She is a very engaging professor, which was a definite plus for an 8:30 am class. I took this class during summer school which made it more rushed that it should have been, but she describes everything very well. If you do the readings, although extensive, and pay attention in lecture, the class is really easy. The grade is divided up between two papers, an in-class project, a midterm and a final. It sort of feels like she makes her tests so easy that she probably laughs at the people who do poorly. A great professor and a great class.

I agree with most of the comments written by other students here. I took comparative religion with her and it was the most fun Anthro class I've had. She had us do many interesting group activities in class and the class is worth enrolling in just for that reason. Also, unlike a lot of other professors, Prof Strathmann will actually get back to you on a question you asked her in class that she wasn't sure she knew the answer. I used to think when professors say they will "look it up" somewhere it only means they don't know and they dont care because they will never get back to you. But I think Prof Strathmann likes it when you ask her things like that because that way she also learns about new things from her students.

One advice I would give to anyone interested taking her class is use a tape recorder. It will be really useful if you can't write fast or are not able to digest the lecture as you are writing notes quickly because she talks really really fast. You will miss some things she mentions in class no matter how fast you can write, so be sure to ask her to slow down or repeat things once in a while.