Ximena Valderrama

Dr. Valderrama and this class have a number of pros and cons. Ultimately, I found it to be a good class in which I learned a lot. Cons: she mumbles and trails off at the end of her sentences so unless you sit in the front and listen closely you miss a lot of what you are saying. She also skips over, maybe because this was a condensed summer course, a lot of detail. This leaves you with pretty much no idea how things work but with enough info to get by on the tests. Pros: the power-point presentation she gives and hands out as class notes mean you don't really have to take notes and the quizzes and tests are directly from the power-point notes. I wasn't too keen on this style of rote memorization at the beginning but looking back, I actually learned a lot. She likes the subject, she's fair and even-handed, and she's kind of funny.

As someonewho went into the primates class very excited to be in the class, I was constantly let down by prof. Valderrama. When it comes down to it, she is simply A) a bad teacher, B) a bad lecturer, C) doesn't know enough to be teaching, and D) even if she did, she would still do a bad job presenting it. All of her lectures are just read to the class verbatim from her slides, and the slides themselves are incredibly disorganized and lacking information. Alot of what she puts on the slides is lifted straight from the book. The readings are good, and she never assigns more than 10 pages a night or so. It's good if you want to do no work, but it's terrible if you want to get anything out of the class. The sections are all primate movies. I didn't miss one, and they were all fascinating. Her class however, I only went the days we had quizes. Overall, the movies and readings are good, but the class could be taught in, literally, 1/3 the time by a good teacher. Oh, and by the end of the course, you will hate wedge-capped capuchins. HATE them.

Okay. People need to get a grip. The material for the course is really fascinating, and the text is easy to read and informative. True, Valderrama is not a gripping lecturer, but she can be really funny if you pay attention. The tests are very straightforward, and if you actually know the material, they are also very easy.

Alright, maybe some of the reviews of Valderrama are unfair (particularly the one comparing her to Hal from A Space Odyssey 2003), but it is true that she clearly does not want to be teaching. She would much rather be researching monkeys. The most excited I saw her all semester was when she related how jealous all the scientists were of the bonobo monkeys who had free sex to increase social bonds. But when all is said and done, at an incredible university like Columbia, why would you waste your time taking a class from a teacher who doesn't want to be there and who the best thing that can be said about her is "she isn't that bad"?

My biggest problem with this class (other than the MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING lectures) was the fact that it was billed as an anthropology course and was, in actuality, a biology class. I went in expecting an anthropology class from the anthropology department and instead wound up with a series of strictly structured lectures on bones and how they have evolved over billions of years! It was almost as if she was trying hard to make this class unpleasant. If you do take this class I recommend taking it pass/fail because by the end you will be so BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND—I can not stress this point enough—that you will not go to class except to take the weekly mandatory quiz. The whole class is basically Ximena reading powerpoint slides out loud to the class (these slides are then posted online). If you dare interrupt her to ask a question, she looks surprised, seems slightly frazzled, and the entire class stirs and awakes from a haze. Each class a ray of hope may shine down upon you, and as if granted by the will of God, she deviates from the slides to speak to you like a human being and relay an anecdote about scientists or a personal story. And you will think, “Thank you God!" and then you will be let down. I left every class with the impression that Ximena was only teaching because she had to in between conducting research on monkeys. Only in the last few classes were all the fac…

The memorization so breezily cast off as simple has been misrepresented. The second block of subject matter, between midterms uno and deuce, is commensurate in its enormity only with the human capacity for regret at not having just gone ahead and taken biology like a real student. Those interested in anthropology and evolution in their own respective rights will be saddened at the boring, sprawling, going-through-the-motions mess of which they are made. Those looking to be challenged will be met not with intellectual stimulation- for the lectures are deadening, the readings are repetitive, and the textbook is, well, silly- but with the drudgery of having to devote entirely too much attention to a class from which they will ultimately take nothing beyond vague memories of the significance of the positioning of the foramen magnum in the long, boring cline of the australopithecine. Those wishing to take the bull by the horns, the quiz every Monday, the eternal chafing of quiet despair- I offer you this advice: The dropping of the lowest midterm grade means it's real easy to just get that 26 on the second exam. As for studying for quizzes during lectures, it's not only efficient- it's the only way to pass them. Midterm three is, after the war of attrition that was Midterm two, like walking on sunshine, especially if you read the text. Third semester outside readings were not featu…

Oh my God. Dr. Valderrama is perhaps the biggest plague to hit Columbia in its 250 year history. She not only has no idea what she is talking about (I stopped counting the number of misfacts she threw out by the second week of school), but she is simply not a nice person. Her lectures are bona-fide torture chambers, her quizzes force students to come to lecture once a week (otherwise, I guarantee you the class would be empty), and her exams, while hardly challenging (they are pure spitback), are the most nit-picky things I have ever come across on this campus (she takes off for spelling). However, there are 2 positives about the class: 1) if you do well on the first 2 midterms, the final bears no weight on your grade (I basically stopped working after the second midterm), and 2) it requires very little mental activity aside from raw memorization.

I think that all the negative reviews Prof. Valderrama has been getting have been very unfair - this class is definately not as painful as it has been made to sound. First of all, instead of complaining that the material is simply memorization, my friends and I were extremely grateful for a class like this in the middle of all our papers. Not only are the readings extremely light, but after the first midterm they become completely unneccesary. Yes, the memorization is considerable, but the concepts are about as easy as any class can get, and all that needs to be done on either of the two midterms is regurgitation of facts. Prof. Valderrama isn't the best lecturer, but you only have to go to take the quizzes, (her lectures are online) which are, again, completely memorization and extremely easy. The material, as with any intro course, isn't going to be the most fascinating, but when we got into talking about subjects that actually applied to her work she was very knowledgable and excited. I don't think there is a prof out there that could make taxonomy interesting. If you hate science, this is the easiest way to fulfill your requirement, and the most painless if it is done correctly. I especially recommend this class if you have ANY biology background at all, because it is a summary of the most basic evolutionary concepts up to the first midterm, which will be simple. Don't go…

There is a lot of memorization in this class, but that just makes the quizzes and midterms that much easier. The lectures are well organized and presented on power point slides that are posted online after class. So, you only need to go to class for the quizzes, which are very easy if you go over the notes once beforehand. There are two midterms and a final, and Ximena drops the lowest grade of these not very difficult tests, which is definitely a plus. Ximena basically reads her power point, but she manages to crack some jokes and get laughs. Especially toward the end of the semester, when we got into more complex material, Ximena got more animated, funny, and interesting. There is no better or easier class you could take to fulfill the science requirment if you don't like science. This course was an overall good experience. If you have questions though, talk to the ta's because Ximena's not that good at answering them.

I don't usually skip class. I like to think of myself as intellectually curious, and I usually have the problem of attending too many classes rather than too few. But even the thought of going to this class makes me uncomfortable -- depressed, and sick to my stomach. This is easily the worst class I've taken at Columbia, and I'm a Junior, so I've taken enough to know what's typical. The Professor, quite frankly, cannot teach, which in itself wouldn't be so bad if we weren't forced to attend class to take weekly quizes. The material is not particularly difficult, but it requires a great deal of memorization, mainly from the notes that are posted online. These notes, by the way, are an exact copy of the power point presentation that she reads aloud in the torturous endurance trials that she tries to pass off as lectures. In my opinion, she doesn't want to teach, and I don't want to make her. I skip whenever possible.