Colleen Ho

This professor has taught: HHUM205, HIST111, HIST133, HIST319R, HIST408R, RELS289D

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Colleen Ho HIST111 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/14/2022	Professor Ho is clearly incredibly knowledgeable and well-versed in her field. I learned a lot that I didn't know before and I enjoyed the content of the lectures. However, the class was shockingly hard for a 100-level class. The exams wouldn't have been hard in theory, but we received no study guide and were expected to guess what was "important" enough to be put on an exam. The content of the class was very dense and complex, so narrowing it down even just a little bit would've made it much easier. Definitely not an easy gen-ed, but probably a good class for an actual history major.
Colleen Ho HIST111 Anonymous 04/07/2022	Although she is very nice and knowledgeable, the class is unreasonably hard and the work load is very heavy. It is difficult to do work that is up to Professor Ho and the TA's standards. This class is not what you expect, majority of the time we learn about religions and only one day we learned about vikings in a very short lecture. DO NOT take this class if you are bad at history, this class is not worth your time. Also there are readings due every Tuesday and Thursday that have at least 25 pages in them so do not take this class if you have other difficult classes. The exams were also extremely difficult and Professor Ho did not give us a study guide, so I had to go through every single reading and guess which events and people were important and will be on the exam. The TA's also take FOREVER to grade the homework assignments and exams so I didn't even know what my grade was for the entire semester. DO NOT take this class, it is definitely not an easy GenEd.
Colleen Ho HIST111 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/06/2021	Dr. Ho was the reason I decided to double major in history. I took her Medieval history class first semester freshman year and it was probably my favorite class that I have taken so far. I really enjoy her lecturing style. Between her slides and her spoken words, you get all the necessary information that you need for the exams. She made the information very engaging and I am taking another class of hers next semester because of it. The workload is not bad. You just have to do discussion posts and write one paper and the exams are just a couple of IDs with an essay. If you need a GenEd, TAKE THIS COURSE!!
Colleen Ho HIST319R Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2021	HIST319R with Dr. Ho is an awesome class, the material will definitely change your perception of the Mongols' impact/legacy on World History. Dr. Ho is a great teacher and integrated student questions from discussion posts in lectures to facilitate active class discussion. I learned a lot and genuinely enjoyed attending the synchronous lectures. Like previous reviews have said, there is a substantial amount of reading in the class, but this is an upper-level history class so you should expect to encounter a lot of reading regardless. With these readings come discussion posts that are due twice a week like another review mentioned. To be honest, these discussion posts are totally what you make of them. As long as you contribute questions/comments that are mildly interesting and/or critical, you will be just fine. I've seen people post the most mundane things every week and yet still the average for each discussion assignment was at least a 90%. If there is any criticism for this class, it would probably be the way the final exam was organized; 6 potential exam questions with your eventual exam question being chosen at random during a private meeting with the professor was not my cup of tea. Either you had to work pretty hard to prepare for all questions, or you had to play the odds for a specific question to be chosen. Overall, if the Mongols have ever interested you and you have no problem with dense but manageable readings/discussion posts, then definitely take this class.
Colleen Ho HIST319R Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/12/2021	Dr. Ho is great at teaching. And her class is exceptionally well-organized. HIST319R is a class with very interesting subject matter and Dr. Ho does a good job of making sure it's an enjoyable class. However, it is a lot of reading. The readings get smaller and smaller as the semester goes on, but you'll be reading 80-100 pages a week in the first couple weeks, and 40-60 for a majority of the semester. Only late in the semester do the readings become only 20 or so pages per week. Also, the final exam is a ridiculous amount of work. There are 6 possible questions, and 1 is picked at random when you take the exam. Oh yeah, it's an oral exam, too. That's no good. So you'll need to prepare a response to each of these questions, and all but 1 of them will end up having been a waste of time. I wrote ~1000 words for each response, and I had to do it in the span of a week. Having to read a lot each week isn't that big a deal, it's kind of par for the course for a history class. But the final exam for this class is kind of brutal. The questions aren't even that hard or anything. And despite it being an oral exam, she doesn't grade it based on your speaking skills. So I think I'll get a good grade on it. But the amount of work was insane. I'm still giving Dr. Ho 4 stars because she is a genuinely great teacher. If the final exam were better I'd easily give her 5 stars.
Colleen Ho HIST319R Anonymous 04/22/2021	Professor Ho is a very knowledgeable and helpful professor. However, much of the course structure is very frustrating. Expect for the first 2/3rds of the course to have 100+ pages of reading a week. Lecture quizzes are based on off-hand comments made during them that 90% of the time are not on the lecture slides and factoids that either are not relevant to the material, or you wouldn't think to write down, such as the technically correct pronunciation of her surname (yep, lost a point for getting that wrong since I didn't think to make a note of it), expect to lose many points on lecture quizzes. Attendance for synchronous lectures are mandatory, and they are not posted afterwards so if you miss them you are SOoL. There are 2 discussion posts a week and these are much too intensive for a simple discussion post. Material was interesting and course structure was clear to follow, lectures were also easy to follow. Somewhat of a harsh grader. Good professor but course is often frustrating. I took this and HIST111 and their structures were nearly identical.
Colleen Ho HIST111 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/12/2020	There's a lot of reading to do and there's a research paper at the end of the semester that I suggest you do well on. But she's very knowledgeable and knows how to keep the class engaged. I don't like history and even I enjoyed this class.
Colleen Ho HIST111 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/30/2020	Prof. Ho is extremely knowledgeable, and presents the class information in a way that is easy to understand and retain. Although she assigns a lot of reading, they truly help to further understanding of subjects. She is very strict in class, but also is super accommidating towards students who need help. Extremely organized course made it easy to learn info and understand my grades.
Colleen Ho HIST111 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/24/2020	Very knowledgeable and approachable professor. She presents the material in a very fun way. Loved being in her class. She does assign lots of reading to supplement the class which is a shock at the start but becomes easier as the semester progresses.
Colleen Ho HHUM205 Anonymous 10/17/2018	Prof. Ho is a fantastic lecturer and extremely knowledgeable. Though she tends to assign a lot of reading, the material is always so well curated. She really makes class very interesting. She is also a really nice person; if you ask her a question, she always gives you a thorough, thoughtful answer, and she often goes out of her way to look into a question further and answer it in the next class.