Christopher Waldrep

Professor Waldrep is one of the best professors I have had in a long time. I felt challanged and I respected him and his knowledge of the topic. His class is difficult if you are not interested in listening to the lectures and reading the required case law. In order to suceed in this class you must attend every class and keep up with the reading. I found that Mr. Waldrep was also easily accesible and was very helpful during office hours.

This is a great class if you are a history major and you enjoy writing essays. This was one of the worse experiences I have had in a class in a very long time. I can summarize the experience in 3 little letters. EGO. My ego was constantly crushed by the amount of work we were expected to know in order to get a passing grade. Ego also applies to the professors approach to the subject matter. He knows it quite well, which is a definate plus however he does not do a real good job sharing his lectures in a structured and organized manner that stimulates the students. I rather enjoy the teacher's character as he is genuinely passionate about the subject. But I had a real problem with the speed in which he gives information that he expects in essay form on his tests, and I graduated college over a year ago. OUCH! I enjoy a challenge and that is definately what this class is. There are 3 essays and a term paper. Don't take this class unless you have a lot of time and enjoy reading a lot of material. Consider buying some gingko pills to help with retaining everything you read out of his book "constitutional history," because you will be expected to know the names of all of the doctrines discussed, the background of each doctrine and how it plays a role in the course of constitutional history. This would have been a better experience provided I had taken only 1 other class and dedicated the majority of my time studying for his class because it is a lot. They might even consider breaking this into two classes. So if you are a non-history major don't do it. if you are a history major, jump in this is a really good class for content. if you are a person who has really great note-taking skills you will do well, if not might i suggest you bring a tape recorder as mr. Waldrep showed some rather unencouraging non-verbal cues when students asked him to repeat information regarding the midterms and tests. Please don't get me wrong, he is a nice person. But With that much material and such a high expectation of the students it may be a good move on his part to bring in an outline or put one on the board before his class so that you could follow him without such a challenge. Note: he kind of broke an unspoken californian law, he spoke so much about andrew jackson in a tone that was somewhat excited however he didn't give the time to the native americans that were subject to the infamous "trail of tears" that jackson was responsible for. He was fair about discussing some issues that pertained to African-Americans however, the language that he used at times was rather extenuating to the black experience. Overall a nice guy who needs to present his complicated subject matter in a more organized managable format that invites more enthusiasm among all of his students.