PSYC 4500

This course that Wilson taught about issues in community development and engagement was by far one of the most fulfilling classes I've taken at UVA. He structures it very similar to a graduate level course where there's very little actual classwork and the bulk is research. Even though it was a 2.5 hour seminar, I don't think we once went past 1.5 hours in class. Additionally, the research you did was on a topic of your choice about community engagement. The grade structure for the class is essentially this paper that you research, however he breaks it down into multiple checkpoints along the way so its not as daunting, and also there's class participation. The paper can be a lot at times because of all the annotated bibliographies you have to do, but because its a topic of your choice, that you (hopefully) find interesting, it's very much work that you want to be doing. As far as Wilson himself, he's a very lenient grader and extremely nice man, but he is woefully bad with technology. But because this is essentially an independent research class, his technological shortcomings don't effect your learning too much. Overall, this class was extremely fulfilling and I'd recommend it to all psych majors.