Professor
Jules Zentner
Most Helpful Review
plain and simple, if you want an A, dont take zentner. no matter how intelligent you are and how hard you work, he is not open to any sort of creativity or any interpretations of things that aren't exactly what he is looking for. he knows what he wants, but what he wants is not clear and he wont help you find it because he feels that is giving away the grade. no matter how confident you are when you turn in your paper, you will end up with a B. on the first paper no one recieved over a B-. he is perhaps the most frustrating professor i have come across in my 3 years here. sure quizzes are easy, but quizzes account for only about 12 percent of your grade, where each paper is 25. his lectures are quite boring. our class spent a good 15 minutes on a couple occasions arguing with him about his grading style and his closed-mindedness when it came to our papers, and he would just get huffy and say "this is what i want, good luck". sure he is a smart man, but a smart man does not make a good professor. a good professor, especially for a writing class, is to grade you on your effort, writing style, and grasp of the concept....not on your ability to figure out exacltly what vague thing he is looking for. steer clear bruins....
plain and simple, if you want an A, dont take zentner. no matter how intelligent you are and how hard you work, he is not open to any sort of creativity or any interpretations of things that aren't exactly what he is looking for. he knows what he wants, but what he wants is not clear and he wont help you find it because he feels that is giving away the grade. no matter how confident you are when you turn in your paper, you will end up with a B. on the first paper no one recieved over a B-. he is perhaps the most frustrating professor i have come across in my 3 years here. sure quizzes are easy, but quizzes account for only about 12 percent of your grade, where each paper is 25. his lectures are quite boring. our class spent a good 15 minutes on a couple occasions arguing with him about his grading style and his closed-mindedness when it came to our papers, and he would just get huffy and say "this is what i want, good luck". sure he is a smart man, but a smart man does not make a good professor. a good professor, especially for a writing class, is to grade you on your effort, writing style, and grasp of the concept....not on your ability to figure out exacltly what vague thing he is looking for. steer clear bruins....
Most Helpful Review
Prof. Zentner is a very nice, and well-meaning professor, but he is also an extremely frustrating on. I took him for Scand 187, which is the Bergman class. We watched some wonderful films, but he regularly shouted things out in the middle of them, or stopped them to discuss a point he was trying to get across. It pulled me right out of the story, and it was really annoying. Then, during "discussion" he would act as though there was only one way to interpret a film. He would usually disregard unique interpretations the students had, and even disagreed wit things Bergman had said about his own films. He feels that there is only one way to understand the films, and nothing else need be discussed. He always asks for your thoughts, but then barely lets you get a sentence out before interupting you with his own opinions again. And if you asserted an opinion that contradicted his theory on a film, he CONSTANTLY says "Remind me to get back to you about that," and never did. It was a tremendously frustrating experience, and the only thing that kept me from going mad was the wonderful films. I will say this, though - Zentner clearly knows the films well, and helped me to see them differently than I would have had I just rented them on my own. He helped me to find very interesting and exciting connections between the films, even if he was convinced they were the only connection the films had. I wouldn't reccomend him, but I definatly believe the class has some value.
Prof. Zentner is a very nice, and well-meaning professor, but he is also an extremely frustrating on. I took him for Scand 187, which is the Bergman class. We watched some wonderful films, but he regularly shouted things out in the middle of them, or stopped them to discuss a point he was trying to get across. It pulled me right out of the story, and it was really annoying. Then, during "discussion" he would act as though there was only one way to interpret a film. He would usually disregard unique interpretations the students had, and even disagreed wit things Bergman had said about his own films. He feels that there is only one way to understand the films, and nothing else need be discussed. He always asks for your thoughts, but then barely lets you get a sentence out before interupting you with his own opinions again. And if you asserted an opinion that contradicted his theory on a film, he CONSTANTLY says "Remind me to get back to you about that," and never did. It was a tremendously frustrating experience, and the only thing that kept me from going mad was the wonderful films. I will say this, though - Zentner clearly knows the films well, and helped me to see them differently than I would have had I just rented them on my own. He helped me to find very interesting and exciting connections between the films, even if he was convinced they were the only connection the films had. I wouldn't reccomend him, but I definatly believe the class has some value.