I wish to write this review to help future generation studets who consider this class as an GE, based on the grading, exams, essays, professor, lectures, TAs, and other aspects, etc..
-
Grading Distribution: 25% 5 response papers (5% each) + 27% Midterm Essay + 28% Final Essay + 20% Discussion Participation. Each reponse paper is about 400 words, 1-2 pages long. Midterm essay is an assignment consists of three prompts, 600-700 words (3-4 pages) for each prompt, altogether 1800-2100 words in total. Final Exam is an essay of 1000 words, 6-7 pages in length. All the essays and papers are based on the reading materials assigned in class, and some part of the lecture materials. As long as you do the readings, you'll be fine with those essays.
-
About Grading: The grading on the five response papers, midterm essays and final exam essay are completely up to your TAs. So it might be terrible to have to bad and harsh-grading TA, who can screw your grades as well as your gpa. On the other hand, it will be very very easy for you to get through the quarter if you luckily meet an angel TA. The final grade is based on absolute scale (93=A), so you cannot lose too many points on each of the paper in order to get an A. My suggestion on all the papers is that if you are not sure about that, you can schedule with your TAs to talk about what you wrote or going to write in your essays to make sure that those contents are what your TAs want to see. If this aint work either, it is really necessary to switch section (swith TA) or consider to PNP/drop the class, as TAs have full decision on your grades and your fate in this class.
-
About lectures and professor Mathur: The lectures are recorded and can be accessed on bruinlearn, so it is not necessary to go to the in-person lectures. I never met with professor Mathur so I cannot comment, but I think her lectures are not that interesting, which you might fell asleep in fact. The lectures and the materials are not that intriguing to be honest.
-
About TAs: This Art History 25 course has a quite large TA team. We have 6 TAs this quarter I remember, so it is all about your luck that which TA you enrolled with. Different TAs have very different grading standards, thus possibly might have very different A rate (this is not up to Professor Mathur, who just in charge of delivering lectures and design exams), which means it is possible that almost all of the students of one TA's section get A while students from another TA's section can very hardly get A. From my point of view, I would like to recommend my TA Amy Crum. She is a PhD candidate in this field, and she is very nice, professional, caring, and give good grades overall. I got 1 point lost in altogether the five response papers, 24/27 in midterm paper (the hardest part of the quarter), and full mark 28/28 in the final paper, which I think is a very nice grader who is willing to give her students good grades. She also accomodated for students who are not able to go to the class in person through the online zoom conduct. I would say take Amy's sections if they are available, and you will go through the quarter easily under her help and her easy&fine grading standards. Btw to mention that I heard one TA named Natalie Zhang graded assignments very harshly according to my friend, so try to avoid her section if that's possible unless you want challenges.
-
Workload: The response paper is assigned roughly biweekly, so the workload I think is okay and managable. Readings are assigned every week, about 50-80 pages everytime, but it is fine to just scan through. It is not wise to leave all the readings until the midterm week and final week, because you'll have to read tons of reading in a very short period of time in that case and will have VERY GREAT PRESSURE. Midterm week and Final week can be a little bit more exhausting, as you will have to synthesize and integrate all the materials you went through in the previous weeks, but still it is managable.
-
Conclusion: Overall, this class is a GE with medium workload and medium difficulty. It may not be that hard like those history GEs, but still it requires you to spend some time every week to study for it in order to get a decent grade. All that matters in this class is your TA, who can fully decide your grade and fate in this class. If you meet a TA that grades very harshly, then it will be wise to switch TA or PNP or drop the class. If you meet a great TA, then it will be a quite easy GE. It might be hard to determine which TA is good before attending the class and getting assignments graded, so I suggest that go over all the reviews to see which TA's sections are great and which TA's section should be avoided. Good luck!

Class was super easy and I never went to lecture but still got an A. However BEWARE OF TAs. Its all essays, and the TAs are the only one who grades them. As a person, felix was super nice, but awful for grading. Prof was chill and changed my grades when I met w her, but do not take through felix.

Professor Mathur is a really good lecturer and the materials she taught were also pretty interesting. Before this class, I've honestly never thought about museums in a critical fashion, but I grew to appreciate the politics and structures of the museums over the course of the class. My TA, Felix, held extremely engaging discussion sessions and was really helpful. The midterm consisted of three questions that required us to write ~600 words each and the final was one large essay that required us to write ~1000 words. The midterm questions were straight forward but the essay prompt for the final was actually pretty vague - each TA had different interpretations of the prompt and the whole class was also pretty confused. We were given a week to finish the midterm and 4-5 days to finish the final essay, which was a little rushed. Despite the slightly lengthy midterm and final, I would still recommend taking this class with Mathur since people can actually learn stuff.

This class taught me so much about the not only the art world, but the effects of museums on infrastructure, communities, and culture. I loved this class so much and Prof Mathur is the perfect person to teach it.

This class with Dr. Mathur was great. The topics were very interesting up until the last couple weeks or so, but that might just be personal preference. Mathur does very well educating us on the concepts and answering questions during lecture. The workload is very manageable, and there are very few graded assignments. The thing that I appreciated most from this class was an assignment where we had to visit an exhibition and write a report on it from the position of a critic. It was really exciting to go to a museum (I went to LACMA) and look at the objects on display in a new light. Before this class, I would walk in a museum and just look at the displays; but after taking this class, I visit museums with a new sense of observation as I question the choices of the curators in their way of displaying the object. I'm a STEM major by the way. The fact that this class could pull all that out of me makes me appreciate it. I just took it for the GE requirement but ended up really enjoying it. I would definitely recommend this class with Dr. Mathur!

If you want an easy GE, take this class! Mathur is a great lecturer, and she is so passionate and insightful. Only a few essays and quizzes that are all extremely easy and manageable.

Easy tests, but essay grades are dependent on TAs.

I loved this class and really enjoyed Professor Mathur. You can tell she really loves what she teaches and when talking with her she was always very sweet. The lectures are not recorded and the discussions are mandatory, but don't let that deter you from taking the class, I had an amazing TA (shoutout Kevin) and the lectures are very interesting. We also got to take a trip to the Hammer and listen to a presentation. The midterm was very manageable and the written assignments were kinda open ended, allowing you to really focus on something you found interesting. I would definitely take this class again, especially with Professor Mathur. I really enjoyed her approach to teaching and her outlook on the subject of Museum Studies.

Museum Studies is a relatively straightforward general education (GE) course that provides an accessible introduction to the world of museums. Overall, the class offers a manageable and informative experience for students seeking an easy GE option.

Saloni is very kind and insightful. Loved their class.