John Carlson

This professor has taught: HONR217, HONR219Z

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John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A kbe12478 11/11/2017	This guy loves to go completely off topic in every single class. We really did not learn a whole lot about ancient astronomies, but rather, learned a lot about trivial information about random societies, and heard stories from his past visits to Mexico, etc. However, he was a really nice guy, and you do get to go on a really cool trip to the planetarium. The work for his class was not tough, but was extremely tedious. He grades fairly easily.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A trillian42 11/11/2017	He's a great guy to spend two and a half hours with every Tuesday night. The work he assigns is extremely easy but takes a long time. It's busy work. But the class was fun and a nice break from the tedium of other courses.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/29/2016	Avoid this class if you've taken either a basic physics or chemistry class or if you have done any research into any of the topics in the syllabus. Carlson will only briefly touch on any of the topics and you will have gone into more depth in your other classes. Avoid this class if you dislike busy work, such as watching 3 hours of dull documentaries while taking notes. Carlson assigns an assignment like this every week in addition to 2 long essays that are about purely personal views. This class has little interaction with the other students in the class or the teacher (apart from lecturing). Carlson rambles, then goes on tangents while he's rambling. He constantly references pop culture tchotchkes he brings with him that are really just jokes for himself. He repeats information over several classes, so if you take notes or have a good memory, you'll be hearing things many many times. Most glaringly, Carlson will not allow discussion to happen in his class. I could overlook the other faults in his demeanor or teaching style, but, in a class with clearly subjective viewpoints or multiple theories, he allows little discussion and hurries on to the next point on his note sheet.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/01/2014	Dr. Carlson lectures in a way where you can tell he is excited about teaching and his subject. He tends to get off topic a lot but it is never dull. This class is a nice break from the monotony and intensity of other classes. The title of the course is pretty accurate; you learn a plethora of random information that somehow ties together a cosmoverse- everything from physics to evolution to human sensory perception. This class is more science-based than the name lets off. However it is 2.5 hours long, but he allows a ten minute break sometime around the halfway point and allows you to eat dinner during his class if you so wish to. There are two exams for this test but if you’ve paid a relative amount of attention and taken notes when he’s said “you might want to write this down” they are not difficult in the slightest (although I bombed the last test- granted I sort of stopped paying attention towards the end of the semester.) There are weekly videos to be watched but the students only really watch them if he requires notes to be taken. I actually learned quite a bit from the videos. There are two extended papers to be written for this class, one at the beginning of the semester and one near the end. I actually enjoyed writing them (and I hate English courses) because I was able to write them in a stream-of-consciousness, very informal sort of way, which Dr. Carlson enjoyed and gave me good grades for. The papers take a few hours to write but do not nearly require the effort and technical thinking expected of most writing assignments because you are writing your own opinions and thoughts. Also you don’t really need to buy the books.. he tells you to read them but he won’t quiz you on anything other than the author’s name. This was an easy three credit course and I recommend it if you need a humanities credit.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A testudo_ourumd 12/19/2013	Dr. Carlson was quite an interesting guy. He is very quirky but very knowledgeable. In my section, he always gave people the opportunity to disagree with something he said and have a discussion about it. Although he often encouraged the class to take over the lecture time with discussion, we generally didn't do that. His style of lecturing for the course was (keep in mind this is a 2.5 hour class) 25 minutes ramble 35 minutes review stuff from last class 30 minutes start to learn new stuff 15 minutes break 40 minutes review stuff from earlier in class and attempt to learn more stuff This class went until 9:30 pm, so people would sometimes end up turned off for the second half of class. Overall, the class was very intriguing and taught me quite a bit about a range of topics (since the scope of the course is life, the multiverse, and everything, after all). I enjoyed it thoroughly. Assignments: There were (1) a 7 page introductory essay, (2) MULTIPLE video outlines which were relatively obnoxious busy work, but simple, (3) a midterm exam on all of the random crap that we learned until then, (4) a 15 page end of semester paper that reviewed and expanded upon the first essay, and (5) a final quiz. He said he usually gives a true final exam, but he let us off easy this semester. He curved the exam and quiz heavily, such that everyone got an A or B.
John Carlson HONR219Z Expecting an A Anonymous 08/06/2013	Dr. Carlson is a very sweet man, but the class was a struggle to sit through every Wednesday night. If you can avoid it, I would recommend never taking a class after 5:00 pm, especially a 3 hour one! He tends to ramble and go on tangents, and he likes to test how much random information you can remember on his tests. Lots of reading, hard to sit through, and the topic, for me at least, was boring and depressing. Take only if you are interested in apocalyptic culture...and have a long attention span!
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/24/2011	Don't take this class. Just don't. You get an insane amount of useless, redundant busy work on a wide range of unrelated topics that leaves you considerably less time to work on your real classes. Rather than being a discussion like the class is supposed to be, the professor will blatantly disagree with you if you say something intelligent, such as asserting that the ancient Greeks made great contributions to science. Their is no real topic to this class, and it basically consists of memorizing a set of utterly useless and not cohesive facts. The only plus side is that he grades the essays nicely.
John Carlson Expecting an A Anonymous 04/19/2010	Only take this class if you are EXTREMELY interested in ancient Maya and Aztec culture. The class name is deceiving... this class has basically nothing to do with astronomy and never once do you actually look at the stars. If you were thinking that it's at 7 oclock at night so you can actually partake in naked eye astronomy, you will be proven very wrong. Instead it is 2 and a half hours (and for most of the semester very close to 3 hours) of sitting and listening to Carlson rant about a broad range of random topics that are completely pointless. The plus side: he grades the tests on a huge curve. But the tests are on random facts that oftentimes he never even taught and the homework assignments are all pointless busy work. Avoid this class at all costs unless the topic is one that extremely interests you.
John Carlson Anonymous 04/12/2010	The worst class to sit through for this long. Has nothing to do with astronomy if that's what you're thinking. If you're really interested in talking about temples being in line, and making up random theories about why that is significant, then sure this class is for you. If you want to listen to a teacher go off on tangents every 30 seconds, then talk about getting off topic...then this is the class for you. If you want to be held over an extra 15 minutes every class period after the big snow storm, besides the fact that we had already made up all our class time.. this is the class for you (and yes he held us over 15 minutes the night of the Duke game.) If any of that doesn't sound appealing I'd highly recommend a better way to spend your Tuesday or Wednesday night and any other Honors seminar.
John Carlson Expecting an A Fargalas 01/18/2010	Much of the assigned work for this class is, as others have noted, basically busywork. The general reason for this, I think, is to keep people directly involved with the material, since otherwise it's pretty easy to get away without doing much of anything. Even so, the class was very interesting to me, and Carlson is genuinely a very nice guy. He's opinionated, and will try to change your views sometimes, but he is civil and passionate. He likes to teach, so despite his frequent tangents, he's usually fun to follow in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way. Also, if you take his class, please understand that he is trying to be funny, not narcissistic or paranoid. ("Favardin" is discussed often. Most of you probably don't know who that guy is, but if you did, you'd find Carlson's jokes more humorous.) Finally, I did learn a lot about Mesoamerica during the class, and the experience has affected my views on the interaction between various cultures.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/23/2009	Easy class, a bit of weekly busywork, two essays, and two exams, all of which are extremely easy. The professor is really nice but may tends to drift off-topic and fall well behind the syllabus (not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that). Most of the material may not be exactly life-changing, but you'll almost certainly learn more about the universe than you knew coming in. At the very least, you'll know plenty of random facts about it.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A BreakfastBaby 11/30/2009	The course and the professor are not for everybody. The class is niche in that the students were extremely well-informed and intelligent. You will easily feel lost/confused if you do not have a serious interest to learn about the universe. The professor digresses too much and is rather self-important (as are some of the fellow classmates). You will learn a lot though.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A Stacks 10/22/2009	I love this professor. I think he has been misunderstood by some of the other reviewers. If you are not a science type you may not like the material of the class, but it is presented in a mind-expanding, fascinated sort of way. I you cant understand his simple sense of humor, you may perceive him as narcissistic. Definitely recommend this class.
John Carlson HONR217 Anonymous 05/12/2009	This guy goes completely off the deep end in almost every single class. Discussion topics ranged from string theory to his near- death experience on a motorcycle. Carlson will certainly challenge your viewpoints, but sometimes will make you feel completely wrong about how you view a certain topic. Some of the class is interesting, but much is just useless knowledge. To do well in this class, simply listen for Carlson to say "this could be on a test" when he is writing notes on the board, and copy what he writes. Then simply memorize what you have in your notes and your almost guaranteed an A. The video assignments are simple but tedious, while the paper is easy but takes a while. Overall, this class is an easy A if you do things properly.
John Carlson Expecting an A Anonymous 05/04/2009	The title of the course is misleading. It has almost nothing to do with astronomy, but instead it's about Mayan and Aztec culture and traditions, mixed with a bit of modern religion. However, Dr. Carlson is very knowledgeable about the subject and I thought it was an interesting class. He goes over time almost every class, but not by much. As the other reviews have stated he starts talking about irrelevant or off-topic stuff all the time, but he usually has a good sense of humor. I don't really think he was condescending to anyone like some other reviews said. Overall I recommend this class.
John Carlson HONR217 terpstudent 11/12/2008	Possibly the worst professor possible. Not necessarily due to a lack of knowledge, but due to a level of narcissism I have never seen in anyone. He believes he is perfect and promotes a class environment that is awkward and unpleasant. He thinks he asks the big questions and is opening your mind, but he is just asking stereotypical "I am smart" questions that are truly meaningless and almost always completely off topic. He prides himself in his distrust of everyone else, as he frequently mentions "big brother" and on the first day of class shows off the large concealed blade he carries around. I thought this course would be stimulating and interesting and it is the biggest disappointment in my college career. DO NOT MAKE MY MISTAKE! Avoid this class and this professor.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/01/2008	This professor is just about everything I dislike in a teacher or mentor. He is self-important, tries to trick students so they feel dumb, and, though he considers himself very progressive, harbors some of the most blatant biases I have encountered in a teacher. He comes off as knowing a lot about the subjects he discusses (probably due to his arrogance), but ask more than one question and his "ADD" conveniently kicks in and he goes on a tangent that is totally irrelevant to the discussion. If you are a true intellectual who likes a healthy competition of ideas, do not take this class. You will be very disappointed.
John Carlson HONR217 Anonymous 12/22/2007	I did all the assignments, participated a LOT in class, and did well on the only exam. I am one of the few (i imagine) who got a B in this class. The only reason could be the paper. The paper for this class is supposed to be very open-ended, and as such I was astounded when in class, the day he handed the papers back, he openly rejected the entire premise of my paper in front of everyone, then continued to mock it several times during the class. It is one thing to challenge us to defend our views, but another to flatly reject them without providing any reasoning. I am disappointed in the class
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A TVanBlar 11/28/2007	Great guy. Very interesting to talk to and nothing is off the table. His classes range from scientific babble to intense debate on society. Carlson always has something to say and his whole goal is to challenge our own belief systems. Very interesting class.
John Carlson HONR217 Expecting an A LHaggerty 11/20/2007	Very fun professor with interesting experiences and perspectives to share. Work consists of readings and outlines on films found on dial-access that take a couple of hours every week but are not difficult. One paper assigned in two drafts. He has a lot of valuable information you might not learn anywhere else or on your own initiative and he makes the class fun.