02-08-2010, 11:25 AM
Whew. Just finished this CD-ROM course and thought I'd pass along what I learned for the benefit of others considering taking it. (What I learned about the course, not the subject matter.)
Bottom line: The instructor, who shall remain nameless here, is not a good communicator, and this will require extra effort from you, the student, to figure out WTF he is looking for in the essays.
Project 1 is a summary of what the Koran has to say about a list of key topics, with citations to specific suras. I learned after turning in the essay that he also wanted historical context on the topics. This was not even hinted at in the syllabus.
Project 2 is a detailed, critical book review of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. If you trust the syllabus, you will think this is all there is to the assignment, but you'll be wrong. In addition to the review, you also have to analyze one current news topic regarding the Middle East and apply Huntington's thesis to it.
As far as answering questions about assignments, the great thing is he responds very quickly. The bad thing is his responses are not all that helpful. I believe he does this deliberately in order to make you work harder and learn more. I think his heart is in the right place, but it's still very frustrating -- like asking a certain collie if her beloved owner has tumbled into a deep, manmade vertical tunnel.
Don't worry if you exceed the upper page limit for any of the essays. Also, while you need to write coherently, don't obsess over your prose style. Here's why: It's not possible to give this guy what he wants without exceeding page limits -- by a mile. Because you go into the assignments without a clear idea of what he's looking for, you have to throw a lot of stuff at the wall so as to have a decent amount of it stick. He didn't bat an eye when my "5-to-8 page" Project 2 clocked in at 23 pages, or for my midterm and final exam essays that ended up slightly shorter than War and Peace. I don't believe he reads the essays; grades come back way too fast for that. I'm sure he just scans them for key words and phrases. You know, kind of like a Googlebot.
Finally, work ahead, and I don't mean maybe. At the last minute, he moved up the deadlines for Project 2 and the final exam essays by a week. I would like to think he did so by mistake.
Despite all the aggravations, I have to admit I learned a ton about an extremely important topic that most Americans are rather ignorant about -- me included. The course is very well designed, which is a compliment to the instructor, since he designed it.
Bottom line: The instructor, who shall remain nameless here, is not a good communicator, and this will require extra effort from you, the student, to figure out WTF he is looking for in the essays.
Project 1 is a summary of what the Koran has to say about a list of key topics, with citations to specific suras. I learned after turning in the essay that he also wanted historical context on the topics. This was not even hinted at in the syllabus.
Project 2 is a detailed, critical book review of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. If you trust the syllabus, you will think this is all there is to the assignment, but you'll be wrong. In addition to the review, you also have to analyze one current news topic regarding the Middle East and apply Huntington's thesis to it.
As far as answering questions about assignments, the great thing is he responds very quickly. The bad thing is his responses are not all that helpful. I believe he does this deliberately in order to make you work harder and learn more. I think his heart is in the right place, but it's still very frustrating -- like asking a certain collie if her beloved owner has tumbled into a deep, manmade vertical tunnel.
Don't worry if you exceed the upper page limit for any of the essays. Also, while you need to write coherently, don't obsess over your prose style. Here's why: It's not possible to give this guy what he wants without exceeding page limits -- by a mile. Because you go into the assignments without a clear idea of what he's looking for, you have to throw a lot of stuff at the wall so as to have a decent amount of it stick. He didn't bat an eye when my "5-to-8 page" Project 2 clocked in at 23 pages, or for my midterm and final exam essays that ended up slightly shorter than War and Peace. I don't believe he reads the essays; grades come back way too fast for that. I'm sure he just scans them for key words and phrases. You know, kind of like a Googlebot.
Finally, work ahead, and I don't mean maybe. At the last minute, he moved up the deadlines for Project 2 and the final exam essays by a week. I would like to think he did so by mistake.
Despite all the aggravations, I have to admit I learned a ton about an extremely important topic that most Americans are rather ignorant about -- me included. The course is very well designed, which is a compliment to the instructor, since he designed it.
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