HS 307 – Sociology

HS307: Sociology

Year: 2017-18 Autumn Semester

Instructor: Prof. Anush Kapadia

Motivation:

Sociology is the study of our current society as it is, sociology unlike philosophy or psychology will not discuss any abstract notions, but will focus more on what is currently in existence. If you are interested in knowing how the nations are built? Or what size of the nation is preferable and why? Or if you are into the discussion like Marxism and Capitalism? Or what is a democracy and how is Indian democracy different from Western democracy? Then this might be the course for you, as in this course you will go through discussing the theories of many old as well as modern sociologists ranging from how nations are built to how caste prevailed in new Indian democracy because of the election system and many more.

Course Content:

The course content by the professor includes discussing major sociologist and their works. Here are the names of the sociologist who were discussed in my semester :

  1. Thomas Hobbes
  2. Adam Smith
  3. Rabindranath Tagore
  4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  5. Karl Marx
  6. Jyotirao Phule
  7. Partha Chatterjee
  8. Uday S. Mehta
  9. Max Weber
  10. Émile Durkheim
  11. Surinder Jodhka

Feedback in Lectures:

Professor likes to rely more on teaching by passing the information verbally then using slides and thus generally slides are just the starting point of the discussing which he then leads to many different aspects like one time it reached to the discussion on whether the Uber drivers are Uber Corporation’s employees or contract based worker. It certainly is interesting to hear in the class as the discussion varies from a wide variety of topics and the professor knows which topic will be of interest to us students and discusses on such topics more frequently to put forward his ideas. That said even though professor diverges through a huge array of topics, he keeps the exams entirely from the slides and thus you don’t really need to write all that he discusses and can enjoy the discussion thoroughly without fear of having notes.

Feedback on quizzes and exams:

There were 2 quizzes, 1 Midsem and 1 Endsem with respective marks distribution as 15%, 15%, 20%, and 50%. All the exams are characterized by the same style in which there will be 2 sections both MCQs, one direct MCQs section whose answers are directly from the slides and other which have supporting paragraphs and answers must be found in the paragraphs. Professor likes to keep the latter section have larger weight thus helping the students who have not prepared well for the exams as the answers are already in the paragraph and not from the slides. Considering that the exams were all MCQs and that the paragraph section does not require any preparation beforehand it can be said that the exams were pretty easy and can be prepared with about a night’s study (p.s.: this is for quizzes only not for Endsem and Midsem and will require more time, still they were also easy).

Difficulty:

This course is a relatively easy one among the others that you have to do in this semester, as EE 325: Probability and Random Processes is in no sense a easy course as is the course EE 309: Microprocessors. Among HSS elective courses I might not really be able to say which one is easier as all the peer reviews suggest that the other courses are also equally easy (except for Reading Literature, none of my peers took that course so I cannot say anything about it), so it might be better to take course according to one’s interest.

Books:

Professor provides the resources for additional reading through Moodle and he also provides radio shows to hear for those who are interested.