I got an A- in this class. Professor Rubin is not as bad as what others have said. Came in expecting a boring class, but instead, Rubin was funny, thoughtful and laid back. He's into music and gives a lot of music examples that really helped me understand the course material. Others in the class disagreed with this point though. His power points aren't very specific however lecture is entertaining, enjoy these. Your discussion section will highlight what's important to know for the class. Do the readings, I actually enjoyed the textbook, I thought it was pretty straight-forward and well organized. There are two essays, the first one, the day with out cell phones paper, had a rubric basically designed by the looney tunes. It's more of a creative writing paper than an academic one as you're grade is largely determined on how deep your observations are rather than how well you tie in course material. At least my grade was. The second paper, the comparative music video analysis was much more straightforward and Rubin provided many questions about the material to answers from. If you complete the study guides for the mid-term and final then they will be a breeze so long as you just re-call everything you remember about the material. Quizzes are more difficult than they have to be but do the readings and you won't fail them. The questions get specific and sometimes two answers will look correct with one that is more correct than the other.

If you have the ability to take this class with a different professor- do it. Some people say the course isn't that bad. And it isn't life ruining. But Rubin is dry, unprepared, focuses on his specialty in music though music hardly has an stake in the course, and he can be petty. The paper assignments were pretty interesting and not that difficult or time consuming and the midterm was fair. The final was fair until the essay questions, which he made extremely broad assumedly to let everyone showcase their knowledge but it was very poorly constructed and a poor way to test everyone's ability and understanding of the course. The quizzes through collaboration are worth 20%, which is ridiculous because each quiz was 10 questions and 100 points. My TA- Gaelyn,- was very helpful and really tried to help us make sense of the unstructured nonsense Rubin threw out there. This class is unavoidable if you want to be a MDST major and for some other things so you just have to take it and you'll survive but it isn't fun

Took this class as a first-year thinking about majoring in Media Studies, and now I am, although I have to say I can't give the class itself the credit for that. What made this class for me was my discussion section- Stacie was my TA, and she was super sweet, helped us understand lectures better, and a relatively easy grader (although I believe she's left the department since). She always brought up very thought-provoking questions, and was good at keeping the discussion on track (she was super helpful with the readings too!). The paper topics were relatively short and interesting, but what's most time-consuming in this class are the readings and weekly reading quizzes. Make sure to do the readings- the papers require references to them, and overall they're usually a good read. Also, the quiz questions are taken almost exclusively from the readings. So, if you're interested in Media Studies as a major or even just an area of interest, I'd recommend the class since it's a relatively easy A and pretty interesting; just make sure to actually do the work!!

These other reviews have taken the words straight out of my mouth. The only reason I even feel the need to write this is to further prove to Rubin and the department that this class was a disaster. The university offers so many great classes and after friends took this class last semester with Bruce Williams they could not recommend the class more as most of them were convinced by the class to become media studies majors. Even though I knew it was a different professor I thought that the department would have a standard course material for the introductory class, but I soon found out this was not the case. We used a completely different textbook from Williams and the book was the worst textbook I have read in college to date (It had a one and a half star rating on amazon). Rubin himself was nice but that did not change the fact that he was the worst lecturer I've had to date. I took the class to be able to apply to the major, but this class made me want nothing to do with it anymore. Completely disappointed in the class and the department for the way this class was taught and I can't help but wonder if my major would have been different if I had taken the class one semester sooner.

Rubin is a super nice guy who is clearly passionate about media studies, but the actual class isn't great. His lectures are dry because he solely reads off of his notes and uses barely any visuals, only a picture or two here and there. The weekly reading quizzes are not easy whatsoever and require an extremely thorough read through of each chapter before we even go over the material in class, as the quizzes are due before we talk about the material. Your grade consists of 30% reading quizzes, two 10% papers, a 20% midterm and a 30% final. The paper prompts, however, were pretty interesting. Overall, not an awesome class but not terrible. The ta's were fair graders. The hardest part was definitely the quizzes, especially since they are worth so much of your grade. Since I am majoring in MDST it wasn't bad for me to take it this semester and I sucked it up...but if you have time to wait to take intro I would take with a better professor.

IT WASN'T THAT BAD.

Honesty one of the worst classes that I have ever taken. I took this class assuming that it would be interesting and an easy A. boy was I wrong. This class easily ended up being on of my most challenging classes this semester. Rubin means well but his lectures are the most painstaking thing that I have ever experienced. I would either stare at the clock or play games on my phone. By the end of the semester I stopped going to lecture because it was so pointless. He would literally read off a sheet of paper or pull up random PDF picture. (as a media studies professor he really needs to learn the value of a power point). As for the readings they were incredibly dense and the quizzes that we took on them (before lecture...also very annoying) were actually very challenging. I found myself taking very tedious notes and reviewing for hours before each of the quizzes just so I could get a passing grade. This class has the potential to be very interesting, but Rubin sucks the life out of the class. If you want to take the class, save yourself and take it with a different professor.

Okay, I had HIGH hopes for this class, but sadly intro media studies is a class I can't recommend to anyone. Professor Rubin is a great guy, but he is seriously sooooo boring. He reads off a sheet of paper that he holds every lecture. If your own professor doesn't come to class prepared, why should you? That was another problem, our class filled up chem 402 (the big lecture room), but after the first class only ~30% of the class would show up. TONS of people skipped class, and as the semester began to wind down I did too. Class was almost useless as he just regurgitates the readings. Essays aren't bad depending on how harsh your TA is, I had Sherif and he was kinda wacky but a fair grader. I averaged a low A / high A- on the 3 essays. The weekly online quizzes that "test" your knowledge on the readings are pretty difficult as they are REALLY specific, and the readings are dry, dense, and boring. Don't take this class unless you're 100% set on majoring in Media Studies. It's sad how an intro class turns away so many people...

He is so nice and wants you to do well! Great!

DONE TAKE THIS CLASS WITH RUBIN! He's so boring!! He speaks in monotone and just reads off of a sheet of paper, and I literally count the minutes until I can leave each lecture. The readings are really long and dense, and the reading quizzes are unnecessarily difficult: you have to actively study for them, they're not just basic comprehension. Also, for a class about media, you're not allowed to use laptops to take notes? So you have to write really fast whenever he says something useful, which is annoying. I should have dropped this class and I'm sad that I didn't. If you have to take this class, wait until it's a different professor. He means well, and I feel bad when people don't show up to class (especially when he calls on random people from the class list who aren't there), but also he sucks the life out of what could be an awesome class.