Celeste Langan - University of California Berkeley

Professor: Celeste Langan

Department: TBD

College: University of California Berkeley

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: ENG195H
• Grade Received: A-
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

My favorite professor at Cal. She's not "easy" and is more interested in leading you to the water than she is in telling you how to drink, but the experience was great. I had her for the Honors Thesis and for 45B and loved both classes.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: ENG121
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

A kind and wonderful professor, but hard. Very hard. Lectures are disorganized. She tries to squeeze in 5 hours of material into an hour and a half. It's helpful to see her in office hours. She'll take the time to make sure you understand the material. Essays are graded hard, but if you see her beforehand you can get a clear idea on criteria.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: ENG121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

I loved her class! Prof. Langan is brilliant and I thought her lectures were thorough and helpful. (She posts her powerpoints online for the final so that's extremely helpful!) She is accessible and gives great feedback. Make sure you try to keep up with the reading and do the reading responses!!!

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: ENG121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Lectures are impenetrably incomprehensible with a tenuous connection to any specific literary texts. Her presentation makes Fredric Jameson appear a model of clarity and concision. Extremely condescending to students, in all interactions, and her grading is brutal and punishing. Brilliant but certifiable--take her only if it is unavoidable!

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: ENG121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

She's very funny and humorous and tries to make her lectures engaging, but they're extremely dense and difficult to keep us. Her PowerPoints are extremely dense and difficult to keep up with taking notes (and I take notes on a laptop). The reading assignments are long, dense, and also very difficult to keep up with. Her grading is brutal.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: ENG166
• Grade Received: B+
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

I didn't mind her at first but greatly disliked her after a Danish girl got yelled at and embarrassed for asking a question about affirmative action. She asked "is that where if there's a tie, they pick the minority?" And Langan began raising her voice and insinuating that girl was a racist. It was so wrong. Not becoming of an educator.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: ENG165
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

There are times when the assignments can be confusing as hell but she is very willing to help. I read a LOT in her class but I throughly enjoyed it ALL and will probably be keeping on my bookshelf for years to come. All in all great professor who has much to offer, that may tangle in lecture sometimes, but lead you to be a better thinker and writer

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: ENG45B
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

This one day she walked into lecture and started reading Lamia, by Keats. In the middle, when she gets to the part about shedding her snake skin, Prof Langan was reading aloud and literally started unbuttoning her dress. She took it off (thankfully there was another one underneath)and then proceeded to show us her bra. Brilliant, but insane

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: ENG1
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Lectures were extremely confusing and abstract. Would rarely engage the students during lecture: instead, she literally read off of an essay she probably wrote the night before. Great ideas but presented poorly and hard to grasp. Never actually got around to the point of lecture until about the halfway mark, then would almost always run out of time

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: ENGL150
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Had Langan years ago for both 121 and a 150 senior seminar in transatlantic romanticism. She was brilliant, helpful, and funny--and also more than willing to admit what she didn't know (which wasn't much!). In 150, she was open to student ideas and happy to explain her own. In 121, there's little opportunity to question her. Go to office hours.

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: ENGL121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

I'm angry about this class. Her lectures were almost entirely useless far too often, owing to the sort of post-structuralist style which she imperfectly employs, leaving the student with too few handles to grasp. The student, of course, will be graded as though he or she should have grasped her lectures with perfect clarity.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: ENG121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Very brilliant, VERY scattered. Never finished lectures on time & left me feeling like there was so much more she would never get to cover. Do the reading before class & come to every class or your grade will suffer. Lots of assessments--3 short papers, 1 long paper, final--but final + final paper pretty much determines grade. Not enough novels!

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: ENG121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Prof. Langan was delightful and engaging in her lectures. I found myself struggling a bit to keep up with her rushed pace in class, but all material was intriguing and thought provoking. She usually ran out of time at the end, but this just proves her brilliance, exuberance. intimidating, but very helpful in OHs. demanding, but worthwhile

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: ENG121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

very strange lady. lectures sometimes boring and extremely abstract and hard to follow. I left the class more curious about the poets we covered than knowledgeable of them, which may or may not be a positive.

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: ENGL121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

My biggest gripe about this professor is that her lectures rarely featured close readings, just a lot generalities that were never convincingly anchored to the text(s). Caveat emptor.

Rating # 16

Overview:

• Course: ENG401
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Had Prof Langan for English Honors several years ago. Critical theory. If you really wish to take advantage of this class, you had best do intensive reading of critical theory well before you take her class, or (like others here have pointed out) you will surely be lost trying to follow her lectures. Take the class and explore!

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: ENG121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

When I first started her class I was completely lost. Her lecture style is intense and often hard to follow. However, I found that in office hours she is more than willing to explain things in depth to make sure you really get what she is saying.

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: ENG45B
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

Lectures were interesting and engaging. Tests/papers representative of what was discussed in class.

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: ROMAN121
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

While I will admit that Prof. Langan is brilliant, however it's like she lectures out of a lit theory book written in a language only she understands. Works for some, not for me. Never got a response to the email I sent asking to set up a time outside of her office hours to talk about what I didn't get. She seemed really nice just not helpful.

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: ENG100
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

The most passionate teacher I have yet encountered. Challenging, brilliant, and witty.