<p>what are you guys interested in picking?</p>
<p>For current amherst students, do you guys recommend any particular seminar? maybe, if the class/professor is just awesome? I read through all the topics, although there are a few that stood out for me, I can’t really distinguish between #1 or #2 choice. Any suggestions would be appreciated!</p>
<p>thanks :)</p>
<p>I have the same question, too. Any ideas?
Also, do we just download the forms from the website or are we gonna get a package?</p>
<p>The one I took was Conflict and Cohesion with Professor Marx. It's not a bad chance since it's pretty much your only chance to take a class with the college president, and he's actually a pretty good lecturer, but it seems that particular seminar is no longer being offered.</p>
<p>Of the ones remaining that I know of, I believe Professor Sarat's "Secrets and Lies" is the most popular, likely because he's a bit out there as far as professors go. Some people like him, others find him to be somewhat too full of himself to get along with. If you plan on majoring in LJST, though, you'll be taking his LJST 01 course anyway.</p>
<p>Other than that, I've had Professor Couvares and he's a pretty solid lecturer (although he does tend to break into song a bit more than is necessary, I'm serious), although I've never taken his FYS.</p>
<p>Dunno if that really helps, most of the FYS's this year are being taught by professors I'm not really familiar with.</p>
<p>ya that's great info on the professors! Sadly, conflict and conhension is no longer offered :(</p>
<p>There is a new class called from MLK to Barack Obama and it is taught by Professor David Wills, is he good? </p>
<p>To be honest, I checked up some of the professors on ratemyprofessor.com and I am not sure how accurate the reviews are but it seems like Professor Sarat has very mixed reviews. </p>
<p>Does anyone know anything about professor Aries, or Greestein?</p>
<p>Thank you so much</p>
<p>Honestly, the teacher is much more important than the subject. A bad teacher can ruin the most interesting topic, but a good teacher can make anything interesting. Check out [url=<a href="http://www.amherst.edu/%7Escrutiny/%5Dscrutiny%5B/url">http://www.amherst.edu/~scrutiny/]scrutiny[/url</a>], Amherst's version of ratemyprofessor.com.</p>
<p>I took Improvisational Thinking with professor Poccia. The class was pretty fun, and we had a bunch of very interesting guest presenters, but I felt that much of the class was spent rehashing the same few points.</p>
<p>tealover - are you definitely going to Amherst? I've been following various threads and wondered what was your fonal outcome?</p>
<p>oh ya I am going, I was just kinda of waiting ot see what would happen with my other waitlists, but at this pt, I gave up on those </p>
<p>ya catfish, I think the professor is what makes the class interesting, that's why I think I am probably picking my seminar more on the professor than the class topic. "Improvisational thinking" is also no longer offered :( Given this year's list, do you guys know of any really good ones?</p>
<p>tealover, Amherst > Columbia =)</p>
<p>So far, only "Arts of Spain" and "Figures of Ill-Repute" interest me...</p>
<p>tealover - congratulations. Amherst is a great school. Good luck to you</p>
<p>D took Renaissance Marvels and loved it. Don't know if it is still offered, but they traveled to NY and DC and went into the Folger to see First Folios, etc.</p>
<p>citizenship and national identity is really fun. both professor's have been at the college for ages and work together well</p>
<p>you can't trust RMP or scrutiny with regard to teacher impressions. just because some people don't like the professor doesn't mean you won't. if the reviews are universally terrible, that's something to take note of, but aside from that the teachers are generally good, if not great. there are some that suck, no doubt, but you should concern yourself much more with the subject matter.</p>
<p>Yes, you shouldn't use scrutiny especially, since it can have people who got bad grades and are spiting the professors or people who didn't like the topics or homework or papers, etc. It's all subjective. If you want a good idea about a course, you need to ask a couple people who took it in person or those who know the professor well.</p>
<p>It's kind of hard to ask if you don't know people with experience in all the seminars. So, scrutiny at least gives you an overview of how the professor teachers, what assignments they give out, what you do in the class...basically, objective information. I filter out the subjective parts.</p>