Forget CULPA, read Bwog.

It’s been a while, loyal Bwog readers. If you know us well, you know this series. Are you thinking about dropping out? About transferring to your hometown state school? Do that then, we don’t care. But before you do so, you must take the classes below. It would be criminal if we didn’t at least tell you about them. 

Educational Foundations — Drew Chambers

The structure, readings, and assignments of this class apparently differ for each professor and semester. As for when I took it, I had the opportunity to read a lot of philosophical and theoretical texts regarding education. In class, we got to have small and large group discussions and debates. It was so fascinating to learn about the theory behind educational practices and have philosophical conversations about it, as well as discuss practical applications. I highly recommend this class for anybody who wants to learn more about educational structures and learning!

Introduction to Linguistics — John McWhorter

I would say this is one of the most popular/famous courses in the University. I can attest that it opened up my mind so much as to how languages form and are similar to each other, as well as the general process of speaking and writing. The class does start out really difficult at first, but as long as you go to office hours you’ll do well on every assignment. Over the course of the semester the class gets easier and easier as you understand how to approach the problem sets more. The problem sets are also really fun—there was one where we even got to decode hieroglyphics! Even if you don’t care at all about linguistics, take the class for McWhorter. He’s such an interactive speaker, great storyteller, and hilarious person—he really lets his passion show. Plus, he’s very famous, so you get brownie points towards all your relatives and friends back home. 

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and the English Novel — Liza Knapp

Only take this class if you’re ready for the amount of workload it entails—it’s much more reading than your average literature class. However, it’s all been worth it for me. Texts included depend on the semester, but I was able to read Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, The Idiot, and more in my class. These are the sort of books you always say you want to read, but never get around to doing it. Not only are you required to read such amazing novels, you’re able to hear Liza Knapp teach about them in such a magnificent way. Her teaching is off-the-cuff, and she pulls from many different outside texts in her lectures that make you fascinated as to how everything comes together. She’s also just such a fun person and uses so much emotion in her teaching. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered any adult adult who cares so much about fictional characters as much as she does. 

Critical Approaches, Intersectional Feminism, or Anything Else by This Professor — Marissa Solomon

Professor Solomon is a very lenient grader, and always explains theories with utmost clarity, always willing to answer and engage with students’ thoughts, always proactive in helping students understand and learn more, and never self-absorbed or pretentious. Her class for Critical Approaches teaches everything about racism and sexism, especially through Marxian analysis and Foucault’s theory, among other readings by critical theorists. I became a Marxist Feminist because of this class, but that’s probably not her intention; she never imposes ideas on students, it’s a truly critical class, every term and theory is borderless and open to critical, layered understanding. Can’t recommend it more.

Victorian Age in Literature — Jayne Hildebrand

I’d assume Professor Hildebrand is the most highly acclaimed English professor among English majors. I’ve never heard of anyone who doesn’t like her. Everybody LOVES her. She is one of the few English professors in the world who creates PowerPoints, which already shows her devotion and clarity with lecturing. She’s organized, clear about expectations, warm, nice, engaging, and absolutely knowledgeable. Further reviews can be found here. The readings are heavy, including Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, George Elliot, just anything you’d expect about Victorian novels. Her post-Darwinism lens is absolutely refreshing. She also teaches Critical Writing and the Enlightenment Colloquium (Shout out to English millies looking to fulfill requirements!!!).

Barnard First-Year Writing: Reading the Future and First-Year Seminar: Storytelling — Michael Shelichach

These two Barnard First-Year Experience classes were so, so amazing! Shelichach made the transition to college writing so smooth, and we had so much fun doing it! I actually looked forward to doing the weekly discussion posts and writing essays for the class—he gave such great feedback too! It didn’t even matter what we were discussing (ecocriticism or Victorian novels), I was so invested in the class because he was so invested in the class! Group discussions were also made so easy with him—whenever there was a lull in discussion or people decided to stop participating, he was able to bring vigorous discussion back by asking a new thought-probing question! I loved his teaching so much I took both FYW and FYS with him. First years, if you are looking for a great professor for these two classes, look no further than Michael Shelichach!

Echoing the above, Shelichach is a fantastic professor, who was a highlight of my freshman year. Not only was all of the reading genuinely enjoyable and the writing prompts actually provocative, but he led discussions so well, and got people to think in new and insightful ways. Excellent reading list, great discussions, and provocative writing prompts. Definitely improved my writing—he writes several paragraphs of in-depth feedback for the draft and final version of each essay. I have never received such detailed and genuinely helpful professor comments on anything. And he’s also fantastic at making you feel good about yourself. In both classes I read things that expanded or shifted my worldview. I got great summer reading recommendations from him, and I honestly want him to decide everything I read ever. I had so much fun in discussions because he never let things get boring, mostly just because he was so excited about the content he taught. He would read parts of students’ discussion posts in class which not only gave them a shout-out but also gave everyone else ideas and more to ponder about an aspect of the text. We also read a lot of theories that other professors have mentioned that are helpful to have context for. I enjoyed his classes so much and I highly recommend either one.

Earth’s Environmental Systems: The Solid Earth — Sid Hemming and Steve Goldstein

Although required for my Earth Science major, there was a wide variety of majors in this class—intro geology is accessible to everyone! If you are looking for a fun and engaging science class with many field trips and fairly easy labs, this is it! Sid and Steve are absolute gems, and truly experts in their field. So it says a lot that they are willing to teach us silly little undergrads year after year—they both are passionate about spreading knowledge about geology. They both like to say you will never be able to look at a roadside outcropping the same way ever again, and I’d have to concur. I can scarcely move about my day without thinking, “Hmm, I wonder what this building stone is made on,” or, “I wonder if this is an alluvial fan!” With labs that brought you all the way to eastern Pennsylvania, and inside of Low Library, you truly learn an expansive history of how Manhattan was formed, which has given me such an appreciation of the world around me. 

US Lesbian and Gay History — George Chauncey

This class is incredible. Professor Chauncey was the second person to ever write a dissertation on gay and lesbian history and experience, and his knowledge shows. He is an engaging lecturer, the sweetest guy, and an amazing professor. There is a lot of reading and two exams, but also some truly interesting assignments that really got me to think personally about my relationship with history. The class is funny and fun and at times heartbreaking. It is also an incredible way to understand the social history of the United States in general. Take it if you’re queer, take it if you’re straight, take it if you want to fall in love with history. An incredible course (usually only taught in the fall). 

Seconding US Lesbian and Gay History—truly a life-changer, everyone I know who’s taken it agrees.

Poetry Workshop — Emily Luan 

When I tell you this professor could stomp on me and I would say thank you. A writing workshop is an amazing way to experience something entirely new in college. Engaging in craft like this was terrifying, but I really feel I gained skills as a poet and thinker. Emily (as she insisted we call her) is smart, witty, and a great professor. She was really relatable, made us read poetry that was genuinely different than I was used to, and was amazing in office hours. She cultivated a really healthy workshop space. I was really grateful to have her as my professor. This class was only work that was a joy to do, and it made my semester. 

Living, Dying, and the Meaning of Life — Ian Rottenberg

This is a new class being co-taught by several leading professors here, including the Dean of Religious Life (and my favorite person on campus), Dean Rottenberg. It is a brand new course they hope to turn into a keystone course at Columbia. It has a bunch of reading, but is also a tremendous opportunity for meaningful conversation and thought-provoking dialogue. It also has a weekend “retreat” (on campus probably). It is, like I said, brand new, but definitely should be at least shopped because I have a feeling it is only going to get more and more popular.

Reforming American Elections — Michael Miller

This class is a more advanced political science course, but it’s undoubtedly my favorite this semester and one of the best classes I’ve probably ever been in. Professor Miller is a very experienced and intelligent political scientist, and his knowledge shines through his extreme passion for American elections. His lectures are unbelievably interesting and his energy is contagious. There is a substantial amount of work needed to do well, but it never feels unnecessary as the syllabus is very intentional. I might be biased towards the content as someone who is extremely interested in the topic and a political science major, but I think this class would be extremely interesting for everyone as it closely follows the workings/history of the elections we consume via the media and are actually involved in. There might be a pre-requisite of Introduction to American Politics, but he mentioned that he teaches a section of that too. So, if this specific class might not be a good fit for you, I would definitely recommend him as a professor.

Fiction of Law and Custom: Whiteness in American Literature — Kristin Carter

This is an English class that examines the way race and specifically whiteness are represented in American literature from the colonial era to the present. We read texts like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, White Noise, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, and The Yellow Wallpaper, and watched films including Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump. This class truly changed my thinking about the representation of race in contemporary American culture and I think about themes from that course daily.

Echoing the above, I’ve taken American Literature since 1945 with Professor Carter. She truly changes your worldview and understanding of literary representations across periods and communities. The workload isn’t light (but still very standard for English classes), but it’s worthwhile, and she’s also a very reasonable grader (English isn’t even my first language, and I’m absolutely not the most talented English scholar, but the full marks I got from her for my final project still make me feel so powerful). The most important thing for me personally: she’s the least euro-centric English professor; she’s genuinely passionate about exploring how writers innovate English literature to make it more inclusive and eclectic. Highly recommend going to her office hours to clarify expectations; she’d gradually discipline you to grow as a writer and close reader.

Literature and Empire: 19th Century Literature

The professor I took this course with has left Barnard, but I think it’s worth taking on the strength of the texts itself. This is a survey course of 19th Century Russian Literature. In it we read Eugene Onegin, A Hero of Our Time, Fathers and Sons, Dead Souls, Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, and some Chekhov short stories. If that reading list alone doesn’t make you want to take the class, I don’t know what will—but I’ll say that I came into the course knowing nothing about Russian lit and left with a new favorite literary tradition. The texts are all life-changingly good and it’s interesting to talk about them in the context of the Russian civilization, which obviously has been a major world player from the 1800s to now.

Contemporary Women Writers of the Middle East and North Africa — Melanie Heydari

This was my first French literature class ever. I am not a native speaker, and I was very intimidated going in, but Heydari is so warm and has made it so worth it. It is definitely a challenging class for me as it’s not my first language, and there are a fair amount of native speakers or those who grew up around it in the class, but the content is so fascinating, and the discussions are fantastic so it’s worth putting in the work. I have improved in pretty much every aspect, but mostly in my writing this semester; I wrote my first literary analyses in French for this class, and have learned so much about my writing in English in the process of having to be more intentional about language. Everything we read for the class is masterfully crafted, beautiful in its depth, and gut-wrenchingly honest. Even though I don’t have a personal connection to the MENA region, the class has made me so much more interested in it, and Heydari’s own passion adds to that. Taking a class that is the direct niche of the professor is the best thing ever, and that’s completely the case with this class.

Introduction to Environmental Science Lab — Sedelia Rodriguez

The lecture is by no means terrible, and you have to take it to take the lab, but the lab is definitely way more fun. I’ve learned so much about the campus and about environmental systems more specific to New York, which I see in process all over outside of class. We sampled the Hudson River for fecal-indicating bacteria and learned that it’s actually not as gross as I thought it was, went on a rock walk around campus, and looked at a massive tube-worm fossil in the stone on the west side of Milbank. I think it’s probably the class in which I’ve learned the most immediately applicable content, I have so much more context for so much that happens in the city and I notice so much more about my environment now. Professor Rodriguez is so charming and made me consider if I have a secret passion for geology. Anyways, take the class!

Direction of Time — David Albert

Have you ever wanted to take a class with a mad scientist? This is your chance! Professor Albert has his PhD in theoretical physics and is the conceptualizer of the past hypothesis, an idea used in thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and the philosophy of space and time. The class does not require any physics background, but the concepts that you learn about are widely used in thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and theoretical physics, so you will also pick up on some physics lingo! Some topics in the class: Maxwell’s demon, the statistical postulate, phase space, mu space, time asymmetries (physicists love symmetries, but only the insane ones know asymmetry is better), and at the end of the class you learn how if humans have libertarian free will, the past is literally changing with each decision we make. He also explains everything with so much passion and gravity that it feels like this is what the future of theoretical physics will eventually explain.

Epistemology — Jessica Collins

Epistemology is the philosophy of knowledge, and Professor Collins has historically focused her course on the statement “S knows that P,” or more formally KSP. Professor Collins’s lectures are always entertaining, informative, and she somehow gave a three-month storytelling argument that was so well presented. Over a year after taking this class, I still think that she had the best lecture series that I have had at Columbia. She also has many personal anecdotes about the philosophers you read about in class! For example, she did her PhD under David Lewis.

Higher Education and Inequality — Theresa Sharpe

While this is an upper-level sociology seminar, surprisingly no background in social theory is needed to understand the material. I think everyone should take this class because the topics discussed are so relevant to all of us, from the origins of holistic admissions to how students at elite colleges think about race and merit. All discussions are so insightful and they take into account our own experiences here, making it so much more interesting. This is perhaps the only class I’ve taken so far where after each reading, I’m blown away by everything learned. The higher education system in this country and its history is crazy!

Creative Non-Fiction — Christine Smallwood

College (and life) can be a lot sometimes and having a space like this to just write about anything that is happening or has happened in your life can be such a blessing. I got to process so many bottled thoughts and emotions through this class and also got to read and hear about the experiences of my peers, a lovely group of amazing writers. While sharing and workshopping one’s work can be intimidating, especially if it’s something as personal as non-fiction, this class provided such a beautiful, supportive environment to do so.

Politics of Urban Development in Latin America — Eduardo Moncada

First of all, Moncada is such a good professor and I can’t emphasize this enough. He is so funny and engaging and explains the material so well. As a plus, his voice is very soothing for some strange reason. The readings were well-chosen and overall, this class did a great job of capturing the complexities of the unique politics of many countries in Latin America.

The Social World — Lisa Owens

It’s an easy A and so incredibly interesting. This class was what made me choose Sociology as a major and I think everyone should take it, even if you are not a Sociology/social science major. It can be a lot in the sense that so many topics are covered (race, gender, culture, research methods), and while it may not delve into each very thoroughly, it definitely gives a good overview of Sociology as a whole. I absolutely loved the readings and while sometimes I didn’t have time to do them, I still read them afterward because they were so great—that’s how interesting they are.

Writing the Medieval Self — Eugene Petracca

I loved this course. We studied the autographic use of “I” in various medieval texts. The texts we focused on were all so engaging! Some of the readings were quite long, but you can definitely get away with skimming from time to time. Also Petracca sometimes spoke to us in Middle English (he’s fluent) and had us go around the room and practice our accents. Definitely not your average English class. Take it! The workload was a midterm essay, a final essay, and a few straightforward in-class pop quizzes on the readings.

Any Hebrew Course — Illan Gonen

I’ve taken Hebrew here since last fall and it’s a class I look forward to everyday. I had Illan for two semesters last year and the guy has so much passion for the language. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a relatively straightforward language or if you just want to take an interesting language! Hebrew is fascinating and beautiful, and Illan taught it in a way that incorporated aspects of history. He speaks maybe seven other languages and has a wealth of linguistic knowledge that is incorporated into his lectures. He’s also such a hilarious and fun teacher; he could not have been more engaging. My classmates have all become dear friends of mine too.

Poetry Writing — Alex Dimitrov

He’s kind of famous in the poetry world and is AMAZING. I don’t believe he offers classes every semester, but if you see his name anywhere on the directory, take it.

Any Class — Andrew Lynn

I had him for Critical Writing and it rocked. He’s witty and passionate as hell.

Any Class — Nathan Gorelick

I had him for my junior English colloquium last year on the Enlightenment and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten more detailed/wonderful/thorough feedback on papers by any other prof. He’s so lovely and genuinely cares about his students.

We hope this list helped—help out your fellow student or prospie and give us more in the comments below!

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