I would avoid this guy at all costs. I would like to believe that he means well, but he's so unclear on what he wants that the light workload isn't even worth it. I would have preferred a heavy workload with clear directions. He straight up says he doesn't discuss grades, which in my opinion is academic laziness on his end. He only has us write 3 papers, but does not give a prompt. We are supposed to stay close to the text, and find something interesting. The problem with this is, if he doesn't agree with our analysis, he downgrades us. In discussions he goes off on tangents about things that have nothing to do with the text. I would ask him where he would like me to improve, and get runaround answers. He wants us to engage in the class, but fosters an environment where, as stated earlier, he'll dismiss your thoughts if he doesn't agree. If you can align yourself with his ideology then you will be fine. Otherwise, this class was a waste of time. The class is about his idea of what a system and network is. Nothing else. I got out of this with a B+, and that is with his statements of solid work. I have no idea what constitutes anything higher because he refused to talk about grades. Just don't take him. Not worth it.

The class seems like it would be interesting, but it's not related to crime, mystery or suspense at all. The professor mostly talks about systems. He mumbles through a lot of the lectures, so it's very hard to understand him. But most importantly, it's impossible to know what he wants in his essays.

I scraped by with a decent grade because I spent hours and hours meeting him and the TA to discuss my paper. They are incredibly nitpicky and give very unclear feedback. The readings are very interesting, but the conversations we have in lecture are very boring. Mostly centered around information, systems and structures. If you aren't willing to put in huge amounts of effort, you may come out of it with a B-, which isn't worth it in my opinion for such a boring class.

Professor Seltzer is a fine professor. His teaching definitely has some flaws though. He especially gives very unclear instructions of what to expect on his essays. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that he had a graduate student help him read the papers. For one of the papers, for example, I sent both him and the TA my introduction. When I received feedback, the professor told me that my intro was excellent, and should be left as is. The TA, however, was very harsh and did not like it at all. Overall though, the readings were great. I just wish the professor had put more effort into the class rather than having someone else do the grading (which, in my opinion, was mostly grammar-based) for him.

It's called "crime, mystery, and suspense," but it should be called "information-age fiction" because the entire class was about systems, organization, and information processing. He taught nothing about the mystery genre and approached every book like it was an isolated entity rather than connecting them all to the class. He never did slides/organized lectures and just rambled, usually about very obscure details. Actual crime and mystery were almost irrelevant to his readings of the books. There were only 2 papers and no other graded work, which sounds great at first, but there's no prompts and the "lectures" provide very little info to go on. Also, he's hard to hear in a room of 30 PEOPLE. Don't take him!!

I took Professor Seltzer's Crime, Mystery and Suspense course, and I loved every minute of it. He has a very dry sense of humor, which made lectures all the more enjoyable. There were only two 5 page papers and no midterm or final, so you can get away with not reading some of the books. I read them all, because they were all great. I've never been a mystery/crime reader, but he picked fantastic books that really changed my mind about the genre. I should say that he does notice if people aren't doing the reading, and lectures can be a bit painful if no one is participating. He keeps track of who is talking, but participation isn't a huge part of the grade. He understands some people just don't like speaking in class. But overall, it was a great and low-key experience. Take it if you want a class with less of a workload and really interesting readings.