Professor
Stephen Bell
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - While the class material is interesting, I think Professor Bell didn't make the topic very engaging or fun. He has a dry, monotone, and rambling lecture style that made it hard to pay attention. Nor do I think his lectures added much to the core material of the class- his rural English background and research into Brazil and Spanish America are mentioned quite a bit in class, but his rambling and meandering way of speaking made it difficult to convey the weight, magnitude, historical context, and human impact of his examples. He posts his lecture notes instead of slides, gives easy true/false exams for the midterm and final, and the readings are fairly light, with an open-ended final essay mostly managed by the TA- this is an easy class to pass, but not a fun one to pass. I feel like I would've gotten about the same amount of information from the class if I read "A New Green History of the World" by Clive Ponting, which is what most of the course material is based on. Glass half full, this class gives you the foundation for analyzing how societies have shaped and been shaped by modes of subsistence, and gives you the structure to do your own research on a topic you're interested in for your final essay.
Spring 2025 - While the class material is interesting, I think Professor Bell didn't make the topic very engaging or fun. He has a dry, monotone, and rambling lecture style that made it hard to pay attention. Nor do I think his lectures added much to the core material of the class- his rural English background and research into Brazil and Spanish America are mentioned quite a bit in class, but his rambling and meandering way of speaking made it difficult to convey the weight, magnitude, historical context, and human impact of his examples. He posts his lecture notes instead of slides, gives easy true/false exams for the midterm and final, and the readings are fairly light, with an open-ended final essay mostly managed by the TA- this is an easy class to pass, but not a fun one to pass. I feel like I would've gotten about the same amount of information from the class if I read "A New Green History of the World" by Clive Ponting, which is what most of the course material is based on. Glass half full, this class gives you the foundation for analyzing how societies have shaped and been shaped by modes of subsistence, and gives you the structure to do your own research on a topic you're interested in for your final essay.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - Such a boring class, but pretty easy. Theres a few papers where you have to research a bit but the TA is pretty helpful. The professor is a bit older so hes a bit boring but he is pretty knowledgeable about geography, the tests are easy and open note so there shouldnt be a lot of problem of finding the answers. I didn't really show up after midterms and I still got an A, take this class if your looking for something easy, not a big workload.
Fall 2024 - Such a boring class, but pretty easy. Theres a few papers where you have to research a bit but the TA is pretty helpful. The professor is a bit older so hes a bit boring but he is pretty knowledgeable about geography, the tests are easy and open note so there shouldnt be a lot of problem of finding the answers. I didn't really show up after midterms and I still got an A, take this class if your looking for something easy, not a big workload.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2026 - This class has an insanely low workload. We only had two quizzes, a research topic proposal, and a final research paper. Attendance is not mandatory, and tbh, I never went since I thought the professor's lecture style was not engaging. Still, I managed to do well. The two quizzes are take-home on BruinLearn with 20 true/false questions based on the readings. You are given 40 minutes to do it within a 1-hour window (in this case, the quiz opened at 5pm and closed at 6pm), so definitely make sure you are available when it opens. The research topic proposal is 2 pages while the final research paper is 4-5 pages, so definitely very manageable. You have the opportunity to research anything as long as it's related to Brazil. I really liked how open-ended it was, and I got to write a paper I thoroughly enjoyed doing! However, I will say the TA was strict on grading. Although I did find his feedback to be valuable, and he holds multiple office hours to help with papers (although I did not go and was fine). The grading scheme of this class is a lifesaver as a 96-100% is an A+, 95-85 is an A, 84-80 is an A-, 79-76 is a B+, and so on. While I did well on the quizzes, my grades on the research topic proposal and final research paper were in the high 80s to low 90s. Despite this, I was surprised to see that I received an A+ in this class. I wouldn't necessarily say this class is an easy A as you do need to put in a good amount of effort for the papers. Therefore, I would recommend this class either if you're a strong writer or if you want a class with a low workload. The grading scheme is quite forgiving, and the TA is helpful, so it is very possible to do well in this class.
Winter 2026 - This class has an insanely low workload. We only had two quizzes, a research topic proposal, and a final research paper. Attendance is not mandatory, and tbh, I never went since I thought the professor's lecture style was not engaging. Still, I managed to do well. The two quizzes are take-home on BruinLearn with 20 true/false questions based on the readings. You are given 40 minutes to do it within a 1-hour window (in this case, the quiz opened at 5pm and closed at 6pm), so definitely make sure you are available when it opens. The research topic proposal is 2 pages while the final research paper is 4-5 pages, so definitely very manageable. You have the opportunity to research anything as long as it's related to Brazil. I really liked how open-ended it was, and I got to write a paper I thoroughly enjoyed doing! However, I will say the TA was strict on grading. Although I did find his feedback to be valuable, and he holds multiple office hours to help with papers (although I did not go and was fine). The grading scheme of this class is a lifesaver as a 96-100% is an A+, 95-85 is an A, 84-80 is an A-, 79-76 is a B+, and so on. While I did well on the quizzes, my grades on the research topic proposal and final research paper were in the high 80s to low 90s. Despite this, I was surprised to see that I received an A+ in this class. I wouldn't necessarily say this class is an easy A as you do need to put in a good amount of effort for the papers. Therefore, I would recommend this class either if you're a strong writer or if you want a class with a low workload. The grading scheme is quite forgiving, and the TA is helpful, so it is very possible to do well in this class.
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