William Nash

This course is fun on paper, and a bit less fun in practice. I took it expecting to feel a bit more excited about the work. He assigns a ton of reading, but you literally don't have to do it in order to keep up in class discussions and weekly writing. The real heavy lifting is the 4-4 page paper you need to write each week, which can get pretty laborious and redundant. Definitely a pretty repetitive course, but you discover a ton of new music. Nash is great, but maybe not the best at facilitating a fruitful conversation. I didn't love the course, but didn't hate it either. It was nice to not have to do homework except for writing.

This course is fun on paper, and a bit less fun in practice. I took it expecting to feel a bit more excited about the work. He assigns a ton of reading, but you literally don't have to do it in order to keep up in class discussions and weekly writing. The real heavy lifting is the 4-4 page paper you need to write each week, which can …Read more

I honestly really enjoyed the class because I live for learning about black history and culture. I was lucky to be in the class the semester where Nash only had us read literature by black women. I loved the discussions, however, he does expect you to read an entire book in about a week, which is quite demanding.

The course material is engaging, and the professor is clearly passionate and highly knowledgeable about country music, which makes lectures enjoyable and informative. However, the workload is quite heavy. The course requires 11 essays, each 3–5 pages long, plus a final 7–10 page research paper. Writing that much on a single subject can become repetitive, and by the later essays (especially around essay #9), it can feel like a real slog to come up with new material or angles. Another drawback is the course organization. The Canvas page isn’t well-maintained—readings are often uploaded quite late (sometimes the night before class), and assignment prompts or expectations are not always clearly outlined, which can leave students guessing. That said, the professor is approachable and very supportive. They genuinely encourage students to attend office hours and are open to clarifying assignments or discussing ideas, which helps offset some of the organizational shortcomings.

The course material is engaging, and the professor is clearly passionate and highly knowledgeable about country music, which makes lectures enjoyable and informative. However, the workload is quite heavy. The course requires 11 essays, each 3–5 pages long, plus a final 7–10 page research paper. Writing that much on a single subject c …Read more