This professional development seminar, or Proseminar, focuses on major scholarships, fellowships, and grants applications. It is designed for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the humanities, qualitative social sciences, and education. The Proseminar is designed as a workshop, and has been developed over two decades of teaching and consulting at multiple institutions, in addition to insights from past and recent award recipients and foundation referees. Drawing upon the creative writing workshop model's attention to genre, style, and the revision process, as well as the research seminar's practice of meta-critical interrogation, Proseminar activities are designed to optimize each component of an application.
4
UnitsOptional
Grading1
PasstimeUpper division only
Level LimitLetters and science
Collegeeasy G.E. for the most part but class feels somewhat disorganized and all over the place. the professor isn't you typical lecturer, so that could either be a + or - depending on the individual.
Olguin doesn't seem to understand a thing he's teaching, despite how he acts like he knows everything. He acts like he's completely broke and woe is me but we all are paying for his upwards of 200k salary- and on top of that he steals more out of your pocket by forcing you to buy HIS book (which has no influence in the class). Total abuse of power.
Professor Olguin is not your textbook college professor - and for some folks that is amazing, for some, not so much. He adds a lot of stories about life experience into his lectures, but they are valuable to the overall class experience. The readings were powerful, and he always picks great TA's. Do not be intimidated by the unconventional class.
It was chill class, the readings are interesting and not too heavy. There are weekly quizzes, but they not hard and you can reference the readings during them. The essays and written part is easy. I barely did readings and managed to end with a 97+, so if you put in the minimal amount of effort and attend section, you'll be fine. I liked it overall
Ben Olguin is an amazing person. He is very kind and thoughtful when responding to students. As previously mentioned by other people, he often goes off-topic however, it's a minimal flaw. He's also soft spoken which makes it hard to hear him in a lecture hall full of students.
Ben is an interesting professor and an incredibly talented intellectual. He made his classroom very welcoming, and although sometimes he would go off-topic in his lecture, I really enjoyed his talk most of the time. Go to his office and chat with him! You'll be surprised how knowledgable he is.