History · Columbia University
I learned about the history of New York City.
Survey look into different methods of conducting history, focus on perspectives with some discussion of skills (archival research, oral history, mapping, etc)
Most of a book/week, two essays of about 10-12 pages and a weekly discussion post (300 words). Each discussion post probably took about an hour. Grading was reasonable and justified why points were detracted.
This course basically walks through different "ways" to do history; I think the vast diversity of experiences of the students with respect to graduate work and history made it difficult for the course to cohere.
Professor Phillips-Fein knows her stuff. She was able to convey her knowledge effectively and concisely, and has made a fantastic effort to make herself available beyond what is expected. One of the best resources of this class was the weekly office hours that professor Phillips-Fein held to go through the material and clarify my understanding of the course material. This classes strength is in our 2 hour seminar. It was truly the academic highlight of my week. Professor Phillips-Fein is so incredibly knowledgeable of the subject, that her synthesis and question asking make understanding and having conversations about it insightful and helpful. I also loved that she would rely on one student to come up with questions for each week, which made the class grounded in an individual's perspective. The only thing that could have made the class feel slightly more coherent is if some weeks we talked about Left and Right movements in the same day rather than vacillating between the two.
I was able to discuss the readings from History of the City of New York with a small group.
This course was a nice overview of historical methodologies/thematic elements that will come up in our reading and research.
history of New York City from pre-colonization to the 1990s (related to a wide variety of communities/neighborhoods)
I learned a variety of different approaches that notable historians have taken.
I think it is very important to learn about the history of NYC as we go to college here and I never learned it in high school because I didn't grow up in NYC. The content was comprehensive too.