Reviews for ARTH250

Information Review
Beryl Bland
ARTH250

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/01/2012
I really liked this class, but you have to actually be interested in the content to get anything out of it. She can be pretty boring and monotonous during lecture, but is very knowledgable about the content and brings up interesting topics about the pieces and cultures. The class really is mostly memorzing, but unlike most of these reviews I thought it was almost no work. The night before a test, you will have to cram, and study a little before the quizzes. Most of the time you won't have to do anything. If you're good at memorizing and actually like the topic you'll do fine. The TAs are super helpful and make the class way better.
Beryl Bland
ARTH250

Anonymous
05/23/2012
I took this also because of the 5 star rating below but I agree this class is awful. I regret taking this class so much and I hated it. There is A LOT I mean A LOT of memorizing and sometimes lectures aren't even that helpful. I went to every lecture/discussion and even took notes. I would never take this again and I do not recommend anyone taking it either.
Beryl Bland
ARTH250

Expecting a B
Mbs
05/17/2012
The one star review outlines her class perfectly. I took this class just to get an easy HA credit. The class is based on pure memorization of the powerpoint slides. There was no way to access your grade during the semester. You end up taking this quizes that everyone fails because they jam so much material from one week onto it. The final is 40% of your grade so you better be ready to memorize dozens of sites and over a hundred images with dates and cultures. Also need to be able to write a short paragraph about each one if you want to succeed.
Beryl Bland
ARTH250

NotAnonymous
05/03/2012
I took this class based on the 5* review below... boy was I wrong. "Bland" really is an understatement for her. Although she does speak clearly and fully about objects on the slides, she does so in a way that does not engage you AT ALL. What's grand is that her monotone lecture is the ONLY source of information for tests/quizzes in the class--you're lucky if you find it online or in the book (which I don't advise purchasing). As a result, not only do many students sleep, zone out, or skip her classes, I'll also get multiple emails every week from them asking for notes because they were "sick". You get tested on: vocab terms (easy) short essays (100% bs'd) slide IDs (pure memorization of a sculpture or figure) I studied ("studied" here means "memorized arbitrary sculptures and pyramids") for <1 hour the morning of the first test and got a C (seemed to be the average grade). For the next test, I spent 12+ hours studying everything about the cultures and everything about every artifact, and got a single letter grade higher, because none of the actually important, real-world material that I learned (using the textbook & internet) was covered in the "hey! let's see if you memorized this picture!" portion of the test. I don't know what my grade will be, because I honestly stopped caring about it halfway through the semester, and I don't know what the curve (if any) will look like, because we never get grade statistics, and we never ask questions in lecture or discussion anyway, since there's nothing to ask.. just go home and memorize more artifacts.
Abigail McEwen
ARTH250

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/18/2010
Prof. McEwan seems fair and nice enough, but I found her lectures very scatterbrained and hard to follow. I didn't know whether to write down everything she said or nothing at all. She says "um" far too often for a college professor to the point where it is distracting. The class itself covers interesting material, but she manages to make it tedious and boring in lecture. Go to discussion and get the books (they're cheap) because the TAs were very helpful, and I learned way more in discussion than in lecture. Not a hard class if you can pick up the important themes in the art quickly and are good at memorizing pictures.