Angela Giordani

Writing this review to counter the last review, and a couple of others. I took CC with Professor Giordani in Fall 2024. There are definitely some points I agree with: mainly that she would seemingly play favorites with certain classmates, that you would sometimes feel shut down after participating (e.g. after I participated, I wouldn't get any acknowledgement about what I just said), and the tone of her essay feedback verged into unconstructive/negative feedback. I will say that the earlier CULPA reviews coming into CC gave false security that it would be a walk in a park; however, all the classmates I knew got grades they were satisfied with (or extremely satisfied, including myself, despite not having all the essays graded well), and no one I know got their GPA "ruined" from this class. The extra credit assignments gave a chance to make up for any possible negatives from the other grades. Professor Giordani clearly has enthusiasm for the CC content, which translated to a desire for the class to learn and take the course seriously. I found the lectures quite interesting and informative, though some questions were difficult to answer for the whole class. Professor Giordani is extremely enthusiastic and does want you to succeed in the class, so don't be frightened by the reviews on here. She was extremely accessible for office hours and giving feedback beyond the written essay…

The workload is indeed heavier at the end of the semester, but if you put some effort and not completely procrastinate each deadline, it's manageable and the extra credit assignments are optional. There weren't any in-person exams (a take-home exam, a creative project, two essays, participation, and two extra credit opportunities). If you put effort and thought into the essays, projects, and extra credit, the grading will be fine. However, the extra credit assignments were assigned halfway through the semester, so if you want to do them, it's better to do them earlier rather than later so you can focus on the project and take-home exam at the end of the semester.

So much for little reward. The only bonus is that she gave out extra credit, but there was so much work towards the end of the semester that it was basically impossible to complete it. The extra credit is also not ensured, as she grades it as harshly as normal classwork.

She likes to play favorites. Her discussions are poorly formatted and her grading of participation is insanely arbitrary. She does not even give you a proper breakdown at the end of the course. Additionally, her essay grading is wildly inconsistent. Her comments and feedback on essays are rude and not constructive. I did fairly well in the course, but I would NEVER take her again. I recommend that if you are in her class you switch out if you can because she is a quick way to ruin a GPA that you worked hard for.

She changed the grading to have participation be a huge part but then asked questions that would come out of nowhere without text to ground them - so how are we supposed to answer it??? There are a bunch of reading responses which take a long time, way more than you'd expect. there's also a review document at the end that's nice but it's not graded in the nicest way either. opt for another CC with better grading!!!

I thought that this class would be easy because of all the reviews, but she is really really bad at discussions. I don't know who said that everyone's contributions were valid - she didn't enforce participation or anything and there would be long pauses where she would expect students to say things but they wouldn't. She also wouldn't always respond to students who spoke, she'd say "Who else?" which when you don't even participate a lot is like demeaning. She grades papers more harshly than expected, but she is also super nice. She has projects with weird grading schemes that don't seem to match properly what she sets them out to be (they're not gradeboosters!)

35% Participation (includes attendance, preparation, in-class discussion, Courseworks reading responses, and any completion assignments) 14% First Essay (first draft, peer review, and final draft) 16% Second Essay (first draft, peer review, and final draft) 15% Final Project 20% collaborative cumulative review document and final interview

I wasn't sure what to expect for CC except for a lot of reading. Professor Giordani definitely assigned a lot of reading but fully understood when we didn't have the time to do it all. She was great at facilitating discussion – she made everyone feel like their contributions were valuable and pushed us to explore ideas further. She was so supportive of us even outside of class, always offering a safe space to talk when current events were overwhelming. I also loved that she took our opinions seriously and structured the class based on our suggestions and preferences. She sent us a version of the syllabus before our first class, but during our first class she had everyone say what their favorite part of Lit Hum was. The next day, she sent out a drastically revised version of the syllabus and had swapped out the exams for projects that gave us more flexibility and freedom to explore concepts from different angles. The material for CC could have been really dry and insufferable but the way Professor Giordani taught made it seem exciting and relevant to daily life.

I have no clue if the grading scheme on the syllabus for a core class ever actually reflects how you get your final grade but it seems pretty chill and she also gives lots of extra credit opportunities with out of class excursions and stuff. You normally get a good grade on an essay if you can make a well support argument that's backed up by quotes. You only need to do like half of the discussion posts to get full credit and whatever else she gets your class to agree on.

Professor Goatdani is a real one. She does an excellent job of creating an environment where everyone can share their thoughts openly and freely, and also cares a lot about the wellbeing of her students which can honestly be one of the most hit or miss things about this school. The only problem with her class is that oftentimes the students suck and are too bum to put any effort into class, so when one of the like 6 people who participate don't have something to say or get fatigued you can look over and see an econ student shopping for overpriced fast fashion to your right and someone asking ChatGPT what to say for their participation points on your left. I think this is a Columbia issue and not a her issue though. She's super passionate about the material, possibly more than the entire class combined. Sometimes I think this is a commentary on the intellectual decay of Gen Z. If you put literally any amount of engagement into the class, you'll learn a lot about intellectual history and philosophy. She's a historian who specializes on the modern middle east, so not at all stuck up about the material but does focus on highlighting how thought transforms throughout time. There were a few times when she didn't prepare a class too rigorously, but most of the time there's a good lesson plan and collaborative class documents which has passages that make writing essays a lot easier (a…