Mary Pittas-Herschbach

This professor has taught: CLAS309A, CLAS309C
Information Review
Mary Pittas-Herschbach

Anon1
01/31/2012
I found this class to be quite boring and really couldn’t engage with the material. She largely focuses on Modern Greek poetry that has some of the same themes and characters as ancient Greek literature, e.g. Homer, Sophocles, Aeschylus, etc, but the quality of these, in my opinion, seemed to be hit or miss. It was like seeing one of your favorite books turned into a movie that completely falls short. As for the teaching style, the first half of the class was a small group of students that would have to read their responses to questions she had given; it’s a new group each class where no one reads more than once, but everyone has to read one time. This was exciting as it sounds, as students are there to learn, not teach, and many, including myself, kind of rambled through them. The last half of class she taught, but never really talking in depth about plots, themes, or characters for an extended period of time, but meandering about with various cursory facts about Greece and the Modern Greek authors. Attendance is a big part of this course, and I think I know why. She will also single out people who don’t come in very often, usually making some quip to them. The syllabus also stated you can miss class twice and a little after the halfway mark she alerted us to the fact that since this class was only once a week, each class would retroactively count as the two and started taking attendance twice per class, the beginning and end, rather than just the beginning.
Mary Pittas-Herschbach
CLAS309C

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/03/2011
Avoid this professor at all costs. While her course was easy enough, she is a horrible teacher and person. Her lectures were so boring that they were practically painful. She lacks any understanding of human emotion and will crush your soul because she feels like it.
Mary Pittas-Herschbach
GREK111

Expecting a B
Anonymous
01/25/2011
Thought I would get an A but ended up getting a B but then again the material for this intro to Greek class can be a little challenging at times. Like learning any new language, it just takes practice and you end up learning a lot in the semester. She grades fairly and is almost always pleasant so overall not a bad prof to take Greek with.
Mary Pittas-Herschbach
GREK211

Expecting a a
Anonymous
12/09/2010
great proffesser. gives help when needed. goes at pace of class. if you want to learn greek this is a good class to take.
Mary Pittas-Herschbach
GREK111

Expecting an A
dlangis
10/28/2007
Shes a nice, very stereotypical greek lady. She goes at whatever pace the class needs to and having no exposure to Greek at all before, I am doing fine. Grading is pretty lenient, material isnt really too hard, I think what she expects from people taking an intro level language class is pretty fair.