Reviews for Jeanne E. Rutenburg
Average Rating:| aralchen Course: HIST111 Grade Expected: A December 21, 2009, 8:40 am | The Good: She's a very knowledgeable and pleasant woman who cares about student success. Unlike many other professors, she is very flexible with due dates. For example, when I had 2 finals on the same day she gladly told me that I could take her final before or after the set exam date. She also holds review sessions before every exam. She also sends out weekly emails summarizing the lecture material for the week. Almost all exam questions are released a week before, so preparation should be easy. The Bad: Even though she's open to questions, she literally never answers your question. She goes around and covers all possible peripheral topics without ever touching on what you actually what to know. This is why no one ever asks questions in class. She's terrible boring and likes to go on tangents. She uses very few visual aids and lectures mainly from her personal notes. To do well in her class you must must must buy the supplementary textbook (mine was a purple paperback). It's about $20 and well worth the money. Bottom line, I don't understand why people ***** so much. If, when given the exam questions ahead of time, you're still unable to get an A, then you really shouldn't be in this class. |
| zee89 Course: HIST111 Grade Expected: C March 27, 2009, 3:20 pm | This class and and professor is absolutely horrible!!! Professor Rutenburg is a very friendly person until you get on her bad side (which is a very inscrutable process). She is also very arrogant and patronizing. Taking notes in lectures is extremely difficult due to her tangents off to side subjects. She also sends long disorganized emailson a weekly basis. The readings from the class are all from primary sources. These readings serve the basis, and sole sources, for all of your papers in the class. There is no real grading criteria for any of the assignments and seem to be based on the whims of Professor Rutenburg. The course focuses more on the origins of Christianity than the Medeval world. Only the last 1/3 of the course actually dealt slightly with the Medieval world; even still with an heavy emphasis on Christianity. This could have been a interesting course with a different professor. |
| amh31 Course: HIST111 Grade Expected: B January 19, 2009, 8:20 pm | It was extremely difficult to get an A in this class...I went to all the discussions and lectures and did all my homework and still barely received a B. I'm normally very good at taking notes, but no amount of prior note-taking experience can help you keep up with her. Many of the things she says in class are irrelevant, but she does make up for it by providing (sometimes overly) detailed notes each week via e-mail. She does everything else right... discussion is almost half your grade and all you have to do is the bare minimum homework, the exams are super easy, and she is very flexible with due dates. |
| DocFool Course: HIST111 Grade Expected: A June 9, 2008, 12:05 pm | This is not an exaggeration. In eight years of college this ranks as my least favorite class. Avoid it if at all possible. I found Dr. Rutenburg to be patronizing and vapid. She goes too far in trying to relate to the students [embarrassingly so] and tries to mold the way they learn. This is clearly a class aimed at freshmen, anyone else is likely to be extremely bored frequently. Her lectures swing wildly back and forth across the topic, only touching on it briefly if at all. She sends out large Word files every week filled with the things she never got around to saying in class. All graded material is based on the primary source readings, which are hit or miss. You will need to be able to survive a large number of Christian writings to survive this course. Exam questions are given to the class a week ahead of time, then written in blue books in class. They would be much better as take-homes. |
| Anonymous Course: HIST111 Grade Expected: B April 23, 2008, 8:11 pm | This class is absolutely horrible. First off, the title is extremely misleading, it should be the Christianizing of Rome, as you spend the first 8 or 9 weeks on this. Tons of reading, which you go over in discussion. Discussion is a big part of your grade, so you better show up and at least say something. At least theres a note packet which is very useful for the midterm paper as well as the midterm and the final. Don't take this class though. |
| trimalchio Course: HIST111 Grade Expected: B+ February 7, 2008, 2:50 pm | She's a nice enough teacher if you haven't pissed her off. She was leinent about due dates and test makeup if you talked to her. She really does know what she's talking about but is difficult to take notes from, the readings are difficult but not unbearably long. They're also often interesting. |
| Heph Course: HIST111 Grade Expected: A November 1, 2007, 2:29 pm | A lot of reading in this course! Midterm and final exams are both essay format. Plan on writing several papers. She really knows the material, but it's difficult to take notes on her lecture; she tends to jump from topic to topic, and gets easily distracted by student questions. Not an easy class. |