First Year Seminar @Barnard · Columbia University
Reading was assigned for each class, along with a discussion post/comment. There were 2 essays and a final project that included a creative and written component. All of which were given ample time to complete.
Completely manageable, one discussion board post per week and 4 essays
This class is P/F, and although there are assignments due at the beginning of every class, Professor Benjamin is very lenient with these. If you forget to do an assignment, you can get it done in the 20 minutes before class (although I cannot stress this enough first-years, the effort you put into this class determines what you get out of it). One of the best parts about this class is that the essays "graded" based on improvement, not quality. As long as you have shown visible improvement from your rough draft, you will get a pass for the essay. I spent around 2.5 hours a week on this class doing nightly assignments, and probably 6 hours or so writing each essay.
Pretty chill. Readings and a discussion post before most classes (graded on completion), plus 3 essays and revisions.
Weekly reading and writing assignments that can take up some time but are worthwhile. 3 essays, they're the most important aspect of your grade and writing them is a long time consuming process.
Prof. Benjamin was a very nice, helpful, and engaging professor. The content covered in this class was extremely interesting and easy to comprehend and follow. Would definitely recommend for a first year seminar course!
My favorite professor so far. Just communicate with her and you should be fine grade-wise. I had a lot going on when I took her class and wasn't able to get assignments in on time etc but she was very kind about it and remained approachable. She's a bit strict in the sense that she will point out small errors but she also praises all the good parts of your essay; if you genuinely want to refine your writing (which you probably need in the long term for any discipline) I would highly recommend her course. The readings were all enjoyable and thought-provoking
Great class, highly recommend. Professor Benjamin is a great professor, she's very easygoing and her class is super enjoyable. She's very engaging in the class, and works hard to facilitate a nonjudgemental, safe environment where students can feel comfortable sharing their ideas, even if they're not confident in what they have to say. Most of the class is class discussions, parter work, and the occasional in-class assignment, with an assignment due at the beginning of every class. There are a lot of readings, but this is common for all first-year writing classes. By the end of this course, I felt like my writing skills had immensely improved from high school, and I feel more than comfortable writing college-level essays. I would highly recommend this class, the content is extremely relevant to current events and you learn about concepts that you can apply throughout your academic career.
Prof Benjamin is always enthusiastic and excited and makes a fairly mundane class quite interesting.
I did not expect much going into this class, but I ended up getting a lot our of this. Before this class, my academic exposure to feminism had been shallow and repetitive and I had grown to resent it. In this class, however, we read texts and discussed ideas that further nuanced feminist theory and my understanding of it, which I really enjoyed. Also, through Professor Benjamin's highly structured classes and assignments, I was able to improve my writing skills significantly and in various ways. This includes deeper analysis of literary texts, learning to write research essays, learning to better structure and organize my writing, and further developing my voice as a writer. Many sessions were dedicated to working on writing. This spanned from peer-editing to class wide analysis of writing and to lectures and handouts with specific methods geared at improving our writing. We worked with writing fellows for the second two essays, which provided an initial round of somewhat helpful feedback. After this, we turned in a second draft to the professor which she gave extensive feedback on and organized conferences with us to discuss it. Beyond that, students were encouraged to schedule extra meetings or come to office hours for additional feedback and help. I think the professor had high but fair expectations in regards to grading that required students' commitment and real effort.