Professor Watson is extremely engaging, and not soft spoken. From day one he bombards you with loads of information and insight. For some, this may be too much to handle as his speech is quick and complex. However, I found his pace to be manageable as he does a great job at reviewing ideas throughout the course. There were two exams and a paper, which we had ample time to do. This was one of 4 classes I took this quarter, and I was able to read all of the assigned works, making the exam material no surprise to me. I think that is key for a class like this where you simply have to read as much as you can to understand the period, and although we didn't cover all of the material in class, I think that taught me the importance of self-discipline and study. I would highly recommend taking a class with Professor Watson, as he truly is a brilliant professor. Certain lectures will make you walk away thinking and feeling completely different about issues at large in the world. My only qualm is that although he is helpful and humorous in class, he is a bit intimidating in his office hours.

So I have heard so many great things about Professor Watson, both from personal sources and online reviews, but I have to say that his 153 Early Renaissance Literature class was uninspiring. We read so much material for each class meeting and either talked very briefly of them all or talked in depth about a third of them. This makes it really hard to study when the midterm and final come around because there are texts you're supposed to know about and be able to identify even though they had never been discussed in class. All the things I've heard people say about his Shakespeare classes just didn't happen in this class. We read a load of poetry that all sounded the same, and then had a few inspiring texts that we spent no more than a day on. All in all, I feel like Professor Watson knows so much and can teach so much, but the class somehow ended up being more overwhelming than interesting.