Anthony W. D'agostino

D'Agostino is very knowledgeable, and can talk about pretty much anything right off the top of his head. His lectures are pretty much the same way, he knows the information.. and gives it to you straight out of his head as he goes. Sometimes it's easy to follow, sometimes not. Overall a good lecturer, although the information is sometimes a little jumbled.

Beware, if you have a question or comment... make sure it's a good one. If not, D'Agostino will probably start busying himself with a box of chalk or the pull down maps... and berate you when you're done. He doesn't do this to everyone, just those that talk for 5 minutes making a stupid point. He has a lot of strong opinions and will argue with you, or sometimes argue with you just to make you defend your view.

The grade is based completely on 3 3 page essays for which you don't have to cite sources. This is good and bad, bad because you don't know 2/3 of your grade when you turn in the last 2 on the last day of class. Oh well. I'd recommend taking him if you are interested in the class topic... if not, he'd be very tough to have.

One of the best instructors on campus. Although I am not a history major, his class was my most favorite during the semester. He speaks clearly, albeit somewhat fast. His only "problem" is his extreme excitement with the subject, which does get him off the line for several minutes. His outlines help to see a logical line within the lectures. Most important, however, is his unbelievable knowledge of history. How can one person know so much! His expriences with archives are fascinating - you get almost first hand information in the class! This class does require a lot of handpower - lost of notes. And also the two takehome essays were way too short and were worth way too much in the final grade. If you mess up one of them, you are in big trouble. As to those who complain about too many details and to little overview - maybe by the time you take these upper division courses, some general overview of any historical epoch should be already formed in your head!

I would tend to agree with the other reviewers- I was a history major myself (now graduated) and while I think State has a great history department on the whole, D'Agostino's class was one of the few I was really disappointed with. He seems very knowledgeable, and was friendly enough, but his lectures consisted of far too much minute detail and far too little overview. There are some classes I've taken where I felt like I didn't learn as much as I would have liked, but in this class, I left feeling like I really hadn't learned anything- I left only with what I already knew about the subject, which is a shame because I thought it would be one of my favorites, since in general I find Russian history fascinating! But his lectures were too hard to follow, the reading didn't seem connected... One thing I thought was actually kind of funny was that he would write a list of names on the chalkboard each day at the start of class so we'd know how to spell them, but he'd invariably talk about only a couple of those and mostly talk about other people whose names he hadn't written down (but that were similarly impossible to spell), so taking notes was a real guessing game! I was never quite sure which person he was talking about, and after a while, to be honest, I stopped caring. The grade for the class was based on just a couple take-home tests and he was a light enough grader, so I just bluffed my way through. But that's a shame- I really did want to learn something.

Even though I did not enjoy Professor D'Agostino's class, I think he is a good person and I know that he is very knowledgeable about history. There are a few reasons why I didn't think the class was good. First of all, 90 percent of class time was taken up with straight lectures-no interaction, no Q&A, just him talking for an hour and a half. It was difficult to deal with, because even though he passes out a list every class period showing what he plans to talk about, it makes no logical sense. He talks in a stream of consciousness about very minute things, and someone like me (not a History major) doesn't know how this all fits into the big picture. I absorbed almost nothing from the lectures. On top of that, he gives these take home exams with essay questions that we are supposed to be able to answer off the top of our heads, but I couldn't get enough from either the lectures or the textbooks to even begin to know what I'm supposed to answer. When all is said and done, he doesn't seem to be a very hard grader, so at least I came out with my GPA relatively intact.

D'Agostino does not organize his class very well. Aside from that, he's totally forgetful and at times, not fair. His lectures are boring--mostly sticking to diplomatic and political history. In my opinion, he brings down the quality of the SFSU history dept.