<p>I am just curious how hard this class is? Are there exams or is the whole class based on essays that each student writes? Are books read or is this like a philosophy class where morals are discussed (such as stem cell research and abortion)?</p>
<p>no exams. your whole grade is judged basically on three papers. depending on your professor, you may have quizzes and in-class assignments. it's not difficult so long as you do all your work. in my wrt 102 class we didn't read books, but we did read articles and excerpts.</p>
<p>So the class is mainly discussions because I am currently doing the Stony Writing Placement and it seems that the class is about ethics more than anything else. Also, how big are the classes?</p>
<p>sometimes those philosophical issues are discussed, but usually class discussions focus on writing in a certain way.. to bring out a certain point. classes are small... about 20 students.</p>
<p>is this the typical freshmen composition class at stony brook?</p>
<ul>
<li>does anyone know how long the essays usually are?</li>
</ul>
<p>a research paper 7pgs+
an analysis paper 5pgs+
some other essay 2pgs+</p>
<p>This is not bad at all. The class I took at Penn state required 5 essays averaging 4-5 pages in length. Some dealt with ethics/emotional appeal and others with factual argumentation and research, so the two classes are comparable. There were about 25 people in my class, but PSU is a much larger school in general.</p>
<p>WRT 102 can actually be pretty interesting depending on the topic/professor... the assignments are standard throughout the university, but the topic is completely up for grabs. </p>
<p>One friend of mine's papers all had to be about the Vietnam war in some way, another prof's was all about censorship, mine was about sports... there's a wide variety, and usually a lot of flexibility. The friend whose class was on Vietnam is a big photography buff and did her research paper on photojournalists during that war and their role in Vietnam vs. in other wars; I ended up writing a paper I was pretty proud of about transgender and intersex athletes despite hating the sports topic.</p>
<p>Any good and or easy professors you could recommend. Do you know the name of the censorship professor? Do you need to buy books for that class? Also, was the class time consuming. Is it hard to get an A as opposed to like a math class or science class?</p>
<p>Alas, the sports professor and the censorship professor were the same guy, so there're no guarantees :) His name is Wilbur Farley, and he was a really chill, nice, smart guy even though I loathed his topic choice the semester I had him.</p>
<p>Whether or not you need to buy books depends on the professor. I didn't have to buy any besides the style manual (which I never ended up opening...) but some people have to buy and read a bunch of books. I probably would've preferred a more reading heavy course myself, though my wallet was happier for the lack of books.</p>
<p>How time consuming it is depends on how good your writing and research skills are and how many drafts your professor wants to see (and how picky they are). If you come to college not knowing how to formulate a thesis, you'll obviously need to devote more time.</p>