Definitely recommend! Prof Ken is very passionate about climate change. His lectures make you rethink your values but he also gives you solutions for the crisis. iClicker necessary for participation points and the main assignment was online youtube comments. Pretty straightforward/easy.
Honestly a really good guy, but this class was mind-numbingly boring. Lectures were mandatory and shouldn't have been, as it was just us doing iClicker Qs and listening to him comment on our own Youtube comments, super redundant as we learned nothing new. Midterm wasn't bad but consisted of questions that were either oddly vague or too "niche."
His lectures for English 23 were not great. He just went through the class comments that we did for homework every week. You have to pay attention during the lectures, readings, and videos. He clearly knows his stuff about climate change, but his execution of the lectures wasn't great. It was a brand new class, so I'll give him a break for that.
Amazing professor. I learned so much about the climate crisis in this class. Definitely the most life changing class I've taken at UCSB so far.
Ken is a great guy. He cares about his students and wants them to succeed and learn. He is knowledgeable on the material and highly values student input. Although the format is unconventional, this class teaches you a lot and is a completely manageable amount of work.
Because of the virus, he canceled the final exam and gave everyone full credit on final. The midterm also had curve.
He canceled the final exam and gave all the students full credit on the final.
A pretty easy class if you do all the work but it is time consuming. Have to read something, watch a film, and watch 3 video lectures every week and make 3 comments. In person lectures are him responding to student comments so they're pretty useless in terms of testing material but attendance is a big part of your grade so you have to go.
Ken's lectures and tests are irrelevant to learning, but the readings are very good. He spends lecture making us silently read Youtube comments that students made on his video, and his test is memorizing details that don't add to your knowledge of climate change. One question of his midterm was: "What painting was on top of Leo DiCaprio's crib"?
Ken is great but needs to work on structure. If he only focused on readings and films and made optional discussion forums on something like reddit, I think it would increase genuine engagement and help people focus on the actual material for exams, not just enough to have enough comments. Lectures should not be him reading comments. Come on, Ken :(
his structure of the course falls very flat to me. He makes everyone do comments but they have to be rather long. there's no section so he does this to add engagement but it makes it very forced and mind numbing. You end up getting behind so that you just have something to comment.
Don't get me wrong, I think that Eng23 is a really important class that teaches important concepts surrounding the climate crisis. That being said, dear god, never did I expect to have to mandatorily sit through about 2 dozen lectures JUST looking at Youtube comments on HIS videos. Clearly likes to hear himself speak, maybe bit too much.
Content is interesting, but doesn't actually lecture in class. He posts his lectures on YouTube; you watch 3 lecture videos (1 is accompanied by an article, 1 is accompanied by a documentary), and leave 3 comments a week. The actual lecture block is spent reading YT comments, and no attendance credit if you leave early. Feels like a waste of time
This is why you go to UCSB. You get a great location and still get taught by a Harvard Ph.d. Who needs Harvard!
Discussion based classes looks for student feedback and is very inspiring. Make sure to ask him for his background and his experiences because it was definitely unique and inspiring to hear!
Hiltner is an amazing professor. He fosters genuine discussion and really cares about what he imparts to his students. This class isn't difficult grade-wise, but it is worth investing your time and effort in, if you care.
took his class in the summer but I highly recommend him! obviously you have to do the reading (it's an English class, its a must) but the midterm and final were both straight forward. come to class daily and do the readings, then you'll do fine. his tests are pretty easy if you did the reading. got a B+ in his class with just doing the readings.
probably the coolest person at ucsb. he has the voice of a white morgan freeman. and he deeply cares about his students. def recommend
Really nice guy, makes lecture pretty interesting even though the material is so boring. Really welcomes creativity in topics for papers. I'd take a class with him again.
Really nice guy, had a lot of interesting content in his lecture. Somehow made medieval lit actually kind of interesting. Ken's awesome, and is a very approachable and helpful guy.
I came in with no interest in Milton and left loving the material. Pretty easy, lots of group work, and he gets to know his students! Grading: participation, project (instead of midterm), 6 pg. paper, and final. You can do a project instead of a paper and the final was easy. Only take if you want to read "Paradise Lost" for 8 weeks, though.
Great professor! You really could tell he loves literature =) Always prepared for lecure. Engages his students in discussion about the readings. He is helpful inside and outside of class. Uses technology as a means for everyone to participate in discussion.
Ken is very knowledgeable about the material he teaches, and he's like a Milton scholar, so he's very good at all that. Don't take the class if you can't or won't read the text. YOU MUST READ to get good grades on the exams. But if you do read, the exams are easily ace-able. One 8-page research paper, one midterm, one final. CAKE.
Wonder Professor. Very helpful. Knows his stuff. If you do the reading you WILL do well. He is NOT trying to trick you on any of the tests. Great guy!
