"I was really looking forward to this class at the beginning of the semester, but ended up being extremely disappointed. I was dissatisfied with the quality of the teaching, assignments, and overall class and feel like I didn’t learn very much. The class did not reflect the description of the class in the course catalog, which describes the class as looking at World War II in a global perspective, focusing on the “causes, flow, and consequences of World War II emphasizing the American experience at home and abroad.” This class was not what I was expecting; I could care less about how the war has been remembered, although it is important, it doesn’t need to be almost the sole focus of the class. I also was disappointed at how little the class focused on the European theater and especially the United States role in the war. There was so much reading for this class that it was often impossible to do, and the assignments were confusing and redundant. When writing the papers I felt like I was following the instructions, yet saying the same thing over and over. On a side note, why would you require that the Primary Source Analysis paper be singled space but then threaten to not grade out finals if our hand writing isn’t perfect because it makes them hard to read? Singled spaced papers are just as hard to read, especially when the reader is tired. One of the worst parts of the class though was the actual lecture. The lectures seemed unprepared because they were usually read straight from notes, and when he tried to lecture without them his points seemed disjointed and didn’t entirely make sense because he jumped around a lot. I know that this is a personal preference, but I would rather that the class involved more quality lecture and less class discussion. I would rather know the facts than debate “what ifs” and theoretical questions with other students who often have no idea what they are talking about because they don’t know the facts either. Finally, Pearl Harbor is an excellent movie."
Now the Pearl Harbor reference may seem random thrown in there at the end, but when we talked about Pearl Harbor the professor totally slammed the movie and made it seem like the worst historical movie ever made. I've heard other teachers say this before, but he was particularly harsh. Personally, I think that any historical movie is good, even when it adds, alters, or embellishes facts. Movies like Pearl Harbor make people interested in history and introduce them to topics and ideas that they normally would not think about. So when the professor started slamming Pearl Harbor it just really made me mad. Mostly because I love everything about that movie, and I just didn't like the teacher so half the things he said made me mad.
