professor
Timothy Vasko

Professor Vasko is one of the best professors I've had. He is kind and understanding; he wants his students to succeed. In class, he values, listens, and responds to everyone's comments no matter how much of a "hot take" they are. He is new to teaching so he does sometimes tend to lecture on and on, but he encourages students to cut him off and ask questions. Take any seminars offered by Prof. Vasko

Honestly, I wouldn't take this class again. I appreciated Professor Vasko's depth of knowledge about religion and everything that we talked about, but he had a tendency to lecture for the vast majority of classes, even in a first-year *seminar*. He clearly is an expert in the field, but I don't think the style in which he led the class was helpful or engaging in a class full of first-years. These lectures were hard to focus on and seemed to go off on very specific tangents in relation to the text that left me feeling as if I only had an understanding of a small portion of the work. With a little substitution, I know it could be a really interesting and engaging course, but as it is I struggle to define what exactly I've learned over the semester. I love everything about the idea for this class, however, the execution of it made it hard to sit through. I'm glad I took this course just because everyone in it became friends in a separate group chat we often used in class.

If the title "Is God Dead" sparks your interest, you're going to enjoy the subject matter of the discussions. The readings are well-curated and genuinely awesome. However, this class is, more than anything else, a BONDING EXPERIENCE between you and the dozen other unfortunate souls who wind up in it. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it is not for the faint of heart. Timmy is one hell of a dude. He's (supposedly) 5'11 but has short king energy. Very much at the mercy of his students. The fact that this was a class exclusively for Barnard first years created a particularly hilarious gender dynamic. As one of my classmates once said, "you could write Timmy an email calling him a dumb twink, and he would say thank you for your input and give you a passing grade". I still found him likeable despite his impossibly long tangents that nearly ruined the class for everyone. That is to say, those tangents were deadly. Sometimes he'd just go off for 20 minutes about ghosts or something. It often felt like the class would be much more interesting if Timmy didn't show up and just let us talk. But the energy in the seminar was pretty informal, and it brought my class pretty close with one another. Trauma bonding, if you will. All in all, I don't regret taking this course. I genuinely learned a lot about religion and philosophy. Plus, I now have a group of ragtag philosophers I can call my friends now. I'd recommend making the class groupchat early, so you have a place to rant about how batshit timmy's rants can get. Honestly, if you're having a hard time making friends in college, take this class and that problem will be solved and replaced by the existential crises brought on by Pascal and De Carte. Best of luck.