<p>Thinking of taking Music 8 in the summer. 2 questions:</p>
<p>1) Would appreciate any comments on Professors Carla Ponti or Charles Wilmoth -- their strengths, style, work load, grading philosophy.</p>
<p>2) Any thoughts on Music 8 as a class : is it a fun course? What is work load? What is expected of students?</p>
<p>Would welcome comments from Music majors as well as any of you who have attended Music 8.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance.</p>
<p>I took music 15 with him in the winter. He’s kind of an awkward guy (you’ll see when you take him) but he’s chill. He goes over a lot of content (lotta slides) but as long as you copy down the things he says that AREN’T in the slides, you’ll be fine. You end up remembering a lot of the stuff he says when you take his midterms. I would say that his classes are an easy B+ and with a few hours of studying before each test, a definite A-/A The first test is generally hard, but his final for 15 was easy-cakes.</p>
<p>Carla was my TA for my Music 15 class last year - the class itself was horrible (and that was pretty much entirely the professor’s fault) but she made it SO much better. Everyone in the class hated how/what the professor was teaching so she just taught us material, still relating to the course subject, that we SHOULD know and that was actually interesting. I think overall half of the students ended up dropping the class, but Carla’s sections were the only ones to remain full.</p>
<p>She’s awesome at explaining concepts and she tells you what you actually need to take away from them. I don’t know if it would apply to the Music 8 class, but for her Music 15 section basically our entire grades were determined by papers. I think the longest one assigned was like, 6 pages, but she was lenient with page-length as long as you actually explained your point thoroughly.</p>
<p>So yeah, Carla is awesome. I definitely would recommend taking the class with her.</p>
<p>Thank you both. Eltagra: when you say " the class itself was horrible - and that was pretty much entirely the professor’ fault) but she made it SO much better" – What do you mean? </p>
<p>Any one else with thoughts on Music 8 as a class and either Professor Carla Ponti or Charles Wilmoth?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>Everyone in the class thought the professor and his lectures were terrible, and Carla recognized that, so she used her sections as basically her own mini-lecture time. She taught us what she thought we should actually be learning about the subject which wasn’t at all what the professor was teaching. He would just show us clips (the class was Music in Film) and tell us a ton of history for three hours whereas Carla would explain how the methods evolved and related to each other. And it worked out well because the TAs were entirely responsible for determining their students’ grades, so her assignments reflected what she wanted us to know rather than what the professor wanted.</p>
<p>Her being my TA was seriously the only reason I (and probably the other people in her sections, as well) didn’t drop the class.</p>