Michael Sheridan

I greatly enjoyed learning anthropology because of my personal interest in that field. But I had a difficult time being able to enjoy the process of learning anthropology and doing the work for this course because of the sheer amount of demanding work, such as papers for fieldworks, midterm, readings etc. I did not have any success getting the help that I actually needed, which was getting understanding from the professor and considering my accommodations. His grading is quite harsh, and his standards are quite unclear. Although I performed my best for every single one of the fieldworks, I have not managed to receive a grade I thought I deserved. He does offer somewhat helpful feedback for my essays and forced me to write more critically, but I was writing moreso to meet what he would consider good. More to that, he deducts points for late work without considering extenuating circumstances and consideration that it is my first college course. This should not detract from Sheridan's clear enthusiasm for everything anthropological, and I believe he has much knowledge and wisdom to share from his time doing fieldwork.

I greatly enjoyed learning anthropology because of my personal interest in that field. But I had a difficult time being able to enjoy the process of learning anthropology and doing the work for this course because of the sheer amount of demanding work, such as papers for fieldworks, midterm, readings etc. I did not have any success g …Read more

Michael Sheridan is ultra-informed about this topic, so he's hard to please when it comes to midterms, papers, and discussions. But he's a super nice guy and the course readings are mostly quite interesting, for anthropology people and also for anyone interested in political science, development studies, or environmental studies.

I really wanted to like Mike. He's clearly deeply knowledgeable and passionate about the subject material and would always bring artifacts to class. That being said, I found myself overwhelmed by the quantity of reading and couldn't seem to connect in office hours. There are three midterm papers and one final paper. On the first midterm, I asked him for an extension before the prompt was assigned and was told it "wouldn't be fair to my peers who have their own stress." The content is super interesting, but it kind of felt like drinking from a firehose in lectures. That being said, if you're not super passionate about anthro or planning to major in it, you might want to skip this one.

I really wanted to like Mike. He's clearly deeply knowledgeable and passionate about the subject material and would always bring artifacts to class. That being said, I found myself overwhelmed by the quantity of reading and couldn't seem to connect in office hours. There are three midterm papers and one final paper. On the first midt …Read more