105B is a really special course that teaches concepts that are critical to understand for the betterment of society, especially if you want to go into healthcare, law, social work, public health etc. The course was taught very well by both of these professors: Keel and Panofsky co-teach the class and work well together with their unique backgrounds. Keel is very smart and is a known legend in the academic world; the fact that UCLA was able to hire him in the ISG department is beyond me. 105B has always read his work ever since he published it, now they have the man who wrote the material teaching his material in the class. That is pretty legit. Panofsky is also very well versed in his field. They both come from very impressive backgrounds; I wish more people realized how rare these types of classes are and were more respectful during lecture. Every single non-HBS person that I talk with about this class is really impressed with the topics we learn.

What you get out of this class is what you put into it. Pay attention during lecture, do the readings, take notes, go to office hours to ask any further questions that you have and you will get so much more out of the course. As a senior, I can say that this was one of the top 3 classes of my undergrad career.

This class is in theory, an interesting class. However, I thought that both professors (Panofsky and Keel) did too much. Although the concepts are complex and intricate, there was (in my opinion) an over-complication of the material. There are three essays in this class, no midterm, and a final. The quizzes are somewhat tricky, but if you are able to keep up with the readings (there are a lot assigned for each class--more than I could do) then they aren't too bad. The class requires iClickers for participation. Overall, this class is okay, but I was expecting a much more engaging quarter.

I have very mixed feelings about the class. The grading scheme is a little harsh in my opinion, with 40% of the grade being finals, and 25% being the paper. The other parts of your grade came from participation and quizzes. Some of the quizzes were pretty tough and each quiz is 5% of the grade. My main gripe with the class is actually not from the grading scheme or the content, but Dr. Keel himself. He is very kind and approachable, but I got the sense that he did not care about the class that much. Our schedule would shift around often, classes would randomly be announced that they will be asynchronous, he would not communicate with the TAs so we had no idea what to expect on the final, and our quizzes had a lot of errors that had to be fixed. He also made a non-mandatory assignment part of our grade midway through the quarter which was super weird.

However, he did give us 10 points of extra credit and the paper was graded pretty leniently (with the rubric provided beforehand), and the last 3 quizzes all had close to 100% averages, so it is very reasonable to do well in the class. I just felt a little frustrated with the lack of communication that happened all quarter.

The reason I am rating this class as I did is mainly due to the grading scheme. 40% of your grade is a final, and 30%ish is a 1 page paper. These 2 assignments aren't graded until AFTER finals, so you can be doing amazing on all the quizzes, but still get an F in the class. The essay is graded very harshly, so you will likely lose a lot of points there. You have no idea where you stand int he class until it is too late for any improvement (after the class is done).

I thought the content of the course was interesting at times, but the quizzes that we took were quite challenging and unnecessarily challenging. I especially liked the course near the end of the quarter, but the first few weeks were definitely challenging to stay excited about the material haha. Try to stay on top of the readings and get close to your TAs!