SOCY100 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2024	The sweetest and most energetic professor EVER!!! The class is very interesting, and you can tell she is interested too. We talk about things like family, sexuality, race, gender, covid, criminal justice, and a bunch of other topics ANYONE will find interesting. All assignments were super easy quizzes about every other week, one page paper about every other week, 4 short discussion questions a week (2 prepared before each class), and a zoom recorded group discussion due about every 2 weeks, which might sound dreadful, but it is not AT ALL. The assignments eventually become habit because they are so routine and easy to get done. There are only quizzes, no final. HIGHLY recommend this class and Branigan as a professor for any class!
Jennifer Ashlock SOCY100 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/19/2024	Lecture slides posted but have to attend because mandatory attendance quiz every class that can only be taken on specific wifi with a code. Lengthy lectures that are unnecessary. Very slow with grades. No feedback on grades. Would not recommend.
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Anonymous 11/13/2024	The best socy professor!! Grades are pretty understandable once she introduces her syllabus.
Christopher Tamborini SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/15/2024	Really nice guy, genuinely cares about his students and wants you to do well. I took this class knowing nothing about sociology so it was a good introductory/beginners class. Not too much work assigned, all you have to do is show up to class, take good notes, and you will do fine. He also makes study/review sheets of everything that will be on the tests (there are 3 all multiple choice). He is good at responding to emails and being available outside of class as well. He also had a good sense of humor and went on tangents a lot from the material. Overall, would definitely recommend this class and this professor!
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/04/2024	Fall 2023. Great professor. There is a little more out of class work than expected for a 100 level class, but it isn't too bad.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/27/2024	To start, I will say that this class has A LOT of leniency and no tests. The quizzes and papers all have a week-long "grace period" to be completed after the original due date and even then you can ask for an extension. There is not final or midterm test, just papers. I might have had a harsh TA grading my papers, but I did not do well in the course. Aside from this TA, professor Parsells was not clear on his expectations and even though other reviews say he was, there was also a vagueness to his instructions. That brings me to him. DO NOT take his courses if you don't want to have a biased, annoying to listen to, and self-obsessed teacher. Such a waste of time to sit through this zoom. Find another teacher, unless you can bare to listen to him.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Anonymous 05/23/2024	To be honest this class is not at all difficult. However, the lectures are not engaging and not really necessary at times to complete the work that is assigned. There are weekly lecture quizzes and participation points worked into the class which are not difficult as long as you attend. There are also 4 critical thinking papers throughout the semester which are worth the majority of your grade. This would not be an issue but the papers are only graded out of 10 points so 1 point off is already putting your grade at 90%. This was frustrating throughout the semester because both he and the TA seemed to grade quite harshly considering this fact. I also had conversed over email with him a few times and both were met with passive-aggressive responses.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/22/2024	Fun professor with entertaining lectures, but the reaction papers, (i.e. majority of your grade), were not straightforward and barely related to the class content. Each one felt like a crap shoot and the TA grading my papers never left constructive notes, (just "good job" or "well done" before proceeding to give an 8/10). The content of the course was at a 100 level, but the way that this course was graded made it feel like a 200 or 300 level class.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024	Dr. PJ is a very forgiving professor for sure. I took the class over Zoom, so instead of exams, there are 4 “critical thinking papers,” of which the lowest is dropped. The grading for those is tight, but the TA’s feedback has been at least somewhat helpful. Also, he drops 4 weekly course participations if you have to miss a class and 3 weekly quizzes if something pops up. However, I wasn’t a fan of his teaching – a lot of what he mentioned was only loosely related to the content in the textbook and some of the cultural references he used were atypical for a classroom setting and slightly cringey. Overall, would take if you’re on a tight schedule, but be prepared to learn more from the textbook than from him.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2024	Definitely not an easy A. The TA was unnecessarily harsh with very confusing grading parameters. The professor was very lenient with his due dates, but was also extremely harsh with grading. The chapter quizzes and participation were extremely easy with 3 drops of quiz scores and 4 drops for participation. However, the grading for the critical thinking papers was ridiculous. It would have been more helpful to have some example papers to know exactly what to expect on the critical thinking papers. The idea that you had to "wow" a professor who has been an expert in his field is a ridiculous thing to put on a rubric.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2024	I do not understand the 1 star reviews in the slightest. I will concede that it is a bit difficult to pay attention to the lectures over Zoom and often they aren't related to your essays or reading quizzes for the week, but they're still engaging and related-- just spaced out a bit oddly (like he'll talk about a topic we need for an essay due weeks in advance while we're still working on an essay due the upcoming Sunday, but just take screenshots of the slides every week and you'll be fine). Besides that, I thought the class was an easy gened especially since so many of your worst assignments are dropped. 3 of the weekly quizzes are dropped, your worst essay out of 4 is dropped, and 3 participation points are dropped (you have to attend the Zooms every day and once a week there's an assignment to answer a question that he asks during the lecture, so if you miss a few weeks it's no big deal). I was assigned to the TA for grading and I thought grading was super fair, but I can't speak to Jeffrey himself because he didn't grade my essays, so maybe his grading was harsher. Due dates are also insanely flexible, you can do your reading quizzes literally whenever you want and all the major essays have a week grace period past the due dates where you will not get any late penalty, and they'll extend that even longer if you just ask. Also, I didn't even get the required textbook for the class due to our terrible school book store not ever delivering it, and I still managed to get a 94% average on my reading quizzes and pumped them all out during the first weekend of the semester just to get it over with. It's genuinely an easy class if you put in the most minor amount of work.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/19/2024	Truly one of the worst professor I ever encountered with at UMD. He's a nice friendly guy but if you are looking for a gen ed to get an A+ in this isn't the one. Him and his TA are the one that grade the work, however they grade way too harshly given that instructions are barely clear on what he's asking for. It honestly is very annoying too because I would email to ask for clarification to see what he is specifically asking for and apply it too my paper and still will get an unreasonable amount of points taken off for no reason. I usually never take time to write a review but as a level 100 class there is no reason why stress should occur to write these critical reflections. HE HAS A LOW RATING FOR A REASON DON'T TAKE HIM IF YOU ARE WANTING AN EASY A.
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/18/2024	The exams are fair, and based on lecture notes and the textbook. There were some questions from videos, but Dr. Malackany makes an effort to make sure we watch them by creating assignments based on them (Writing assignments). I'm not really that into Sociology, so I didn't find the content very interesting, so I wouldn't say that the professor is boring, I think I'm just disinterested, but the course is fair as long as you put effort into submitting assignments on time. Also, Dr. Malackany is very responsive to emails if you miss class, and he posts lecture recordings - I never had to use them but I know some people found them useful.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/13/2024	I don't want to invalidate the experience of other students but Professor PJ was one of the best professors I've ever had at this college! I'm new to sociology and I found his passion for the subject inspiring. He is very lenient with deadlines and sets very clear expectations while giving us room to be creative. You can also see that he really cares about the wellbeing of his students, and rewards people who put in the word consistently. Thanks for a great semester Professor PJ!
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/11/2024	I second the other recent reviews on here. Professor Malackany is very kind, agreeable, and clearly well educated on the subject. The class structure is straightforward and super organized. At first I didn't know how to feel about having to watch documentary episodes for some of the written assignments, but he chooses very interesting films that ended up teaching me a lot about how sociology is integrated into the world. I enjoyed this class!
Jennifer Ashlock SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/09/2024	She is a monotonous, boring professor who tries to push her views on you instead of teaching the class. Slow grader as well as a harsh grader for a class that should be a guaranteed A+. She grades off of the idea more of if she likes your writing instead of the general overall idea of if your writing fits the rubric and does what you are asked in the prompt. All the tests are in person but through a lockdown browser with around 25 mc and a few short answer that are graded fairly harsh. Does completion assignments in class as well to attempt to get everyone to come to lecture and stay the whole time even when not necessary. Would not recommend if you are not super interested in the topics and instead are taking the class as a gen ed.
Christopher Tamborini SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	Professor Tamborini is super nice and you can tell he's passionate about the material. Really light workload, exams are all multiple choice and straightforward. There are 'required' readings but Prof Tamborini's lectures cover everything you need to know for exams and are much more interesting than the text. Overall a great class and even better professor!
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/07/2024	When I registered for this class, I had no expectations. To be completely fair, this class is challenging but you will succeed if you do the work. As a professor, he is very lenient on due dates and dropping assignments. He can be seen as a harsh grader, but he just wants you to succeed and do your best. I would recommend this class and professor to another student because he is very passionate about his job and position.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/06/2024	This is an introduction to sociology course, and this professor made it a great introduction with enough information to be interested, but not enough to where this would be considered a graduate level course. You have weekly reading quizzes that are from the textbook (you can find it online) so it is easy. You have 4 papers (<5 paragraphs) that are based on YouTube videos and you will be writing based on that and he literally goes over what to write about and that really helps. This is an online class (2 times a week) via Zoom. There is no final/midterms so that's awesome. You have course participations which requires in class participation where you write on the topic on ELMS for a grade and they just require a bit of thinking, not too tough. He is pretty lenient so in case your other classes are eating up your time, then you will still do well in this class as he gives a 1-week grace period for each assignment. As for the other reviews, he has mentioned that he has seen them and he takes it as feedback and made the assignments clearer by discussing them in class, so just know that he is trying. One of the feedback from planetterp was about the essay being unclear. He has since attempted to explain the assignments more clearly with his expectation, when and where the assignment is, the topics that you will need for the essays (they are explained through lecture slides), and some tips on how to make good essays. The TA had good feedback and really helped me with what I needed to include/fix about my essay. He makes his lecture more engaging by asking us questions and telling stories, which I enjoy. As a person who is not great at writing papers, these papers were not too difficult (I got a C, D, and A for my papers, the bad grades were on me as I waited until the last day to write it and I kind of rushed it).
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/02/2024	Dr. Parsells-Johnson is a highly motivated professor and you can tell he loves what he does. However, grading can be harsh. For example on the critical thinking papers, they are out of ten points but then you can get only a 90% if you don't meet the "wow factor" which out of my knowledge is just his opinion if he thought you stood out among the other students. For course participation there are times he puts up the question for only ten seconds and at least for me, I need to read the question a few times to understand what is being fully asked of me. Other times he states the question and when multiple people ask him to explain what he asking us to do, he just doesn't respond, and if someone knows what he is asking he doesn't want people to help others understand. Maybe it's because I am taking his class virtually on Zoom, but I do believe that the coursework is fairly light considering we only have course participations and 4 critical thinking papers this semester, but the way grades and runs the course participations just doesn't seem fair to me at all.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/19/2024	He’s definitely one of the worst professors I’ve ever had. He randomly says the course participation answer in the week before we actually have to do it to catch students who miss it. The critical thinking papers are graded extremely harshly and even after working on them for hours, I end up losing so many points. This really tanked my grade.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/16/2024	Personally, don't take the bad reviews to heart. While it's hard to focus and digest material over Zoom, Professor Parsells-Johnson is an insanely understanding guy. Due dates are more of a "frame of reference," for example, quizzes are open all semester and you can essentially take them whenever works for you time-wise. And I kid you not all the answers are in the textbook (and you can get a 20/20 by simply skimming the required chapters). The essays are a bit more tricky since they are graded a bit more harshly (but there's a one-week grace period if you miss the initial "due date" AND you can ask for an additional extension beyond this), but it's not overly difficult to get a good grade if you put in effort and show an attempt/effort to answer the course material. You also basically get free points through course participation, as long as you somewhat pay attention to what he's lecturing about, you can DEFINITELY get all the points needed. I also think Professor Parsells-Johnson is insanely lenient and understanding, there's one drop essay for the critical thinking papers, 4 (?) drops for your lowest course participation scores, and 3 drops for your lowest weekly quiz scores. It is completely doable to get a good grade in this class, and while it's a decent amount of work (so it can kind of be hard to focus solely on this class especially when midterms pick up in major courses) the extremely flexible due dates help for the workload of this course not be so burdensome. Would recommend taking Professor Parsells-Johnson, especially if you have a tight schedule the Zoom meetings are insanely convenient.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting a B Anonymous 03/12/2024	i do like Dr Parsells Johnson, and think his lectures are interesting and enjoyable, so i pay attention even though i normally cant really on zoom. However, I didn't really believe all the comments about the harsh grading, and he explained the expectations really clearly, so i thought i ate on the first essay but i actually got a low score (TA graded btw). the feedback i received and the points taken off didnt really seem proportional. unfortunately i will probably end up dropping this class because i put a lot of effort into the essay, and it wont be worth it to try so hard on future ones to bring my grade up, which is a bit sad since I do like the class. would recommend taking this class if u actually like sociology, but u dont mind a B too much
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Anonymous 03/09/2024	Truly a terrible horrible unfair professor with insanely confusing expectations and no direction. Lectures are him talking about himself and making unbearably cringey jokes. Can honestly say I haven't learned a thing from him and it only leads to frustration. Entirely too difficult for a 100 level class. The good reviews must be by people who love sociology and awkward attempts to make relevant pop culture references. If you are looking for a gen ed look somewhere else for your own sake.
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/23/2024	the best professor! very interested and passionate about the topic, and manages to make lectures feel interesting. no midterm and final, the grade was just composed of attendance, quizzes, 1 page papers, and group discussions. she listened to student feedback very well
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/23/2023	I liked this class a lot, Professor Malackany is very kind and passionate about what he teaches. I found his lectures to be interesting. The course load was very manageable, and you can miss most lectures without penalty (although sometimes there are 5-point participation assignments.) Each class he goes through slides that are already posted on Canvas, which only covers some of the content you will be tested on. I didn't realize how important reading each chapter of the textbook was until the first exam, so I would say read/skim each unit as you go through the content in class. Each unit also comes with an online 5-minute 5-question quiz that you have 3 days to complete. All of the exams are 50 MCQ online, including the final exam which is not cumulative. In addition to this, there are multiple writing assignments based on either critical thinking or documentaries assigned to watch outside of class. The TA grades them on content, not completion. Five or six lectures were switched to Zoom, which made it a little harder for me to focus on the content, but I really enjoyed the in-person lectures and did well in the class. I would recommend Malackany's class to anyone who needs a gen-ed or is interested in Sociology.
Jennifer Ashlock SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2023	The class is kind of interesting but the professor is so boring and she takes forever to submit grades. She didn't grade a midterm taken at the beginning of November until the week of the final so it's pretty hard to know what grade you'll get. She posts all the slides from class on Canvas and the content is pretty much the same as the textbook. There is little incentive to come to class except now and then she will do a Google form that counts as participation.
Jennifer Ashlock SOCY100 Expecting a C HaroldFox 12/21/2023	She clearly knows what she’s talking about but her skills as a professor end there. She clearly lacks any skills in terms of Technology regularly asking students to complete tasks she herself was unsure how to do which made some projects difficult. Grades are slow…very slow… for having two TA’s they don’t seem to actually do that much with my classes midterms not being released until a week before our final. She’ll drag lectures out for the sake of killing time and akwardly try to convince the class to break out into group discussions when no one wants too or would gain anything from it. She also soap boxes a lot she’ll find a way to turn talking about social strain and find a way to make it about how men are the root of all problems in society or how the university of maryland isn’t doing enough to help insert minority group of the day. Also the BS completion assignments did more damage to my grade then the finale, she’ll covertly plan secret completion assignments for her lectures and if your someone who’s a double major or have an active internship you’ll have to miss lecture sometimes and she’ll make a point to drag your grade down because of it.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2023	I had this class online and I found it very enjoyable actually. Assignments are reasonable, no midterms! Reading quizzes, course participation, reaction papers and the final, a sociology podcast are what makes up your grade, three lowest quiz grades are dropped and your lowest reaction paper. The reaction papers will give you the hardest time, you get four a semester and they are graded kind of harsh and they are out of 10 points but are 35% of your grade, so a 9/10 still bumps you down pretty good. His lectures didn't really apply to the assignments very much, but I liked it that way, I didn't have to write a crap ton of notes, I could actually listen to what he was talking about and actually enjoy learning for once. Very engaging and would always read the zoom chats and laugh with us. No complaints here!
Jennifer Ashlock SOCY100 Anonymous 12/13/2023	This unfortunately wouldn't be a class I recommend. The class consists of Dr. Ashlock's reading off of slides and that is about it. Other than the occasional attendance question, there was no point in going since you could just read off the slides later. I will also say everything is very vague in her class. There isn't much of an explanation for what is going on which I found caused me to struggle on exams. Unless you are someone who is naturally just very good at Sociology I can't say I would recommend it.
Daniel Swann SOCY100 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/11/2023	He is really funny but EXTREMELY disorganized. He is unclear about when things are due and his syllabus is not updated with the dates of when assignments are due so it can be difficult to stay on top of the assignments (although there are very few). He will have an assignment due and give no information about it until the day before we have to hand it in. He often gives pop quizzes with specific statistics from weeks ago that nobody could remember which I found annoying.
Christopher Tamborini SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/11/2023	Prof. Tamborini is a really chill and interesting guy. While he doesn't take attendance, you should go to class because he breaks down the concepts in a simple way and always connects them to real life. Tamborini is also really passionate about SOCY, which is really cool to see. His exams are easy, however, they are worth 25% of your grade so you need to study to get an A. Otherwise, workload is light and it is overall an interesting class. I recommend it and you should def take it with Tamborini.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/09/2023	I personally love Dr. PJ but I have to say I think I got fairly lucky. Some reviews on here talk about how he grades weirdly and is very broad with his teaching and I have to say I agree with the teaching part but I honestly think that's what made the class so easy. It kinda fit with my learning style very well because I just had to make sure to read the textbook and I could pass all the quizzes and barely had to pay attention in class. However, for the grading part I did get lucky. He wasn't even the one grading my papers he like split all the grading up between him and his TA's and I got a good TA that would give me good grades but other people would complain about how their TA's would take off points for no reason and what not. He's a very nice and chill guy and I would recommend taking his class. You honestly have to put in minimal effort to get a good grade but that could just be my situation. Otherwise easy GenEd class.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Anonymous 12/07/2023	Honestly, horrible. Dr. PJ, you're an amazing person and your class was engaging, but I was learning from the textbook(barely at that) and then listening to you talk about an entirely different topic during lecture. The worst part of the entire class was the god-awful "reaction papers" that had no guidelines at all. You were given an often VERY SHORT video and told to react to it. In my first paper, I was so confused; we got a video explaining the link between sociology and food and I had NO idea how to approach it. Even now, I still don't know how I was supposed to approach that video. The rubric is so cryptic and vague, that you can't even use it as a guideline. No beneficial criticisms, just a low score on your paper. You figure it out. Didn't want to take any questions, and would defer you to your "coordinating instructor"(literally such BS). NO examples, and he doesn't even post his slideshows(they DEFINITELY wouldn't help with anything, but it's the thought that counts). Goes on and on about a random topic daily and it doesn't even relate to what you would be reading for his reading quizzes. I truly hated this class, and I feel like it was for seasoned and well-adapted sociologists, not just people who were starting the topic(as one would expect with a 100 class). Dr. PJ, please make some changes or modify your syllabus. Think about what class you are teaching, and the reasonable expectations to have from them. Students, believe me when I tell you, STEER CLEAR OF THIS CLASS(there's a reason for the 2.39.)
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/07/2023	Dr. Malackany is your standard 100-level social science professor. Class was highly organized with fully online exams, weekly reading quizzes, short writing assignments (based on external readings or documentaries), and short participation assignments. All of the media and real-world examples were pretty outdated but still applied to the concepts. Lecture was always recorded and slides were always uploaded prior to class. His lecture style is pretty boring especially since the connections weren’t current and he didn’t get through a lot of slides in class. Be prepared for an odd textbook. The textbook had a section where the author blamed public school teachers/administration for why American students' performances are suffering and not the fact that schools rely on test scores for funding. The textbook also had a section complaining about how school shootings aren’t that big of a problem and cited data that was cut off in 2014 (right before shooting rates spiked). Overall the class was easy and a great way to get your gen ed, I was just confused as to how an interesting subject like sociology was made so lackluster/boring. If you’re actually interested in sociology I’d take a different professor.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Anonymous 11/29/2023	First of all, I've gotta start by saying that Dr. PJ is a really, really nice guy. If you're reading this, Dr. PJ, which I know you probably will be at some point... please know that this is not a dig at you as a person. You are an awesome dude and I wish you the best. I did not enjoy this class at all. I took this class because I saw it was online and heck, it was a 100-level gen-ed in sociology, a field known for being mostly fluff. What could go wrong? The problems with this course are a result of two main things: unclear expectations/guidelines on assignments and ridiculous grading. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. There were four big papers in this class which were essentially the biggest part of the grade aside from the final project. No example papers were provided for any of these, and the guidelines were vague. A rubric was provided, but it was cryptic and esoteric for no reason. It would say things like, "The paper POPS with conceptual scaffolding." Dude... just say that you want to see good connection to course concepts. The most ridiculous part of the rubric, however, is that 10% of your grade for each paper depends on if your paper "gleams with sociological imagination." The syllabus even admitted that the "gleam" part of the rubric is pretty subjective. I hated the papers so much. I don't think I've ever procrastinated on an assignment more in my life than I did on these papers. It was so hard to even start writing because I didn't know what was expected of me. The one thing I did appreciate is that Dr. PJ had a "best by" policy for due dates, which meant that assignment due dates were more suggestions rather than actual hard deadlines. Dr. PJ, if you're reading this, your class could be so much better if you would just provide an example paper for the assignments and grade more fairly. This is college so I understand expectations should be high even for a 100-level sociology course, but students can't do well if they don't know what is expected of them. I have a sibling who took SOCY100 so I know that this is not what other SOCY100 classes here look like.
Tyler Beltran SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 09/21/2023	Feedback on assignments is unclear.
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/23/2023	Dr. Malackany was super kind and understanding and you can tell he cares a lot about sociology. The course structure is super traditional, and the exams were multiple choice and super easy. However, his lectures could be kind of boring at times. Overall this class was an easy A with a light course load, and I'd recommend it for a gened credit.
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2023	The class itself is pretty easy - we are given a good amount of assignments to help boost our grades. But this class was actually so boring and there was no motivation for me to ever go. He does a good job explaining the concepts but is not engaging at all. Overall an easy gen-ed but if you are looking for an interesting sociology class this is not it
Jennifer Ashlock SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/12/2023	I don't believe I've ever seen a course take longer to enter assignment grades. The final is tomorrow and I am still unsure of my grades for a large group assignment finished almost 3 weeks ago. The professor uses long-worded answers to questions with cryptic terminology that further confuses students and makes her look like she has no clue what she's talking about.
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2023	Professor Branigan really knows her stuff, she is definitely qualified to teach sociology and teach it well. However, sometimes it felt like class was dragging on when it didn't need to be. The content is interesting for sure, however I took the 1 hour and 15 minute version of this course and I felt like I was going to die. I have attention span issues so maybe that's just me, but I was dozing off after the 50 minute mark with 25 minutes still left in the class. Don't get me wrong though, Branigan is one of the easiest professors I have EVER had. You get points just for showing up, and if you miss class you can do an easy alternate participation assignment to make it up. She also had no midterm or final and instead gave us easy little 10 point ELMS quizzes every few weeks. The only assignments you really get are a blog-style 1 page reading response biweekly, but this was seriously so easy. Usually when I see that we have to write essays for a class I panic and drop it, but these are definitely not something to worry about because they are graded very lightly (and worth 100 points which is music to my ears), and the readings she assigns are just short little articles that take no time to read and are not hard to comprehend. Oh, and also, there's a discussion for this class and you get assigned a group at the beginning of the semester, and every couple weeks you meet with them on zoom/in person to discuss stuff in the class. There isn't a worksheet for discussion, however when it is your turn to be a discussion leader you just take your group members discussion posts and copy paste them on a doc then talk about the questions in the discussion, real easy. So yeah, I was a bit bored but lets be real, this class was super easy and Branigan is one of the most qualified, passionate, AND fair professors I have ever had. Easy A for sure.
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/03/2023	For an intro level sociology class, this class sucked. His lecturing was quite boring and he would talk in a monotone voice. Almost impossible to pay attention and stay focused in that class. His lecture material doesn't always coincide with the textbook. There are almost weekly textbook reading quizzes that are short but good grade boosters. Overall, this class was really really boring and I would never take it again.
Jennifer Ashlock SOCY100 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/07/2023	Honestly, her lectures are very boring and disengaging. The real problem, though, is her vagueness, and every question got a long-winded non-answer in response. The lectures are also a copy and paste of the textbook, which makes the motivation to attend class go down.
Brian Connor SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/24/2023	good guy and accommodating but the class is kinda boring, it might be better if it was more discussion based but it's not.
Robert Pernick SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/30/2023	Dr. Pernick will oftentimes ramble on for most of the lectures, but the readings are pretty interesting and the class is an easy A+. Despite the lectures not always being so interesting, Dr. Pernick is the sweetest guy in existence and he is genuinely interested in your performance as a student and what your takes/interests are.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/25/2023	Dr. PJ seems like a nice guy who's trying his best. Unfortunately, his best just isn't good. This man does not know how to explain concepts in a clear and easy to understand way. He'll define an incredibly abstract concept we haven't learned by connecting it to other equally abstract concepts we haven't learned. He'll spend an entire class doing a deep dive of a concept but won't define it until the end. He'll casually mention the theories of random sociologists as if we should know them. All that would probably work if he was just teaching grad students, but he never should have been put in charge of an introductory class. I feel like I should comment on the harsh grading debate, since everyone else is. Dr. PJ's inability to explain things extends to assignment directions. He'll devote an entire class period to explaining an assignment in some complicated way, but won't post a simple rubric half the time. When he does, it includes phrases like "pops with conceptual scaffolding" (uses connected class concepts) or "gleams with sociological imagination" (literally just a point for vibes). I usually did well on the assignments, but I would spend hours before each big assignment gathering all the different rubrics and expectations from different places and writing them out so I understood it, then doing a huge pre-write for the essay with the class concepts I was going to include. I got good grades from him, but I shouldn't have had to put in that much work to get them. Also, the class was set up so Dr. PJ would grade half the students and the TA would grade the other half. My final assignment was graded by the TA (Danielle Koonce) instead of Dr. PJ and randomly had 15% taken off with no explanation, so some of the harsh grading mentioned here could have just been the TA.
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/25/2023	Amazing lecturer and very kind. Throughout the semester she tried hard to listen to and follow up on student feedback, altering aspects of the course (like attendance and grading policies) to accommodate for what we needed. It's clear she has a passion for sociology and it shines through in her lectures, which were interesting, engaging, relevant to anyone (we live in a society). Useful class and one of my favorite professors.
Brian Connor SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/22/2023	Really nice professor but grades the exams why too harsh. I had to get a 100% on the last exam to get an A.
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/02/2023	Malackany definitely tried to explain the content on his slides thoroughly. However, it became tedious listening through zoom for his online class. His quizzes were the most tricky component of his class. The limited time and true/false questions that did not pertain to his slides were definitely challenging. Most terms and definitions were in the textbook but they didn't help much for the test questions. Surprisingly quizlet material helped more. Was a so-so class, had an abundance of information and did not retain much. I would recommend choosing another course for the gen-ed or elective.
Julia Chuang SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/22/2022	I was extremely disappointed taking this class. l'm really passionate about sociology but this class felt extremely disorganized and also unnecessarily hard. The final so difficult it was like 3 multiple choice, 13 short answer essays and then 2 huge essays in get this... ONLY TWO AND A HALF HOURS! While my friend with another professor had an exam that was open for 3 weeks and was only a few essay questions. Very disappointed and do not recommend.
Brian Connor SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/22/2022	Really easy class but grades the exams way too harsh for a gen ed.
Brian Connor SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2022	chill guy but he grades the exams pretty harsh. Quizzes every week is easy. We have to do 4 reflection papers the whole sem so it's not bad.
Jeffrey Parsells-johnson SOCY100 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/16/2022	Was super chill and down to earth but his grading standards and expectations for students are ridiculously high. This class was designed for introductory-level sociology and as a 100-level class, I felt like I was back in my 300-level class with the standards and expectations. Not an easy A, you have to work for it. His rubrics (if he has one, sometimes he doesn't) can be somewhat unclear and one of the points is if it wow'ed him. However, he drops your worst grades for certain assignments which can be great. He's also pretty forgiving with deadlines (as long as you ask for an extension), especially for STEM majors since he understands the struggle. I think he'd feel a lot more comfortable with a higher-level class because it's clear he's passionate about sociology, but the introductory class just doesn't seem to fit his standards and expectations.
Brian Connor SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/13/2022	With Dr. Connor, SOCY100 is a pleasant and easy class to be in. All of the assignments can be done as long as you take notes in class and skim the textbook readings. There are 4-5 Reflection papers, but they're pretty short and you can pick and choose which ones to do if you dislike a prompt. He is very accommodating and always left plenty of time for assignments to be completed. He is also pretty approachable for after class questions. His lectures were a bit boring, especially with topics that didn't interest me personally. Overall, it's a nice class if you're at least a little interested or just want an easy gen ed. Would recommend.
Christopher Malackany SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/13/2022	Professor Malackany cares a lot about sociology. I took this class online and felt it was very easy. The class assignments are very easy, most of them involved watching a video and answering two questions. One question would be specific and the other would simply be what did you like most. The tests were very straight forward with a mix of multiple choice and true/false. On test days you are given the entire day to start the test so you can pick a time that works best for you to take it. There were also quizzes that were easy. You have 3 days to take a quiz so there is a lot of flexibility, but once you start a quiz you only have 5 minutes to take it. All lecture slides are posted before the lecture. You can miss this class without an issue about making up work or missing information.
Daniel Swann SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/08/2022	Amazing professor. Super funny and engaging. made me love a class i hated in high school. really smart guy.
Julia Chuang SOCY100 Anonymous 05/19/2022	Absolute do not take her if you want to keep your grade. This course is ridiculously hard for a level 100 course.
Fariha Khalid SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/16/2022	I never showed up to class and I got an A- lol.
Julia Chuang SOCY100 Anonymous 05/15/2022	SOCY100 is not supposed to be this hard.
Julia Chuang SOCY100 Anonymous 05/14/2022	expects way too much from a 100 level course. The final is absolutely insane for no reason, as we had to write 13 mini essays (on top of a 500 word essay). Additionally, she is passive aggressive in emails and gate keeps study material. She bribed us to come to class and said that she would only give out answers to those who attended, and only provided a jeopardy/ study guide for those who attended.
Mansoor Moaddel SOCY100 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/12/2022	Professor is extremely kind and seems like he cares about what he's teaching, but lectures do tend to be lengthy and boring. He spends all of lecture basically reading from slides, and it's not easy at all to really learn what he's trying to teach. TA grades very harshly on student reports (writing assignment) considering a lot of the info isn't in the textbook like they say it is, and it's not easy to understand what the slides mean. Workload is very light considering you do a writing assignment every other week or so and that's the only assignment outside of the exams. In terms of exams, he gives you 30 questions, and 10 of them will be on the exam, so you pretty much have to study a lot to be prepared.
Julia Chuang SOCY100 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/10/2022	Extremely hard grader with long and drawn out lectures. Often goes off topic and is very strict about applying things learned from class on tests/quizzes. Again with the grading though, it's actually ridiculous. If you don't give the exact answer she wants or mention a specific topic (sometimes just a word), then you'll get half credit or even less credit on that answer. SOCY100 is supposed to be an enjoyable and interesting introductory class, so if you want that then please avoid taking this class with her.
Julia Chuang SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/29/2022	Easily the worst Professor at UMD. Not only is the class the most boring I’ve ever attended, but her grading is unfair and outright insane. If you don’t put down exactly what she was thinking on a quiz or a test, you will get marked off. Doesn’t make sense for a class with such subjective answers.
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Anonymous 12/17/2021	Amazing professor. Made Sociology interesting and constantly engaged her students. She made the classroom setting feel accepting and relaxed. The workload of this class is also not bad at all, very managable.
Rodrigo Dominguez-Martinez SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/07/2021	Loved the class so much and every lecture was straight forward. Weekly open note quizzes for easy grades and no tests. Midterm and final were both an essay. If you miss class just get notes from a friend and you will be fine.
Joey Brown SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/06/2021	I genuinely believe this man is the kindest person in this school. He is literally the best professor I ever had. The class is an easy A as long as u submit the big assignments, which could take a day or two but the info is easy and they're graded so leniently. If I ever had a problem Dr. Brown was quick to answer and help me out like so much. One time I had the flu and asked for an extension and he literally was like please put ur health first and take the time you need. And he signs every email "Take care with love," and it actually makes my day every time I see his name in my inbox. If you can take his class then do it!!! Also lectures aren't mandatory at all I barely went and my grades are still dope. No tests just a few small projects
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/06/2021	She is a very knowledgeable professor and the content for the most part was pretty interesting, but a lot of it was common sense. She really wants all her students to succeed and takes feedback from us pretty well. The course is not hard, you just have to do two discussions posted each week and reading responses every two weeks. There are no major tests, only quizzes. The class was on zoom.
Robyn Moore SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 09/27/2021	Empathetic and enthusiastic about teaching.
Brian Connor SOCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2020	Dr. Connor is the best. He always has a smile on his face and talks to his students like they're his friends. Always helpful and willing to answer any questions you may have. He responds fairly quick and really answers our questions well. He was also very accommodating during our virtual semester, just an overall good guy.
Daniel Swann SOCY100 Anonymous 12/18/2020	Professor Swann is super chill, understanding, and funny. But, he is super unorganized when it comes to Canvas, and giving assignments. Lectures are interesting, and he shares lots of personal stories. One flaw is that he does not provide feedback on any assignments, and gives a few pop quizzes. Also, he gave us a project 1 week before our final. He does not put a rubric for any assignment so you will not know what to expect
Daniel Swann SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2020	Professor Swann is super chill, understanding, and funny. But, he is super unorganized when it comes to Canvas, and giving assignments. Lectures are interesting, and he shares lots of personal stories. One flaw is that he does not provide feedback on any assignments, and gives a few pop quizzes. Also, he gave us a project 1 week before our final.
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/03/2020	The best. Easily my favorite professor I’ve ever had. I’m so sad my semester with her is coming to an end :(
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/25/2020	This has been my favorite class I've ever taken. The professor is super chill and relates to us students very well. I loved her classes in person but they were also very engaging online. The last zoom session nobody wanted to say good bye.
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/14/2020	Love her! My favorite professor I've ever had. So kind and so passionate
Joey Brown SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/03/2020	SUPER nice guy. He's down-to-Earth and genuinely cares about each student and makes an effort to get to know everyone. The class is easy–just copy the slides down in your notes and pay attention and you'll be fine. There are a few writing assignments but they're short and are graded leniently, otherwise there isn't any homework. One or two are worth more points and he gives you a lot of notice so make sure you don't forget. Doesn't take late work but is also super understanding if something legitimately comes up. He assigns a lot of readings and talks about them in class but they're not on the exam.
Amelia Branigan SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/28/2020	super chill, and grades very leniently, excellent teacher
Robert Pernick SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/13/2020	If you want an easy A take him. 60% of my grade was from easy online homework through Revel, 15% included beginning of the class quizzes that are extremely easy, and the last 25% you had the option of taking a final or doing a group project/ presentation. He is very sweet and kind. I went to his office hours and he always gave interesting and helpful information about the class. Lectures are boring, but participation mattered so I went almost every class.
Mary DeStefano SOCY100 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/13/2019	every question has a twist to it and if you fail one exam your pretty much in danger of failing the rest of the semester
Alex Parkhouse SOCY100 Expecting an A+ nkhan46 05/23/2019	BEST PROFESSOR EVER. He has such great energy every class and exams are super easy!
Robert Pernick SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/19/2014	Professor Pernick is a very nice older man who clearly is very passionate about Sociology. He knows what he is talking about and has background experience in business, which allows him to bring an interesting perspective to the topic. While he is excited about Sociology and has interesting examples and video clips that relate, he is not the greatest teacher. His lectures are pretty boring and tend to be straight from the textbook. We had three graded papers (1-2 pages), a group term paper, and midterm and final exams. He grades the independent papers very easily. I have yet to finish the group term paper but I can tell you that planning for it has been a nightmare. His midterm was very, very difficult and terribly organized, but he realized this and curved our scores significantly afterwards. His classes are easy to skip because we have so few assignments and you can get by with reading the chapters he goes over in class. Hopefully an easy A for me. Overall, he is an approachable, adorable man, but not the greatest Sociology teacher.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2010	This class was so annoying. Going to lecture was pointless because he gives out gazettes with all the info we need to know, they took attendance though. I had a really bad TA who didn't seem to know much about the topics, and was really unhelpful in all aspects. The readings were so long that i stopped doing them altogether. Like, at the very beginning of the semester, we had to read a novel called, "Top of the World" in like a week, and it never came up in lecture or on any of the tests. Totally pointless, and i read the whole thing. Also, after each midterm (there's 3) instead of going to discussion they put a movie up on dial access for you to watch. I watched all the movies for the 1st 2 exams and didn't watch the ones for the 3rd exam and there were like 3 questions on it. Anyways, unless you need this for a core class, don't take it. i just took it as an elective, and let me tell you, there's core classes easier and more meaningful than this one.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting an A zhangsta 05/22/2010	great professor. his lectures are interesting and he likes to tell jokes in the middle of lecture sometimes. hands out the gazettes, which you take notes on. his exams were mostly essay based so you have to really know what your talking about. if you keep up with the reading, you should be fine with the exams.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting a B terp13 03/11/2010	This class is not what you think it is. It is not how people interact with people. It is a history class. The exams are short answer, and all of the questions come from the reading. The readings, however, are super long. He wanted us to read 5 chapters in one night, which was probably about 3oo pages. In lecture he does give "gazettes" which are worksheets and he has a powerpoint that is easy to follow along and fill in the blanks, but they are only words or phrases, and those can only help you so much when studying and writing short answers for the exams. Only take if you plan to major in sociology.
John Pease SOCY100 jmartin1 12/21/2009	study the gazettes and attend lecture and discussion and your good. he actually makes the class fairly interesting and hes a pretty funny guy too.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting a B- nonye1989 05/24/2009	He is a good professor, make sure you review the worksheet and also I had a great TA all together was nice..and the final was not that hard just make sure you review the worksheet..oh yeah plus go to class everyday and discussion those will help you in your grade when the class is over...hope I helped =)
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting an A blndatheart 05/14/2009	While Dr. Pease is one of the kindest professors I have had, he is very overrated. The class is extraordinarily easy; he gives out the notes and his exams are based entirely off of them. On the other hand, he is not a particularly engaging lecturer, and many of his facts are biased. In a particular lecture on globalization, he essentially encouraged the class to protest the IMF, WTO and World Bank without even mentioning that another point of view existed. Instead of teaching main concepts, he teaches his opinion on those topics.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/10/2009	I learned a lot in this class. Pease is the funniest old guy ever! He’s so sweet and so corny it’s hard not to enjoy class. However, it can get a little boring because he sometimes goes into long explanations you start to get sleepy or distracted. But, he usually ends class early so, yay! The exams are essay based and if you study aren’t too bad. I usually cram the night before and I’ve gotten an A- on all three exams so far. Go to class its worth like 10% of your grade!
John Pease SOCY100 stealingsheep 12/15/2008	Excellent professor. Very warm and silly with his jokes. The lectures are required because he does take attendance, so id recommend going because that's an easy grade to get. The Gazette that you receive at the beginning of each class matches the lectures perfectly and often he has over-heads letting you know what to put on the gazette. exams are not cumulative and are usually straight from the gazettes. he has great knowledge of the subject and really does make the material interesting and worth learning. by far one of the best teachers.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2008	Definately a good professor. A little overrated, but still my best profesor this year. Exams are all essays so make sure you memorize all of the gazettes he gives out. The TA's were all great too.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/25/2008	A lot of people like him but he wasn't my favorite. This class was unnecessarily hard for a 100 level course. Exams are all short answer and essay, and the questions are written ambiguously so it's difficult to tell what exactly he wants you to write. The best part of his lectures are when he starts off the class saying "well I'm happy to be here. Thank you all for comin'," and then he tells some corny yet hilarious riddles. But then he gets pretty boring after that. Attending lectures is a must since he takes attendance, but it's not too bad because he passes out "gazettes" which you basically fill in blanks on a sheet of paper to take notes. He is also a very liberal guy and really makes no attempt to remove his opinion from the lecture. Not a bad guy, but I'd say he's overrated.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting an A- Kedorus 12/30/2007	Professor Pease is fantastic. He begins every class with "Well, I'm happy to be here. Thank you all for comin'," usually followed by a few jokes, some of which were actually pretty funny. He takes attendance at lectures, but he makes them interesting enough to sit through, and by the time the semester's over you'll know almost as much about his family as he does. The exams are all-essay format but they're easy if you take the time to memorize the gazettes (notes) and (re-)read the articles. Also, they are NOT cumulative (even the final) which I liked. My TA (Ms. Wang) was great too, and I really enjoyed this class.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting an A anneymarie 11/09/2007	He's an amazing teacher. He genuinely loves his subject and works to get other people interested as well. He's funny and enjoyable to listen to.
John Pease SOCY100 Expecting an A lindseym 11/01/2007	I loved professor Pease. He was by far the best professor I have had at the University of Maryland. He is funny and he makes the classes interesting. He also has a great knowledge of the material and makes it engaging.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/21/2024

The sweetest and most energetic professor EVER!!! The class is very interesting, and you can tell she is interested too. We talk about things like family, sexuality, race, gender, covid, criminal justice, and a bunch of other topics ANYONE will find interesting. All assignments were super easy quizzes about every other week, one page paper about every other week, 4 short discussion questions a week (2 prepared before each class), and a zoom recorded group discussion due about every 2 weeks, which might sound dreadful, but it is not AT ALL. The assignments eventually become habit because they are so routine and easy to get done. There are only quizzes, no final. HIGHLY recommend this class and Branigan as a professor for any class!

Jennifer Ashlock
SOCY100

Expecting a B
Anonymous
11/19/2024

Lecture slides posted but have to attend because mandatory attendance quiz every class that can only be taken on specific wifi with a code. Lengthy lectures that are unnecessary. Very slow with grades. No feedback on grades. Would not recommend.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Anonymous
11/13/2024

The best socy professor!! Grades are pretty understandable once she introduces her syllabus.

Christopher Tamborini
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/15/2024

Really nice guy, genuinely cares about his students and wants you to do well. I took this class knowing nothing about sociology so it was a good introductory/beginners class. Not too much work assigned, all you have to do is show up to class, take good notes, and you will do fine. He also makes study/review sheets of everything that will be on the tests (there are 3 all multiple choice). He is good at responding to emails and being available outside of class as well. He also had a good sense of humor and went on tangents a lot from the material. Overall, would definitely recommend this class and this professor!

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
07/04/2024

Fall 2023. Great professor. There is a little more out of class work than expected for a 100 level class, but it isn't too bad.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/27/2024

To start, I will say that this class has A LOT of leniency and no tests. The quizzes and papers all have a week-long "grace period" to be completed after the original due date and even then you can ask for an extension. There is not final or midterm test, just papers. I might have had a harsh TA grading my papers, but I did not do well in the course. Aside from this TA, professor Parsells was not clear on his expectations and even though other reviews say he was, there was also a vagueness to his instructions. That brings me to him. DO NOT take his courses if you don't want to have a biased, annoying to listen to, and self-obsessed teacher. Such a waste of time to sit through this zoom. Find another teacher, unless you can bare to listen to him.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Anonymous
05/23/2024

To be honest this class is not at all difficult. However, the lectures are not engaging and not really necessary at times to complete the work that is assigned. There are weekly lecture quizzes and participation points worked into the class which are not difficult as long as you attend. There are also 4 critical thinking papers throughout the semester which are worth the majority of your grade. This would not be an issue but the papers are only graded out of 10 points so 1 point off is already putting your grade at 90%. This was frustrating throughout the semester because both he and the TA seemed to grade quite harshly considering this fact. I also had conversed over email with him a few times and both were met with passive-aggressive responses.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/22/2024

Fun professor with entertaining lectures, but the reaction papers, (i.e. majority of your grade), were not straightforward and barely related to the class content. Each one felt like a crap shoot and the TA grading my papers never left constructive notes, (just "good job" or "well done" before proceeding to give an 8/10). The content of the course was at a 100 level, but the way that this course was graded made it feel like a 200 or 300 level class.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/20/2024

Dr. PJ is a very forgiving professor for sure. I took the class over Zoom, so instead of exams, there are 4 “critical thinking papers,” of which the lowest is dropped. The grading for those is tight, but the TA’s feedback has been at least somewhat helpful. Also, he drops 4 weekly course participations if you have to miss a class and 3 weekly quizzes if something pops up. However, I wasn’t a fan of his teaching – a lot of what he mentioned was only loosely related to the content in the textbook and some of the cultural references he used were atypical for a classroom setting and slightly cringey. Overall, would take if you’re on a tight schedule, but be prepared to learn more from the textbook than from him.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/19/2024

Definitely not an easy A. The TA was unnecessarily harsh with very confusing grading parameters. The professor was very lenient with his due dates, but was also extremely harsh with grading. The chapter quizzes and participation were extremely easy with 3 drops of quiz scores and 4 drops for participation. However, the grading for the critical thinking papers was ridiculous. It would have been more helpful to have some example papers to know exactly what to expect on the critical thinking papers. The idea that you had to "wow" a professor who has been an expert in his field is a ridiculous thing to put on a rubric.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/19/2024

I do not understand the 1 star reviews in the slightest. I will concede that it is a bit difficult to pay attention to the lectures over Zoom and often they aren't related to your essays or reading quizzes for the week, but they're still engaging and related-- just spaced out a bit oddly (like he'll talk about a topic we need for an essay due weeks in advance while we're still working on an essay due the upcoming Sunday, but just take screenshots of the slides every week and you'll be fine). Besides that, I thought the class was an easy gened especially since so many of your worst assignments are dropped. 3 of the weekly quizzes are dropped, your worst essay out of 4 is dropped, and 3 participation points are dropped (you have to attend the Zooms every day and once a week there's an assignment to answer a question that he asks during the lecture, so if you miss a few weeks it's no big deal). I was assigned to the TA for grading and I thought grading was super fair, but I can't speak to Jeffrey himself because he didn't grade my essays, so maybe his grading was harsher. Due dates are also insanely flexible, you can do your reading quizzes literally whenever you want and all the major essays have a week grace period past the due dates where you will not get any late penalty, and they'll extend that even longer if you just ask. Also, I didn't even get the required textbook for the class due to our terrible school book store not ever delivering it, and I still managed to get a 94% average on my reading quizzes and pumped them all out during the first weekend of the semester just to get it over with. It's genuinely an easy class if you put in the most minor amount of work.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/19/2024

Truly one of the worst professor I ever encountered with at UMD. He's a nice friendly guy but if you are looking for a gen ed to get an A+ in this isn't the one. Him and his TA are the one that grade the work, however they grade way too harshly given that instructions are barely clear on what he's asking for. It honestly is very annoying too because I would email to ask for clarification to see what he is specifically asking for and apply it too my paper and still will get an unreasonable amount of points taken off for no reason. I usually never take time to write a review but as a level 100 class there is no reason why stress should occur to write these critical reflections. HE HAS A LOW RATING FOR A REASON DON'T TAKE HIM IF YOU ARE WANTING AN EASY A.

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/18/2024

The exams are fair, and based on lecture notes and the textbook. There were some questions from videos, but Dr. Malackany makes an effort to make sure we watch them by creating assignments based on them (Writing assignments). I'm not really that into Sociology, so I didn't find the content very interesting, so I wouldn't say that the professor is boring, I think I'm just disinterested, but the course is fair as long as you put effort into submitting assignments on time. Also, Dr. Malackany is very responsive to emails if you miss class, and he posts lecture recordings - I never had to use them but I know some people found them useful.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/13/2024

I don't want to invalidate the experience of other students but Professor PJ was one of the best professors I've ever had at this college! I'm new to sociology and I found his passion for the subject inspiring. He is very lenient with deadlines and sets very clear expectations while giving us room to be creative. You can also see that he really cares about the wellbeing of his students, and rewards people who put in the word consistently. Thanks for a great semester Professor PJ!

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/11/2024

I second the other recent reviews on here. Professor Malackany is very kind, agreeable, and clearly well educated on the subject. The class structure is straightforward and super organized. At first I didn't know how to feel about having to watch documentary episodes for some of the written assignments, but he chooses very interesting films that ended up teaching me a lot about how sociology is integrated into the world. I enjoyed this class!

Jennifer Ashlock
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/09/2024

She is a monotonous, boring professor who tries to push her views on you instead of teaching the class. Slow grader as well as a harsh grader for a class that should be a guaranteed A+. She grades off of the idea more of if she likes your writing instead of the general overall idea of if your writing fits the rubric and does what you are asked in the prompt. All the tests are in person but through a lockdown browser with around 25 mc and a few short answer that are graded fairly harsh. Does completion assignments in class as well to attempt to get everyone to come to lecture and stay the whole time even when not necessary. Would not recommend if you are not super interested in the topics and instead are taking the class as a gen ed.

Christopher Tamborini
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/09/2024

Professor Tamborini is super nice and you can tell he's passionate about the material. Really light workload, exams are all multiple choice and straightforward. There are 'required' readings but Prof Tamborini's lectures cover everything you need to know for exams and are much more interesting than the text. Overall a great class and even better professor!

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/07/2024

When I registered for this class, I had no expectations. To be completely fair, this class is challenging but you will succeed if you do the work. As a professor, he is very lenient on due dates and dropping assignments. He can be seen as a harsh grader, but he just wants you to succeed and do your best. I would recommend this class and professor to another student because he is very passionate about his job and position.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/06/2024

This is an introduction to sociology course, and this professor made it a great introduction with enough information to be interested, but not enough to where this would be considered a graduate level course. You have weekly reading quizzes that are from the textbook (you can find it online) so it is easy. You have 4 papers (<5 paragraphs) that are based on YouTube videos and you will be writing based on that and he literally goes over what to write about and that really helps. This is an online class (2 times a week) via Zoom. There is no final/midterms so that's awesome. You have course participations which requires in class participation where you write on the topic on ELMS for a grade and they just require a bit of thinking, not too tough. He is pretty lenient so in case your other classes are eating up your time, then you will still do well in this class as he gives a 1-week grace period for each assignment. As for the other reviews, he has mentioned that he has seen them and he takes it as feedback and made the assignments clearer by discussing them in class, so just know that he is trying. One of the feedback from planetterp was about the essay being unclear. He has since attempted to explain the assignments more clearly with his expectation, when and where the assignment is, the topics that you will need for the essays (they are explained through lecture slides), and some tips on how to make good essays. The TA had good feedback and really helped me with what I needed to include/fix about my essay. He makes his lecture more engaging by asking us questions and telling stories, which I enjoy. As a person who is not great at writing papers, these papers were not too difficult (I got a C, D, and A for my papers, the bad grades were on me as I waited until the last day to write it and I kind of rushed it).

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/02/2024

Dr. Parsells-Johnson is a highly motivated professor and you can tell he loves what he does. However, grading can be harsh. For example on the critical thinking papers, they are out of ten points but then you can get only a 90% if you don't meet the "wow factor" which out of my knowledge is just his opinion if he thought you stood out among the other students. For course participation there are times he puts up the question for only ten seconds and at least for me, I need to read the question a few times to understand what is being fully asked of me. Other times he states the question and when multiple people ask him to explain what he asking us to do, he just doesn't respond, and if someone knows what he is asking he doesn't want people to help others understand. Maybe it's because I am taking his class virtually on Zoom, but I do believe that the coursework is fairly light considering we only have course participations and 4 critical thinking papers this semester, but the way grades and runs the course participations just doesn't seem fair to me at all.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/19/2024

He’s definitely one of the worst professors I’ve ever had. He randomly says the course participation answer in the week before we actually have to do it to catch students who miss it. The critical thinking papers are graded extremely harshly and even after working on them for hours, I end up losing so many points. This really tanked my grade.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/16/2024

Personally, don't take the bad reviews to heart. While it's hard to focus and digest material over Zoom, Professor Parsells-Johnson is an insanely understanding guy. Due dates are more of a "frame of reference," for example, quizzes are open all semester and you can essentially take them whenever works for you time-wise. And I kid you not all the answers are in the textbook (and you can get a 20/20 by simply skimming the required chapters). The essays are a bit more tricky since they are graded a bit more harshly (but there's a one-week grace period if you miss the initial "due date" AND you can ask for an additional extension beyond this), but it's not overly difficult to get a good grade if you put in effort and show an attempt/effort to answer the course material. You also basically get free points through course participation, as long as you somewhat pay attention to what he's lecturing about, you can DEFINITELY get all the points needed. I also think Professor Parsells-Johnson is insanely lenient and understanding, there's one drop essay for the critical thinking papers, 4 (?) drops for your lowest course participation scores, and 3 drops for your lowest weekly quiz scores. It is completely doable to get a good grade in this class, and while it's a decent amount of work (so it can kind of be hard to focus solely on this class especially when midterms pick up in major courses) the extremely flexible due dates help for the workload of this course not be so burdensome. Would recommend taking Professor Parsells-Johnson, especially if you have a tight schedule the Zoom meetings are insanely convenient.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting a B
Anonymous
03/12/2024

i do like Dr Parsells Johnson, and think his lectures are interesting and enjoyable, so i pay attention even though i normally cant really on zoom. However, I didn't really believe all the comments about the harsh grading, and he explained the expectations really clearly, so i thought i ate on the first essay but i actually got a low score (TA graded btw). the feedback i received and the points taken off didnt really seem proportional. unfortunately i will probably end up dropping this class because i put a lot of effort into the essay, and it wont be worth it to try so hard on future ones to bring my grade up, which is a bit sad since I do like the class. would recommend taking this class if u actually like sociology, but u dont mind a B too much

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Anonymous
03/09/2024

Truly a terrible horrible unfair professor with insanely confusing expectations and no direction. Lectures are him talking about himself and making unbearably cringey jokes. Can honestly say I haven't learned a thing from him and it only leads to frustration. Entirely too difficult for a 100 level class. The good reviews must be by people who love sociology and awkward attempts to make relevant pop culture references. If you are looking for a gen ed look somewhere else for your own sake.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/23/2024

the best professor! very interested and passionate about the topic, and manages to make lectures feel interesting. no midterm and final, the grade was just composed of attendance, quizzes, 1 page papers, and group discussions. she listened to student feedback very well

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/23/2023

I liked this class a lot, Professor Malackany is very kind and passionate about what he teaches. I found his lectures to be interesting. The course load was very manageable, and you can miss most lectures without penalty (although sometimes there are 5-point participation assignments.) Each class he goes through slides that are already posted on Canvas, which only covers some of the content you will be tested on. I didn't realize how important reading each chapter of the textbook was until the first exam, so I would say read/skim each unit as you go through the content in class. Each unit also comes with an online 5-minute 5-question quiz that you have 3 days to complete. All of the exams are 50 MCQ online, including the final exam which is not cumulative. In addition to this, there are multiple writing assignments based on either critical thinking or documentaries assigned to watch outside of class. The TA grades them on content, not completion. Five or six lectures were switched to Zoom, which made it a little harder for me to focus on the content, but I really enjoyed the in-person lectures and did well in the class. I would recommend Malackany's class to anyone who needs a gen-ed or is interested in Sociology.

Jennifer Ashlock
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/22/2023

The class is kind of interesting but the professor is so boring and she takes forever to submit grades. She didn't grade a midterm taken at the beginning of November until the week of the final so it's pretty hard to know what grade you'll get. She posts all the slides from class on Canvas and the content is pretty much the same as the textbook. There is little incentive to come to class except now and then she will do a Google form that counts as participation.

Jennifer Ashlock
SOCY100

Expecting a C
HaroldFox
12/21/2023

She clearly knows what she’s talking about but her skills as a professor end there. She clearly lacks any skills in terms of Technology regularly asking students to complete tasks she herself was unsure how to do which made some projects difficult. Grades are slow…very slow… for having two TA’s they don’t seem to actually do that much with my classes midterms not being released until a week before our final. She’ll drag lectures out for the sake of killing time and akwardly try to convince the class to break out into group discussions when no one wants too or would gain anything from it. She also soap boxes a lot she’ll find a way to turn talking about social strain and find a way to make it about how men are the root of all problems in society or how the university of maryland isn’t doing enough to help *insert minority group of the day*. Also the BS completion assignments did more damage to my grade then the finale, she’ll covertly plan secret completion assignments for her lectures and if your someone who’s a double major or have an active internship you’ll have to miss lecture sometimes and she’ll make a point to drag your grade down because of it.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/17/2023

I had this class online and I found it very enjoyable actually. Assignments are reasonable, no midterms! Reading quizzes, course participation, reaction papers and the final, a sociology podcast are what makes up your grade, three lowest quiz grades are dropped and your lowest reaction paper. The reaction papers will give you the hardest time, you get four a semester and they are graded kind of harsh and they are out of 10 points but are 35% of your grade, so a 9/10 still bumps you down pretty good. His lectures didn't really apply to the assignments very much, but I liked it that way, I didn't have to write a crap ton of notes, I could actually listen to what he was talking about and actually enjoy learning for once. Very engaging and would always read the zoom chats and laugh with us. No complaints here!

Jennifer Ashlock
SOCY100

Anonymous
12/13/2023

This unfortunately wouldn't be a class I recommend. The class consists of Dr. Ashlock's reading off of slides and that is about it. Other than the occasional attendance question, there was no point in going since you could just read off the slides later. I will also say everything is very vague in her class. There isn't much of an explanation for what is going on which I found caused me to struggle on exams. Unless you are someone who is naturally just very good at Sociology I can't say I would recommend it.

Daniel Swann
SOCY100

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/11/2023

He is really funny but EXTREMELY disorganized. He is unclear about when things are due and his syllabus is not updated with the dates of when assignments are due so it can be difficult to stay on top of the assignments (although there are very few). He will have an assignment due and give no information about it until the day before we have to hand it in. He often gives pop quizzes with specific statistics from weeks ago that nobody could remember which I found annoying.

Christopher Tamborini
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/11/2023

Prof. Tamborini is a really chill and interesting guy. While he doesn't take attendance, you should go to class because he breaks down the concepts in a simple way and always connects them to real life. Tamborini is also really passionate about SOCY, which is really cool to see. His exams are easy, however, they are worth 25% of your grade so you need to study to get an A. Otherwise, workload is light and it is overall an interesting class. I recommend it and you should def take it with Tamborini.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/09/2023

I personally love Dr. PJ but I have to say I think I got fairly lucky. Some reviews on here talk about how he grades weirdly and is very broad with his teaching and I have to say I agree with the teaching part but I honestly think that's what made the class so easy. It kinda fit with my learning style very well because I just had to make sure to read the textbook and I could pass all the quizzes and barely had to pay attention in class. However, for the grading part I did get lucky. He wasn't even the one grading my papers he like split all the grading up between him and his TA's and I got a good TA that would give me good grades but other people would complain about how their TA's would take off points for no reason and what not. He's a very nice and chill guy and I would recommend taking his class. You honestly have to put in minimal effort to get a good grade but that could just be my situation. Otherwise easy GenEd class.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Anonymous
12/07/2023

Honestly, horrible. Dr. PJ, you're an amazing person and your class was engaging, but I was learning from the textbook(barely at that) and then listening to you talk about an entirely different topic during lecture. The worst part of the entire class was the god-awful "reaction papers" that had no guidelines at all. You were given an often VERY SHORT video and told to react to it. In my first paper, I was so confused; we got a video explaining the link between sociology and food and I had NO idea how to approach it. Even now, I still don't know how I was supposed to approach that video. The rubric is so cryptic and vague, that you can't even use it as a guideline. No beneficial criticisms, just a low score on your paper. You figure it out. Didn't want to take any questions, and would defer you to your "coordinating instructor"(literally such BS). NO examples, and he doesn't even post his slideshows(they DEFINITELY wouldn't help with anything, but it's the thought that counts). Goes on and on about a random topic daily and it doesn't even relate to what you would be reading for his reading quizzes. I truly hated this class, and I feel like it was for seasoned and well-adapted sociologists, not just people who were starting the topic(as one would expect with a 100 class). Dr. PJ, please make some changes or modify your syllabus. Think about what class you are teaching, and the reasonable expectations to have from them. Students, believe me when I tell you, STEER CLEAR OF THIS CLASS(there's a reason for the 2.39.)

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/07/2023

Dr. Malackany is your standard 100-level social science professor. Class was highly organized with fully online exams, weekly reading quizzes, short writing assignments (based on external readings or documentaries), and short participation assignments. All of the media and real-world examples were pretty outdated but still applied to the concepts. Lecture was always recorded and slides were always uploaded prior to class. His lecture style is pretty boring especially since the connections weren’t current and he didn’t get through a lot of slides in class. Be prepared for an odd textbook. The textbook had a section where the author blamed public school teachers/administration for why American students' performances are suffering and not the fact that schools rely on test scores for funding. The textbook also had a section complaining about how school shootings aren’t that big of a problem and cited data that was cut off in 2014 (right before shooting rates spiked). Overall the class was easy and a great way to get your gen ed, I was just confused as to how an interesting subject like sociology was made so lackluster/boring. If you’re actually interested in sociology I’d take a different professor.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Anonymous
11/29/2023

First of all, I've gotta start by saying that Dr. PJ is a really, really nice guy. If you're reading this, Dr. PJ, which I know you probably will be at some point... please know that this is not a dig at you as a person. You are an awesome dude and I wish you the best. I did not enjoy this class at all. I took this class because I saw it was online and heck, it was a 100-level gen-ed in sociology, a field known for being mostly fluff. What could go wrong? The problems with this course are a result of two main things: unclear expectations/guidelines on assignments and ridiculous grading. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. There were four big papers in this class which were essentially the biggest part of the grade aside from the final project. No example papers were provided for any of these, and the guidelines were vague. A rubric was provided, but it was cryptic and esoteric for no reason. It would say things like, "The paper POPS with conceptual scaffolding." Dude... just say that you want to see good connection to course concepts. The most ridiculous part of the rubric, however, is that 10% of your grade for each paper depends on if your paper "gleams with sociological imagination." The syllabus even admitted that the "gleam" part of the rubric is pretty subjective. I hated the papers so much. I don't think I've ever procrastinated on an assignment more in my life than I did on these papers. It was so hard to even start writing because I didn't know what was expected of me. The one thing I did appreciate is that Dr. PJ had a "best by" policy for due dates, which meant that assignment due dates were more suggestions rather than actual hard deadlines. Dr. PJ, if you're reading this, your class could be so much better if you would just provide an example paper for the assignments and grade more fairly. This is college so I understand expectations should be high even for a 100-level sociology course, but students can't do well if they don't know what is expected of them. I have a sibling who took SOCY100 so I know that this is not what other SOCY100 classes here look like.

Tyler Beltran
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
09/21/2023

Feedback on assignments is unclear.

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/23/2023

Dr. Malackany was super kind and understanding and you can tell he cares a lot about sociology. The course structure is super traditional, and the exams were multiple choice and super easy. However, his lectures could be kind of boring at times. Overall this class was an easy A with a light course load, and I'd recommend it for a gened credit.

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2023

The class itself is pretty easy - we are given a good amount of assignments to help boost our grades. But this class was actually so boring and there was no motivation for me to ever go. He does a good job explaining the concepts but is not engaging at all. Overall an easy gen-ed but if you are looking for an interesting sociology class this is not it

Jennifer Ashlock
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/12/2023

I don't believe I've ever seen a course take longer to enter assignment grades. The final is tomorrow and I am still unsure of my grades for a large group assignment finished almost 3 weeks ago. The professor uses long-worded answers to questions with cryptic terminology that further confuses students and makes her look like she has no clue what she's talking about.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/09/2023

Professor Branigan really knows her stuff, she is definitely qualified to teach sociology and teach it well. However, sometimes it felt like class was dragging on when it didn't need to be. The content is interesting for sure, however I took the 1 hour and 15 minute version of this course and I felt like I was going to die. I have attention span issues so maybe that's just me, but I was dozing off after the 50 minute mark with 25 minutes still left in the class. Don't get me wrong though, Branigan is one of the easiest professors I have EVER had. You get points just for showing up, and if you miss class you can do an easy alternate participation assignment to make it up. She also had no midterm or final and instead gave us easy little 10 point ELMS quizzes every few weeks. The only assignments you really get are a blog-style 1 page reading response biweekly, but this was seriously so easy. Usually when I see that we have to write essays for a class I panic and drop it, but these are definitely not something to worry about because they are graded very lightly (and worth 100 points which is music to my ears), and the readings she assigns are just short little articles that take no time to read and are not hard to comprehend. Oh, and also, there's a discussion for this class and you get assigned a group at the beginning of the semester, and every couple weeks you meet with them on zoom/in person to discuss stuff in the class. There isn't a worksheet for discussion, however when it is your turn to be a discussion leader you just take your group members discussion posts and copy paste them on a doc then talk about the questions in the discussion, real easy. So yeah, I was a bit bored but lets be real, this class was super easy and Branigan is one of the most qualified, passionate, AND fair professors I have ever had. Easy A for sure.

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/03/2023

For an intro level sociology class, this class sucked. His lecturing was quite boring and he would talk in a monotone voice. Almost impossible to pay attention and stay focused in that class. His lecture material doesn't always coincide with the textbook. There are almost weekly textbook reading quizzes that are short but good grade boosters. Overall, this class was really really boring and I would never take it again.

Jennifer Ashlock
SOCY100

Expecting a B
Anonymous
04/07/2023

Honestly, her lectures are very boring and disengaging. The real problem, though, is her vagueness, and every question got a long-winded non-answer in response. The lectures are also a copy and paste of the textbook, which makes the motivation to attend class go down.

Brian Connor
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/24/2023

good guy and accommodating but the class is kinda boring, it might be better if it was more discussion based but it's not.

Robert Pernick
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/30/2023

Dr. Pernick will oftentimes ramble on for most of the lectures, but the readings are pretty interesting and the class is an easy A+. Despite the lectures not always being so interesting, Dr. Pernick is the sweetest guy in existence and he is genuinely interested in your performance as a student and what your takes/interests are.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/25/2023

Dr. PJ seems like a nice guy who's trying his best. Unfortunately, his best just isn't good. This man does not know how to explain concepts in a clear and easy to understand way. He'll define an incredibly abstract concept we haven't learned by connecting it to other equally abstract concepts we haven't learned. He'll spend an entire class doing a deep dive of a concept but won't define it until the end. He'll casually mention the theories of random sociologists as if we should know them. All that would probably work if he was just teaching grad students, but he never should have been put in charge of an introductory class. I feel like I should comment on the harsh grading debate, since everyone else is. Dr. PJ's inability to explain things extends to assignment directions. He'll devote an entire class period to explaining an assignment in some complicated way, but won't post a simple rubric half the time. When he does, it includes phrases like "pops with conceptual scaffolding" (uses connected class concepts) or "gleams with sociological imagination" (literally just a point for vibes). I usually did well on the assignments, but I would spend hours before each big assignment gathering all the different rubrics and expectations from different places and writing them out so I understood it, then doing a huge pre-write for the essay with the class concepts I was going to include. I got good grades from him, but I shouldn't have had to put in that much work to get them. Also, the class was set up so Dr. PJ would grade half the students and the TA would grade the other half. My final assignment was graded by the TA (Danielle Koonce) instead of Dr. PJ and randomly had 15% taken off with no explanation, so some of the harsh grading mentioned here could have just been the TA.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/25/2023

Amazing lecturer and very kind. Throughout the semester she tried hard to listen to and follow up on student feedback, altering aspects of the course (like attendance and grading policies) to accommodate for what we needed. It's clear she has a passion for sociology and it shines through in her lectures, which were interesting, engaging, relevant to anyone (we live in a society). Useful class and one of my favorite professors.

Brian Connor
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/22/2023

Really nice professor but grades the exams why too harsh. I had to get a 100% on the last exam to get an A.

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/02/2023

Malackany definitely tried to explain the content on his slides thoroughly. However, it became tedious listening through zoom for his online class. His quizzes were the most tricky component of his class. The limited time and true/false questions that did not pertain to his slides were definitely challenging. Most terms and definitions were in the textbook but they didn't help much for the test questions. Surprisingly quizlet material helped more. Was a so-so class, had an abundance of information and did not retain much. I would recommend choosing another course for the gen-ed or elective.

Julia Chuang
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/22/2022

I was extremely disappointed taking this class. l'm really passionate about sociology but this class felt extremely disorganized and also unnecessarily hard. The final so difficult it was like 3 multiple choice, 13 short answer essays and then 2 huge essays in get this... ONLY TWO AND A HALF HOURS! While my friend with another professor had an exam that was open for 3 weeks and was only a few essay questions. Very disappointed and do not recommend.

Brian Connor
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/22/2022

Really easy class but grades the exams way too harsh for a gen ed.

Brian Connor
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/19/2022

chill guy but he grades the exams pretty harsh. Quizzes every week is easy. We have to do 4 reflection papers the whole sem so it's not bad.

Jeffrey Parsells-johnson
SOCY100

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/16/2022

Was super chill and down to earth but his grading standards and expectations for students are ridiculously high. This class was designed for introductory-level sociology and as a 100-level class, I felt like I was back in my 300-level class with the standards and expectations. Not an easy A, you have to work for it. His rubrics (if he has one, sometimes he doesn't) can be somewhat unclear and one of the points is if it wow'ed him. However, he drops your worst grades for certain assignments which can be great. He's also pretty forgiving with deadlines (as long as you ask for an extension), especially for STEM majors since he understands the struggle. I think he'd feel a lot more comfortable with a higher-level class because it's clear he's passionate about sociology, but the introductory class just doesn't seem to fit his standards and expectations.

Brian Connor
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/13/2022

With Dr. Connor, SOCY100 is a pleasant and easy class to be in. All of the assignments can be done as long as you take notes in class and skim the textbook readings. There are 4-5 Reflection papers, but they're pretty short and you can pick and choose which ones to do if you dislike a prompt. He is very accommodating and always left plenty of time for assignments to be completed. He is also pretty approachable for after class questions. His lectures were a bit boring, especially with topics that didn't interest me personally. Overall, it's a nice class if you're at least a little interested or just want an easy gen ed. Would recommend.

Christopher Malackany
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/13/2022

Professor Malackany cares a lot about sociology. I took this class online and felt it was very easy. The class assignments are very easy, most of them involved watching a video and answering two questions. One question would be specific and the other would simply be what did you like most. The tests were very straight forward with a mix of multiple choice and true/false. On test days you are given the entire day to start the test so you can pick a time that works best for you to take it. There were also quizzes that were easy. You have 3 days to take a quiz so there is a lot of flexibility, but once you start a quiz you only have 5 minutes to take it. All lecture slides are posted before the lecture. You can miss this class without an issue about making up work or missing information.

Daniel Swann
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/08/2022

Amazing professor. Super funny and engaging. made me love a class i hated in high school. really smart guy.

Julia Chuang
SOCY100

Anonymous
05/19/2022

Absolute do not take her if you want to keep your grade. This course is ridiculously hard for a level 100 course.

Fariha Khalid
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/16/2022

I never showed up to class and I got an A- lol.

Julia Chuang
SOCY100

Anonymous
05/15/2022

SOCY100 is not supposed to be this hard.

Julia Chuang
SOCY100

Anonymous
05/14/2022

expects way too much from a 100 level course. The final is absolutely insane for no reason, as we had to write 13 mini essays (on top of a 500 word essay). Additionally, she is passive aggressive in emails and gate keeps study material. She bribed us to come to class and said that she would only give out answers to those who attended, and only provided a jeopardy/ study guide for those who attended.

Mansoor Moaddel
SOCY100

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/12/2022

Professor is extremely kind and seems like he cares about what he's teaching, but lectures do tend to be lengthy and boring. He spends all of lecture basically reading from slides, and it's not easy at all to really learn what he's trying to teach. TA grades very harshly on student reports (writing assignment) considering a lot of the info isn't in the textbook like they say it is, and it's not easy to understand what the slides mean. Workload is very light considering you do a writing assignment every other week or so and that's the only assignment outside of the exams. In terms of exams, he gives you 30 questions, and 10 of them will be on the exam, so you pretty much have to study a lot to be prepared.

Julia Chuang
SOCY100

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/10/2022

Extremely hard grader with long and drawn out lectures. Often goes off topic and is very strict about applying things learned from class on tests/quizzes. Again with the grading though, it's actually ridiculous. If you don't give the exact answer she wants or mention a specific topic (sometimes just a word), then you'll get half credit or even less credit on that answer. SOCY100 is supposed to be an enjoyable and interesting introductory class, so if you want that then please avoid taking this class with her.

Julia Chuang
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/29/2022

Easily the worst Professor at UMD. Not only is the class the most boring I’ve ever attended, but her grading is unfair and outright insane. If you don’t put down exactly what she was thinking on a quiz or a test, you will get marked off. Doesn’t make sense for a class with such subjective answers.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Anonymous
12/17/2021

Amazing professor. Made Sociology interesting and constantly engaged her students. She made the classroom setting feel accepting and relaxed. The workload of this class is also not bad at all, very managable.

Rodrigo Dominguez-Martinez
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/07/2021

Loved the class so much and every lecture was straight forward. Weekly open note quizzes for easy grades and no tests. Midterm and final were both an essay. If you miss class just get notes from a friend and you will be fine.

Joey Brown
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/06/2021

I genuinely believe this man is the kindest person in this school. He is literally the best professor I ever had. The class is an easy A as long as u submit the big assignments, which could take a day or two but the info is easy and they're graded so leniently. If I ever had a problem Dr. Brown was quick to answer and help me out like so much. One time I had the flu and asked for an extension and he literally was like please put ur health first and take the time you need. And he signs every email "Take care with love," and it actually makes my day every time I see his name in my inbox. If you can take his class then do it!!! Also lectures aren't mandatory at all I barely went and my grades are still dope. No tests just a few small projects

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/06/2021

She is a very knowledgeable professor and the content for the most part was pretty interesting, but a lot of it was common sense. She really wants all her students to succeed and takes feedback from us pretty well. The course is not hard, you just have to do two discussions posted each week and reading responses every two weeks. There are no major tests, only quizzes. The class was on zoom.

Robyn Moore
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
09/27/2021

Empathetic and enthusiastic about teaching.

Brian Connor
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/21/2020

Dr. Connor is the best. He always has a smile on his face and talks to his students like they're his friends. Always helpful and willing to answer any questions you may have. He responds fairly quick and really answers our questions well. He was also very accommodating during our virtual semester, just an overall good guy.

Daniel Swann
SOCY100

Anonymous
12/18/2020

Professor Swann is super chill, understanding, and funny. But, he is super unorganized when it comes to Canvas, and giving assignments. Lectures are interesting, and he shares lots of personal stories. One flaw is that he does not provide feedback on any assignments, and gives a few pop quizzes. Also, he gave us a project 1 week before our final. He does not put a rubric for any assignment so you will not know what to expect

Daniel Swann
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/04/2020

Professor Swann is super chill, understanding, and funny. But, he is super unorganized when it comes to Canvas, and giving assignments. Lectures are interesting, and he shares lots of personal stories. One flaw is that he does not provide feedback on any assignments, and gives a few pop quizzes. Also, he gave us a project 1 week before our final.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/03/2020

The best. Easily my favorite professor I’ve ever had. I’m so sad my semester with her is coming to an end :(

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
10/25/2020

This has been my favorite class I've ever taken. The professor is super chill and relates to us students very well. I loved her classes in person but they were also very engaging online. The last zoom session nobody wanted to say good bye.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
10/14/2020

Love her! My favorite professor I've ever had. So kind and so passionate

Joey Brown
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/03/2020

SUPER nice guy. He's down-to-Earth and genuinely cares about each student and makes an effort to get to know everyone. The class is easy–just copy the slides down in your notes and pay attention and you'll be fine. There are a few writing assignments but they're short and are graded leniently, otherwise there isn't any homework. One or two are worth more points and he gives you a lot of notice so make sure you don't forget. Doesn't take late work but is also super understanding if something legitimately comes up. He assigns a lot of readings and talks about them in class but they're not on the exam.

Amelia Branigan
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/28/2020

super chill, and grades very leniently, excellent teacher

Robert Pernick
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/13/2020

If you want an easy A take him. 60% of my grade was from easy online homework through Revel, 15% included beginning of the class quizzes that are extremely easy, and the last 25% you had the option of taking a final or doing a group project/ presentation. He is very sweet and kind. I went to his office hours and he always gave interesting and helpful information about the class. Lectures are boring, but participation mattered so I went almost every class.

Mary DeStefano
SOCY100

Expecting a C
Anonymous
12/13/2019

every question has a twist to it and if you fail one exam your pretty much in danger of failing the rest of the semester

Alex Parkhouse
SOCY100

Expecting an A+
nkhan46
05/23/2019

BEST PROFESSOR EVER. He has such great energy every class and exams are super easy!

Robert Pernick
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/19/2014

Professor Pernick is a very nice older man who clearly is very passionate about Sociology. He knows what he is talking about and has background experience in business, which allows him to bring an interesting perspective to the topic. While he is excited about Sociology and has interesting examples and video clips that relate, he is not the greatest teacher. His lectures are pretty boring and tend to be straight from the textbook. We had three graded papers (1-2 pages), a group term paper, and midterm and final exams. He grades the independent papers very easily. I have yet to finish the group term paper but I can tell you that planning for it has been a nightmare. His midterm was very, very difficult and terribly organized, but he realized this and curved our scores significantly afterwards. His classes are easy to skip because we have so few assignments and you can get by with reading the chapters he goes over in class. Hopefully an easy A for me. Overall, he is an approachable, adorable man, but not the greatest Sociology teacher.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/23/2010

This class was so annoying. Going to lecture was pointless because he gives out gazettes with all the info we need to know, they took attendance though. I had a really bad TA who didn't seem to know much about the topics, and was really unhelpful in all aspects. The readings were so long that i stopped doing them altogether. Like, at the very beginning of the semester, we had to read a novel called, "Top of the World" in like a week, and it never came up in lecture or on any of the tests. Totally pointless, and i read the whole thing. Also, after each midterm (there's 3) instead of going to discussion they put a movie up on dial access for you to watch. I watched all the movies for the 1st 2 exams and didn't watch the ones for the 3rd exam and there were like 3 questions on it. Anyways, unless you need this for a core class, don't take it. i just took it as an elective, and let me tell you, there's core classes easier and more meaningful than this one.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting an A
zhangsta
05/22/2010

great professor. his lectures are interesting and he likes to tell jokes in the middle of lecture sometimes. hands out the gazettes, which you take notes on. his exams were mostly essay based so you have to really know what your talking about. if you keep up with the reading, you should be fine with the exams.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting a B
terp13
03/11/2010

This class is not what you think it is. It is not how people interact with people. It is a history class. The exams are short answer, and all of the questions come from the reading. The readings, however, are super long. He wanted us to read 5 chapters in one night, which was probably about 3oo pages. In lecture he does give "gazettes" which are worksheets and he has a powerpoint that is easy to follow along and fill in the blanks, but they are only words or phrases, and those can only help you so much when studying and writing short answers for the exams. Only take if you plan to major in sociology.

John Pease
SOCY100

jmartin1
12/21/2009

study the gazettes and attend lecture and discussion and your good. he actually makes the class fairly interesting and hes a pretty funny guy too.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting a B-
nonye1989
05/24/2009

He is a good professor, make sure you review the worksheet and also I had a great TA all together was nice..and the final was not that hard just make sure you review the worksheet..oh yeah plus go to class everyday and discussion those will help you in your grade when the class is over...hope I helped =)

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting an A
blndatheart
05/14/2009

While Dr. Pease is one of the kindest professors I have had, he is very overrated. The class is extraordinarily easy; he gives out the notes and his exams are based entirely off of them. On the other hand, he is not a particularly engaging lecturer, and many of his facts are biased. In a particular lecture on globalization, he essentially encouraged the class to protest the IMF, WTO and World Bank without even mentioning that another point of view existed. Instead of teaching main concepts, he teaches his opinion on those topics.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/10/2009

I learned a lot in this class. Pease is the funniest old guy ever! He’s so sweet and so corny it’s hard not to enjoy class. However, it can get a little boring because he sometimes goes into long explanations you start to get sleepy or distracted. But, he usually ends class early so, yay! The exams are essay based and if you study aren’t too bad. I usually cram the night before and I’ve gotten an A- on all three exams so far. Go to class its worth like 10% of your grade!

John Pease
SOCY100

stealingsheep
12/15/2008

Excellent professor. Very warm and silly with his jokes. The lectures are required because he does take attendance, so id recommend going because that's an easy grade to get. The Gazette that you receive at the beginning of each class matches the lectures perfectly and often he has over-heads letting you know what to put on the gazette. exams are not cumulative and are usually straight from the gazettes. he has great knowledge of the subject and really does make the material interesting and worth learning. by far one of the best teachers.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2008

Definately a good professor. A little overrated, but still my best profesor this year. Exams are all essays so make sure you memorize all of the gazettes he gives out. The TA's were all great too.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting a B
Anonymous
11/25/2008

A lot of people like him but he wasn't my favorite. This class was unnecessarily hard for a 100 level course. Exams are all short answer and essay, and the questions are written ambiguously so it's difficult to tell what exactly he wants you to write. The best part of his lectures are when he starts off the class saying "well I'm happy to be here. Thank you all for comin'," and then he tells some corny yet hilarious riddles. But then he gets pretty boring after that. Attending lectures is a must since he takes attendance, but it's not too bad because he passes out "gazettes" which you basically fill in blanks on a sheet of paper to take notes. He is also a very liberal guy and really makes no attempt to remove his opinion from the lecture. Not a bad guy, but I'd say he's overrated.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting an A-
Kedorus
12/30/2007

Professor Pease is fantastic. He begins every class with "Well, I'm happy to be here. Thank you all for comin'," usually followed by a few jokes, some of which were actually pretty funny. He takes attendance at lectures, but he makes them interesting enough to sit through, and by the time the semester's over you'll know almost as much about his family as he does. The exams are all-essay format but they're easy if you take the time to memorize the gazettes (notes) and (re-)read the articles. Also, they are NOT cumulative (even the final) which I liked. My TA (Ms. Wang) was great too, and I really enjoyed this class.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting an A
anneymarie
11/09/2007

He's an amazing teacher. He genuinely loves his subject and works to get other people interested as well. He's funny and enjoyable to listen to.

John Pease
SOCY100

Expecting an A
lindseym
11/01/2007

I loved professor Pease. He was by far the best professor I have had at the University of Maryland. He is funny and he makes the classes interesting. He also has a great knowledge of the material and makes it engaging.

Reviews for SOCY100