Josh Whitford

Take this class. Prof Whitford is both engaging and thoughtful. Class is comprised of lectures, readings and discussions. Interesting topic and he is truly a great speaker.

Wow. My first semester was a blast, thanks to Professor Whitford. He exudes and energy and classroom presence that reminds me why I came to Columbia in the first place. (Why does the man not have a gold nugget by his name yet?) Sure, he goes on tangents and talks a little too fast. But he warns you of that on the first day of class. He truly has a passion for his work, and he just wants you to understand the concepts. Even after the class ended I still can apply the concepts he taught, and frequently bring them up at parties, much to my guests' chagrin. The texts can be tedious, but he has accommodating office hours and will stay after class as well to answer questions or just chat. The grading depends on the TA, but the average grade was a B-B+ with a good percentage receiving A's. Do you readings and memos and you should easily get a B. I am not a sociology major, and this class counts as my QR requirement. Still, I enjoyed hearing him speak about interesting and controversial topics, make jokes, and complain about how a 10:30am class is too early. Take this class! You will be glad you did.

Josh is the shit, no kidding. He's extremely intelligent and totally lacking in any arrogance whatsoever. The course is great -- interesting readings, and the load isn't as heavy as he sometimes apologetically believes it is. He's excellent at drawing the class into discussion and he's interested in everyones opinions no matter how contrary they are to his. An excellent class that everyone should take, and as easy as it may seem along the way you'll be surprised by the amount you leaarned by the end of it.

Loved, loved, loved this class. I highly recommend this course to any Columbia student (I'm not a sociology major!). Prof. Whitford has a great way of forcing his students to speak (and consequently think) carefully about the subject matter. It was almost like he was fixing my brain, scrubbing it of the bullshit impulse I had developed for small group discussions. The readings were pretty great, and I felt they were usually both informative and enjoyable to read (some could be considered 'pleasure reading' even). I loved the way Prof. Whitford ensured that the class understood and internalized the concepts discussed. Instead of being tested on tedious memorization or mindless regurgitation, we were asked to understand a few key concepts. If you show up and pay attention, you'll pick up on everything he wants you to learn. Big fan.

By far one of the best classes I have ever taken at Columbia. Prof. Whitford is charismatic, funny, knowledgable, and incredibly good at listening to his students. Sometimes the lectures are hard to sit through, but that's only if you haven't read the book. If you did read the book, the class is fun and fast paced, but not so fast that you can't keep up, you learn a lot about sociology very quickly. This was my first introduction to sociology, and now I'm considering switching majors. Prof. Whitford is very approachable, and his weekly memos are really forgiving (you get four re-do's on the memos). If you decide to take the class, I highly recommend you go to his office hours to ask for help on the paper!

Readings: A short (easy) book or a couple of academic papers every week. You write 3 page memo responses to a choice of questions based on the reading for the week -- need to do 9 over the semester. Take home midterm and final.

In a word- amazing. This is a brand new course that Prof. Whitford designed. The reading is extremely interesting, and really challenges the way we as a society tend to think about the economy. Every single reading was important to the total understanding of the course (this is perhaps the first time that I can truly say that none of the reading was superfluous to the thematic structuring of the course). Weekly response memos (of which you must submit 8 out of 12) really helped to cement my understanding of the week's reading. Prof. Whtiford emphasizes our understanding of economy and society as a whole, and he wants to see if we're really understanding the material and able to make connections between the readings. Prof. Whtiford is intelligent, a good lecturer, and incorporates a lot of class dicussion (but doesn't use class discussion as a way to fill in time he should be talking, as some profs do). Overall, I highly recommend this class to both sociology majors and non-majors.

Professor Whitford is so coool!!!! I just loved the way he teaches this class! I like the fact that he does not require us to memorize anything, but to UNDESRTAND the main concepts and to know how to approach any type of scientific evidence critically. The books were just awesome, I had difficulty finishing them because I would stop almost on every page to think about what I have just read or to discuss it with my husband. His lectures are great too. He really wants you to think about the stuff you read. You don't have to agree with him, but you should be able to argue you point while providing some evidence. Class discussions, comments, and questions are encouraged, by the way. Than you have separate discussion sessions once a week with TA's, which were great also. Yeah, I have to admit, reading a book and writing a 2 page memo on it every week, as well as writing a 10-page paper was a pain in the neck, but at least it was interesting and rewarding. The grading mostly by TA's, except for some portions of the exams. And if this is your Quan. Reasoning fullfillment choice because you can't do math, than go for it because there is NO math in this course. I got an A for the class.

Medium workload, a few papers, 2 exams, a final. Grade: A

Took it last spring. I loved the material and the way the readings were ordered, but the lectures were difficult to sit through for the most part, esp. since he tends to not finish his sentence and also reiterate the same point like 5x like you're braindead. You will learn from his lectures for sure, but it's by no way does it keep you engaged the whole time. As a person he's great and brilliant, but he would do better in a small class setting rather than 70+ people lecture. As long as you keep up with the readings, do the assignments, and go to class 50%+ of the time, there won't be any problems. My TA was awesome, so if you have a good TA, get a lot of help from them in learning how to analyze arguments, synthesize your own, etc.