Place And Society
Place and Society: Local to Global This course is an introduction to how geographers view the world and contribute to our understanding of it. Where do the phenomena of human experience occur? Why are they there? What is the significance? These questions are fundamental for explaining the world at different scales from the global to the local. Throughout, we will focus on the spatial basis of society, its continual reorganization through time, and how various human and environmental problems can be usefully analyzed from a geographic perspective.
Nelson is very available and wants his students to succeed! He makes an effort to know how you are doing in your life outside of this course. The classes and topics were engaging and relevant. Would take again!
Pete is one of the best profs at Middlebury, but this class in particular is eh (nothing to do with his teaching, he made it much more interesting than it would have been otherwise.) This course is great for freshmen trying to figure out what they want to do because it is a great survey course in geography but it is a LOT of busywork. If you're an upperclassmen who wants to try geog take Population, Urban, or Rural with Pete instead!
Pete is one of the best profs at Middlebury, but this class in particular is eh (nothing to do with his teaching, he made it much more interesting than it would have been otherwise.) This course is great for freshmen trying to figure out what they want to do because it is a great survey course in geography but it is a LOT of busywork …Read more
This was a pretty intense course and the labs meant I spent a few nights of the semester up super late working, but that was also my own doing. It’s interesting to have a class that has so many different topics because you don’t get to go as in-depth but it also doesn’t get boring. Guntram likes to teach a lot of theory and geographic vocabulary which some people find annoying but I do appreciate having the class rooted in a list of concepts. He can seem tough but is open to supporting you when you need it. I had to ask for lots of extensions, sometimes even the night before it was due, and he was very understanding. This class inspired me to declare geography in my very first semester, although I was only in the class because I wanted to do ES but couldn’t get into any classes.
This was a pretty intense course and the labs meant I spent a few nights of the semester up super late working, but that was also my own doing. It’s interesting to have a class that has so many different topics because you don’t get to go as in-depth but it also doesn’t get boring. Guntram likes to teach a lot of theory and geographi …Read more
This class skims the surface of a lot of material, which was great coming into the class with no knowledge of geography whatsoever, but might be a drag to people who already have some knowledge of the discipline. Pete is a fantastic lecturer and brings in lots of creative projects and labs. The readings might be difficult for humanities-minded folks, but they don't have a ton of bearing on the class. If you truly want an introduction to geography, this class is absolutely worth it.
This class skims the surface of a lot of material, which was great coming into the class with no knowledge of geography whatsoever, but might be a drag to people who already have some knowledge of the discipline. Pete is a fantastic lecturer and brings in lots of creative projects and labs. The readings might be difficult for humanit …Read more
Pete was a great professor for this course. The class itself is a bit boring at times as an intro class with busy work and survey topics. But Prof. Nelson brought a lot of enthusiasm and was able to connect the content in an engaging way. The labs were also interesting
The class was overall fairly interesting. Herb does a great job of being a fair grader who makes class and labs worthwhile, but he'll also make you work for it. Try and get a good group of friends or acquaintances for the final project, it will make to final presentation easier to work on.
This course has been fun. Peter Nelson has a great teaching style. While some of the content was a little boring I think that his lecture style made it better. Labs were probably the most difficult and usually required a good amount of time to complete.
I like Nelson a lot, the material can be kind of boring as intro. But there are some interesting topics, especially when we delved into cultural and social influences. I liked the project where you focus on one in issue in one certain place.
Herb was very accommodating when I had to miss class, but he made me do extra work to make up for missed class time. I found the lectures fairly boring. Some of the labs were interesting, but some were boring too - we had to do 3 lab reports. We also had a group final project that we spent 6 weeks on. Seemed like he was a tough grader for a 100 level class.