First Year Seminar @Barnard · Columbia University
Sonam is an amazing professor. He made lots of time to meet with everyone in the class to help with papers and understanding course material. He is funny, informative, and he pushed us to think critically and examine texts from a feminist perspective.
Eh, okay professor. Should provide a better introduction to the texts we read and moderate discussions better. Also: is he gay? Kind of mysterious. The discussions were poorly moderated and monopolized by those who just wanted to pontificate. I wonder if there's a pedagogical intent in not getting our papers back to us on time; I think maybe he likes to play mind games with us. Overall decent though. Enjoyed it more than I didn't. Learned a lot. Have a good appreciation for greek history now. Took in Fall.
There was a reasonable reading to complete for every class--but never any sort of responses or blog posts (other FYW classes have those). Also, you could totally not do the reading and still be able to participate in the discussion. There were two smaller essays and then one large term paper which he helps you through every step of the process--picking the topic, finding sources, writing an outline, a draft, etc. The workload was ridiculously manageable--and again, when you have trouble with an essay, he is ALWAYS willing to schedule a meeting.
Sonam is an amazing human being and teacher! You definitely have to get used to the way he speaks (a little condescending and never holds back), but if you don't take him too seriously (which he doesn't either) then he's really funny and awesome. He has lots of really critical, interesting things to say about anything he speaks about--Barnard, Columbia, Butler, western culture, the patriarchy, racism. Beyond how amazing and funny he is as a person, I learned so much from this class as a writing seminar. He teaches about transitions, citations, introductions, and general structure of essays in a way that means you can use his instructions for any class. He explains how to use Butler, borrow direct, CLIO--it's truly so helpful. He is so smart, so fun. I don't know how much I can stress how great this class was on so many levels. It really was the most enjoyable class of my semester. Also!! He is always available to schedule meetings--my friend scheduled like 3 every week for a while cause she was so worried about an essay. He also offers to help with essays from your other classes!! I loved this class SO MUCH; it's making me sad writing this because I'm realizing its over. He is so lovely.
He's funny and I learned a lot. Takes way too long to grade though.