Professor
Aomar Boum
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2026 - The class itself honestly is pretty easy. There are 4 papers, 2 are short individual essays (max 2 pages) and the last 2 are group projects. The hardest part about the class is just the discussions in which the TA's try to stretch out the easiest concepts that have already been explained in both reading and lecture to last the entire 50 min of discussion. Boum is nice, but his lectures are not great. His style is pretty unorganized and it can be unclear at times what he is trying to explain or how it connects to the rest of the class. For the most part he just has basic slides that he typed out stream of consciousness snippets onto, that often have grammatical errors. Attendance is only mandatory for the discussions (but you can have one unexcused absense in the quarter). The lectures aren't recorded.
Fall 2026 - The class itself honestly is pretty easy. There are 4 papers, 2 are short individual essays (max 2 pages) and the last 2 are group projects. The hardest part about the class is just the discussions in which the TA's try to stretch out the easiest concepts that have already been explained in both reading and lecture to last the entire 50 min of discussion. Boum is nice, but his lectures are not great. His style is pretty unorganized and it can be unclear at times what he is trying to explain or how it connects to the rest of the class. For the most part he just has basic slides that he typed out stream of consciousness snippets onto, that often have grammatical errors. Attendance is only mandatory for the discussions (but you can have one unexcused absense in the quarter). The lectures aren't recorded.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - This class was "study of culture" but he essentially treated it like those classes ending in 9, so it was really "anthropology of sport." There were usually 2-4 readings per week about mid-long length. Each week we had to submit questions to our TA as proof of having read the papers, but this wasn't a huge percentage of our grade. There were 3 assignments: 1 to observe a sports game, 1 to interview/analyze an interview of an athlete, and 1 to write a biography on an athlete. Each of these assignments required us to apply core concepts. These were the bulk of the grade. They weren't too bad, but it depends on the TA that grades it. They were all also group assignments, so individually not that much work. Aomar Boum was a pretty decent lecturer. He didn't record the lectures, but he did upload slides. The slides didn't have a lot of information either so if you wanted to learn the material you had to go to lecture. I'm not sure how often this class is taught, but it wasn't very high stakes. It was easy and the topic was interesting. I would take it again.
Fall 2021 - This class was "study of culture" but he essentially treated it like those classes ending in 9, so it was really "anthropology of sport." There were usually 2-4 readings per week about mid-long length. Each week we had to submit questions to our TA as proof of having read the papers, but this wasn't a huge percentage of our grade. There were 3 assignments: 1 to observe a sports game, 1 to interview/analyze an interview of an athlete, and 1 to write a biography on an athlete. Each of these assignments required us to apply core concepts. These were the bulk of the grade. They weren't too bad, but it depends on the TA that grades it. They were all also group assignments, so individually not that much work. Aomar Boum was a pretty decent lecturer. He didn't record the lectures, but he did upload slides. The slides didn't have a lot of information either so if you wanted to learn the material you had to go to lecture. I'm not sure how often this class is taught, but it wasn't very high stakes. It was easy and the topic was interesting. I would take it again.
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