department
women's studies

Professor Moradian is a genuine, kind, empathetic educator and a good lecturer. The syllabus is great and I'm glad I had an excuse to read all of the texts. I didn't think there was too much valuable information in the lectures, but they were definitely still enjoyable. One day a week we had a lecture with Professor Moradian and one day a week we had a "discussion section" with a TA. However, there were only two discussion sections/TAs, which meant each one had around 30 students. I don't know who would think that's a good idea. It's not engaging, it's usually the same 8 people making comments and I didn't feel like I learned much from them. I think the class would be a lot better if it was normal lecture content on both days.

not to be dramatic but this is the best class I've ever taken. I took it my first semester of college and have seriously used the stuff I learned from Prof Mercer in every class since! It truly gives you a framework that you can apply to everything and makes you see the world differently. Whenever anyone asks me for a class rec I always say Phil and Fem. Not to mention Prof Mercer is kind and hilarious and a genius. I love that woman!! If you are debating between this and an intro WGSS class I would say take this— gave me a very comprehensive foundation for gender studies classes and I don't think any other professor can compete w/ Mercer in this area. PLEASE COLUMBIA MAKE THIS A PART OF THE CORE!!

Professor Lisa Tiersten is by far the most amazing human being you'll ever meet. At first, the class was super-intimidating: she speaks fast (REALLY FAST), uses very big vocabulary (I'm an international student who just learned English), I did not even have a clue about so much in the class and I did not know what to do. I went to her office hours a couple of times and had numerous email exchanges (she responds before you even hit send) to discuss that––I really felt like a monkey in the beginning. Through that, she made it clear that I should only focus on learning. To be honest, I spent many many hours doing all of the readings and trying to make up for my weaknesses; however, it was totally worth it. Halfway, I turned into a different student: the monkey turned into a tiny historian–I got more confident, started learning how to evaluate texts from a historical perspective and discuss them. Also, I started using these ism suffixed words correctly, A JOKE! The bottom line, in my opinion, Professor Lisa Tiersten is a treasure, and taking one of her courses is a MUST.

Professor Crawford is an absolute GEM of a professor. You should feel super lucky if you get to be in her CC section! She is incredibly encouraging, warm, interesting, and quirky (in her own fun way). She really pushed me to think about the texts we were reading critically in relation to current events like the Capitol Hill Insurrection, COVID, BLM, etc. She also pushed us to consider the narratives of underrepresented groups/marginalized minorities within the context of a very white-male-dominated syllabus. That being said, she REALLY likes people who participate (it's definitely clear she likes people who participate) so as long as you're comfortable talking a few times per class, you'll be fine. Overall, truly recommend it. She was a VERY lenient grader this semester with COVID and is very fair/reasonable. Can't recommend her enough!

I took this class during the semester where everything transferred online. I had no idea what Lila was talking about most of the time, but the material was interesting. I have an intellectual crush on that woman though, so I dealt with it.