Randall McGuire - Binghamton University (SUNY), Binghamton, NY

Professor: Randall McGuire

Department: Anthropology

College: Binghamton University (SUNY), Binghamton, NY

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Randall is a great professor and his lectures are very interesting, just be prepared to work for your grade. He assigns a ridiculous amount of readings, but the exams are only 20% readings and 80% lecture material, so if you take good notes you can get an A without doing any of them.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

This class wasn't awful, but you definitely have to work hard. Professor McGuire said the first day if you were looking for an easy A, you were in the wrong class. The papers are self-explanatory while the tests are more difficult, and you need to read the textbooks to understand the material. The lectures may be long, but are obviously helpful.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

I loved this class with Professor McGuire. He is an amazing lecturer and the tests are really based on his lectures and the textbooks. He spaces out his assignments so nothing is truly overwhelming except the readings. Getting an A is definitely doable, but you'll have to put in some work for it. I would definitely take this class again if I could!

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Lectures are boring and hard to engage with. Content of the course is bland and boring. My biggest gripe with Mr. McGuire is that anthropology is a field that little to no people nowadays care about, and that 99% of the students in this class are taking it for a gen ed credit, but he forces students to study it as much as their major classes.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: ANT125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Professor McGuire is an amazing lecturer and person. He really does care about his students. That being said, this is not an easy class. The tests require a lot of studying, but the essays are pretty simple to write. The tests are graded pretty harshly, but you will probably get a 100 on every paper. This class is definitely worth taking.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Very disappointed with this class. The content is not hard, but he artificially inflates the difficulty of the course (I'm guessing because he feels the need to convince others archaeology isn't a joke). It's all busy work, and was never stimulating. No feedback was given either. He knows this too which is why he doesn't post a SOOT for himself.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: B+
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

I guess Dr. McGuire is disappointing to those people who want an easy A. I found him to be a great lecturer, caring about students and interesting. He knows his topic well and teaches it well. One of the best at Binghamton.

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: C
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Funny and somewhat interesting lectures. Only criticism is that his exams were broad and included very little information from topic we covered in lecture. I felt like most of his multiple choice questions were random. The MC is what hurt my grade :/

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: ANT125
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Dr McGuire has amazing lectures, aside from the days we watch movies, if you don't read the text and just pay attention in class, you'll do just fine. Tests are relatively easy.

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: ANTH256
• Grade Received: B-
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

A lot of exam questions were made on such obscure details, but it seemed like the TA's made the exams so I supposed that's not on him. His lectures are extremely boring; he thinks he's funny, but he's not. He hasn't really changed the material since the late 90s, including the readings which are sometimes unreasonable for a lower level ed class.

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: ANTH256
• Grade Received: A-
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

The only grades in this class were 3 tests and 4 papers. All papers were done in groups which made them pretty easy. These are the same groups you meet with in discussion every week. Paying attention in lecture is necessary, but topics and the professor were interesting. Readings helped, but definitely weren't necessary to do well.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

I would not recommend taking this class. It is a lot of writing, since it is a W course, and the material is generally boring. The textbook readings are horrible to try and get through. If you are looking for an easy A, this isn't the class for you.

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: ANT125
• Grade Received: B+
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Dr. McGuire is a great teacher in Anth 125. His lectures are well organized and interesting, sometimes a bit funny. He takes a theatrical approach in some of the lectures. He is available to students and cares about them. Do not take this course if you want an easy A. As the sour grapes reviews here say he expects you to work.

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: ANT125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

horrible professor tests are so hard and will literally ruin your gpa. took it as a writing class but the tests are so hard and will make your fail

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Honestly, take a different anthro. class. First, this is a gen. ed and like most people you want a good and relatively easy to obtain grade, however, that just won't happen too easily for this class. It's not because the material is hard because it's not it is that the tests are horribly inconsistent. Second, the TA grading is really TERRIBLE !

Rating # 16

Overview:

• Course: ANT125
• Grade Received: C+
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

NEVER EVER TAKE THIS CLASS. He is a horrible professor and is so full of himself. The tests don't even match anything we talked about in lecture and you're expected to read 3 full textbooks. This class is killing my GPA for applying to med school. I repeat don't take this class. Not an Easy A gen Ed by any means !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hated this class

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: ANT125
• Grade Received: Audit/No Grade
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Literally took this class thinking it was a easy gen-Ed and because it had such a good rating here and it turned out to be one of my hardest classes. The tests are excruciatingly hard and the class averages are around 60s-70s. The essays he gives before the tests are also long and tedious. Don't take this class.

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: ANT125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

In the middle about this course.. although the lectures are easy going and the readings aren't terrible, the exams don't always seem to match up with the information we've learned. But he does provide his past tests- which definitely help since there are repeated questions. Personally, the course was too broad

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: ANTH125
• Grade Received: A-
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

take any class with him. he's fire. I took anthro 125- Archaeology. Not only interesting, but made the class extremely fun and not too hard.

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: ANT125
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Overall he made the lectures pretty interesting (if you are into this topic). Good at answering any questions, clear on the information necessary to know. Must do the readings in the incredibly long books to be able to take exams though.