Columbia College Core · Columbia University
This man is AMAZING! He is so passionate and knowledgeable about the topics covered that it makes you excited. (I know it sounds dorky, but it's true.) He makes all these short films to further illustrate his points, extremely talented in digital media, and is also a fair grader. Unfortunately, he won't be teaching next year because he's pursuing a Masters and just got a grant (I think), but if he comes back and you get him, don't drop the class!
4 star teacher! Do not drop this class if you are in it! This is how I imagined a Core Course should be since unfortunately, I have had horrible professors for my previous Core Courses. He is very enthusiatic about the material. You can tell that he enjoys teaching. He makes a lot of the material for the art hum website so he really knows what he's doing. You can feel his passion for art and its infectious. At the end of the semester, he brought in cans of paint, a canvas and various painting tools with which we tried to re-create a Pollack. It was an awesome experience as he allows you to experience what it's like to create art.
Andrew Tallon is one of the best Art Hum professors out there - trust me, I've shopped and cycled through a series of Art Hum classes for the past several semesters. His enthusiasm and unbridled passion for the material makes the class quite interesting. He is amazingly friendly and approachable outside of the class; he is willing to help you out in whatever situation you might find yourself in. The class itself is not as enthusiastic as he is, but we manage to get into 5-10 minutes of reasonable discussion from time to time. Take his class if you can.
Professor Tallon is young and extremely energetic. Tallon makes lots of short films to help understand the art, as he is a pretty accomplished film-maker. He can't help but hide his child-like excitement for the material, and I can't help but get really excited about all kinds of art just listening in class. It gets a little sad when a lazy, tired class doesn't respond to his enthusiasm every single class. However, if you can get over feeling bad for not being as excited as Tallon is, you'll probably love the class
3 papers (architecture, painting, sculpture), midterm, final, random pop quizzes based on the readings (not difficult - but def make it a point to read the things he assigns. He keeps the reading material to a minimum, both in length and amount.)
Not very strenuous, about 10-15 pages before each class. Quizzes about every other class but unannounced pop quizzes, so read the material. 3 papers, 1 midterm and 1 final. The papers aren't too hard but you will be pressed for time for the midterm and final since there is so much writing involved.
Three papers, midterm, final... reading is easy. Take the easy workload as an opportunity to engage yourself more with the actual material; you might just fall in love with some of the artwork in the class as I have.
three papers, a midterm and a final... none of them are too hard, and there is minimal reading in between