Reviews of professor Osman Balkan

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Take professor Balkan if you want an average, not-so-rewarding academic experience. He fails to communicate the course material succinctly and his expectations are often unclear. He is certainly not comparable to the many other brilliant professors in the department. He is not inspiring in the slightest. Fortunately, he is a visiting professor.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
As a visiting professor, Professor Balkan has underestimated Swarthmore students' intellectual capacity and passion. His readings are boring at best; seminars are poorly structured, and he makes "pedagogy" his scapegoat. Luckily, you will find his 3-hour seminars end in 2 hours (including breaks), for he has no desire to teach you anything.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
I thought the workload of Professor Balkans class was very effective in reinforcing the course material. Before every class we had to transcribe an interesting paragraph from the reading and comment on the significance of the passage and any questions it raised. This helped me remember the readings for when I needed to draw upon them for essays.