Professor
Claire McEachern
3 of 4
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - This wasn't the greatest class I've ever had, but it wasn't bad either. Prof. McEachern is definitely knowledgable and presents her lectures in an accessible way. You do the reading and she talks about it during lecture, explaining themes, historical context etc. and going through important parts of the text. Her lectures were fine, I think. Not super organized, but you see the patterns. Sometimes she explains things colloquially (can be a plus or a minus depending on your preference--I kind of liked it), and she can be funny. The midterm was passage ID and explanation (writing pretty much what she said in lecture, and maybe your own analysis?), and the really nice thing is that you only have to go through the passages she talked about in class, so you don't need to reread everything (just make sure to mark the passages as she talks about them during lecture). You don't have to study/memorize too much and the grading seemed really fair. There's also a 6-8 page paper due Week 10 and a ~2000 word paper due finals week (take home and serves as your final). Topics were very do-able, not hard, and I think you can make your own if you talk to her. Not sure what I got on the papers since you don't get them back, but it seems fine! (She doesn't tell you what % any of these assignments are worth to your grade on the syllabus, though, which is inconvenient.) She was really open to having people come to office hours and send her essay drafts, so that's great! Overall she seems like a nice, fair professor. A pretty average class, not bad. (Oh, also you can get a lot of the texts online or second-hand, and even though she has specific page numbers she refers to, it's not that hard to keep up during lecture, so I wouldn't bother wasting $ on texts you can get for free.)
Winter 2016 - This wasn't the greatest class I've ever had, but it wasn't bad either. Prof. McEachern is definitely knowledgable and presents her lectures in an accessible way. You do the reading and she talks about it during lecture, explaining themes, historical context etc. and going through important parts of the text. Her lectures were fine, I think. Not super organized, but you see the patterns. Sometimes she explains things colloquially (can be a plus or a minus depending on your preference--I kind of liked it), and she can be funny. The midterm was passage ID and explanation (writing pretty much what she said in lecture, and maybe your own analysis?), and the really nice thing is that you only have to go through the passages she talked about in class, so you don't need to reread everything (just make sure to mark the passages as she talks about them during lecture). You don't have to study/memorize too much and the grading seemed really fair. There's also a 6-8 page paper due Week 10 and a ~2000 word paper due finals week (take home and serves as your final). Topics were very do-able, not hard, and I think you can make your own if you talk to her. Not sure what I got on the papers since you don't get them back, but it seems fine! (She doesn't tell you what % any of these assignments are worth to your grade on the syllabus, though, which is inconvenient.) She was really open to having people come to office hours and send her essay drafts, so that's great! Overall she seems like a nice, fair professor. A pretty average class, not bad. (Oh, also you can get a lot of the texts online or second-hand, and even though she has specific page numbers she refers to, it's not that hard to keep up during lecture, so I wouldn't bother wasting $ on texts you can get for free.)
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3 of 4
