SOC 2052

Oh boy. This class. While I don't agree with some of the posts calling Wilcox "racist" or "homophobic" I would say that he does just simply disregard the existence of gay people. We have one class on African American home life and it is entirely about how they are poor, less hard-working, and overall worse and less beneficial to the society than the white picket fence family. Wilcox literally beats information into your head such as "don't marry your soulmate" and "Don't cohabit before marriage or you will divorce." Wilcox also puts forth a trigger warning at the beginning of the semester but really does go too far.
*Trigger Warning*
He compares marrying your soulmate to Aly and Jackson's relationship in a Star is Born, and if you don't know how that ends go take two hours to watch that film. He also talked about a wife's essential roles in a marriage and stated that women need to be "open to physical intimacy" with their husbands. He also said a mother's main role is breastfeeding. Cringing. The worst part of his class is that the data he uses is VERY biased. It is all from 1999-to 2010 and is done by institutions such as BYU. I did manage to get an A in this class, despite not believing 90%of his arguments. If you do brave this class, please do not take this man seriously. Moving backward in society will only hurt minorities and those with non-hetero relationships.

Generally an OK course. Prof. Wilcox is a conservative guy on marriage and any stuff related to love and sex, so you may find some of the topics and ideas in the class to be quite unacceptable, but he is a really good lecturer, and the some of the materials like the effects of cohabitation are very interesting. The only bad thing about this class is I have to get up early to take it, which is really a pain. I usually just spent about 4 hours a week on the readings. Not a very difficult course for a non-sociology major.
Talking about grades, I got an A for this course. The following are my tips on how to ace this class:
1. How are the grades composed:
Discussion participation: 20%
Debate: 10%
Mid-term: 20%
Eight page paper: 25%
2 Pop Quizzes 5%
Final exam: 20%

2. For discussion participation, just participate by asking and answering some questions the TA raised.

3. For Debate, very easy, do some research and get some numbers and arguments so you and your teammate can talk about 10 minutes before class.

4. For the mid-term, there are 10 multiple-choice questions, and 3 short-essay questions and you need to answer 2 of them, and one long-essay question. Timed under 50 minutes in class. Most people finished between 35-45 minutes, so it is completely doable. I will elaborate more on how to prepare at tip 8.

5. For the eight-page paper, start early and show your draft to your TA as it is the TA who will grade it.

6. For the 2 pop quizzes, they were asked about things very dull in this class like "what kind of job did the guest speaker who came last week have". I think the pop quizzes are just designed to help him see whether you came to the lectures or not.

7. For the final exam, 30 MCs, 3 out of 5 short-essay questions, and 1 long-essay question. It is pretty much the same thing as the mid-term. Timed under 3 hours. Most people finished between 1 and 2 hours.

8. Talking about preparing for the exams, you need to do at least one reading for each topic discussed in class and take notes on numbers and arguments of the readings, so you have things to cite for the free-response questions in the exams. For the multiple-choice questions, they are tested on the statistical number in his lecture slides, so after each class, write down the numbers he showed in slides and memorize them. If you have some quotes in mind and know all of the statistical numbers he showed in the slides, you will probably get a 94-100 for the exams.

Really easy class, honestly. He puts stars in his lecture slides next to things you need to know for MC on exams. Your grade is one two pop quizzes, a midterm, debate (in discussion), an 8-page paper, and a final (plus participation grade), so a lot of areas to do well. The material is honestly interesting too. As long as you take some notes on the readings (enough to be able to site in the essay sections of the exams) and learn the stars in his lecture you're set. A lot of it is kind of common sense too, so its not hard to grasp the concepts.

Wilcox is an interesting professor, you don't necessarily need to come to class, but you learn a lot. He reads off of the powerpoint, but overall you can definitely get away with not going to class or doing the readings. The exams are easy, but they are essays which make it easier if you have a basic idea of the lectures. You have to go to discussion which is fine. Overall, the class is very interesting and eye opening. If you need an easy class to take, I recommend this one.

As someone who is currently taking this class and has a more recent review than the past ones I have read, I would highly suggest against this class. As a woman, it is very frustrating to be sitting in this class. Wilcox is openly conservative, which I respect, but the approach he takes when discussing men vs. women is extremely outdated and somewhat offensive. For example, he spoke about how having more sexual partners only negatively impacts women and didn't even mention its impact on men. Specifically, my TA put a "fact" on the board during discussion that said that the more sexual partners a woman has before marriage, the less happy she is in her marriage. I was shocked when I read it. He also spoke about social media's impact on relationships only regarding women, meanwhile it affects everyone. He spoke about how hookup culture only impacts women in a negative way because women lose respect right after. Also the way in which he asks his polls is clearly yearning for a certain response and doesn't even offer all of the possible answers, or an "other" category. It just felt a lot like he cared more about influencing women to be virgins and get married rather than to objectively be teaching a class on marriage. Obviously that is a leap but like... not a big one.

I think Professor Wilcox gets more hate than necessary. As a pretty progressive person, I knew when the class began that he was a conservative. I did not agree with everything he said, but as long as you skim the readings (I didn't even look at half of them), participate in the lecture and in the discussion section, and follow the rubric/requirements for the very minimal assignments, you'll probably get an A. Most of what he teaches is rooted in common sense (even for those who, like me, are not conservative like Professor Wilcox) which makes it easy to get away with not reading every assignment. That said, I do recommend reading at least a few of them to keep them in your back pocket for exams. The biggest part of this class is the lecture. It's small for a lecture class, so he often calls on students (sometimes randomly) to participate. The lectures are where most of the exam material is located and he specifically notes which topics will be tested on. He also takes attendance via iClicker, so it's kind of crucial to attend. Otherwise, easy A class with a moderate amount of effort and good attednance.