First Year English: The Americas

This course should be called Something Wasteful This Way Comes. It wasn't a nightmare, but did I learn much from it? Not really. Professor Rosenthal seems nice and sweet in class (which I will take as being genuine) and I'm not miserable with my grade, but I'd highlight several major faults which might make you rethink choosing Rosenthal for FYE:

1. We bought all these books, and read maybe half of them. Big waste of money, and very disappointing.

2. Rosenthal spent way too much time on other subjects besides the books themselves. We could have benefited from focusing on one book every two weeks and concentrating our discussions on that piece of literature. We wasted volumes of time on introductions (yes, really, as in "my name is William, and I wrote Romeo and Juliet this weekend"), background information, and then some required classes on citations and how not to plagiarize. We constantly ended up with about twenty minutes left in class.

3. She was sweet… too sweet. I felt like she was treating us like we were in high school again, as if we couldn’t handle all these books we had to read. My stressful semester-self was glad not to have so many demands. My end-of-year-self didn’t learn as much because of it.

4. She wasn’t sure what she wanted out of us in one-on-one conferences and neither were we. They were an astounding waste of time. She never seemed to understand what I was trying to say, and the way she expressed herself was extremely vague. She had these strange ideas that she seemed to believe were for our benefit. For instance, refusing to skim our essays if we’d rewritten them because it was “unfair” to the rest of the class. I’ve had two other English professors before her, and they’ve both been willing to skim over my work and tell me if they noticed anything that caught their attention. I walked away from her conferences confused and frustrated. Considering how subjective grading tends to be, it was difficult learning from someone with a better sense of essay writing if they weren’t willing to clarify how they thought we should improve. Which leads me to…

5. Grading. I have seen that my grades don’t always run parallel with how much I’ve learned in a class. I came away with a satisfactory grade, but what does that really matter? I didn’t learn anything from this class. I only took what I learned from last semester and applied it to this with her extremely vague expectations applied to what I’ve written. She told us a story at some point about her professor who kept on giving her higher and higher grades and, at the end, she didn’t learn anything. Well, I believe my grades went slightly down from the beginning of the semester. So I guess I must have learned a lot? O.o Reasoning… perhaps… flawed.

Overall, I’d go with a different First Year English or a different professor. The majority of classes here at Barnard are certainly wonderful, and you should be able to get the most from them.

One of the nicest and most understanding professors you'll ever have. She has a really intriguing life (she's married to a famous Indian author, and invited her students over to her house for a meal at the end of the semester) and incredible passion for all of her subject material. She's very encouraging during discussion, which is great for first-year students who are hesitant to speak up. The class will really bolster your speaking skills.

The reading assignments bordered on excessive, and we didn't even discuss most of it in class. She could have done a better job with facilitating more enthusiastic discussion. The papers assigned covered a broad range of writing styles, and I guarantee you'll be a better writer upon finishing the course. Her conferences are very helpful, though she rarely ever criticizes.

The reading in this class is very interesting. Professor Gurman is definitely a very educated and grounded woman. She is easy to approach, and the main intent of this class is to improve your writing skills. The majority of the class is focused on analysis of "American" literature and the writing process. She is not a very easy grader -- but with hard work and determination, you might be able to get an A on some essays. You need to be persistent with taking her advice and boosting the multiple drafts of your essay to the next level in order to be successful in her class.