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Prof. Elman
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| OQ = Overall Quality | C = Clarity | H = Helpfulness | E = Easiness | K = Professors' Knowledge of Material | R = Recommend Professor |
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| Date | Class | | OQ | C | H | E | K | R | Comments | Flag Rating | | 02/25/2013 | 1830 - Classical Intellectual Jewish History |  | 3.2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Yes | First of all, R' Elman may be the most insanely knowledgeable person you will meet in your life. The man knows Shas cold, and that's only one small part of the voluminous information stored in that man's head. The class is worth taking if only to witness this in person. Second of all, I personally found him to be a very nice and friendly person, and I'd also recommend this class if only to open up a line of communication with him. However, in terms of a class, he's kind of the classic brilliant but disorganized professor, the class sort of meanders about, and he is constantly distracted by getting into arguments with members of the class about anything from American politics (he is a staunch liberal, his audience, not so much), to the state of Orthodoxy (he is no fan of the Haredi world). Additionally, the amount that you learn in his class is limited by the fact that a lot of the MYP students, perhaps encouraged by the atmosphere of the class which I described above, will start arguing with the points he wants to make on the intellectual nature of some of the stuff in Shas, and the class becomes him just quoting numerous gemaras baal peh in order to counter their arguments. Which is fun to watch, but it cuts into a lot of time, and its frustrating because this yeshiva guy is bringing questions from a tosefta to a guy who has written books on the subject, while you're waiting to hear his thoughts on other subjects.
A word about helpfulness: As I mentioned, I found him to be a very nice guy, which included being responsive to questions about my paper (that's another thing, also: If given a choice between a paper and test, like my class was, take the paper. According to all the other ratings, his tests often have no correspondence which was actually taught), so personally I found him to be very helpful. On the other hand, I heard from a lot of my classmates that he wasn't as helpful. (I get the feeling he is more helpful if he likes you, and we happened to get along, so I suppose try to get on his good side.) Additionally, when I emailed him my paper, he emailed me a week later, way after it was due, asking me where it was. I had definitely sent it, and to the right email. I don't know if that was the fault of the email service, or his fault, but the latter would not be tremendously out of character, which obviously would be a problem if he did that more than once. That said, I still think it was worth taking, if only to get to see genius at work and open up a line of communication with him. If those are things you value, I recommend taking him for anything. If those are things you couldn't care less about, you're probably better off not taking him. |  | | 05/01/2011 | 1015 - Introduction to the Bible |  | 4.5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | Yes | This class is pretty easy. There's a really really really good mesorah on swap notes. You don't have to pay any attention in class. (Truthfully using the mesorah will get you a better grade than paying attention in class.) Just study the mesorah and you'll do fine. | | | 02/24/2011 | 1015 - Introduction to the Bible | | 4.0 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | Yes | Really nice guy. No work. Sometimes goes off on tangents that make you lose sight of the important points. Overall a good professor. | | | 08/17/2010 | 1015 - Introduction to the Bible | | 4.0 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | No | Easy, but somewhat random. May not cover that much. | | | 12/24/2008 | 1015 - Introduction to the Bible | | 4.2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | Yes | knows his stuff | | | 09/28/2008 | 1072 - Rabbinic Biblical Legal Exegesis | | 4.0 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | Yes | Dr. Elman is a creative genius and an innovator in his field. His knowledge of and thoughts on Talmud are unparalleled and you will learn things in his class that you quite literally cannot get anyone else in the world- things that will give you a new and more profound insight into the Talmud. That being said, Dr. Elman is massively disorganized, with no order, rhyme, or reason to what he teaches each class, nor to the overall plan for the semester. If you don't mind this, go for it; if you need organization and direction, be cautious.
[ 2/2 people found this rating helpful. ] | | | 12/08/2007 | 1015 - Introduction to the Bible | | 4.2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 | No | The class is extremely boring, the tests are most of the time mesorah. The only problem is that the questions don't make sense on the test. For example, he will give you a quesiotn that says blah blah blah and four choices, then it will say which is not true. He makes TONS of mistakes when grading tests. Make sure that you go over the test with him because he doesn't give them back and he will for sure mark you wrong on questions you get right, ie. 15 guys met wiht him and got 6-15 points back, its that bad. So you can know everything and do poorly on tests. Plus he doesn't know anyone in the class except for two people, so his grades are completely random. But, if you are the one of two people then you are in fairly good condition most guys get A minuses and B pluses some get A's.
[ 2/2 people found this rating helpful. ] | | | 12/17/2006 | 1015 - Introduction to the Bible | | 3.2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 5 | No | Extremely disorganized class. The tests were arbitrary and it was difficult to ascertain what he wanted. | | | 11/14/2006 | 1015 - Introduction to the Bible | | 4.2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | Yes | Knows his stuff. A lot of random information gets thrown in though and its sometimes hard to know what is important.
[ 0/1 people found this rating helpful. ] | |
Number of Ratings: 9
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