You’ve spent hours on RateMyProfessor.com reading every comment and trying to figure out how to avoid your required class’ hardest professor. But before you click ‘enroll,’ why not hear it from some of the professors themselves? RateMyProfessor.com could just be full of bitter students seeking vengeance, after all.
Professor Leah Savion:
Hardest part
“People are constantly surprised by the level of rigor in this course. If students go to a 200-level math course, they expect it, but when they take a philosophy course, it scares them.”
No. 1 resource for students
“I meet people everywhere. I meet people in the SRSC, and we work out together and we do logic. People come to my dance group. If you are willing to work, I will be there to look over your shoulder.”
Why logic is important
“The whole social structure of our existence is based on the assumption of rationality. Knowing how to make correct inferences is a serious of chunk of being rational. At the individual level, you become a lot smarter, a lot sharper. And at the societal level, we get better. This is what you get in a logic class. You get people to think.”
Professor Peter Olson:
Hardest part
“Economics tends to be more demanding than some other courses because even at the intro level, it’s quantitative, analytical thinking, rigorous methodology. A lot of people don’t have much experience with that kind of approach to human behavior.”
No. 1 resource for students
“We have a collaborative learning component that all of us who teach E201 in the large lectures offer. Students get together in a group of 30, and in smaller groups they work on solving problems. We talk it through, and it forces us to use the language of economics and to work collaboratively. Economics is like math in that it’s a problem solving-based course. Students need to practice in order to develop this approach to solving problems that economists use. And we give them plenty of opportunities to practice.”
Pet peeves
“I always wish that students would study more. And they don’t believe me when I tell them they need to learn this in an incremental way, that cramming for an econ exam is far less likely to be effective than cramming for many other exams.”
Why economics is important
“We live in a system that is largely a price system, so if you don’t understand how market processes work, it can be very frustrating. Economics can help people understand market processes in the system that we live in and not see it as a mysterious process or some kind of conspiratorial process that works against them.”
Professor Jamie Prenkert
Hardest part
“The students find learning a new way of speaking difficult. The language is very precise in law and some words have particular meaning, and the way you use those words makes a difference. So that makes the reading somewhat dense. We also have to get through a lot of stuff in the class, so it’s a heavy workload.”
No. 1 resource for students
“They have to go see their professor. And that’s a mistake I think sometimes students make. They have that resource, and they don’t take advantage. They think, ‘My professor doesn’t want to see me or they don’t have time for me.’”
Why Business Law is important
“People who went to law school like to talk about ‘thinking like a lawyer’ but it’s really just more thinking in ways that can keep competing ideas in your head at the same time and sort of driving toward the best argument. And I think that’s a really valuable tool for anybody, whether they’re talking about law or anything else.”
