal experiences and observations - giving the whole discussion a feeling of being academic yet grounded. For example, when we read some work on linguistic theory and translation, he provided us with the simple fact th…

The class really isn't too bad, but it's not that great either. I didn't jive very well with Schoenbaum's lecture style. For the most part, he stands at the podium and reads his lecture, inserting random (and sometimes hilarious) comments here and there, while everybody else copies what he says. It was fine, I learned what he said, but it just wasn't that great--I was usually thinking about how much my hand hurt from all the writing instead of the material. Some people brought laptops to type instead of pen and paper. As for the actual class, there was a real split between what was said in lecture and what was assigned for reading. Schoenbaum give the history and context in lecture but the reading was all primary sources. There was really a big gap between the lecture and reading because nobody tried to make any connections between the two. It's a fine class, but I would have to disagree with all the other reviewers that say Schoenbaum is amazing--he is just ok.