Rebecca Young

I expected more from this class. The topics were interesting, Becs is charasmatic and funny, but somehow, despite always completing the reading, this class left me confused. I left it with a pretty good grade but instead of feeling like I had a deeper knowledge of the many issues in women's health, I felt like I had heard a lot of terms and themes and ideas instead of a firm grasp of the material. All in all, I am glad that I took it because I had not expected to ever take a women's studies class and I do feel that some parts of the class really provided insight. I just wish it had been a little more solid. Otherwise: The guest lecturers are great; very informative and clear and come with Powerpoints Becs can be somewhat disorganized but she is so great as a person It was clear that most people did not do the reading on a daily basis--she once proved this to us by giving a pop quiz

Amazing, shes sharp as a tack knows exactly what shes talking about. She will probe you to be specific, not go off into whimsical theoretical generalization. Say what you mean, explain your points and your thoughts clearly. Dont be offended by this though she wont judge you harshly, she just wants to see you make sense of your own ideas and not just produce verbal diarrhea while you try to sound smart.

This class is a prime example of why people consider women studies to be a joke. I took this class after sitting in on 2 lectures and being impressed with Prof. Young. When I decided to take it I know IÂ’d be made fun of. I heard from almost everyone I knew - youÂ’re taking a class in the Barnard womenÂ’s studies department?! My response was, the class is a serious epidemiology class using women and their relationship to the healthcare system as a case study. I ATE my words. This class was a boring waste of time. There are maybe 2 lectures that have interesting material. Everything else – you know or should know. There was a visiting lecture by one of the barnard deans in which we were asked – “does everyone know what DNA is?” I am NOT kidding. Other classes included sobbing – sharing your experiences psychobabble waste of my time. In one class we were told to spend 15 minutes reflecting on our 1st gynecology exam. The next 20 minutes were spent sharing different peoples stories. It is not appropriate in an academic setting to spend time like that. I guess it was good there were no guys in the class. You might be asking yourself – why did I go to lecture if it was such a waste of time? Lecture is required. Prof. Young passes around a sign in sheet. In terms of work and other requirements. Prof Young was so vague that nobody quite knew what was going on. When we were told…

I expected much more from this class. This rarely offered class was one of the worst I have taken in my several years here. Young is knowledgeable in the fields of sexuality studies, feminism and women's health, but she seems to have no training in proper ways to conduct a class. When she should have lectured, she had us do useless group work with other confused students, and when she should have let us discuss things, she droned on tangentially. She expected students to fully grasp every word of the readings before lecture, and, with the assumption that we had, rarely addressed the mountains of texts in class at all. She would pull out one point of more than 100 pages of text from the week and waste the entire class asking students puzzling questions which never got to any point. On her assignments, however, she expected clear connections and references, which she did little to help us establish. Her TAs had no clear grading objectives and seemed to change their schema from week to week. The weekly assignments were posted late almost every week, sometimes only a few hours before a class, leaving students hanging. When assignments were actually distributed in a timely fashion, the wording made almost no sense. Both Young and her TAs avoided questions asked of assignments, as if taking offense to the idea that they weren't already clearly stated (which they weren't). The midter…

I thought that this class was going to be more about health problems that women experience but it was more about how their place in society impairs their health which i found really disappointing. Also, she spends each class on a different topic so you cover so many topics superficially and then she expects you to know tem all for hte final. the class seems a lot more intimidating than it actually is though. I barely did anything in that class and managed to pull off an A. She also gives a comprehensive study guide for the final with everything you need to know on it. Overall I thought this class was really intersting but very one-sided. She actually states in the beginning of the course that the material we will be learning is from a strictly feminist perspective so that kind of gets annoying sometimes because some of the information feels more like perspective than actual fact.

BEWARE: although the syllabus seems really interesting, the class is EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING for many reasons. Although she gives outlines for the midterm and final, the HWs and quizes are sooo frustrating and badly worded. Even if you know the stuff backwards and forwards, you are bound to get screwed. Plus, the HWs and quizes are worth so much that your grade is still low...(she also only curves to a B-). I had to ask her for re-grades on almost everything, (where many mistakes in her grading were found each time). Also- she just sent a mass email to my entire class, because, apparently there were so many complaints about final grades that didn't seem to fit- that she had to go back and regrade everything. The subject is definately interesting (although remember it is a gender studies class, not a bio one- at all.) Overall,though, she is a nice person and makes class fun, but you have to be able to deal with all of her grading frustrations..

This class is a straight up intro course--it does not delve into much. Though Becks is extremely knowledgable on HIV/AIDs, the HIV/AIDS class was her worst--she forgot her slides and forgot how to teach without them. The material is outdated and very rooted in the 60s and 70s. Most of the material complains about how bad things were for women's health then, how little improvement there was in the 80s, and barely gets into the 90s or 00s. Instead of establishing in the beginning that there was injustice towards women in basically all aspects of health, Becks devotes most of each lecture to repeatedly lamenting how women were gypped in treatment of each disease. Guest lecturers were hit and miss--Brenda Slade, Jenny Higgins and the director of the Columbia Rape Crisis Center were AMAZING--but many others were so boring I wanted to cry. Becks doesn't attend most guest lecturs, so not only does she repeat a lot because she was unaware of what was covered, but she doesn't try to establish any cohesiveness between herself and all the guests she brings in. You are allowed two absences, and attendance is taken every single lecture.

The reading list for this class is awesome and includes info any female student should know (but probably doesn't) about her body. Prof. Young brings it tons of guest lecturers - some of whom are interesting and some not - because she recognizes that it is most interesting to hear experts in their specific fields talk about their work. Prof. Young can be very neat to talk to, but her own lectures are often not that compelling. I think she is so nervous about making a mistake/ being insensitive or not PC that it limits her ability to freely talk about issues to students with only limited knowledge. Though the reading is fascinating, it is often unnecessary and doesn't tie directly into class except in the reading comprehension questions she asks. This class is worth taking for reading material it would be hard for humanities students to find otherwise, but the lectures and small homeworks are often not rewarding.

In this course, you focus on women's health issues and not women in health professions. She tells you exactly what's going to be on the midterm and final, so as long as you follow that, you'll be well in the course. Attendance counts, as she passes around an attendance sheet. The TAs are snotty about grading: if your answer doesn't match exactly with their answer, you'll be down-graded.

As with many other students I have mixed reviews about professor Young. She definitely knows whats shes talking about in class and is well informed about the information presented in her class. But the problem I found is that she doesn't seem to convey her information well to her students. Yes she's smart but for some reason her she has a hard time presenting all the information in her head to her students. There was also soooo much unnecessary reading like 80 pages per class that didn't even make it on the final. The class focused more on women in the health system and the different kinds of studies dealing with disease and exposure than it did with women and their health in a biological sense. The class was just boring even though she is a nice lady.