This class is not as stressful as everyone makes it out to be. We don’t have any homework assignments (no discussion boards, quizzes, writing/essays) and no midterm. The only thing we have to do is read book chapters and articles. There are only two books, both of which are on inclusive access. Usually, we were assigned 2-4 readings a week, which may sound like a lot, but the book chapters were super short (never more than ten pages), although some articles were lengthy. Essentially, you just read the assigned readings and show up to the lecture.
That being said, Professor Barreto is not the best professor. It is very obvious that he does not love teaching. Barreto told the class to go to our TA first if we have any questions, and if our TA can absolutely not answer your questions, THEN you can go to him. Your TA does all the grading for the class, but Barreto is not involved in the grading aspect at all. He is basically there to just lecture and leave. He didn’t even show up to our final exam, which was a bit of an issue because there were some questions that required more than one answer on the final exam, but the directions did not say that there was more than one answer. He does not use Canvas, so I never found out my grade on the final exam or the final project. His lecture slides are just repeating what the assigned readings said, but it is very important that you take notes on every lecture slide. Everything that appears on the lecture slides is fair game for the final exam. Additionally, Barreto does not publish his lecture slides anywhere and does not allow the TAs to send them out. If you do not take notes on the lecture slides, you will never see them again, so take notes!!
Here is the grading breakdown:
PARTICIPATION: 25% of your grade. How your participation is graded depends on your TA. My TA, Kevin Kandamby (who was great), had our participation graded on attendance, group discussions, and short answer responses to a prompt. Again, this varies on your TA.
FINAL PROJECT: 25% of your grade. Professor Barreto provides five different data sets that we use to answer a proposed research question. We use Stata (which Barreto provides) and have to turn in a 12-slide presentation showing our data. This sounds difficult, but Barreto and the TAs walk you through this project. Barreto holds a “Stata Day” during Week 7, where he shows us how to use Stata instead of lecturing. During week 10, Barreto and the TAs hold workshops during class time where you can go in and work on your project and ask for help if you need it. Barreto said that if you do the assignment and show that you tried, you will get 100% on the project.
FINAL EXAM: 50% of your grade. Our final exam had 106 questions. My advice is to study all your lecture notes. As previously mentioned, everything mentioned in the lecture is fair game for the final. It’s entirely multiple-choice, and there are no essay or short-answer questions. A scantron is provided.
Overall, this class is not that bad. A lot of the content in this class is common knowledge and is often repeated multiple times throughout the course. Professor Barreto isn’t a very energetic professor and is not very involved with the course. Your grade is entirely dependent on your TA. In my opinion, this class is not very demanding. The only stressful part about this class was starting the final project, but if you attend the workshops, you will be completely fine. I would take this class again, but only if it was one of the few options left. So if this class is your only option, don’t worry, you will be fine! This class is not very difficult. The best way to succeed in this class is to attend lectures and take notes.