Hello all! I’m a first year at Brown and took SOC 0020 last semester (Introduction to Social Psychology, Perspectives on Social Interaction.) If you are looking to take this class, you should be aware of a few things. If you don’t like writing, this class might not be for you. The only assignments that the professor assigns for this class are three twelve-page papers. Now, when I say twelve, I don’t mean thirteen, and I don’t mean eleven. Professor Elliott is pretty specific about twelve-page papers, which can oddly be one of the most challenging parts: size management. The essays are definitely difficult as well, but manageable. Coming in from high school English, where pretty much any valid expression of thought and a couple show-stopping words here and there (and maybe a little quirky sense of character) would guarantee you a good grade, the first essay was a bit of a shock to me. The prompts for the essay provide a scenario that you need to analyze sociologically through the given paradigms and concepts taught by Professor Elliott. “Analyze” is the key word here, as everything you do is analytical. Unlike my prior experience, fluffy sentences are not encouraged, and Professor Elliott is very good at catching which sentences serve only this “fluffing” purpose.
This class definitely isn’t an easy A, but it’s very much a “get out what you put in” type of class. Professor Elliott is an extremely engaging and dynamic teacher. I was never bored in that class, and the material was extremely interesting and applicable to everyday life. If you want a greater understanding of why that one annoying friend acts the way she does or why your long distance relationship may or may not be working, I’d recommend adding this class to your CAB cart. On top of entertaining, Professor Elliott is very open to helping students outside of class and makes a point of making himself available for office hours. I lurked in that office several times last semester trying to figure out how to write one of those marathon essays.
Let me just tell you quickly that my experience in this class was a bit different than others. The work seemed significantly worse to me because of the essay-loss scandal of 2018. After writing the second essay completely wrong and rewriting it once already, as I went to submit it on its due date (the eve of my birthday), I lost the entire thing. Writing that essay not once, not twice, but three times was definitely a grind. Professor Elliott was extremely understanding, though, and didn’t hold me to due dates or penalize me in any way—something I was very grateful for.
Back to content, though. This class is based primarily off of lectures, so it’s pretty important that you actually go to class. If you don’t, that’s okay as long as you have someone there who is taking good notes and is willing to share them with you. If you’ve ever seen that episode of iCarly where Carly, Freddie, and Sam are all struggling to take down notes as their Professor (the one with a British accent who gives Carly a B for handing her assignment in on three-holed paper) talks faster than they can keep up, that’s how I felt occasionally in this class. It’s definitely a no-reps off kind of experience. The guy says a bunch of valuable things that you can use as definitions in your essays, as you cite his quotes from lectures very often in proving your points.
At the end of the day, I am happy I took this class. It was my favorite of that semester, even though there were definitely some tears involved from time to time. If you manage your time and use Google Docs while writing the original essays, you’ll definitely do the class smarter than I did, and hopefully find it very enjoyable!