Laura Gilchrest

This professor has taught: ANTH210, ANTH260, ANTH263, ANTH265, ANTH310, ANTH323, ANTH665
Information Review
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
09/03/2024
She is a bit disorganized but if you take this class over the summer it doesn’t matter at all. Over the summer this was the easiest gened I’ve ever taken. If you are looking for an easy A gened, ANTH265 over the summer with her is a great choice for sure.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Anonymous
08/08/2024
Such a good professor, honestly. Do not listen to the children on here- this is adult coursework and you're expected to do the work. That's it. That's all you have to do. Shocked that you have to read in a college class? Maybe higher education isn't for you. Assignments consist of readings related to medical anthropology and policy on the topic, and writing assignments of a length reasonable to a class of this nature. Her grading is fair, and so is the amount of work you must put in to get the desired grade. She's transparent with you upfront- the only way to fail is to not try. Lectures are decent and so is the material that you're assigned to read, assuming that you're interested in the topic. If you're not lazy, are willing to put in a mild amount of work, and care even mildly about the topic, you'll do just fine, and you'll even like the class.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/01/2024
Dr. G structures her courses well, in my opinion. Sometime the course content of Global Health is drab, but Dr. G has a good energy. Do your work, she is not very lenient (not a bad thing, but an fyi).
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Anonymous
12/17/2023
Dr. G is harsh at grading, assigns a ton of readings, and has lectures that are not that useful. I would not recommend taking this class as it was more effort than my computer science and math class. At lectures, she just talks on a whiteboard the whole class about the readings, and relating subjects. They are somewhat related to the assignments, but it's not necessary. You can do the assignments without going to class at all, and they are not that bad. I feel like the instructions for these assignments are not clear, and if you don't write in her way then you will lose a lot of points. You are better off taking another GenEd because this one is not worth it.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Anonymous
12/06/2023
She assigns a ton of reading for a GenEd class. Her classes are not important to your grade, and you can do all the assignments without going. In class, she just yaps on about the readings. She is a nice person, but she is very harsh when grading. She also takes awhile to grade things, so you have no clue what your grade is going to be.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/06/2023
ANTH323 was bad only because of Mrs. Gilchrist. The assigned readings are never talked about in class but directly have to do with what our assignments are. We are left to figure out our perspectives on so much material since she assigns 4 hours of reading a week. She is a little self-obsessed while also trying to be relatable to her students and it makes the class agonizing to sit through. She is also so unorganized. I didn't get feedback on a Critical Analysis (something worth 30% of our grade) until two months later and way after the second was due. Her incredibly late feedback is unhelpful and vague. Her rubrics are also incredibly vague making it impossible to complete an assignment feeling as if you did it to her liking and asking for clarification doesn't help as she somehow makes it more confusing when trying to explain it in person. I did extremely well in this class as it isn't too difficult I just would never recommend it unless you have to take it with her for your major or something. If you never went to this class and read a little bit of the assigned readings you could probably do fine as the lectures are useless. The only reason I am still going to the class towards the end of the semester is the group project (which again had vague instructions). I hated this class so much and due not like Mrs. Gilchrest as a person or a teacher.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/04/2023
Dr. G seems pretty knowledgeable in anthropology, and her lectures provide a different perspective on many epidemics that occurred in the past. Her rants feel tedious to sit through at times as she goes on many tangents and the readings she assigns are a bit long, but the assignments aren't too bad if you get the main idea of them. She's a fun teacher to strike up a conversation with and she's always willing to help, but she does grade assignments several weeks after they are due. But overall, I would recommend this course if you want a fairly easy Gen-Ed that provides a unique approach to medical anthropology.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/17/2023
Dr Gilchrist is a pretty decent professor, I don't have much to complain about. She makes her grading policies pretty clear and this class is very easy to pass/ get an A. Lectures are on the boring side, however, not all are necessary to attend, in my opinion.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Expecting an A
Anonymous
10/26/2023
I can't accurately predict my grade, because it is half way through the semester and only two grades are in. Her class is incredibly disorganized and heavily dependent on reading. The topic is already not interesting and they make it so much more difficult to pay attention their class (or even go to class for that matter). Most students have stopped showing up to class because she doesn't take participation points, and I'm genuinely convinced she still doesn't know our names half way through the semester. She is also disrespectful to her students when they have questions during class, which is frustrating. The only redeeming factor about this course is that we don't have any exams or quizzes. For that reason (and for 3 Gen Ed requirements), I would take it again. But I find it very difficult to think of any other benefits of taking this class.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Anonymous
09/26/2023
Makes it about herself often, says being concerned about homeless people in an area makes you a bad person because you are "making it worse", denies science behind obesity and its affects on the organs. Claims Anthropologists know more about the state of global health than doctors and that doctors are the problem because of her own past. Course itself is easy enough, topics are pretty easy to make sense of but this style of professor is not fun.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH260

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/17/2023
She is incredibly disorganized, and she does not have any sort of outline that details what assignments we will have to do or even a general timeline for when assignments will be due, so suddenly a writing assignment pops up during the last two weeks of classes without any warning even though you're already juggling assignments for your other five classes. This pop-up style of assigning is genuinely a jumpscare, and I don't recommend this class at all. Attendance in class is mandatory and measured with Point Solutions, which basically doesn't let you check in to the class until you're basically in the classroom. She is also pretty rude to students, and there were a couple of times throughout the semester where she talked to the class like we were in middle school. The content of the class is interesting, her teaching style is just very stressful.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/08/2023
She grades very harshly on some assignments and is extremally disorganized. She would put out assignments/discussions the night before they were due and you had to find time to do them. The syllabus also has wrong dates all over it and she refused to correct the dates so it can be very easy to miss an assignment or due date. The syllabus also had a list of all the assignments and their weight that we would have to do during the course and the list was completely wrong. The assignment descriptions were also very vague and there were no rubrics to see so it was very easy to do an assignment wrong and get a bad grade. Overall, If you like an organized class and like to time manage then this class will be a nightmare. If you can go with the flow then it probably won't be as bad but...
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/20/2023
Literally the worst class I have taken in 3 years. Her version of lectures were typing up stuff people said on the board during the lecture, most of the information I learnt I could have read the newspaper/social media and learnt more. She rambles for most of it not making any difficult points, and our TA showed up to around 4/15 lessons. This class is a complete waste of time, don’t bother!! Also side note they weren’t even that nice sometimes when they were the ones missing the lessons! We were told to have some initiative and take matters into our own hands. Hopefully this review is helpful to someone out there, as one of the other guys said, save yourself some time.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/03/2023
She was a nice person, but unfortunately disorganized and unclear about grading. she would just write random stuff on the online whiteboard and people stopped coming to class because there was basically no point in going as there was little engagement. CRA papers were really a pain, and the TAs were kind of mean and harsh graders too. one thing people were really upset about is that she took almost 3 weeks after our final paper was graded to put in grades, so no one knew what the grade was on the transcript which was super annoying. Take this class if its required for your major, but I would avoid doing it as an elective as this class took a LOT of work to be successful.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/03/2023
A convoluted teacher. Besides her aimless and irrelevant comments throughout class, she does not deviate from her own view on things. I find her to be infatuated with her phd, and assumes he expertise on everything accordingly. Would I take this class again? Yes, but only to perhaps give her the benefit of the doubt. After all she is a self proclaimed “intellect.” Besides that, be wary having any kind of creativity or any form of articulation that does not conform directly with her expectations. If, however, you came to school to learn. Save yourself some time.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Anonymous
12/20/2022
Dr. Gilchrest made this class extremely boring. She always seems to be disorganized and rambles on with no structure in her lessons. I swear she probably could've made the class 100 times better by including powerpoints, but no, you instead get rambles on the whiteboard and an absolute unnecessary amount of readings. The assignments aren't exactly easy either, and she is a pretty harsh grader. Class isn't too bad, but definitely take a different teacher if you can to keep your sanity.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/14/2022
This class is pointless and Dr. G is extremely boring. Luckily, the class is only once a week and requires very little work. Oddly, she graded our writing assignments much more harshly than expected, especially considering how long they took to complete. Take this class for the credit and the lack of work, but beware of basically a waste of time.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH323

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
09/12/2022
Good professor and knowledgeable, however was definitely picky when it came to point deductions, even in assignments where we may have been talking about more opinion-based stuff where we did not know too much about the course content. She also didn't respond to most of the emails I sent her way, and the grades for this (summer) class were put in well after the deadline (2-3 weeks?) without any indication as to why.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
09/02/2022
The professor goes into great detail of the class topics and makes us go see a deeper outlook in global health. Meetings were twice a week on zoom (as it was a summer online course) and there was a lot of assigned readings. Downside of the class was how we had less than 5 homework assignments, and the professor seems to be a bit picky in slight point deductions when making comments about how we answered the questions. There was two projects, however, she only graded the final project while the team project was never considered for grading, which made it a waste of time. The final project was fairly easy to complete since the requirements were straightforward. All-in-all, this course is good and the professor is decent. It would have been better if she graded both projects instead on one.
Laura Gilchrest
ANTH265

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
07/13/2021
Fast paced (as expected of a summer course) but the weekly meetings really are a terrific way to dive deeper into the various class topics. I really enjoyed participating in her class as she poses questions that make you think about the state of global health. She's very hands-off but is an amazing communicator and gives amazing feedback on every writing assignment. I would definitely recommend as a professor.