Professor
Michael Berry
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - As a heads-up, this was more of a history of Chinese pop culture than a class about pop culture, with a focus on political movements that are dead and/or dying. Still interesting, but very little of it could be considered modern popular culture, very little of the class dealt with stuff from after 1990. Not sure if it was me being burnt out from COVID, but quite honestly, the class felt like a slog. Organization wasn't quite there; I was frequently confused about which lectures were and weren't required, and when stuff was due. Furthermore, lectures were quite long. Normally, two 75 minute lectures are scheduled, for a total of 2.5 hours, but this quarter, we usually had 3-4 hours of lectures. Not what I signed up for. Now in terms of workload and grading, this class is really easy; the curve really is that good. Furthermore, the professor nerfed the class, removing the final essay and final exam. Therefore, 40% of the grades was writing a forum post about the content for the week. Ostensibly, it's supposed to be about the readings, but you can easily get away with writing about the lectures. Basically 40% free points. Note that the readings can be quite a lot and can be quite dense; the professor thinks it's our only class. Now how does this class have a 4 for workload? You don't actually have to do the readings. The other 60% of the grade was from 3 short papers. Of course, the grade depends on your TA, but the paper is generally graded generously and the topic is very open.
Winter 2021 - As a heads-up, this was more of a history of Chinese pop culture than a class about pop culture, with a focus on political movements that are dead and/or dying. Still interesting, but very little of it could be considered modern popular culture, very little of the class dealt with stuff from after 1990. Not sure if it was me being burnt out from COVID, but quite honestly, the class felt like a slog. Organization wasn't quite there; I was frequently confused about which lectures were and weren't required, and when stuff was due. Furthermore, lectures were quite long. Normally, two 75 minute lectures are scheduled, for a total of 2.5 hours, but this quarter, we usually had 3-4 hours of lectures. Not what I signed up for. Now in terms of workload and grading, this class is really easy; the curve really is that good. Furthermore, the professor nerfed the class, removing the final essay and final exam. Therefore, 40% of the grades was writing a forum post about the content for the week. Ostensibly, it's supposed to be about the readings, but you can easily get away with writing about the lectures. Basically 40% free points. Note that the readings can be quite a lot and can be quite dense; the professor thinks it's our only class. Now how does this class have a 4 for workload? You don't actually have to do the readings. The other 60% of the grade was from 3 short papers. Of course, the grade depends on your TA, but the paper is generally graded generously and the topic is very open.
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