THET251 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Mina Kawahara THET251 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2025	She's one of the nicest and most understanding people I've ever met. She's so fun. Starting class with an interactive warm-up of sorts always set a good tone for the class. The workload isn't too crazy (and it got lighter when she realized it was a lot,) but the time commitment can be rough. See the 5/21/25 review for a better breakdown of that. Mina's also very accommodating to extensions. I asked for so many it was practically unprofessional, and she granted them every time. She doesn't post lecture slides, and goes through them pretty fast, but if you come to class you'll get all the information you need for the quiz. She makes class worth coming to anyways, even bringing in snacks sometimes. She clearly cares for her students, and also the course content. She's such a lovely human to be around and I cannot recommend her more for any class she offers.
Mina Kawahara THET251 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/21/2025	Great professor. Her lectures were engaging, she was very approachable, and the overall vibe of the class was always great. The main drawback of this class is the amount of time I spent on it: 2-3 hours a week watching the weekly musical, and another hour or more writing the biweekly response paper. However, she made every musical we watched feel important to the overall message of the class, and the fun I had doing the work for this class balanced out its heavy workload (especially since she gave us the option of performing a musical number as our midterm, and as a supplement to our the final paper). I highly recommend this course/professor, even if you don't have much experience with musical theatre!
Mina Kawahara THET251 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/05/2025	By far the nicest, most understanding professor I have ever had in my two years here. This was her first year teaching (She is a Ph.D. candidate) and has done a phenomenal job. I can almost guarantee she will be the nicest professor you encounter. The class itself is very straightforward - you watch a musical every week, then Mondays there's a lecture discussing the musical and Wednesday an analysis activity (oral with a group). Then for assignments, it typically rotates between a quiz and a response paper every other week. She is a very fair grader and primarily appreciates the effort. The only downside to this class is that she does not post the lecture slides, but it is great motivation to actually go to class. It fulfills DSHU, DVUP/DVCC, and SCIS - highly recommend!
Amber Daniels THET251 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/11/2024	Great class and professor!!! Amber is soooo nice and wants you to succeed. In every class she always appeared very excited to teach the course content given her background in dance and theater. If you like Broadway or just don't mind watching musicals this class is for you. Personally, I enjoyed being able to watch current and previous Broadway musicals as homework assignments, but you have to pay attention because there are normally quizzes on each one with specific questions about random details of the musical. You should also go to every class because there are participation/attendance points. As long as you are trying your best on every assignment you should get full credit- she cares most about effort. If you are looking for an easy A that fulfills many GEN-ED requirements then I definitely recommend taking this!
Caitlin Marshall THET251 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/30/2024	This was by far the most fun class I have taken at UMD and I highly recommend taking it with Professor Marshall. This class was an absolute vibe to attend and she gave us a lot of extra credit assignments. We had to watch a few musicals and we talked about how it was perceived in each time period. So we had a few essays that focused on observation analysis and interpretation. We had weekly 3-2-1s which were discussion posts on what we learned in class and what we still don't understand. We also had a musical performance in class which was worth a good 10 percent of our grade. All in all, as long as you can turn in work on time, you will get an A. But one problem with taking this class with Dr Marshall is that you won't get feedback on time. You can always drop by during office hours but sometimes it becomes a problem as some assignments are based on the previous ones and she cuts marks for not changing stuff in it, but you often don't know what you can change it without feed back. And sometimes, she would post the canvas assignments 1 day before the deadline on a Sunday. But all in all, this class was an easy A.
Amber Daniels THET251 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/23/2024	This class is soooo easy but you can tell Amber doesn't want to be here. She's a dancer, not much of a theater analyst person. pretty sure 95% of people got an A+.
Amber Daniels THET251 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/12/2024	Great course and absolutely wonderful teacher, would 100% take it over again if I could. This course is somewhat heavy on hw (just because every 2 weeks you have to watch an entire musical and there's no real way to get around it, plus there's a somewhat significant Discussion board every week that you likely allocate an hr to) but the time in the class is great and is such a fun experience. Amber really does work hard to make the course exciting as she recognizes most people in the course already have a significant interest in musicals so she really taps into that to really give the students what they want out of the course. Amber herself is also really accommodating and tries to make everything as easy as possible while still having you learn what is needed. Overall great class, would highly recommend it for anyone, and is a really easy A for a class that gives 3 gen-ed requirements!
Amber Daniels THET251 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/30/2024	Amber is such a fun professor, especially for a course like THET251. She's super engaging, talkative, and has loads of experience. She always keeps class interesting with different activities. Assignments can be time-consuming sometimes but very easy and often pretty fun.
Amber Daniels THET251 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/03/2022	While the class involved a fair bit of work (watching a 2+ hour musical every week, taking a quiz, and writing a discussion post), Amber worked to make sure we were not overwhelmed by it and eliminated assignments when necessary. She did mispronounce a few words (like assimilation was assimulation), but that was easy to overlook. She tried to make the class fun, and is definitely an instructor you can ask for help.

Mina Kawahara
THET251

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/22/2025

She's one of the nicest and most understanding people I've ever met. She's so fun. Starting class with an interactive warm-up of sorts always set a good tone for the class. The workload isn't too crazy (and it got lighter when she realized it was a lot,) but the time commitment can be rough. See the 5/21/25 review for a better breakdown of that. Mina's also very accommodating to extensions. I asked for so many it was practically unprofessional, and she granted them every time. She doesn't post lecture slides, and goes through them pretty fast, but if you come to class you'll get all the information you need for the quiz. She makes class worth coming to anyways, even bringing in snacks sometimes. She clearly cares for her students, and also the course content. She's such a lovely human to be around and I cannot recommend her more for any class she offers.

Mina Kawahara
THET251

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/21/2025

Great professor. Her lectures were engaging, she was very approachable, and the overall vibe of the class was always great. The main drawback of this class is the amount of time I spent on it: 2-3 hours a week watching the weekly musical, and another hour or more writing the biweekly response paper. However, she made every musical we watched feel important to the overall message of the class, and the fun I had doing the work for this class balanced out its heavy workload (especially since she gave us the option of performing a musical number as our midterm, and as a supplement to our the final paper). I highly recommend this course/professor, even if you don't have much experience with musical theatre!

Mina Kawahara
THET251

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/05/2025

By far the nicest, most understanding professor I have ever had in my two years here. This was her first year teaching (She is a Ph.D. candidate) and has done a phenomenal job. I can almost guarantee she will be the nicest professor you encounter. The class itself is very straightforward - you watch a musical every week, then Mondays there's a lecture discussing the musical and Wednesday an analysis activity (oral with a group). Then for assignments, it typically rotates between a quiz and a response paper every other week. She is a very fair grader and primarily appreciates the effort. The only downside to this class is that she does not post the lecture slides, but it is great motivation to actually go to class. It fulfills DSHU, DVUP/DVCC, and SCIS - highly recommend!

Amber Daniels
THET251

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/11/2024

Great class and professor!!! Amber is soooo nice and wants you to succeed. In every class she always appeared very excited to teach the course content given her background in dance and theater. If you like Broadway or just don't mind watching musicals this class is for you. Personally, I enjoyed being able to watch current and previous Broadway musicals as homework assignments, but you have to pay attention because there are normally quizzes on each one with specific questions about random details of the musical. You should also go to every class because there are participation/attendance points. As long as you are trying your best on every assignment you should get full credit- she cares most about effort. If you are looking for an easy A that fulfills many GEN-ED requirements then I definitely recommend taking this!

Caitlin Marshall
THET251

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/30/2024

This was by far the most fun class I have taken at UMD and I highly recommend taking it with Professor Marshall. This class was an absolute vibe to attend and she gave us a lot of extra credit assignments. We had to watch a few musicals and we talked about how it was perceived in each time period. So we had a few essays that focused on observation analysis and interpretation. We had weekly 3-2-1s which were discussion posts on what we learned in class and what we still don't understand. We also had a musical performance in class which was worth a good 10 percent of our grade. All in all, as long as you can turn in work on time, you will get an A. But one problem with taking this class with Dr Marshall is that you won't get feedback on time. You can always drop by during office hours but sometimes it becomes a problem as some assignments are based on the previous ones and she cuts marks for not changing stuff in it, but you often don't know what you can change it without feed back. And sometimes, she would post the canvas assignments 1 day before the deadline on a Sunday. But all in all, this class was an easy A.

Amber Daniels
THET251

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/23/2024

This class is soooo easy but you can tell Amber doesn't want to be here. She's a dancer, not much of a theater analyst person. pretty sure 95% of people got an A+.

Amber Daniels
THET251

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/12/2024

Great course and absolutely wonderful teacher, would 100% take it over again if I could. This course is somewhat heavy on hw (just because every 2 weeks you have to watch an entire musical and there's no real way to get around it, plus there's a somewhat significant Discussion board every week that you likely allocate an hr to) but the time in the class is great and is such a fun experience. Amber really does work hard to make the course exciting as she recognizes most people in the course already have a significant interest in musicals so she really taps into that to really give the students what they want out of the course. Amber herself is also really accommodating and tries to make everything as easy as possible while still having you learn what is needed. Overall great class, would highly recommend it for anyone, and is a really easy A for a class that gives 3 gen-ed requirements!

Amber Daniels
THET251

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/30/2024

Amber is such a fun professor, especially for a course like THET251. She's super engaging, talkative, and has loads of experience. She always keeps class interesting with different activities. Assignments can be time-consuming sometimes but very easy and often pretty fun.

Amber Daniels
THET251

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/03/2022

While the class involved a fair bit of work (watching a 2+ hour musical every week, taking a quiz, and writing a discussion post), Amber worked to make sure we were not overwhelmed by it and eliminated assignments when necessary. She did mispronounce a few words (like assimilation was assimulation), but that was easy to overlook. She tried to make the class fun, and is definitely an instructor you can ask for help.

Reviews for THET251