review comment

[RELI V2608] Buddhism: East Asian

Departments: Religion

Professors: Michael Como and Robert Thurman

May 17, 2011

Como, Michael Silver_nugget
[RELI V2608] Buddhism: East Asian

Take this class. Or any other class with Como for that matter. You will not regret it. Professor Como is an unbelievably engaging and clear lecturer who genuinely wants to ensure that the entire class understands the material. That also leads to the only minor downside, namely that he fields a lot of dumb questions from the whole class. But I digress. Como is the man. There are no two ways about it. The lectures are carefully outlined on the board and he intersperses his points with general humor and hilarious stories about his family. Story time with Como simply cannot be beat and takes the class from enjoyable to a must-take. He is easily one of the top three professors I have had and the workload was not difficult at all, making this a great choice for Global Core.

Workload:

3 reading quizzes which don't even require doing the reading, midterm, 8-10 page research paper, final. Don't do the readings, they don't help. Just pay attention in class and you'll be more than fine.

May 31, 2009

Como, Michael Silver_nugget
[RELI V2608] Buddhism: East Asian

Professor Como is AMAZING. No one is better at explaining the complicated aspects of Buddhism. He is funny, genuinely nice, entertaining, informative, and knows his stuff. Unfortunately, the T.A. that was assigned to me was a bat from academic hell that must have gotten Cs their entire time at Columbia and seemed to intentionally try to make sure no one left Como's class with higher than than a C. That being said, I still don't regret taking Como's class. Neither will you.

Workload:

Ridiculous amount of reading about things that Como explained better anyway (but those were chosen by the infamous T.A.s), a paper, midterm, final. All in all, not bad.

May 03, 2005

Yu, Chun-Fang (TA)
[RELI V2608] Buddhism: East Asian

Please keep in mind that this review is more than 5 years old.

I completely agree with the previous reviewer. Professor Yu is obviously accomplished, intelligent, and passionate about the subject of East Asian Buddhism. She gives a speech during the first class about how much she wants us to visit her during office hours. In those respects, she is a great teacher. On the other hand, because she is so knowledgeable, she tends to ramble. A LOT. Often times, we would only get to the materials for the day in the last half hour or so of class. If you like learning all about a subject, then you would like this class. If you are just in it to memorize some facts, get an A and leave, then you will find lectures useless.

Workload:

Midterm (IDs and essays), weekly posting on courseworks (1 paragraph about the reading), final paper (6-9pgs), attendence (don't know how its graded but its taken at every class meeting)

January 30, 2002

Thurman, Robert
[RELI V2608] Buddhism: East Asian

Please keep in mind that this review is more than 5 years old.

3 words: Overrated, Overrated, Overrated. If you're taking this class because you think you'll catch a glimpse of his movie star daughter Uma you're out of luck. You will hear alot about his beautiful swedish wife and how good friends Thurman is with the Dalai Lama. He looks like the man from Titanic - you know the scary valet guy.

Workload:

His philosophy in a nutshell: Chinese are commie bastards who oppress the poor little Tibetans.

Directory Data

Dept/Subj Directory Course Professor Year Semester Time Section
RELI / RELI RELI RELI V2008: Buddhism: East Asian Michael Como 2011 Spring TR / 10:35-11:50 AM 1
RELI / RELI RELI RELI V2008: Buddhism: East Asian Michael Como 2010 Spring TR / 10:35-11:50 AM 1
RELI / RELI RELI RELI V2008: Buddhism: East Asian Michael Como 2009 Spring TR / 10:35-11:50 AM 1