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Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: This is the BEST class that I've taken at Tufts. It's incredibly interesting. Bailey's lectures are always engaging. Yeah, he might show up late to class a lot, and finding him outside of class might be tricky, but this class is the coolest way to get a natural science credit AS LONG AS you show up and do the reading. I'm recommending this class to all my friends.
Workload: There are four exams. You can drop the 2nd or 3rd. Tests are curved so that most people will get a B. There's also a 1 page news analysis that you can do so quickly it's barely worth mentioning. You do need to do the reading and go to every class or the exams will seem impossible.
professor rating: | course rating: | major: Economics | |
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: This course, though academically very interesting, was just ridiculous. Bailey was 10-15 minutes to class without fail and, as a result, kept the class overtime. He didn't give us a syllabus until April (despite requests for one) and 3/4 of the assignments were assigned and due in the last 3 weeks of class (yes, during finals period). He didn't respond to emails. Most bothersome, though, was his generally disagreeable attitude.
Workload: The workload was fine but extremely bunched up in the end. Tests were often arbitrary- you could study for weeks and still not know everything. As an example, he gave us about 5 sheets, each with probably 30-50 vocabulary terms that were all labeling parts of the skeleton, muscular system and skull. We never talked about these sheets or the words on them. And yet, one of these 150-250 terms came up on an exam, in a section that included 5 words that you had to identify. Kind of ridiculous.
professor rating: | course rating: | major: Philosophy | |
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: Although Bailey proves himself to be an extremely knowledgeable professor, and the class and information presented is very interesting, Bailey does a poor job of correlating the reading to the class lecture. The textbook (Introduction to Physical Anthropology ed.10, by Jurmain, Kilgore, and Trevathann) is overly-emphatic on genus and species classifications and random findings and locations. It does not focus enough on the overall picture. Bailey tries to ameliorate this problem in classroom discussions, but often drifts off on tangents.
Class lectures are not prone to organized note-taking. Bailey?s methods are basically writing down a list of vocabulary on the board at the beginning as a way to remind himself to cover these topics. A laptop proves an excellent resources for taking notes in this class. Late parts of the class include many slide shows. Pay attention to the information he mentions here, as they will probably appear on the tests (even though they are not particularly covered in the text or elsewhere in the lecture).
In-class tests have three sections ? multiple choice, short answer (usually with diagrams), and essay. The multiple choice section is weighted quite heavily, and usually has extremely obscure questions, most of which are not discussed in class, or are only somewhat mentioned in class or in the text. This section is extremely difficult, since the obscure information load in this class is grandiose. The following sections are more reasonable, although the short answer/diagram question usually requires a lot of precise answers. The essay is almost always very straight forward and on a topic heavily covered in the lectures and reading. Unfortunately, it doesn?t count for as nearly as much as it should be.
Overall, Bailey is a good and interesting teacher (albeit, he arrives to class late consistently), but in my opinion, his exams are utterly beyond expectation. He does curve the grades, but putting obscure questions on his exams do not help or encourage students to better understand the material as a whole.
My suggestion is to take this class as a pass/fail if possible.
Workload: At first, the reading is not as heavy as one would expect for an anthropology course. However, reading does increase dramatically by the end of the semester, and a lot of information is covered in each chapter. There aren?t any assignments besides the 3 in-class exams, a final, and a short write-up.
professor rating: | course rating: | major: Psychology | |
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: I don't care what the other reviews say. In my opinion, they are trying to trick you. It is not an easy class.
Workload: The tests were graded very strictly.
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: This course is very interesting. Bailey is very excited about course material, albeit a bit flaky. Don?t expect him to actually be in his office during his "office hours"...or to show up to class on time. You learn a lot in this course and he encourages class discussion. His enthusiasm for anthro makes up for his somewhat disorganized style outside of the classroom.
Workload: There were two papers and two quizzes when I took this course during the entire semester. Do the reading and he will be happy with you. Papers are not graded too difficultly and quizzes are fairly straightforward, if not, the curve always helps you out.
professor rating: | course rating: | major: N/A | |
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: Professor Bailey has great passion for anthropology and clearly is an expert in his field, but he is also very aware of the fact that most of his 200 student class is there to fill a science requirement. He did not seem to put much effort into teaching this class, as shown by disorganized lectures and arbitrary grading techniques. The tests did not necessarily reflect what was taught in class, but somehow a 55 could still place you in the B range. As frustrating as this disorganization was, I still learned a lot from Professor Bailey, and he has a wealth of information to share. He seems like he would be a good professor in a higher level anthro class in which he knows his students share his passion for the material.
Workload: Readings from the textbooks were divided rather unevenly between the 3 tests (the first test was based on 3 chapters, the last on 7). The tests are short and come in two versions, and usually one is much harder than the other, so there is a curve to even out the two tests. Grading is often less than fair, but the curves leave most of the class with Bs.
professor rating: | course rating: | major: N/A | |
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: There is no doubt that the material taught in Anth 20 is interesting, but the tests are graded arbitrarily and exam grades are often the luck of the draw. However, a huge curve at the end leaves many with an A.
Workload: Standard amount of readings, which were actually quite interesting. Not a particularly difficult course if you can deal with grade ambiguities until your final course grade is posted.
professor rating: | course rating: | major: N/A | |
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: This class is THE class to take if you want to get over your science req. and not be bored out of your mind. I enjoyed Bailey's lectures and found most of the material interesting. Basically a review of high school bio for the first half, and the second half goes more into primates and stuff like that. Prof. Bailey knows an IMMENSE amount of information in his field, and gets pretty excited over course material, which makes the class fun and engaging.
Workload: Just reading and labwork. But really, the more you put into this class, the more you get out of it. Exams are kind of difficult, but the curve is always good enough to usually let you get by with a B or B-.
professor rating: | course rating: | major: N/A | |
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! Tufts University: Stephen Bailey - Anthropology - Professor ratings, reviews and much more | JumboAccess
Review: Well-presented, interesting lectures, but a large class size means it is easy to space out. Class involvement is impractical with over 100 people, but there are occasional periods in which Bailey asks for questions and always has a good answer. Brief readings from a text and interactive labs from CD are the only required work, and if you do these plus attend lecture, you'll get at least a B and get rid of a science requirement.
Workload: N/A
professor rating: | course rating: | major: N/A | |
review a class you took with Stephen Bailey - help your classmates make informed decisions! |
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