Lauren Horst

At the beginning of the course there is a lot of work, but towards the end of the class it lightens. There are some long readings, but all the assignments help with the essays. Pretty typical workload for a UW class.

I was dreading taking UW. As someone who has already taken AP English classes, I felt it was pointless. I still don't fully think I learned much from UW, but taking it with Lauren Horst made the class much more enjoyable. She is a very nice person, and you can tell she genuinely cares about her students. I wish she taught other classes, because I would love to have her as a professor again. The class itself is not the easiest, but if you put in the work and submit your assignments, you will do fine.

I found Dr. Horst's (or Lauren, as she lets us call her) grading to be generally fair. I wouldn't call this class an easy A (but I wouldn't call any UW section an easy A), but I think that you will learn interesting things about climate change. Another review mentioned a difficulty with knowing how to improve, but Lauren consistently leaves a paragraph or two of feedback on every essay you submit and will gladly provide more if prompted. You will likely have to deviate from your traditional writing style reinforced by high school English, but I think it is for the best. Grade-wise, I'm pretty sure I (along with most others in the class) will end with an A-. 20% P1 Close-Reading Analysis (very unlikely to get above a B+ on the first essay it's kind of a weird thing the UWP does to make people "improve" as the semester goes along, so don't be discouraged) 25% P2 Synthesis Essay (most in my class were in the B+ to A- range) 40% P3 Research Essay (most in my class were in the A- to A range) 15% P4 Op-Ed (usually A or A- guaranteed on this it is usually a grade booster) No A+'s are given but that is dictated by the undergraduate writing program.

Lauren is a wonderful person, probably one of the best professors I could have asked for during my first semester at Columbia. She was incredibly genuine and frank with us about what was going on, both personally as a professor/individual as well as institutionally, providing some much-needed context for the less discussed aspects of the undergraduate writing program. In terms of the class itself, UW is just a generally kind of monotonous, heavy workload class, but Lauren never expects us to do the extensive readings required by some other courses and intentionally selects any of the texts we use to be on the shorter end, typically with visual aspects as well. I think she does her best with the crummy curriculum with the UWP and makes her classes generally engaging. My year we had a great class in general, but since it is a climate humanities focus, expect a good deal of climate-conscious individuals with similar ideals. The only disclaimer I'll say is that climate humanities views climate change from a sociopolitical lens, not an environmental one, so be prepared to analyze things like representations of climate change in media or the social implications of climate change rather than just the climate itself (not that we can't analyze this as well; it usually is just in tandem with a larger social/political implication).

Average. It's not an easy class but she is a fair grader and doesn't give us work that doesn't directly relate to the UW assignments.

Lauren is genuinely the best. She cares so much about the class she is teaching and is amazing at explaining concepts and creating engaging lesson plans. But beyond that, she genuinely cares about her students. She constantly made an effort to get to know us and learn about our lives, fostering a sense of community between classmates and comfortability with her as a teacher. She is my favorite teacher at CU, and possibly so far in life. Even if you are not interested in climate humanities, I would highly recommend her course.

When I told my friends in different UW sections about the work I had to do, they often responded, "Why are you always doing UW?" There are sections of UW that are easier and more interesting than this one.

Lauren Horst is a very nice person, but the consensus of the class was that the CULPA reviews made the class seem a lot easier than it was. My main issue with this class is I found it very unclear how to improve. I am a person who will put whatever effort is necessary to succeed. I emailed her whenever I had questions, made extra appointments, and went to the Writing Center. In her comments on my papers, she only gave clear suggestions for improving my first paper. When I would show her my work she would just be positive. I wish gave more feedback that would help me to succeed. I ended the class with an A-, and I was left incredibly frustrated for the amount of work I put into the class. She is not a helpful teacher, and I don't think my writing improved in the class. The only thing I learned was the definition of a scholarly problem. I also don't think I learned that much about climate change. This class focused more on how it is shown in literature/media (which I find different). I just want to emphasize that her reviews on CULPA were very different than the class itself. I talked to many in my class about this, and they all had the same opinion.

Standard UW workload. 4 Progression Essays (1 Rhetorical Analysis, 1 Scholarly Conversation Essay, 1 Research Essay, 1 Op-Ed). Each essay requires an exploratory draft, formal draft and final draft. Reading/writing exercises and a couple class presentations are also assigned to aid in writing these essays.

Lauren Horst is an absolute gem at Columbia. Her teaching style is very engaging, in which classroom discussions and group work are the focal point of the class as opposed to lectures. Despite the writing process in UW being often tedious and complex, Lauren does a great job at making the writing process a more fun one. She admittedly gives less reading than the average Columbia UW professor, but expects that you do read through the material thoroughly and put effort into your writing exercises. Her grading is very lenient compared to most UW professors, especially for progression essays that she herself finds difficult. Lauren truly cares about her students and wants them to succeed in her course. She gives very in-depth and constructive feedback in 1-on-1 discussions during the drafting process. Moreover, after each essay, Lauren gives written feedback in which she tells you about the specific aspects of your essay that you did well on and areas that you could improve on for future essays. She is very detailed and descriptive; take her feedback into consideration! Not to mention, Lauren does a great job at clarifying expectations for essays, since such expectations might seem very abstract at first. Additionally, Lauren is vibrant, energetic, and has a charming personality (that's pretty contagious in the classroom!). As previous reviews have stated, she is indeed empathetic…