Joseph Holler

It's very clear that Joe tried to make the class less stressful than it usually is. I think it worked pretty well overall. There are two visual essays (not much writing) and two workflow construction assignments which take up the vast majority of work outside of class. Otherwise, there isn't that much to do besides some short question sets. The class wasn't too hard, but workflows were spikes in difficulty to watch out for. Grading can be a little annoying, as it's not all housed on Canvas and it's hard to tell what your exact grade is, but this class ended up being far better than its old reputation suggests.

It's very clear that Joe tried to make the class less stressful than it usually is. I think it worked pretty well overall. There are two visual essays (not much writing) and two workflow construction assignments which take up the vast majority of work outside of class. Otherwise, there isn't that much to do besides some short questio …Read more

Taking this class with Joe was very enjoyable! It was a senior seminar, and he structured it excellently, incorporating a student presentation each class, a guest speaker relevant to the theme, and then lecturing on material related to pelting or salt, our course readings. I appreciate the flexibility to shape this experience as desired, whether focusing on GIS for the final or opting for a more theoretical approach.

Taking this class with Joe was very enjoyable! It was a senior seminar, and he structured it excellently, incorporating a student presentation each class, a guest speaker relevant to the theme, and then lecturing on material related to pelting or salt, our course readings. I appreciate the flexibility to shape this experience as desi …Read more

This class features an ungrading approach. Basically, while there are deadlines for assignments, you can continue to revise them based on Holler's feedback until the last day of the semester, at which point you self-evaluate. For this reason, I can't really say this is a hard class. As valuable as some of the material seems to be for your future if you're interested in further GIS work, though, Holler gave initial feedback for some assignments extremely late in the semester (the end of finals week). Though Holler is a nice professor and is accommodating to questions, him being so late with feedback isn't really possible to ignore and caused a lot of stress. I also feel like I left the class without having learned much at all about Python coding despite completing the two major Python assignments - actual coding instruction was very light, if present. I definitely learned the most about coding during the self-defined final project, which might say something.

This class features an ungrading approach. Basically, while there are deadlines for assignments, you can continue to revise them based on Holler's feedback until the last day of the semester, at which point you self-evaluate. For this reason, I can't really say this is a hard class. As valuable as some of the material seems to be for …Read more