Professor
Caroline Ford
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Most Helpful Review
I took 1C with this professor. I know the person who wrote the previous evaluation who is a total jerk and egoist, who has no concern with learning. Professor Ford taught a serious and somewhat difficult course, not for jerks. It took us deep into modern European history, which is a complex subject. My TA Mr Zevin was great. I find it detestable that some creeps want to destroy everything with their own egos, rather than let other students understand what is out there. This is a good, serious, course for beginning students like me.
I took 1C with this professor. I know the person who wrote the previous evaluation who is a total jerk and egoist, who has no concern with learning. Professor Ford taught a serious and somewhat difficult course, not for jerks. It took us deep into modern European history, which is a complex subject. My TA Mr Zevin was great. I find it detestable that some creeps want to destroy everything with their own egos, rather than let other students understand what is out there. This is a good, serious, course for beginning students like me.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - I had an overall okay experience with this course. The amount of reading is very heavy, expect 30-60 pages of textbook reading per week as well as one or two primary sources ranging between 15 pages and 40 pages (combined if multiple sources or individually). I would say if you know your European History or have taken AP Euro/World, it may be advisable to skim the textbook. Otherwise, the textbook contains a wealth of information that will be helpful for the examinations. Chase Caldwell was my TA. I really enjoyed section discussions with him, and he took a great amount of time and effort in responding to weekly responses (around 300-500 words) which counts towards the participation grade. Section was devoted entirely to primary source analysis. The lectures were pretty standard from Professor Ford. She often chooses to focus on specific events or topics from the assigned chapter, but I found the lectures to be helpful. They can be dry at times if you do not have an interest in European history. For the essay examinations, I would suggest choosing prompts a week ahead and focusing your efforts on material that answers the prompts you selected. The prompts are pretty standard, and we were given choices out of multiple prompts which I found to be helpful. I would advise against procrastination, especially in this course as the amount of material presented in this course is immense and sometimes relatively thick, so you will need the full length of time between the release of the prompts and the essay due date to not only do research, but also write/proofread the actual essays. The standard of citation for this course is the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), author-date in text citation preferred (no footnotes) and a bibliography at the end.
Fall 2021 - I had an overall okay experience with this course. The amount of reading is very heavy, expect 30-60 pages of textbook reading per week as well as one or two primary sources ranging between 15 pages and 40 pages (combined if multiple sources or individually). I would say if you know your European History or have taken AP Euro/World, it may be advisable to skim the textbook. Otherwise, the textbook contains a wealth of information that will be helpful for the examinations. Chase Caldwell was my TA. I really enjoyed section discussions with him, and he took a great amount of time and effort in responding to weekly responses (around 300-500 words) which counts towards the participation grade. Section was devoted entirely to primary source analysis. The lectures were pretty standard from Professor Ford. She often chooses to focus on specific events or topics from the assigned chapter, but I found the lectures to be helpful. They can be dry at times if you do not have an interest in European history. For the essay examinations, I would suggest choosing prompts a week ahead and focusing your efforts on material that answers the prompts you selected. The prompts are pretty standard, and we were given choices out of multiple prompts which I found to be helpful. I would advise against procrastination, especially in this course as the amount of material presented in this course is immense and sometimes relatively thick, so you will need the full length of time between the release of the prompts and the essay due date to not only do research, but also write/proofread the actual essays. The standard of citation for this course is the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), author-date in text citation preferred (no footnotes) and a bibliography at the end.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - I took this class asynchronously and if you put the time in to actually watch & take notes on all of the lectures, you are pretty much set for the rest of the course. You need to be able to take a lot of reading and writing though--if that's not your thing, I don't think you will enjoy this. That being said, as either a History course or a GE, this was not hard at all.
Fall 2021 - I took this class asynchronously and if you put the time in to actually watch & take notes on all of the lectures, you are pretty much set for the rest of the course. You need to be able to take a lot of reading and writing though--if that's not your thing, I don't think you will enjoy this. That being said, as either a History course or a GE, this was not hard at all.
Most Helpful Review
I highly recommend taking any course taught by Professor Ford. She is a brilliant professor and her lectures are fun and engaging. I have taken two upper division classes with Professor Ford and I think she is the best professor in the history department. I recommend attending every lecture, taking detailed notes and completing all the reading she assigns. The course load is very manageable and her exams and essays have no surprises. She wants students to do well and if you put in the work, then you will not only receive a good grade, but you will actually enjoy learning about French history.
I highly recommend taking any course taught by Professor Ford. She is a brilliant professor and her lectures are fun and engaging. I have taken two upper division classes with Professor Ford and I think she is the best professor in the history department. I recommend attending every lecture, taking detailed notes and completing all the reading she assigns. The course load is very manageable and her exams and essays have no surprises. She wants students to do well and if you put in the work, then you will not only receive a good grade, but you will actually enjoy learning about French history.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - I was originally a bit worried to take this course because i had never taken an upper div history course and prof Ford did not have many reviews; now that I have finished the class, I am SO glad that I did! I found the material to be quite interesting, even though I originally had very little knowledge/interest in France, I now feel like a mini expert in the field and have been able to talk about the topic with others which is really cool lol. The class is structured pretty easy with this grading scheme: 15% attendance/ participation, 40% take home midterm + in class ID Quiz(2 900 word papers), and 45% take home final (2 900 word papers again). The paper prompts were nice because we were given multiple prompts to choose from, so you could choose your paper topics on things that you had more notes on/ knew the material better. I stressed out a lot about the In class ID Quiz, but that really was not bad either as prof Ford included like 10 different topics that we could choose from to ID, so if you didn't know some things, you could just choose a different topic. The painting ID wasn't too tough either cuz the paintings were shown on a ton of slides and you did not have to provide much information. The papers in general were not very difficult either, it was a bit tough to stay under 900 words, and the Prof's citation policy is kinda weird, but honestly nothing too difficult. The one thing I will say for this class though: GO TO ALL THE LECTURES. Prof. Ford DOES NOT upload any bruincast or recordings of lectures, and the slides have minimal to no information on them, so if you want to do well on the papers, you absolutely must go to lecture( plus attendance is 15% so you kinda have to anyways lol). The professor is a very good lecturer, gives me the "classic history professor" vibes, ngl at times the lectures were a tad bit boring, but definitely manageable since theyre only 50 min. Overall definitely recommend the course, pretty easy A if you show up to the lectures and do a bit of research for the papers.
Fall 2022 - I was originally a bit worried to take this course because i had never taken an upper div history course and prof Ford did not have many reviews; now that I have finished the class, I am SO glad that I did! I found the material to be quite interesting, even though I originally had very little knowledge/interest in France, I now feel like a mini expert in the field and have been able to talk about the topic with others which is really cool lol. The class is structured pretty easy with this grading scheme: 15% attendance/ participation, 40% take home midterm + in class ID Quiz(2 900 word papers), and 45% take home final (2 900 word papers again). The paper prompts were nice because we were given multiple prompts to choose from, so you could choose your paper topics on things that you had more notes on/ knew the material better. I stressed out a lot about the In class ID Quiz, but that really was not bad either as prof Ford included like 10 different topics that we could choose from to ID, so if you didn't know some things, you could just choose a different topic. The painting ID wasn't too tough either cuz the paintings were shown on a ton of slides and you did not have to provide much information. The papers in general were not very difficult either, it was a bit tough to stay under 900 words, and the Prof's citation policy is kinda weird, but honestly nothing too difficult. The one thing I will say for this class though: GO TO ALL THE LECTURES. Prof. Ford DOES NOT upload any bruincast or recordings of lectures, and the slides have minimal to no information on them, so if you want to do well on the papers, you absolutely must go to lecture( plus attendance is 15% so you kinda have to anyways lol). The professor is a very good lecturer, gives me the "classic history professor" vibes, ngl at times the lectures were a tad bit boring, but definitely manageable since theyre only 50 min. Overall definitely recommend the course, pretty easy A if you show up to the lectures and do a bit of research for the papers.
Most Helpful Review
I am a history major, and Professor Ford is perhaps the best teacher in the department. Some students complain that her lectures are dry and boring, but I think it comes with the subject. Ford is very professional in regards to her course, and she is available in office hours or by appointment. Most of her exam questions come from her powerpoints or from the notes she writes on the board. I would highly recommend taking any class she teaches. Received an A in both Hist 1C and Hist 124C
I am a history major, and Professor Ford is perhaps the best teacher in the department. Some students complain that her lectures are dry and boring, but I think it comes with the subject. Ford is very professional in regards to her course, and she is available in office hours or by appointment. Most of her exam questions come from her powerpoints or from the notes she writes on the board. I would highly recommend taking any class she teaches. Received an A in both Hist 1C and Hist 124C
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2015 - When I took it, this class was a seminar titled Paris: Biography of a City from 1715 to WWII. Grades consisted of: -A final research paper -A midterm paper -Discussion participation The class was structured such that we would be assigned a lot of reading (150-300 pages) a week, which we would discuss during the three-hour seminar. It was a lot of work, but if you're interested in French history and culture, it isn't too bad. We read some interesting texts, including two novels and some guy's personal diary from the 18th century. The midterm paper was fairly easy. All we had to do was write 8 pages based on class texts. The final research paper was...not at all easy. It's 12-15 pages on a topic of your choice as it relates to Parisian history. Some topics that people chose include the cholera epidemic of 1832, the history of bread, the birth of the Parisian fashion industry, etc. To find all the information I needed for my paper I had to use over a dozen books, journal articles, theses, etc. It was so much work, but in the end I wrote a paper that I'm very proud of. My advice: start early. If you're really into French history, I recommend this class. You'll learn a lot.
Fall 2015 - When I took it, this class was a seminar titled Paris: Biography of a City from 1715 to WWII. Grades consisted of: -A final research paper -A midterm paper -Discussion participation The class was structured such that we would be assigned a lot of reading (150-300 pages) a week, which we would discuss during the three-hour seminar. It was a lot of work, but if you're interested in French history and culture, it isn't too bad. We read some interesting texts, including two novels and some guy's personal diary from the 18th century. The midterm paper was fairly easy. All we had to do was write 8 pages based on class texts. The final research paper was...not at all easy. It's 12-15 pages on a topic of your choice as it relates to Parisian history. Some topics that people chose include the cholera epidemic of 1832, the history of bread, the birth of the Parisian fashion industry, etc. To find all the information I needed for my paper I had to use over a dozen books, journal articles, theses, etc. It was so much work, but in the end I wrote a paper that I'm very proud of. My advice: start early. If you're really into French history, I recommend this class. You'll learn a lot.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Professor Ford was a great lecturer and I learned a lot in her class. I would 100% take another class of hers again. Instructions were clear and assignments were minimal. Had to lead a class discussion, write a one page reading a nayslis a week, and. final paper that seemed like it was graded very fairly. I highly recommend her class.
Winter 2021 - Professor Ford was a great lecturer and I learned a lot in her class. I would 100% take another class of hers again. Instructions were clear and assignments were minimal. Had to lead a class discussion, write a one page reading a nayslis a week, and. final paper that seemed like it was graded very fairly. I highly recommend her class.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - I LOVED THIS CLASS!!! Dr. Ford invites us to look at Vichy through many lenses and the discussion-based format of the class makes it very engaging. As this is a capstone, the class does have a lot of readings, but it doesn't feel painful bc the actual material itself is very interesting. You have to write a one-page, single-spaced response paper for every class, which isn't too bad. You also have to do a presentation with a partner on one of the weekly topics. There is a final 12-15 page paper with a generous due date.
Fall 2021 - I LOVED THIS CLASS!!! Dr. Ford invites us to look at Vichy through many lenses and the discussion-based format of the class makes it very engaging. As this is a capstone, the class does have a lot of readings, but it doesn't feel painful bc the actual material itself is very interesting. You have to write a one-page, single-spaced response paper for every class, which isn't too bad. You also have to do a presentation with a partner on one of the weekly topics. There is a final 12-15 page paper with a generous due date.
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