Professor

Kimberly Ball

AD
3.7
Overall Ratings
Based on 57 Users
Easiness 3.2 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 3.4 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 3.9 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.8 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (57)

2 of 5
2 of 5
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SCAND 147A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
July 19, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

This was a pretty fun class. We met 3x a week and had readings due for each class, ranging from 2-5 stories or occasionally a movie. We also had to get a certain number of participation points to get an A in the category overall, and she was pretty fair about letting us either participate in class or write a 350 word response. You could not participate a good number of times and still get an A as long as you were careful to keep track of your points. We also had a short quiz each day but they were very easy if you did the readings. There were also 2 midterms and a final paper. I actually found the midterms to be sort of difficult and I wasn’t sure why I lost points on certain sections because she seemed to take off points for no reason. You’ll have to study the slides really carefully to do well on the short answer section of the test, she tests for memorization of random quotes that are on the slides which you might not know even having read all the stories. I have no idea how the paper was graded because she took so long grading everything that she ended up just posting our overall grades the day grades were due and didn’t record the paper grades. Overall the class was pretty interesting and I learned a lot about Hans Christian Andersen. It’s not a super easy A because there is a lot of work but if you’re at all interested in fairy tales it’s definitely worth taking.

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1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Jan. 1, 2021
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: B+

Awful class... Would not recommend taking any classes with Professor Ball... Most unreasonable professor I've ever seen. I don't know what the reviews on here prior to Fall 2020 are talking about, it was an incredibly difficult course.

At a time where the pandemic is affecting so many people, and all departments (Neuroscience, Molecular/Cell Biology, Physics, Chemistry... literally every departments) are giving take home exams and making their classes easy during the pandemic, this unreasonable professor decided to give a timed 50 minute exam (impossible to finish everything in time btw) graded incredibly harshly. Professor Ball is passionate about her subject and the class could have been very interesting and enjoyable, but she's a very unreasonable person, and the Scand department should be ashamed of itself for allowing her to do this. I hope students save their GPA and stay away from this terrible class and professor.

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Jan. 1, 2021
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-

AVOID AT ALL COSTS.... If you care about your GPA and don't want anything below an A, avoid this class. Professor Ball doesn't seem to understand that she's teaching a GE, and should chill with how difficult she makes her tests. I've taken biochem, molecular bio, o chem, physics, and found those exams to be more doable than Dr. Ball's nonsense tests. Absolutely avoid at all costs if you want to maintain a high GPA and want an easy GE.

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
June 25, 2019
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: B+

I took this class to cover some GE credits for the foreign literature in translation requirement, and I was under the impression if you did the reading and the work, you could easily get an A. With that said, although I got 100% on the reading quizzes for the quarter and a 98% on reading responses, I still ended up with a B in the class because her tests are unrealistically difficult. If you have zero knowledge of Scandinavian history, literature, or mythology, the amount of information that you are expected to know for the two exams (which are essentially a midterm and final, but the professor refuses to call them these things) plus the take-home final (yes, there are essentially two finals) is just insane. I studied an entire week ahead of time, writing out my own study guide based off slides and lecture notes as she instructed, and I still did not feel prepared for the exams, as many of the questions were on things that were mentioned once or twice in class very briefly, while some were things I do not recall going over at all. For my class, there were 40 fill-in-the-blank questions and 2 essay questions, and students were expected to finish both in 50 minutes. Yes, you read that right. Only 50 minutes, which was the normal running time of the class. While Professor Ball was very nice and even gave a few extra credit opportunities to help struggling students, I think her class would greatly benefit from a redesign of her testing methods, and perhaps she would not need to offer extra credit opportunities at all.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 29, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-

This course was incredibly interesting and I highly recommend it. Readings are easy to understand, lectures are insightful, and Professor Ball is very reasonable and kind. Exams were fairly challenging and had both MC and free responses. However, the responses were graded leniently and mainly depend on the quality of your insight and analysis. Overall great course!

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Jan. 7, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A

Lots of opportunities for grade boosting.

Helpful?

0 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 6, 2019
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: B+

.

Helpful?

0 4 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 19, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A

Be prepared to do a lot of reading and writing. But the TA really helps prepare you for this. The stories an interesting and the lecture is engaging. Highly recommend taking it with the TA “Pardis Aryamand” she is outstanding. So very helpful with her writing exercises.

Helpful?

0 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 24, 2019
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A

Honestly Professor Ball is such a gem, I get so many ideas for my essay when I listen to her lecture, but my TA's involvement was honestly lackluster. She wasn't terrible, but I learned that she copied and pasted her comments on our rough drafts. I really enjoyed the class and it's actually super interesting. The required readings are very very lenient, as in the quizzes are very obvious questions that you shouldn't miss from just skimming, and the texts are interesting as well. Professor Ball doesn't edit your papers during her office hours but she does let you talk out your essay and gives you more ideas, and honestly I think some people complaining didn't make good use of her office hours. Overall, easy class, fun class, would reccomend

Helpful?

0 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
Dec. 20, 2019
Quarter: Spring 2018
Grade: B-

The positive review from December 9th makes NO sense. That doesn't accurately describe the course, and it wasn't even taught Fall 19. Might be talking about Scand 134, which was taught Fall 19. Anyways, I personally wouldn't take the risk. Do something else!!

*Think about it: are you supposed to be THIS stressed/worried about a GE? No, you're not* especially scandinavian. seriously find anything else like PoliSci40 or Stats 12 or idk

Helpful?

0 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 147A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
July 19, 2020

This was a pretty fun class. We met 3x a week and had readings due for each class, ranging from 2-5 stories or occasionally a movie. We also had to get a certain number of participation points to get an A in the category overall, and she was pretty fair about letting us either participate in class or write a 350 word response. You could not participate a good number of times and still get an A as long as you were careful to keep track of your points. We also had a short quiz each day but they were very easy if you did the readings. There were also 2 midterms and a final paper. I actually found the midterms to be sort of difficult and I wasn’t sure why I lost points on certain sections because she seemed to take off points for no reason. You’ll have to study the slides really carefully to do well on the short answer section of the test, she tests for memorization of random quotes that are on the slides which you might not know even having read all the stories. I have no idea how the paper was graded because she took so long grading everything that she ended up just posting our overall grades the day grades were due and didn’t record the paper grades. Overall the class was pretty interesting and I learned a lot about Hans Christian Andersen. It’s not a super easy A because there is a lot of work but if you’re at all interested in fairy tales it’s definitely worth taking.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: B+
Jan. 1, 2021

Awful class... Would not recommend taking any classes with Professor Ball... Most unreasonable professor I've ever seen. I don't know what the reviews on here prior to Fall 2020 are talking about, it was an incredibly difficult course.

At a time where the pandemic is affecting so many people, and all departments (Neuroscience, Molecular/Cell Biology, Physics, Chemistry... literally every departments) are giving take home exams and making their classes easy during the pandemic, this unreasonable professor decided to give a timed 50 minute exam (impossible to finish everything in time btw) graded incredibly harshly. Professor Ball is passionate about her subject and the class could have been very interesting and enjoyable, but she's a very unreasonable person, and the Scand department should be ashamed of itself for allowing her to do this. I hope students save their GPA and stay away from this terrible class and professor.

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-
Jan. 1, 2021

AVOID AT ALL COSTS.... If you care about your GPA and don't want anything below an A, avoid this class. Professor Ball doesn't seem to understand that she's teaching a GE, and should chill with how difficult she makes her tests. I've taken biochem, molecular bio, o chem, physics, and found those exams to be more doable than Dr. Ball's nonsense tests. Absolutely avoid at all costs if you want to maintain a high GPA and want an easy GE.

Helpful?

2 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 138
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: B+
June 25, 2019

I took this class to cover some GE credits for the foreign literature in translation requirement, and I was under the impression if you did the reading and the work, you could easily get an A. With that said, although I got 100% on the reading quizzes for the quarter and a 98% on reading responses, I still ended up with a B in the class because her tests are unrealistically difficult. If you have zero knowledge of Scandinavian history, literature, or mythology, the amount of information that you are expected to know for the two exams (which are essentially a midterm and final, but the professor refuses to call them these things) plus the take-home final (yes, there are essentially two finals) is just insane. I studied an entire week ahead of time, writing out my own study guide based off slides and lecture notes as she instructed, and I still did not feel prepared for the exams, as many of the questions were on things that were mentioned once or twice in class very briefly, while some were things I do not recall going over at all. For my class, there were 40 fill-in-the-blank questions and 2 essay questions, and students were expected to finish both in 50 minutes. Yes, you read that right. Only 50 minutes, which was the normal running time of the class. While Professor Ball was very nice and even gave a few extra credit opportunities to help struggling students, I think her class would greatly benefit from a redesign of her testing methods, and perhaps she would not need to offer extra credit opportunities at all.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: A-
Dec. 29, 2020

This course was incredibly interesting and I highly recommend it. Readings are easy to understand, lectures are insightful, and Professor Ball is very reasonable and kind. Exams were fairly challenging and had both MC and free responses. However, the responses were graded leniently and mainly depend on the quality of your insight and analysis. Overall great course!

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40W
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A
Jan. 7, 2020

Lots of opportunities for grade boosting.

Helpful?

0 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 138
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: B+
Dec. 6, 2019

.

Helpful?

0 4 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40W
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A
Dec. 19, 2019

Be prepared to do a lot of reading and writing. But the TA really helps prepare you for this. The stories an interesting and the lecture is engaging. Highly recommend taking it with the TA “Pardis Aryamand” she is outstanding. So very helpful with her writing exercises.

Helpful?

0 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 40W
Quarter: Fall 2019
Grade: A
Dec. 24, 2019

Honestly Professor Ball is such a gem, I get so many ideas for my essay when I listen to her lecture, but my TA's involvement was honestly lackluster. She wasn't terrible, but I learned that she copied and pasted her comments on our rough drafts. I really enjoyed the class and it's actually super interesting. The required readings are very very lenient, as in the quizzes are very obvious questions that you shouldn't miss from just skimming, and the texts are interesting as well. Professor Ball doesn't edit your papers during her office hours but she does let you talk out your essay and gives you more ideas, and honestly I think some people complaining didn't make good use of her office hours. Overall, easy class, fun class, would reccomend

Helpful?

0 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
SCAND 138
Quarter: Spring 2018
Grade: B-
Dec. 20, 2019

The positive review from December 9th makes NO sense. That doesn't accurately describe the course, and it wasn't even taught Fall 19. Might be talking about Scand 134, which was taught Fall 19. Anyways, I personally wouldn't take the risk. Do something else!!

*Think about it: are you supposed to be THIS stressed/worried about a GE? No, you're not* especially scandinavian. seriously find anything else like PoliSci40 or Stats 12 or idk

Helpful?

0 2 Please log in to provide feedback.
2 of 5
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