Short weekly essay (50%)
Participation (20%)
Final Paper (30%)
This topic is extremely interesting and the professor is very passionate about it. The lectures are way too long and not very engaging, which is a shame because the professor himself is very engaging when in discussion. Participation is not done in any discernible way, he did write something down sometimes but never did any roll call, so I can't say how it actually happened. If you don't mind writing essays, this class is very easy. 5 three page essays during the quarter and one final 8-10 page research paper that you can reuse a topic for. I found it interesting to be able to dive into a topic in this way and think if you are the type of person that goes to office hours Dr. Mccoy is just the professor for you, he seemed to like engaging with students and their viewpoints and it was very encouraging.

Short weekly essay (50%)
Participation (20%)
Final Paper (30%)

While this class seems interesting from the title, it is a trap. The professor lectures for nearly 3 hours and allows us a 10-15 minute break halfway through. It’s so much information and detail to take in. There were some discussion questions and class discussion but as the quarter went on and we started to fall behind, he skipped them. Sitting in the back, I’d often find students doing everything else but listening. He posts his lecture slides so there’s no use in writing down what he’s saying. You're stuck with hearing him for the rest of the lecture and it can get so boring and tiring. I guess it’s worth it for an easy A but if you genuinely care about homelessness and learning how to address it, this class isn’t it. I expected it to be a seminar style class, but it’s very much just him lecturning.

The short weekly essays are 2-3 pages double spaced and they’re basically analysis on the readings of the weeks. There are about 100 pages of assigned readings to do every week. I just read the shortest pdf to write the weekly essay and called it a day. He goes over the readings in lecture anyway. You only have to do 5 out of the 7 essays. They’re easy to do and don’t take that much time. Lecture attendance is required but he doesn’t call names. He goes off the vibes of the class and if he knows your name or not. It’s weird but just be sure to participate a lot so he’s acquainted with you and knows about you. The final paper is a research based one that’s 8-10 pages. It has to be about a topic covered in class and you have to come up with a solution. He has guidelines and other instructions. This took me about 4 days to write a rough draft and then 1 full day of editing and revising so it’s doable to do in a week.

Dr. McCoy mentioned to us that this is his last time teaching but I just wanted to drop a review to say that this was such a great and engaging course!