Professor
Timothy Taylor
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Most Helpful Review
The professor has an annoying soporific voice, and like the person above said, does not know how to give an engaging or interesting lecture. The course reader required for this class is absolutely unnecessary - neither the midterm nor the final had ANY material from the course reader. He assigns an obscene amount of reading, but does not test any of it. He seems very nervous and defensive all the time, but if you talk to him one-on-one, he's pretty nice. Although he treats the class as a whole as a kindergarten class (he raises his voice and shouts, "No talking!" and makes his TA's stand guard by the side of the aisles), he respects you when you talk to him one-on-one. All in all, the material was interesting, but the professor? Not so much. The class isn't that hard as long as you go to lecture and review the lecture material (a lot of memorization though).
The professor has an annoying soporific voice, and like the person above said, does not know how to give an engaging or interesting lecture. The course reader required for this class is absolutely unnecessary - neither the midterm nor the final had ANY material from the course reader. He assigns an obscene amount of reading, but does not test any of it. He seems very nervous and defensive all the time, but if you talk to him one-on-one, he's pretty nice. Although he treats the class as a whole as a kindergarten class (he raises his voice and shouts, "No talking!" and makes his TA's stand guard by the side of the aisles), he respects you when you talk to him one-on-one. All in all, the material was interesting, but the professor? Not so much. The class isn't that hard as long as you go to lecture and review the lecture material (a lot of memorization though).
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - I do not understand why people think this professor is boring. This guy is a rockstar. He dresses well, he really knows his stuff, he is interesting and explains things extremely well and thoroughly, and he doesn't waste time. The lectures are highly engaging and interesting. If you raise your hand during the lecture, he will stop to thoroughly answer your question. By the way, if you're absent, the slides don't really make sense if you don't request for a recording from your TA. Also, the class doesn't use the textbook at all, but I would personally recommend skimming through an online copy of it (The Sounds of Capitalism), as it covers a lot of what he talks about in class. The papers are almost completely conceptual, and it's unclear how the TA's grade them. There is no rubric given to the students, and we are given somewhat vague directions. My TA marked me down because he didn't personally like my word choice in one of the sentences of my five page paper, and I got an 89 for all of the papers. However, the final was weirdly memorization based. He said in a lecture that he would be making the final specifically to reward those who came to class and paid attention, and that the final would likely take 60-90 minutes of our provided 3 hours. I paid close attention in every class, and I was honestly surprised by the final's specificity. The final was ten short answer questions and one essay question which we knew the prompt of beforehand. It took me two and a half hours total. The class average for the final was a 77, and I got a 90. He curved the grade, I don't know if it was standardized, but I ended up with a 99 for the final. Also, there is a very very high volume of reading. You don't need to extensively read all of them, just skimming them for their ideas should be fine, but I would highly highly recommend taking notes of the main ideas for each of them, as they are helpful to cite in your papers and the questions refer to them by name in the final exam. Also, you only really need main ideas for the pre-discussion questions and the discussion sections. The only homework given is the papers and the readings. You get a week for each of them, which is more than enough time, if you use it well. Very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating class, great professor.
Winter 2022 - I do not understand why people think this professor is boring. This guy is a rockstar. He dresses well, he really knows his stuff, he is interesting and explains things extremely well and thoroughly, and he doesn't waste time. The lectures are highly engaging and interesting. If you raise your hand during the lecture, he will stop to thoroughly answer your question. By the way, if you're absent, the slides don't really make sense if you don't request for a recording from your TA. Also, the class doesn't use the textbook at all, but I would personally recommend skimming through an online copy of it (The Sounds of Capitalism), as it covers a lot of what he talks about in class. The papers are almost completely conceptual, and it's unclear how the TA's grade them. There is no rubric given to the students, and we are given somewhat vague directions. My TA marked me down because he didn't personally like my word choice in one of the sentences of my five page paper, and I got an 89 for all of the papers. However, the final was weirdly memorization based. He said in a lecture that he would be making the final specifically to reward those who came to class and paid attention, and that the final would likely take 60-90 minutes of our provided 3 hours. I paid close attention in every class, and I was honestly surprised by the final's specificity. The final was ten short answer questions and one essay question which we knew the prompt of beforehand. It took me two and a half hours total. The class average for the final was a 77, and I got a 90. He curved the grade, I don't know if it was standardized, but I ended up with a 99 for the final. Also, there is a very very high volume of reading. You don't need to extensively read all of them, just skimming them for their ideas should be fine, but I would highly highly recommend taking notes of the main ideas for each of them, as they are helpful to cite in your papers and the questions refer to them by name in the final exam. Also, you only really need main ideas for the pre-discussion questions and the discussion sections. The only homework given is the papers and the readings. You get a week for each of them, which is more than enough time, if you use it well. Very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating class, great professor.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - If you are considering taking this class as a GE please DO NOT. Professor Taylor's lectures are not easy to follow and he projects slides with nearly nothing but pictures so it's nearly impossible to decipher what information is relevant. Your class grade is determined by four assignments: the midterm, final, and two papers (discussion attendance and participation also plays a minor role). The midterm and final were both extremely harshly graded (unfairly in my opinion), and the midterm consisted of a "listening exam" where you have to memorize over 30 songs (which all sound nearly identical) and be able to identify the year released, artist, and name of the song from a 15 second snippet. The course material is slightly interesting if you are able to follow along the lectures but the class is overall extremely poorly structured.
Winter 2024 - If you are considering taking this class as a GE please DO NOT. Professor Taylor's lectures are not easy to follow and he projects slides with nearly nothing but pictures so it's nearly impossible to decipher what information is relevant. Your class grade is determined by four assignments: the midterm, final, and two papers (discussion attendance and participation also plays a minor role). The midterm and final were both extremely harshly graded (unfairly in my opinion), and the midterm consisted of a "listening exam" where you have to memorize over 30 songs (which all sound nearly identical) and be able to identify the year released, artist, and name of the song from a 15 second snippet. The course material is slightly interesting if you are able to follow along the lectures but the class is overall extremely poorly structured.
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