Professor
Min Zhou
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - Since there isn't a listing for this class as SOC M139, I'll put my review here. The class breakdown was Midterm (25%), Take-Home Essay (40%), Lecture attendance and Discussion (15%), and Weekly Reading Memos (20%). Midterm was short answer questions about key concepts, explaining them, and applying them. Final was two 4-5 page essays. Also the class is structured around guest lecturers that make up the bulk of the lectures with Min Zhou lecturing less than half of the time. I'm really glad I let myself sit down and ruminate my thoughts about this class. If you were talking to me a month ago, I'd probably say don't take this class. It was tough, challenging, and it wasn't what I thought it was. But, here's my real thoughts. This class IS challenging. I think some of the readings were pretty dense and hard to understand, but so many of them are genuinely so interesting. This class is by the way is a sociology class that uses migration studies methodologies to understand things, so keep that in mind if you came in like I did thinking it was more sociological. So keep that in mind if you decide to take this class if she decides to teach it again. The midterm and final were pretty hard if you don't have a decent grasp of the material. However, this class was genuinely opened my eyes to the world of Asian migration and the various forms it takes. I genuinely believed that each topic was so interesting and fun to learn. So here's the catch. I do feel like the Prof isn't quite as engaging as she can be about the topics. I think my favorite part of her lectures was when she told a story and how it related to our topics. These are real things happening to asian immigrants, so when she gave her 2 cents it felt very real to me. However, she isn't always like that and I wish she was able to make these lectures more engaging as they should be! Her assigned readings are genuinely awesome and really make you think about the complexities of immigration from and to asia. Also I found the guest lecturers to be hit or miss with how they lectured. Some showed some real enthusiasm to their research and broke them down in bite-sized pieces so we can understand, and other times it felt like they were an information overload. But since for the midterm you were graded on knowledge of specific key terms, it's not the worst thing. I find that my one regret is not talking to the professor. She's the sweetest, and like the other reviewer said she genuinely is the best. She took a picture of everyone in our last class together! Her class really made me want to learn about this stuff in a family dynamic perspective, but seriously. Take this class. It's challenging, but it's worth it.
Winter 2023 - Since there isn't a listing for this class as SOC M139, I'll put my review here. The class breakdown was Midterm (25%), Take-Home Essay (40%), Lecture attendance and Discussion (15%), and Weekly Reading Memos (20%). Midterm was short answer questions about key concepts, explaining them, and applying them. Final was two 4-5 page essays. Also the class is structured around guest lecturers that make up the bulk of the lectures with Min Zhou lecturing less than half of the time. I'm really glad I let myself sit down and ruminate my thoughts about this class. If you were talking to me a month ago, I'd probably say don't take this class. It was tough, challenging, and it wasn't what I thought it was. But, here's my real thoughts. This class IS challenging. I think some of the readings were pretty dense and hard to understand, but so many of them are genuinely so interesting. This class is by the way is a sociology class that uses migration studies methodologies to understand things, so keep that in mind if you came in like I did thinking it was more sociological. So keep that in mind if you decide to take this class if she decides to teach it again. The midterm and final were pretty hard if you don't have a decent grasp of the material. However, this class was genuinely opened my eyes to the world of Asian migration and the various forms it takes. I genuinely believed that each topic was so interesting and fun to learn. So here's the catch. I do feel like the Prof isn't quite as engaging as she can be about the topics. I think my favorite part of her lectures was when she told a story and how it related to our topics. These are real things happening to asian immigrants, so when she gave her 2 cents it felt very real to me. However, she isn't always like that and I wish she was able to make these lectures more engaging as they should be! Her assigned readings are genuinely awesome and really make you think about the complexities of immigration from and to asia. Also I found the guest lecturers to be hit or miss with how they lectured. Some showed some real enthusiasm to their research and broke them down in bite-sized pieces so we can understand, and other times it felt like they were an information overload. But since for the midterm you were graded on knowledge of specific key terms, it's not the worst thing. I find that my one regret is not talking to the professor. She's the sweetest, and like the other reviewer said she genuinely is the best. She took a picture of everyone in our last class together! Her class really made me want to learn about this stuff in a family dynamic perspective, but seriously. Take this class. It's challenging, but it's worth it.