This is a review for an in-person lecture, differing from the other reviews at the time of my posting which come from online Covid-19 lectures.

Dr. Ferguson is very engaging and opinionated which can bring up the energy in the room. However, his egotistical personality and condescending nature take away from the course, shifting it from engaging with the student to grandstanding on a podium.

It’s understandable that someone as well educated as Dr. Ferguson would feel above his undergraduate students, but displaying that attitude in the overt manner he does, only shuts down critical thought rather than encourages it.

This quarter I saw him budge on multiple occasions to accommodate students, but that had more to do with external pressures coming from the protests on campus and the administration’s disrupting response than anything else. Without those pressures, he would have continued finishing lectures in half the class time and preventing student access to certain materials that he considers his valuable IP.

That’s really what this boils down to, someone with an interesting mind and fascination for figures like Karl Marx, but none of the consideration for how he provides that information to the student. If he is forced to by unprecedented events, then he will shift how he approaches you, but otherwise you must bow down to his glory if you wish to work with him.

Finally, he ended off his class with his view that we cannot change anything about the current power structures in the world and we need to just accept it. His dystopian, depressing take on society while simultaneously demonstrating how he feels above his own students, really took away from the content of this course.

I do not recommend this professor.

MUST TAKE PROFESSOR FERGUSON FOR SOCIOL 101! Sociology 101 text is very dense and hard to understand, but he made this course very enjoyable. Professor Ferguson gave very engaging lectures, and he made us love all the assigned readings. We just had a midterm (750-word essay x 2), theory in action paper (1,300-word essay), and a final (750-word essay x 2). (NO weekly homework or quizzes!) He was very accommodating and gave everyone due date extensions. (Also, take Wisam Alshaibi as TA if possible. He's amazing as well!)

The material in this class was very challenging and it takes a lot of work to really understand it. Professor Ferguson is clearly passionate about the material and that makes you want to engage more with it. He was very helpful in office hours and took the time to explain to me how to be successful in the course which really helps. He acknowledges that it is really difficult material and has extended deadlines on more than one occasion to help students out. Assignments consist of a midterm and a final, both of which were two short essay questions, and a "Theory in Action" paper, which has a lot of freedom in how you write it.

It may seem like Professor Ferguson is tough but he really just wants students to learn and succeed, not just give us the easy way out. I can tell he really wants us to get the most out of our education.

The material for this course is difficult. I felt as though Professor Ferguson always came to class in a positive mood and tried his best to make the class environment engaging, despite the dense material. He extended deadlines when many students were overwhelmed and had a fair grading scale on our essays. His lectures consisted of him talking, sometimes with a blackboard feature where he would make sparse handwritten notes. Many students would have benefitted from better visuals, but overall the lectures were fairly interesting. Professor Ferguson was pretty flexible and did a good job teaching Soc 101, which is a difficult class.