Holly Allen
Holly Allen is a wonderful professor. She is so compassionate and every discussion we have in the course feels extremely meaningful. It was such an eye-opening course and really allows you to conceptualize American Studies through structured frameworks. I would 100% take this course and any course with Professor Allen again.
The course was very informative and especially useful in our modern society. Professor Allen is very accommodating to students needs and is quite flexible with office hours. She is very approachable and if something in the course is difficult to understand she is there to help.
This FYSE was very relaxed in terms of homework and grading, yet had interesting and relevant material. Professor Allen was always accommodating for extensions on projects/presentations. The course had short and easily understandable readings for each class - attached were four discussion questions for each reading and every student had to complete six over the course of the semester (about a paragraph each). You were supposed to respond to only one prompt per reading but for the last two she allowed everyone to respond to as many as needed to complete this. Class often had a slideshow synthesizing the readings and then students would share what they wrote. All the topics connected to the current political landscape / American political traditions and everyday life. We talked a lot about social media and most topics were relatable for an incoming freshman. She was very encouraging on students to share their ideas and often brought in treats. We had a few low stakes group presentations and no more than three short papers. This seminar was great - not a lot of out of class reading, interesting and culturally relevant topics in class, and I feel like I actually learned at lot and can now confidently manage the current landscape of the ever increasing intersection of politics and consumption. Would recommend!!
This FYSE was very relaxed in terms of homework and grading, yet had interesting and relevant material. Professor Allen was always accommodating for extensions on projects/presentations. The course had short and easily understandable readings for each class - attached were four discussion questions for each reading and every student …Read more