Stephen Scott

3 written assignments (10% each) 1 midterm (take-home, open notes) 1 final (take-home, open notes) Participation grade in discussion section

Very manageable for a theory based anthropology class. Two shorter papers (5 pages), one final paper (8 pages). About three different articles per week, along with chapters in the ethnography from time to time.

This class was a bit scattered for my taste. Stephen Scott lectured straight off of written notes, no PowerPoint slides or real outlines to back him up, so it was often hard to figure out what to take notes on. A lot of times, I just found myself trying to type down literally everything he said, just to be safe (and because this class’ grades were pretty much all for essays, it was helpful later to have as much material to quote as possible). For an intro class, this class used a good bit of technical jargon (that Scott seemed to think was pretty much common knowledge) that I found a little hard to follow at times. But you kind of get used to it, and you can google what you don't understand in class later and figure everything out. The readings were a little long at times and pretty boring, but if you wanted to know vaguely what was going on in lecture and also have something to write about for the midterm and final, you needed to read most of it eventually. Stephen Scott, though, is brilliant and really a genuinely interesting guy. It’s fascinating to hear him talk about the anthropological research he does in South America and some of the Indiana Jones-like adventures he’s had while doing it (no joke). He also totally dresses the part of an anthropology professor (so to revise my earlier statement, he pretty much is Indiana Jones). He was really helpful when I went to his of…

Stephen Scott is an awesome professor. He organizes this course in a very unique way, which makes it exciting to learn the material (We read one ethnography the entire semester, and read different theory along the way as the ethnography references it). He does a great job explaining concepts, and unlike Anthro Theory I (which I took with a different professor), I came out of the class feeling like I really understood the material rather than being more confused about the material. It doesn't hurt that he has a great sense of humor and is just a fun guy to be around. He's the type of professor that you'll want to do well for.

Not too bad. Weekly discussion section with a question due the night before, three 10% assignments, a take home midterm and a take home final.

A lot of reading that you will never get to. Two 3-4 page papers and then a 7-8 page final, there will never be a topic though, only a prompt. Don'e be surprised if you get a bad grade for not getting the prompt.

Although interesting, I would not recommend taking this course if you have any love for your GPA. According to Professor Scott, the baseline grade is a B, a B+ is very, very good, and an A- is simply amazing. It's just not worth the extreme amount of effort without the guarantee of getting into the A/A- range. Professor Scott also talks extremely quickly and in a very complicated manner, so it is often difficult to synthesize what he is saying into a clear and concise summary for your notes.

Professor Scott is not a great professor. There was a lot of really interesting things to read but we never got to them in class because Scott is really bad at organizing the class. We probably spent about a third of class time with Scott not being able to control the class and getting into fights with students about whether or not they knew who Kurt Cobain or Barney was. It's also never a good idea to star a class with "I was really surprised because I thought these papers were going to be better, no one seems to have understood the topic" the topic being a page-long prompt in which he indicated that there was no set topic and no right or wrong argument. The only thing that saved this class was the TA Christina who held three discussion sections in the last two weeks of the semester. It would have been better if we had more of them.

An assigned article or two per week-- or section of a book. I procrastinated on a lot of them, but after hearing his lectures and then reading them they made a ton of sense. Perfect intro class

This guy is awesome. He has an amazing way of summarizing all of the readings into great bullet points. In many classes it can be difficult to weave through what is important to take notes on and what isn't, but he routinely reiterates what he wants you to take away from every section. Dr. Scott also has a great sense of humor, which goes a long way when you are dissecting foreign cultures. He is also awesome in office hours if you want to talk about Anthropology in general or go over what has been covered.