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Anthro 1A03

 
Old 06-12-2008 at 11:17 PM   #16
lorend
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Anthro 1A03
This course is the easiest of the first year anthros. I found a lot of what was learned was simple common sense.

The prof who taught me is no longer at Mac, as she has moved on to chair a program at U Ottawa. The prof who replaced her (Rodman) I think has since now retired.Click here to read the entire review
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McMaster Combined Honours Cultural Studies & Critical Theory and Anthropology: 2008
McMaster Honours English with a minor in Indigenous Studies: 2010
Carleton University Masters of Arts in Canadian Studies: 2012 (expected)

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Old 01-06-2010 at 08:10 PM   #15
Ansa
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I am taking it and right now and I am debating whether to stay or drop it because I have Prof. Arratia and she seems really difficult to understand and I have heard bad reviews about her course specifically. I am thinking of dropping it :S
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Old 01-07-2010 at 03:03 PM   #16
melodicdream
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Me too.....can anyone tell me whats the best way to study for this course? And do we have to know the information in the textbook that wasn't mentioned in class?
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Old 01-11-2010 at 05:11 PM   #17
aa84
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shoudl i take the course with dr. cummins arratia?
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Old 01-11-2010 at 07:06 PM   #18
Mahratta
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aa84 View Post
shoudl i take the course with dr. cummins arratia?
From what I've heard, Cummins is good, Arratia is not so good.
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Old 01-18-2010 at 10:42 PM   #19
lorend
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mahratta View Post
From what I've heard, Cummins is good, Arratia is not so good.
It's hard to do well on Cummins' book reviews, though his testing questions are generally easy (but you have to use class, text and film examples to do well).
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McMaster Combined Honours Cultural Studies & Critical Theory and Anthropology: 2008
McMaster Honours English with a minor in Indigenous Studies: 2010
Carleton University Masters of Arts in Canadian Studies: 2012 (expected)

We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed in universities, looking uncomfortably into the world we inherit. -- Port Huron Statement



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Old 01-26-2010 at 07:59 AM   #20
feonateresa
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Arratia generally just can't teach in my opinion or make adequate tests, so I'd say you're better off with Cummins. I've never had him before so take that with a grain of salt.
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Old 02-15-2010 at 08:31 PM   #21
twitterbird
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does anyone know how cummins midterm is ?!

thanks in advanced
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Old 02-17-2010 at 01:31 AM   #22
myunghm
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about the mid-term
i'm also trying to find out about the midterm.
already i have sent an email to professor and questioned some friends,
but yielded no results yet.
in my opinion, the professor was not very clear about the midterm.
i'm also looking forward to know about it!
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Old 02-26-2010 at 06:28 PM   #23
Alchemist11
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I would really like an idea of the questions Arratia's gonna put on the final.

Seriously, we're half way through the term (well more than half now) and I have NO clue...because the online "tutorials" are so terrible and they're only participation marks, so those don't give any ideas.

Seriously, I don't know whether at this point I'm going to fail the exam or get 100%, it all depends on how difficult she makes it and she won't give us any clue on how it's being done.
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Old 04-10-2010 at 01:06 PM   #24
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I'm going to agree about Arratia... She's really nice (I have to put a good comment in first, regardless of how unrelated to the course it is, otherwise I'll feel bad for criticizing), but most opinions I've heard are not good ones. Most of the time you're listening to her validating anthropology as a career choice by saying why anthropologists are needed in many sectors of work. If you're interested in anthropology as a possible career track, I'd totally recommend it because she has a lot of stories about field work and where anthropologists are employed.

However, the above comment is entirely true. The online quizzes (or "tutorials," which are named as such for no friggin' reason whatsoever but to confuse people) are admittedly of no use when it comes to testing. She's actually stated that the material covered on these quizzes isn't going to be anything like what's on the exam. I just wrote the exam, and what she said was true.

Also, the... uhh... technological innovations in place at McMaster are a bit too much to handle at times in this course. In every other class, iClickers are totally fine, but for some reason it was the biggest hassle in this course. Weekly, at least 5 minutes of the lecture time was spent with her talking to us about iClickers, and the discussion boards are filled with people who claimed their marks were lower than they should be.

I'm doing well in the course, so this isn't a disgruntled student's rant. I genuinely liked the professor - she clearly knew what she was talking about, explained information well, and it was really funny to watch her chew people out on the discussion board - but the course this year was a nightmare for most people.
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Old 04-10-2010 at 01:26 PM   #25
melodicdream
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Although Arratia was a nice prof, she didnt teach well in my opinion. She just read off the slides and often times she would go of on a tangent and talk about irrelevent information (ie. How she felt when she watched a ritual ceremony somewhere). It was a complete waste of time going to this class as you could've learned more by reading the textbook.

I was really excited for this course as I was interested in learning about various different cultures but this course was a complete letdown for me. I felt that the content was already a bit dry which was further aggravated by arratia's teaching.

One thing I did like was how she told us on the last day of class which slides were the most important ones. If I wasn't so dubious and actually trusted Arratia, I would've probably studied much less than I did. The final was fairly easy and the questions were very general. Nothing too detailed so you could've just read the slides and read the textbook for the examples included in the slides and done well.

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Old 04-10-2010 at 01:28 PM   #26
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I did exactly that, just read over them once.
It was really frustrating that she incorporated iClickers into this course, purely for the reason that (if they weren't a part of the course), I feel like I could have not gone to the class and still done well. I found that the only reason to go was for the iClicker mark, and the rest was usually off-track or already written on the slides.
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Old 04-25-2010 at 12:08 AM   #27
Alchemist11
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Anthropology 1A03
Not a fan of this course.

Material was somewhat interesting, but had ridiculous amounts of detail in the textbook that made it hard to digest at times.

The professor was nice, sure, but not very helpful and did not 'teach' at all.
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Old 04-27-2010 at 05:06 PM   #28
Bhaltair
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The course material is okay, I enjoyed reading the textbook. However, overall in my own opinion, I felt compelled to show up for class. Arratia's lecture is atrocious as her topics wander all over the place. All she talks about is how the class behaves, how frustrating the technology is and she constantly pauses when she hears a loud whisper. It is a torture to attend one of her lectures. The only reason I showed up is because of iclicker marks which it is 10% of your final mark.

Would I take this course with Dr. Arratia again? No.

She is indeed nice and is always willing to help out. The reason the lecture is so bad is because I feel she does not show any motivation to teach and does not stick to course material.
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Old 04-29-2010 at 10:04 PM   #29
meddling
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(I promised myself I would review courses since they have helped me so much.)


Taken:
Winter 2010 (Jan- April)

Professor
Arratia is nice and always tries to help out the students. She is not a good teacher however. She can talk on and on about many topics which may seem irrelevant while glossing over some important examples from the book. She brings in her fieldwork in her lectures sometimes and most of her lectures are about "selling" anthropology. She places a heavy emphasis on applied anthropology, but it is not as interesting as it sounds. She pauses quite a bit to complain about technology or the noise, which is fine, but can waste quite a lot of time.



Lectures
They can be quite dry because Arratia seemed to focus more on technical jargon rather than real life examples. There are custom textbook slides posted which Arratia goes over, adding a thing or two occassionally. Chapters go really fast, and there is quite a variation in the topics. Some lectures were more interesting than others. There were a few videos which I enjoyed- materials was testable for these. 10% of mark is based on these lectures, so you might feel compelled to attend.

Evaluation

I-clicker.. 10%
Easy marks, but forces you to go to class. Based solely on participation

Online "tutorials"...10%
Quizzes that you must do every week- there are 3/week (a chapter a week). For access to these, you need to buy the online access code with the text, which means you may not be able to buy second hand texts. Participation only, so you can just fill them out.

Midterm...15%
This was a review of an article. You basically follow the guidelines and should not be a problem.

Essay...25%
I hated this part of the course. You have to have 7 sources and combine all the information (summary, a critique of the work) into 2000 words. The expectations were unclear, and many people were not sure what to do. Personally, my TA was very little help, which led to frustration. Don't leave it to the last minute as you will regret it.

Exam...40%
It was very straightforward. Skimming the text and going over lecture slides would prepare you very well. Attend the review session. However, there were a lot of video questions, which you may miss if you didn't go to class.

Textbook
Very enjoyable (if the material interests you) and easy to follow. A little too detailed at times. You will most likely end up buying a new one to get the access code.

Overall
An easy course if you have the patience and the interest. 20% marks are participation, exam is easy. Prof can be dry, but material is interesting.

Overall Arratia wants her students to succeed, but in the end, the material just does not become as interesting as could have been.

Last edited by meddling : 04-29-2010 at 10:10 PM.
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