Reviews for HIST111

Information Review
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/22/2023
Professor Halsted is a great person and teacher. It comes across that his main focus in the course is honestly to try to engage his students in history, which I admire. His lectures are interesting and he is always willing to answer questions. That being said, my discussion sections lacked that same quality. I felt comparatively less care from my TA, which, combined with slightly tough grading, made my likeability of this class decline. The assignments themselves are not difficult; the only real responsibilities are weekly discussion posts creating questions regarding one or multiple historical readings and 3 essays, which are relatively loose in their topic requirements, enabling you to write about the documents you understand the most. I would recommend this course, however, only to those who already enjoy this subject.
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/18/2023
Professor Halsted is one of the best teachers you will have at UMD. He genuinely cares about his students and is super flexible about deadlines. The only assignments are one primary source reading once a week+a question about it and 3 essays. Super engaging lecturer, but doesn't take attendance and records all of his classes so you don't have to go if you don't want to. Does a great job explaining concepts. Phenomenal teacher!
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/08/2023
Prof. Halsted is a great guy and clearly very passionate about the course. Lectures are not mandatory, but are fairly engaging and worth attending. The only downside is that your grade heavily relies on the 3 essays, which can be hard if writing isn't for you.
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
12/04/2023
Professor Halsted is amazing! He is very passionate about the topics that he's teaching. He clearly knows his stuff and takes the time to answer questions while speaking. His lectures are interesting and well-paced for the most part, though he does run over time occasionally. However, the class itself is less fantastic. A majority of the grade depends on three essays, and you only get two weeks prior to the essay due date to work on them (due to the professor individually releasing the prompts). The discussions are left to the TAs, which is fine, but there is definitely a decline in teaching quality. The essays are challenging, but the discussion and participation points balance it out.
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
12/02/2023
This class was quite difficult for me because I do not find the topics interesting. I did my best on the 3 essays (20% each) and the discussion questions (20% total) but I guess they weren't compelling to my TA. I received low B's on my essays and got 1/2 points (50%) for many discussion questions which tanked my grade. However, the professor is clearly passionate about what he teaches and is a nice guy.
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/30/2023
Very passionate about what he teaches and makes the lectures engaging most of the time. If you can write essays you will do well in the class.
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/30/2023
Halstead is very passionate about what he teaches and keeps most of the lectures engaging. Attendance is not mandatory and all lectures were recorded and posted online. There are three papers each worth 20% which makes up most of your grade. Overall an easy class if you can write essays. The downside is that your grades will vary greatly based on your TA. My TA graded everything very late and was not helpful during the discussion sections.
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/09/2023
Loved this class and professor. He's down-to-earth and entertaining. I loved that the class was not just about European Medieval history but touched on other parts of the world too. I think attending his lectures isn't necessary, but he is a good lecturer so it's worth it. Reading the material before discussion should be enough to participate and the papers can be done just by reading the material as well.
Christopher Halsted
HIST111

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/06/2023
Amazing professor. He's very engaging and funny, and makes the material easy to understand. I pretty much just took the course without any prior interest just to get a gen ed out of the way, but he was surprisingly interesting. Your grade is based on three essays, each worth 20%. Another 20% is in questions you ask each week about the readings, and then the other 20% is just going to discussion and participating. I'd really recommend this course and professor to anyone looking for an engaging class.
Colleen Ho
HIST111

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/14/2022
Professor Ho is clearly incredibly knowledgeable and well-versed in her field. I learned a lot that I didn't know before and I enjoyed the content of the lectures. However, the class was shockingly hard for a 100-level class. The exams wouldn't have been hard in theory, but we received no study guide and were expected to guess what was "important" enough to be put on an exam. The content of the class was very dense and complex, so narrowing it down even just a little bit would've made it much easier. Definitely not an easy gen-ed, but probably a good class for an actual history major.
Colleen Ho
HIST111

Anonymous
04/07/2022
Although she is very nice and knowledgeable, the class is unreasonably hard and the work load is very heavy. It is difficult to do work that is up to Professor Ho and the TA's standards. This class is not what you expect, majority of the time we learn about religions and only one day we learned about vikings in a very short lecture. DO NOT take this class if you are bad at history, this class is not worth your time. Also there are readings due every Tuesday and Thursday that have at least 25 pages in them so do not take this class if you have other difficult classes. The exams were also extremely difficult and Professor Ho did not give us a study guide, so I had to go through every single reading and guess which events and people were important and will be on the exam. The TA's also take FOREVER to grade the homework assignments and exams so I didn't even know what my grade was for the entire semester. DO NOT take this class, it is definitely not an easy GenEd.
Colleen Ho
HIST111

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/06/2021
Dr. Ho was the reason I decided to double major in history. I took her Medieval history class first semester freshman year and it was probably my favorite class that I have taken so far. I really enjoy her lecturing style. Between her slides and her spoken words, you get all the necessary information that you need for the exams. She made the information very engaging and I am taking another class of hers next semester because of it. The workload is not bad. You just have to do discussion posts and write one paper and the exams are just a couple of IDs with an essay. If you need a GenEd, TAKE THIS COURSE!!
Colleen Ho
HIST111

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/12/2020
There's a lot of reading to do and there's a research paper at the end of the semester that I suggest you do well on. But she's very knowledgeable and knows how to keep the class engaged. I don't like history and even I enjoyed this class.
Colleen Ho
HIST111

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/30/2020
Prof. Ho is extremely knowledgeable, and presents the class information in a way that is easy to understand and retain. Although she assigns a lot of reading, they truly help to further understanding of subjects. She is very strict in class, but also is super accommidating towards students who need help. Extremely organized course made it easy to learn info and understand my grades.
Colleen Ho
HIST111

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
03/24/2020
Very knowledgeable and approachable professor. She presents the material in a very fun way. Loved being in her class. She does assign lots of reading to supplement the class which is a shock at the start but becomes easier as the semester progresses.