Professor
Kathleen McHugh
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2017 - Grade breakdown: 20% attendance/participation (lecture/section), 10% short essay #1, 15% short essay #2, 20% midterm, 35% take home final essay. This class was really time-consuming and had a lot of strict rules. This is not a chill GE. The readings due every class were dense and you had to read them to understand what was going on in the class. Slides were used in lecture and uploaded but there wasn't much useful information on them. Attendance was mandatory because TAs took attendance at some point every lecture. Phones and laptops weren't allowed in class and if you wanted to use your laptop you had to sit in the front row, and if they caught you with your phone you didn't get attendance credit that day. Section was mandatory but helpful because the TAs went over the readings and you did little group exercises to understand the material better. I never went to Mchugh's office hours but in lecture she had strong opinions and totally disregarded the opinions of others (seemed arrogant). The course satisfies the diversity requirement which is good but I really didn't enjoy this class at all and wouldn't recommend it.
Fall 2017 - Grade breakdown: 20% attendance/participation (lecture/section), 10% short essay #1, 15% short essay #2, 20% midterm, 35% take home final essay. This class was really time-consuming and had a lot of strict rules. This is not a chill GE. The readings due every class were dense and you had to read them to understand what was going on in the class. Slides were used in lecture and uploaded but there wasn't much useful information on them. Attendance was mandatory because TAs took attendance at some point every lecture. Phones and laptops weren't allowed in class and if you wanted to use your laptop you had to sit in the front row, and if they caught you with your phone you didn't get attendance credit that day. Section was mandatory but helpful because the TAs went over the readings and you did little group exercises to understand the material better. I never went to Mchugh's office hours but in lecture she had strong opinions and totally disregarded the opinions of others (seemed arrogant). The course satisfies the diversity requirement which is good but I really didn't enjoy this class at all and wouldn't recommend it.
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Most Helpful Review
Excellent professor and class. She is a very interactive and energetic professor who encourages her students to participate in lectures. It was a fairly large class, yet everyone spoke at least twice. The class has no midterm or final and it consists of biweekly writing assignments. Each one is worth 4.5 points and they add up to 90 at the end of the year and the last 10% is participation. The class is split up into 3 sections: advertising, film and museums. Every unit was very interesting and I took a lot out of the class. It was also fairly easy class if you put an hour into your assignments.
Excellent professor and class. She is a very interactive and energetic professor who encourages her students to participate in lectures. It was a fairly large class, yet everyone spoke at least twice. The class has no midterm or final and it consists of biweekly writing assignments. Each one is worth 4.5 points and they add up to 90 at the end of the year and the last 10% is participation. The class is split up into 3 sections: advertising, film and museums. Every unit was very interesting and I took a lot out of the class. It was also fairly easy class if you put an hour into your assignments.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - For context I took this class as a lower div for the film minor. Useful for learning some film basics and learning to close read scenes. However, the intersectionality of disability with the technical film analysis does add a decent bit of complexity. Weekly readings are dense and often long winded but you have to at least skim them because she randomly calls on people during lecture and asks about them. You have to be in attendance or you might miss participation for the week. 5 weeks of study questions (about an hour of work) and two papers for midterm and final. I blew through every other writing requirement with zero issue but this class was tricky for me. I ended up spending a disproportionate amount of time polishing my final paper compared to the other more important classes I was taking. I would recommend this class but it is work. I will say the caveat to this is it’s heavily TA dependent. There’s no rubrics for papers so if you get an easy TA you’ll probably have a much easier time than I had.
Fall 2023 - For context I took this class as a lower div for the film minor. Useful for learning some film basics and learning to close read scenes. However, the intersectionality of disability with the technical film analysis does add a decent bit of complexity. Weekly readings are dense and often long winded but you have to at least skim them because she randomly calls on people during lecture and asks about them. You have to be in attendance or you might miss participation for the week. 5 weeks of study questions (about an hour of work) and two papers for midterm and final. I blew through every other writing requirement with zero issue but this class was tricky for me. I ended up spending a disproportionate amount of time polishing my final paper compared to the other more important classes I was taking. I would recommend this class but it is work. I will say the caveat to this is it’s heavily TA dependent. There’s no rubrics for papers so if you get an easy TA you’ll probably have a much easier time than I had.
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Most Helpful Review
Prof. McHugh is one of those teachers whose lectures are mostly composed of questions. If the class doesn't answer some of the questions, she throws a fit. A lot of the times, people just didn't know the answers. McHugh acted like the class was lazy, but it was really annoying having a lecture be like a freaking quiz show. She really never lectured. Sometimes there would be a few lines about a film, or film technique. Also, her questions don't really seem to lead anywhere, so it's very tough to see what she wants you to learn, so rely on your TA. Also, her readings (while in some cases were interesting) were all over the place. I couldn't really understand what she wanted out of us. Also, sometimes she dug a little too deeply in the many questions she had for us. For example, after watching "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," she asked "What makes the good character good, the bad character bad, and the ugly character ugly?" Also, the class title was "Melodramas, Musicals, and Westerns." She never tied the three genres together.
Prof. McHugh is one of those teachers whose lectures are mostly composed of questions. If the class doesn't answer some of the questions, she throws a fit. A lot of the times, people just didn't know the answers. McHugh acted like the class was lazy, but it was really annoying having a lecture be like a freaking quiz show. She really never lectured. Sometimes there would be a few lines about a film, or film technique. Also, her questions don't really seem to lead anywhere, so it's very tough to see what she wants you to learn, so rely on your TA. Also, her readings (while in some cases were interesting) were all over the place. I couldn't really understand what she wanted out of us. Also, sometimes she dug a little too deeply in the many questions she had for us. For example, after watching "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," she asked "What makes the good character good, the bad character bad, and the ugly character ugly?" Also, the class title was "Melodramas, Musicals, and Westerns." She never tied the three genres together.
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