Reviews of professor Andrew Demshuk

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Demshuk is incredibly passionate about what he teaches which makes for exciting and knowledgeable lectures and discussions, which are nicely balanced.  The work is not hard, the readings are not long or difficult. Getting good paper grades is simple: send him a draft and go to office hours for feedback before submitting.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Demshuk is clearly intelligent and passionate about the material, but his expectations are not realistic, in my opinion. I can overlook the reading, as I feel that though the weekly reading load is bulky, it is necessarily so. However, for a 100-level course, he is way too nitpicky about papers. Lectures could also be a lot less convoluted.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Very harsh grader, grade is based on 4 essays with no peer review or roughdraft.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Demshuk is one of the worst professors I will ever take. He is a passionate and engaging lecturer, but is rather difficult to please with assignments. I have often consulted him for help and pursued one direction just to be scrutinized for that approach in grading. My final grade is not indicative of the time and effort I invested into this course.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
To understand his lectures, you need to be REALLY into history. I took his class for my complex problems seminar and I felt it was really hard to sit through and listen to his 3 hour lectures about obscure events in the 1870s. Also felt extremely Eurocentric. North America was barely covered, Asia at the end, and Africa wasn't even mentioned ever.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
He requires extensive readings and conducts lengthy lectures that require background context that is impossible for the average student to have. He was then very patronizing to students who did not have that context, and I was overwhelmed and uncomfortable for the entire semester.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I had Professor Demshuk in Fall of 2020. He's a strict grader but because he wants students to do their best. His class is also incredibly interesting.