Reviews of professor Ayse Parla

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Smart, kind, and compassionate. Prof. Parla is the real deal.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Professor Parla is very talented and passionate, and I loved her lectures. The class is also really easy. I was able to skip a few lectures and still have an A. There's a lot of reading, but most of it is pretty interesting. Grades are based on a few short, easy papers and a couple of tests which were fine with a little bit of studying.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
She is an amazing lecturer and great at explaining concepts. I'm not interested in anthropology but her lectures were captivating and interesting. You don't have to do the reading, she will go over it in class. Attend discussions and participate to get a good grade.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
I love Professor Parla! I had her for AN101 and she was amazing. You really need to listen to what she's saying to understand the content. I didn't do any of the readings but I always went to lecture and discussion and that was enough, she goes over it in great depth.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Highly recommend! We had 2 maybe 3 readings per class but they were very manageable and digestible. She also goes over every reading. Our project was very simple. Midterm was very easy- she literally used one of the example questions from the PowerPoint! Very nice and approachable!

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Professor Parla is the BEST! The most inspirational, caring, and charismatic professor I've had at BU. I've taken almost all her courses - AN101, AN220, and AN307. She is smart, funny, and creative. I never walked out of her classrooms without smiles and fulfillment. She treats her students like friends, and I am so lucky to have her beyond words.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Took this for the HUB highly recommend. Gives a lot of readings, but got a good grade by just going to lectures and taking good notes. Such a fun class; she makes everything interesting.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Amazing lecturer, very knowledgeable and passionate about what she does and approachable. Expect to do some reading, and if you go to lecture she explains everything in great detail. Expect to take notes on a lot of things and remember a sizeable amount of concepts/terms. If you pay attention and do some review, you'll do well.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
This class is simply painful. You will absolutely regret taking it, despite all the seemingly positive reviews on here. The tests are wildly unfair in the level of detail she expects you to recall. Everyone I've spoken to about the class feels similarly: it's just not worth all the work you have to put into it.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I definitely admire Prof. Parla, she is very passionate and knowledgeable about what she does. Sometimes her lectures can be hard to focus on and the readings are sometimes not the most gripping (imo), but overall if you want an introduction to cultural anthropology? Shes your girl. Definitely need to take notes, the tests are pretty challenging.