Course Evaluations: Fall 2010

We've come to the end of the semester. Because it's too late and I'm too tired to do any more studying for today, I'm just going to list some of my thoughts about my courses. By the way, in my rating system 5 represents the average. I don't give pity marks.

Partial Differential Equations - This course turned out as expected, which is to say that I didn't really learn very much. Half of this course was learning about separation of variables and the Fourier Series, which I'd already learned in other classes - Calc II in EngSci, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Classical Electrodynamics, and Quantum Mechanics. I enjoyed listening to Professor Sulem, and she cracked me up ("You didn't correct me"). Still, she always seemed to underestimate the mathematical prowess of the class: she explained everything in utmost detail and didn't skip any of the obvious steps in the derivations. This lead to a very slow-paced class. In fact, one could mostly ignore the plan that the professor listed at the beginning of every class because almost all of the time, only half of the plan would be covered.

Overall, the class was very easy and the averages for the midterms hovered around the A range. This made the course less stressful, but it wasn't really conducive to learning. Rating: 4/10.

Poetry - I have learned to love this course. Although the professor goes quite slowly and is sometimes too opinionated, I have begun to appreciate her wisdom and the passion that she holds for poetry. Someone on RateMyProfessors says that "Professor Reib

etanz embodies the spirit of poetry", and I am inclined to agree. I loved learning about meter and form am enjoying learning about rhetorical devices. In second semester we're going to be reading Robert Frost and W. B. Yeats in depth and I can't wait to sink my teeth into them.

The course itself has been easy so far. What is not easy for me is reading and interpreting poetry. It's still hard for me to interpret poems and sometimes I stare at a poem for an hour and I still don't really understand it. This course, though, has been a good first step in learning how to think about poetry critically and moreover to appreciate its intricacies. Plus, I can actually recite some of Shakespeare's

sonnets now. Rating for first half of the course: 7/10.

Biography and Autobiography - This was definitely one of my favourite courses this semester. Professor Jackson was very articulate - in fact, I'd probably say she is the most articulate professor that I have ever encountered during my time at UofT. Despite initial doubts, I really enjoyed the class material. I have never really paid much attention to biography as a literary genre; however, after this class I am starting to realize there are many things to in writing a biography. For instance, how is it even possible to represent an entire life well? Inevitably, life details get filtered, selected, twisted, and represented subjectively. Often details are not even accessible. Other interesting questions we considered include, "How are biographies influenced by novels, literary movements, and psychology?" and "How do different biographical models lead to different views of the 'self'?" Rating: 9/10.

Sexuality - To tell you the truth I am slightly disappointed in this course because 1) Professor Rayter's teaching style doesn't really appeal to me, and 2) there was a long section in the middle of the course where we focused on histories of sexuality and that was really boring to me. I was not really interested in reading about how sexuality was used to demarcate colonial power. Notions like "power" still feel too abstract and ill-defined to me. Thankfully, after the boring middle section, things picked up when the class turned to studies of stripteases and the lesbian S/M community.

Still, I'm grateful that I took this course because it's provided me with new ways to think about sexuality, as well as new vocabulary to articulate my thoughts about it. Specifically, I loved the theories section and I especially liked Gayle Rubin's theory of the "Charmed Circle of Sexuality" (see accompanying image: the inner categories, the "charmed circle", represents the sexualities which society unjustly considers good, normal, and blessed; the "outer limits" are considered bad, abnormal, and deviant). I am considering taking more sexual diversities courses next term. Rating: 6/10.

Classical Electrodynamics - Professor Paramekanti was extremely lazy. The last problem set was assigned on the last day of class and consisted solely of several textbook questions. Furthermore, he spent around nine weeks covering electricity and like, three covering magnetism (in the words of my classmate: "We've spent so much time on E, when will we get to B?") Overall, the class was okay but I didn't learn much. Not much else to say about it. Rating: 5/10.

Quantum Mechanics I - I did not enjoy this class. The professor put in effort, but he was still not a great instructor. Classes moved too slow and did not feel "physical". Moreover, the marking scheme was just stupid. 50% of our mark was allocated to 5 problem sets, which consisted of 1-2 questions always confusingly-worded. There was no midterm for us to gauge our standing in the class. No contest: the worst class of the term. Rating: 2/10.