Victor Carreno

He's not that great of a professor, but there's no doubt that class can be entertaining depending who's in it with you. The textbook is worthless pretty much, it seems they spent more money paying the illustrator than actually making the information easy to process and worthwhile. You really need to comb the textbook, and maybe even find other online resources if Spanish is a new language. Carreño will answer any question and is eager to help, but the information he presents does not always make sense. The class is painless, Carreño is a fine professor to have.

This man DOES have a heavy accent. He seems to assume that everyone has taken Spanish once before his clas, so he freely uses expressions and vocabulary familiar to only a native speaker's ear. If it weren't for the accent, one could attempt to study just the text and supplement readings with his class lectures and activities, but since his speaks so quickly, it's hard to recognize what he's saying. I began the first class having had NO espanol background, and even a girl next to me (who had taken a course before) said "If you haven't taken Spanish I before there's no way you can understand all this." Okay, so if you read a LOT and memorize a LOT, perhaps you can pull this course off. But if you have at LEAST one more class to worry about, think seriously about this guy.

This man is absolutely abominable!!! He speaks neither "academy" Spanish nor English: he speaks his own brand of venezuelan spanish in an accent that is extremely difficult to understand. He cannot pronounce names. Plus, he is aesthetically frigthening: beware his tendencies to dance and stomp his feet in class. Very tedious class, unbearable learning environment (Alphabetical Seating is required, daily graded homework) Does not explain grammatical structure. By far the worst class I've taken at Columbia!!!!

Victor’s class is something else. DO NOT have him as a teacher if you haven’t taken Spanish for at least 3 years. I have been taking Spanish since 7th grade, and was confused many times throughout the semester in elementary Spanish I class w/ Victor. He gives nightly assignments that are collected and graded, but they are always simple. His method of teaching is doing activities in class, and then breathing down your neck as you complete them—pointing out every tiny error. If you don’t understand something you are overall screwed. I had fun with this class b/c it wasn’t too difficult for me (but again, I have 5 years of Spanish experience) and Victor is fun to make fun of.

This man gives more homework than anyone could imagine. On top of that, he's scandalous. He plays favortisim and he's the hardest grader here at columbia if he just so selects to have you on his bad side. Which you have no choice in the manner no matter how much you suck up. Even though I earned a straight up A i was given much lower. The man is just so weird. Drop him at all costs.

Light: daily homework usually, from the textbook or online notebook. Always short enough to fit on half a piece of binder paper. Every now and then a less than a page essay, which he lets you redo if you get less than an A-. Midterm and final are made by the department, but very very clear.

HEAVY: not difficult, exactly, but tedious. daily graded homework, presentations, compositions, midterm, final

stupid nightly assignments, about 8 tests a semester, midterm and final

insane and he grades(harshly) the h.w. assignments which are for every class on top of weekly quizzes presentations and 5 papers for the semester.