Reviews of professor Matthew Houdek

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I went into this class expecting to gain nothing from it, but Professor Houdek proved me completely wrong. He is very flexible with everything in the class and always gives great feedback on all assignments. My only warning would be that everything in the class is centered around social/racial justice so be ready to think and write a lot about it.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Professor Houdek is awesome! Short writing response homeworks can be long since theyre based on lengthy readings, but they are interesting. Show up to class, participate, and do the assignments and you won't have much to worry about. I hated writing, but he's made me realize that maybe I'm not so bad at it after all, and that it's not always boring

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I had Houdek last year, but wanted to come and say that he is an amazing professor. The in-class discussions felt relevant to our world and he pushed us to really THINK more. Quite a bit of reading, but we always found a way to weave each one into discussions or assignments. Outstanding feedback, and I feel like a better writer because of him.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Took a topic I'm interested in (and knowingly not confidant in) and left me feeling stupid. I would not recommend this class if you don't already have a strong (or at least slightly above average) knowledge of racism and its past and present in America.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
CONS: he assigns lots of writing, he expects you to entirely revise your first draft for the main assignments, class discussions too philosophical at times, the course readings have a *clear* left bias. PROS: pretty easy grader, let's you write from your own perspective, flexible with deadlines, sort of made me become a better person lol

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Dr. Houdek was equally a challenging and easy professor. He pushed us to think and read about complex material and gave tons of challenging feedback, but he also gave lots of writing time in class and broke up major assignments in small steps which made the workload easy. To be honest, it was probably my favorite class of my education so far.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
He was really the only professor that went above and beyond in being flexible and understanding during this semester of covid and that says alot smh. His expertise as a race scholar made it more interesting and I usually hate English classes but I liked being able to find my own topic to write about. Best class of my freshmen year afaic.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
This class is all about racism, environmental issues, and other such big issues. If you don't want to write about them, don't take the class. Really pushes you to improve your writing, and class discussions are really enjoyable. The more you put into this class, the more you'll get out of it.