Professor
Catherine Bonesho
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2018 - This is NOT an easy GE. If you want a guaranteed A, don't take this class. BUT, you do learn a lot, and you will do well but only if you put in the work for it. I asked questions, went to TA office hours, was engaged, kept up, etc, and that's why I got an A. You cannot slack and expect to do well here. But it's definitely a very interesting class. Bonesho is very nice and approachable-- good professor. Pretty hard class. A LOT of essay writing too. Final exam is 4 take home essays.. a lot a lot of writing.
Fall 2018 - This is NOT an easy GE. If you want a guaranteed A, don't take this class. BUT, you do learn a lot, and you will do well but only if you put in the work for it. I asked questions, went to TA office hours, was engaged, kept up, etc, and that's why I got an A. You cannot slack and expect to do well here. But it's definitely a very interesting class. Bonesho is very nice and approachable-- good professor. Pretty hard class. A LOT of essay writing too. Final exam is 4 take home essays.. a lot a lot of writing.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Professor Bonesho taught us a way of viewing Judaism with nuance. I think that’s the one thing that I’m proud to have taken from her and undeniably, it was something I was hoping for from the class. I wanted a new way to view religion, and Bonesho delivered. She prepared incredibly organized and engaging lectures - every single lecture. I do wish the lecture slides held less information and were more engaging sometimes. Once she asked us to send in words through our phones. The words created a word cloud that updated in real-time on the slide. I felt that method’s way of creating vulnerability yet retaining anonymity caught and held everyone’s attention. Bonesho also knew my name, but I’d never been to her office hours or introduced myself to her personally. She probably glanced at it when I handed her one of my papers, but she really had a way of creating an environment where we felt seen, mostly because I think she let the whole class debate almost every lecture, implying all of our nuanced opinions carried some value. I’m really glad I took this class before graduating. I don’t remember what I got so I just put “P”/pass in my review. I did turn in some papers late though and remember her late policy being lenient with grade deductions. Also, for the reading...it's pretty long and in depth, but the book's easy to carry. I didn't read it in full, but by skimming between classes and listening closely to her lectures, I did really well on the exams. Tests aren't nit-picky on historical details, just know the main characters in Judaism over time, what they stood for, and how to show the validity and flaws of each person's perspective.
Fall 2019 - Professor Bonesho taught us a way of viewing Judaism with nuance. I think that’s the one thing that I’m proud to have taken from her and undeniably, it was something I was hoping for from the class. I wanted a new way to view religion, and Bonesho delivered. She prepared incredibly organized and engaging lectures - every single lecture. I do wish the lecture slides held less information and were more engaging sometimes. Once she asked us to send in words through our phones. The words created a word cloud that updated in real-time on the slide. I felt that method’s way of creating vulnerability yet retaining anonymity caught and held everyone’s attention. Bonesho also knew my name, but I’d never been to her office hours or introduced myself to her personally. She probably glanced at it when I handed her one of my papers, but she really had a way of creating an environment where we felt seen, mostly because I think she let the whole class debate almost every lecture, implying all of our nuanced opinions carried some value. I’m really glad I took this class before graduating. I don’t remember what I got so I just put “P”/pass in my review. I did turn in some papers late though and remember her late policy being lenient with grade deductions. Also, for the reading...it's pretty long and in depth, but the book's easy to carry. I didn't read it in full, but by skimming between classes and listening closely to her lectures, I did really well on the exams. Tests aren't nit-picky on historical details, just know the main characters in Judaism over time, what they stood for, and how to show the validity and flaws of each person's perspective.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - I'm currently in the middle of editing my final paper for this class so we shall see what my actual final grade is but this has been a very poor integration of writing II and a history GE. I think this is not too horrible workwise but just has sudden periods of an influx of work which can be pretty annoying. I think the content was somewhat interesting and Bonesho's lectures were very digestable and easy to follow as well as the exams weren't too bad but the worst part about the class was the writing II aspect. I think she was just overambitious about trying to incorporate an essay component into this class, I felt like other than a few times in discussion there wasn't really any direction of how to improve our papers or how to be better writers in general. Not to mention, that in general the TAs graded pretty harshly on both drafts of the papers and even if you spent a decent amount time editing your previous paper your grade only goes up by 2-3 points. Honestly, I wouldn't have even been mad at the janky way this class was implemented if the TAs weren't such harsh graders for no reason. I don't know what happened this quarter with this class whether the last set of TAs were replaced completely but at least I can almost guarantee with this current grading scheme there is no way 50% of the class is going to get As like Winter 2020. If she adjust the class to account for the harsh grading of the TAs I will modify my review slightly but doesn't change the fact that this is a history GE class that had a poor attempt of being a writing II.
Winter 2021 - I'm currently in the middle of editing my final paper for this class so we shall see what my actual final grade is but this has been a very poor integration of writing II and a history GE. I think this is not too horrible workwise but just has sudden periods of an influx of work which can be pretty annoying. I think the content was somewhat interesting and Bonesho's lectures were very digestable and easy to follow as well as the exams weren't too bad but the worst part about the class was the writing II aspect. I think she was just overambitious about trying to incorporate an essay component into this class, I felt like other than a few times in discussion there wasn't really any direction of how to improve our papers or how to be better writers in general. Not to mention, that in general the TAs graded pretty harshly on both drafts of the papers and even if you spent a decent amount time editing your previous paper your grade only goes up by 2-3 points. Honestly, I wouldn't have even been mad at the janky way this class was implemented if the TAs weren't such harsh graders for no reason. I don't know what happened this quarter with this class whether the last set of TAs were replaced completely but at least I can almost guarantee with this current grading scheme there is no way 50% of the class is going to get As like Winter 2020. If she adjust the class to account for the harsh grading of the TAs I will modify my review slightly but doesn't change the fact that this is a history GE class that had a poor attempt of being a writing II.
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