Susan Andrade

Easily one of the most engaging and brilliant professors I've been lucky enough to have. She really challenges everyone, and will embarass you if you haven't done the reading. She's very kind and approachable, though intimidating at first. She will eventually get even the most boring and mute seeming kids in your class to contribute daily. A really inspiring teacher, I learned a lot.

Prof. Andrade is a sympathetic and extremely intelligent woman. She communicates well and tries to balance conversations/discussions among the varying interests and theoretical levels of the students. The texts she assigned for this class were fantastic for introducing the topic and gave the students just enough to let them know there's plenty more out there. The discussions were sometimes a bit difficult as she can be unorganized and occassionally leaves notes, assigned articles, and graded papers in her office or at home. Aside from these annoyances, though, it was a great course.

Holy mackerol. It looks as though I am seriously outnumbered here, but I actually really liked Intro to African Cultural Studies. I would have perhaps used the word loved had the other reviews not been so harshly critical. Let first say a few things -- yes, there is quite a bit of reading, and yes, the reading is hard. But, Andrade is a very thoughtful woman who knows an incredible amount of information in her field. She's a typical college professor in that you can tell her focus is more on research taking place outside the classroom, but she is also enormously kind and genuine. She is writing a book about a film and several books we handled in lecture, is fluent in french, and is able to answer almost any obscure question you could have regarding African civilization. This class requires dedication, but I believe that you will get exactly the amount you put into it. I say at least give it a shot.

Unfortunately I have to agree with the reviewers who gave poor reviews to this class. Our class was the guinea pig class as this is the first time it's ever been taught. As a result she assembled an overly ambitous syllabus which meant that not only did we have to cut out several readings and assignments, but that we had to purchase $20 books in order to only read an introduction that could have been photocopied and paying way too much for course packs that had a number of untouched articles. In addition there she considerably increased the number of written assignments without really giving us any feedback or constructive criticism in order to improve on our next papers (that is if we got them back before we had to write the next paper). The first test in the class was the final which she did little to no work helping us to prepare for. When asked questions about what would be expected of us all she could say was that she hadn't really decided what the test would be like and that we should therefore just "know everything." The main text, Africa since 1940, is bearable until the fifth chapter at which point it becomes a mind-numbing list of facts. To make it worse, the professor acknowledged that the last half of the book was indeed terrible before revealing to us that she had not in fact read the whole book before assigning it to us. I also have to agree with the fact that sh…

I pretty much agree with the other reviewers in that it's a pretty bad idea to take this class. It *could* have been a cool course (most of the readings were really interesting), but for Professor Andrade, who killed everything potentally worthwhile about the material. She would come to class with no particular agenda for the discussion and instead simply ask what we didn't understand about the reading. Then she would individually answer expository questions about the readings for two hours. Class discussions were really inane and *really* boring-- anyone who tried to bring some form of critical/analytical thought to the discussion would usually be shut down (I was once informed that my reaction to a text was "inappropriately strong" when I tried to boost the discussion a bit). I didn't find her particularly intimidating, but I think she terrified a lot of the freshmen. She does put you on the spot-- so beware if you haven't done the reading. The paper topics spell out exactly what she wants you to do in your essay so there's zero room for creativity. There's too much reading, and too many pointless summaries. Also, the class is totally disjointed-- I don't think Andrade tried to establish any kind of conceptual coherence to the course, so it's a little tricky to figure out what you're supposed to know and how it relates to everything else. All in all, I didn't think this clas…

DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS. I was very dissapointed and I am happy to see that there were some other people in this class who felt the same way that I did. Overall, this class would be ok if the students were compensated with easy grading. But having to endure this class and then being graded harshly was just too much for me to handle. I turned in a draft for my first paper a week early and went to see her about it and she had forgotten to read it and then goes over it for 5 minutes when I come by for her office hours and then gives me a grade I thought was a lot lower than what I deserved. I'm not trying to be a prick here, but I got an A- in LandR and have never gotten below a B on a paper, and I'm a junior so I've done the CC Lit Hum thing. Lets just say that my grade on this paper was lower than a B. And for my second paper I give her a draft. I come by for office hours and not only has she not looked over it, she lost it. I give her a second copy and we decide that we'll talk about it after the next class. After the next class she sees me sitting there and starts rifling through her stuff and says she'll need a moment to find my paper. So I go to the bathroom and get some water and when I come back she's reading it over for the first time. And then she ends up giving me a low grade on it. I feel like in this class the students put in a lot of effort to do well, and I don't fee…

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS! IF YOU REGISTERED FOR IT, DROP IT!!! Andrade is condescending and has no people skills. She is disorganized: by the end of the semester she had changed her syllabus THREE times and had doubled the amount of papers. Our first test in the class is the FINAL and it is over about 25 texts. Her advice for review: Know everything. And, for this to be a lecture class, she does not lecture. All that she is concerned about is what people "feel" in class, but then she expects you to know the "right" answer for papers. It is definitely not an introduction course; more like a graduate level course. She's not bad as a person; but as a teacher: RUN!

Prof. Andrade is obviously not teaching because she wants to. Her discussions force students to spit out stupid answers no one learns from. She never taught but expected students to just absorb. She is condescending and grades harshly. Half the reading is interesting, half of it is dry. Overall the experience was terrifying and I learned little I didn't read on my own.

Professor Andrade is kind, thoughtful and challenging. She does call on people at times, but the usually lively discussions help keep this to a minimum. There is a hefty amount of reading, but it's all very interesting. The class covers a wide range of topics, literary, historical, political and social. If you can do the work, it's worth it. The class is set up as a discussion, which Andrade manages quite well, stepping in whenever necessary. She is clearly interested both in the material of the course and in what the students have to say.