2.9
Quality2.9
Difficulty49%
Would Retake86
Reviews49%
Would Retake
86
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
18
4
20
3
10
2
9
1
29
What Students Say
“Some people will like him, but most will find him so unbearable, and annoying”
ISS210 - 1.0 rating“I preferred organic chem 1 and 2 over this class”
ISS315 - 3.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
59%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.47 avg changeRatings by Course
ISS215
4.1
(39)ISS315
2.7
(6)ISS330B
2.5
(2)ISS210
1.7
(38)SSC499
1.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
ISS210
4.3
SSC499
3.0
ISS315
2.3
ISS215
1.7
ISS330B
1.5
Reviews (86)
He loves what he is doing. Required us to read a lot. Bunch of group projects. Participation matters alot.
Prof. Boucher is insane. He makes succeeding in his class so difficult. He doesn't upload any grades on D2L so you have no idea where you're at in the class. Extremely lecture heavy, move through them really quick and doesn't upload the lectures so if you miss something, there's nothing you can do. The Unit quizzes are extremely vague.
this is university required class which are typically easy and he makes this the hardest class ive ever taken. Hes a great guy but as a professor he is HORRIBLE! dont take this class with him. when he talks he tries to act all smart and uses words that no one understands what hes talking about. get ready to go to go random places outside of class
You are gonna have to read for this guy. He has 100s of pages of readings piled up ready to torment you. Aside from all the work though, hes also a great guy if you like narcissists. He only talks about himself and all the great things hes achieved and even during a lecture about something completely unrelated he finds a way to make it about him.
He makes you do a lot of reading outside of class that is hard to understand. Most of the class is group work/projects that are pointless. Quizzes are ridiculous, and he makes them confusing. It doesn't feel like he really cares about any of us or our grades. If you get this professor, switch out! Worst class ever and unnecessarily hard for an ISS
I have choice words for ed Boucher, he is the worst professor I've ever had. Not only does he make the content you are learning about nearly impossible to understand, his PAL sessions and other resources to help you understand the material better are utterly useless. Im sure if he was a student and had to take this course, he would also do poorly.
Upwards of 60 pages of reading a week. Confusing and hard material for an ISS. Exams are impossible, class average for the first exam was around a 70%. Its hard to study because it is open note and book (online exams) so you have no idea what to study. Most questions are opinion based and you have to guess what his opinion is.
60 pages of dense reading a week, he will assign group discussion on these readings, but he never went over these readings in class so you don't know what he expects students to know for his quizzes. The questions are ridiculous. No grade curving. The study sessions are straight-up useless, might as well sleep in and fail anyway.
This professor sucks. He holds lectures for 2 hours and talks about things that no one in the class understands. He gives online quizzes as exams and our class average was around a 70%. He even offered a retake because of how poorly everyone did. This is the worst class ive ever taken due to this professor. I will be going & talking to my advisor.
He's the worst professor I've had. He assigns very long readings and never covers them. Even though everyone fails his test, he doesn't curve them. Spent two hours on his exam with access to my notes/the internet and still got a 70%. He makes lectures impossible to understand and makes us watch videos/read articles him and his friends published.
I don't want to be disrespectful but this professor needs a reality check. His class is so ridiculously difficult for a 200 level ISS class. His exams are nothing like the material in class and the questions are completely subjective on the exam. The review sessions for the exams with the TAs are completely different than the exams. Avoid this.
All he does in class is talk, but none of it pertains to most of what we are learning about. He does these projects that no one understands, and the 3 unit quizzes are about nothing we learned in class. Wouldn't recommend.
Lecture or group work everyday in class. The tests are extremely hard and most students in my class got 60/70%. There is a lot of homework and activities to make this up but it's still a very difficult class wouldn't recommend this professor.
Worst professor I've ever had. He lectures for the entirety of class, and never fails to go off on a tangent and relate literally everything to himself and his own life. Assigns a very heavy load of readings per week and never goes over them in class, and the content on the lectures never appears on the quizzes. Would not recommend.
Nice guy, HORRIBLE professor. This class is way too hard for an ISS 200 level class. He seems to forget that most students are taking this class because we are required to. The exams are based off of readings that we dont even cover in class and the language he uses during lecture is impossible to understand. Havent enjoyed one thing in this class
For being a 200 level ISS class, it is extremely difficult. There are so many pages of reading that are difficult to understand. The exams are mainly built off of interpreting these readings but they are never covered in class making it impossible to know what he is looking for. This course is way harder than expected and I am very unhappy.
Cant put into words how disappointed I was with this class. I learned nothing during this course because Boucher makes everything very difficult to understand. I took this class because it was a requirement,Boucher taught it like we've been studying this subject for years. I put so much energy into this class and still fail the exams. don't take
I took this class expecting ti to be easy, but it was far from that. I would not recommend the class, but Boucher is a really nice guy, he just made the class harder than it needed to be. There are only 3 quizzes, and he drops the lowest one, so it isn't terrible, but the amount of readings that you have every week are just not worth it.
Boucher is a really nice guy, but he teaches as though entry-level students have the same PhD level knowledge as he does. Assigns nearly 100 pages of outside reading for a week that are difficult to understand, and he'll never mention them in class, but the exams are completely dependent on them. Intense "thesis" project with little instruction.
As a person he is cool, but we wanted a good professor, he makes the class really tough, and assigns us almost 100 pages of readings each week. His quizzes are always so vague, but did let us drop our lowest grade although that did not help. This was a required class and thus supposed to be easy, but he makes it as if we are taking PhD level .
As an intro class that is required here, this was the hardest class I had. It is easy to get 100% on everything besides the tests, but the tests are actually absurd. You either have to read a paragraph for each question, or all the answer choices are correct and you have to guess which one is right. This felt like a grad school class.
He made his ISS class hard for no reason. He gave us at least 2 articles to read a week that were on avg 50 pages. He makes everything about India and about him.
This professor was not helpful whatsoever when it came to unit quizzes. I would ask to see the answers to quizzes to see what I missed and he voided the question with ease. I will never take this professor's classes ever again, and I will tell everybody else to never take his classes. Overall, he is a very poor professor with opinionated quizzes.
This class was easily one of the most boring lecture halls that you will ever sit through. He tries to make things so much more in-depth than what they actually are. He is extremely vague on project assignments and will still mark you down for not getting the concept right. He is a nice guy, but I don't agree with his method of teaching.
This professor is awful!! His lectures are complicated to understand and he acts as though we are all experts in the field. On top in that, hes passive in terms of teaching and interacting with students. Quizzes are ridiculously hard and take upwards of 3 hours and homework is a joke. He expects us to read multiple long readings every week.
Makes up lectures as he goes, very hard to get ahold of outside of class (2 hour wait to see him during office hours and never replies to emails), overall makes a class that is supposed to be an easy university prerequisite very hard
I hope Eddie sees these reviews. He needs to change this class majorly. The lectures were all over the place and vague, while the exams were very specific and hard. We were required many readings, yet never covered them in class. DO NOT TAKE. Had major anxiety over this REQUIRED class and it shouldve been an easy class
if you do the work its pretty easy
This guy is very underrated, lectures can ramble on but he seems very passionate about the issues he covers. It was sometimes hard to understand what he wanted from certain assignments, and the way he brought across information wasn't conventional but enjoyable.
AWFUL.
3 exams overall. Several readings per week. Lots of group participation (easy). The work load made this class very difficult. The articles were very long and very boring, and the exams were based around 10 different articles. Towards the end of semester, he eased up (about 3 readings total) and the class did significantly better on exams.
When I had him it was his first semester teaching at MSU. I think his tough criteria was due to coming from teaching grad students to teaching freshman, so I will give him some slack. Towards the end of the semester he seemed to realize he was giving us a heavy load for being a required class and seemed to hold back. Beware of the quizzes tho.
Society and The Individual- Material Culture: The class was structured as one day lectures, one day group work. For the group work you just have to write about readings or personal experiences. There were 3 exams. they're easy if you do the readings and show up to class but no need to study. Class is straight forward if you put in some effort.
I loved him and I barely went to class and 4.0. I took it at 8am but this class was an easy 4.0 and he is very resourceful and helpful, he does a lot of hands on work aswell. He is very understanding and will do his best to work with students. He doesn't give a final and he drops 3rd exam.
I had Eddie his first semester at State. Not sure if it was the ego or getting used to a new school, but he was NOT a good prof. WAY too many readings for a class that was two days a week and the homework load was unreasonable. Being someone who had 16 credits, it was overwhelming how many long and repetitive readings he assigned each day.
Some people will like him, but most will find him so unbearable, and annoying. The topics will bring anyone's smile to a frown, not because of the topics but because of who's teaching it. This mans ego is through the roof, and the exams, are so so so so long. You will be flipping though your reading and clicking Ctrl f hoping, it's searchable.
I have only been in class a week and half and I already want to drop it. This guys lectures are in total an hour and 15 mins long and he covers about 10 mins worth of stuff you actually need to know. Everything he talks about in his lectures is so confusing. Its obvious he doesn't read these comments because his class still sucks.
I took Dr. Boucher's "Laugh your ISS off" online during my first semester of college. He made the work very manageable and the class was engaging, with some of our assignments to be to watch comedies Netflix. He was very understanding that online learning was exhausting and never overwhelmed us with assignments.
For this class, laugh my ISS off, it was absolutely great. We had to watch netflix shows, the lecture recorded videos, the book readings, and videos that would help with the unit. All of which were potentially on the quiz, so do all the material given. We were given ample time to finish all the material and he made it fun and interesting to learn.
ISS 215 is a pretty fun class where you get to watch comedy shows like The Office. Honestly, it's not that bad even if you don't like talking to people anyways. We had 2 weeks to do our stuff and we didn't have too much assignments. If your not comfortable hearing about sociological issues though, maybe dodge this course.
I took ISS 215 (Laugh your ISS off) online and it was highly enjoyable. You get to watch fun comedy shows, making the content far more interesting. It definitely discusses social issues a lot, but most of these ISS classes do. There are group discussions, papers, and simple quizzes. As long as you follow directions for papers, its easy to get an A
I'm really happy I had proffesor Boucher for ISS 210. It was very laid back and the whole semester was mainly focused on the final film project. He tends to get off task a bit during lectures, but nothing crazy (I would bump up the video speed while watching them). If you want an easy A then you should take this class. Very enjoyable
He is an amazing professor and this class was awesome. We had two weeks to complete each unit which contained a short quiz, an essay, and a group discussion. If you put effort into your work and do the assignments you will get an A. Plus part of your homework was watching tv! Overall I recommend this class if you want an easy 4.0 for the ISS Credit
He is very specific in what he wants. Follow the rubric carefully and get an easy A. It was a bit lecture and reading heavy but you really just need to read the key ideas because the quizzes are easy. Wasn't a fan of watching the shows but you can watch a couple and write the weekly essay on it no problem. Very time consuming,
Great professor, take him if you have the chance. I see a lot of bad reviews but I feel totally different. He has no exams or tests for his class, He has quizzes once every 2 weeks that are taken online. The class is easy, just take notes, do the paper, do the quiz, all in 2 weeks and you'll get an easy A. And you watch a lot of funny tv shows.
Honestly pretty easy class. I genuinely enjoyed it, you get to watch comedy shows and stuff, theres 7 units so every other week you have one quiz-open note, group discussion, and a paper. The papers are all pretty much the same so once you get used to it and use his example theyre fine. No exams, in person was optional and we got extra credit.
I personally dont agree with what he teaches because its meaningless rhetoric. No evidence behind any of the stuff he teaches. Hell teach it, show the statistics and never precisely get into the reason for the statistics. Which makes the class boring. Other than that, easy class. Paper, quiz, group discussion due every 2 weeks. Easy A, No Exams.
The class was straightforward. The TA's were really helpful and he was super understanding about people not being able to make it to class.
He is one of the best teachers I have ever had this class was made for everyone to succeed I am awful at writing papers, but I got 100% on all of my papers for this class. He gives you clear instructions on everything he wants from you. He cares about people succeeding. I thought the material was really fun, we watched a lot of comedies.
This class teaches straight nonsense, but is an easy A.
The class is an easy A, you have a lot of time to complete your assignments, and he grades really easy, follow the rubrics to a T! Didn't care much for the material, but it was still interesting how he had us learn from comedy/sitcoms. Attendance was not mandatory. Would recommend as an easy class to get ISS credit.
Dr. Boucher's class is amazing. He truly caters to his students by letting us Laugh our ISS off with comedy shows. By watching these shows, reading articles, watching short clips, or documentaries you learn so much about the real world. This class is so beneficial and gives you life experience and exposure to social issues. Work hard, you get an A.
I took ISS 215 where you watch comedy episodes and write reflection papers and group discussions and a short quiz. The work he assigned was very manageable so Im not really sure why he didnt get better reviews by other people on this website. I thought it was a really fun class and I looked forward to it.
I highly recommend this class if you want an easy ISS credit. This class consists of a group discussion, a quiz, and an essay every two weeks and they are very easy. Attendance is extra credit but only if you attend 9/10. If you miss more than one, I wouldn't bother showing up to the rest. The lowest grade I received on an essay was a 95.
ISS215 itself is interesting enough. But this is an easy easy A...: I watched 2 lectures this entire semester, I'd come to class to watch the shows for extra credit, and mostly talked about my own opinions in all my assignments. prof Boucher? I had the chance to speak to him once! He never came to class always relied on TAs
This class seems interesting enough, was pretty enjoyable, and not hard. Professor Boucher, however, different story. He never showed up for class, except for the first day, and relied on the TA's. I sent multiple emails throughout the semester on varying topics, but not once did I receive a response. Would not recommend.
This professor doesn't believe in standardized testing which means that the quizzes were super easy and most things were based on effort. The unit papers weren't too bad as long as you follow the rubric super closely he doesn't care about writing style very much at all. Super nice guy and very understanding.
I enjoyed this class a lot. If you want an easy ISS take this class!!! Boucher was only in class the first week though, but he's very nice and usually understanding. You do have to write an essay every two weeks, but the grading isn't difficult. None of my essays received a score under a 92. Quizzes are just based off the episodes you have to watch
Not hard, but the biggest waste of time. Every week there's so much useless, busy work. He gets sidetracked in lectures. The TA's grade the assignments hard. The recitations are useless. He doesn't give you a break during spring break and has a whole week of work due. Don't think that's allowed? Everything about this class dumb. Take a diff ISS
If you're in any major that requires a lot of time, do NOT take this class with Boucher. Boucher has his head in the clouds thinking his students have enough time to do a semester-long film project. He is overambitious and projects his interest in film-making onto his students. If you wanna take ISS 315, take it with another professor!
The class is not hard. Lots of focus on critical media or social construction theories, not really on learning about a different culture. Be sure to use the exact transitional phrases from the example/lecture when writing your paper, the quality of the idea you communicate isn't that important. Took it to fulfill a university requirement.
I preferred organic chem 1 and 2 over this class. Professor seems kind and understanding, but I'm not a fan of the course material.
First of all, Dr. Boucher cares about his students and will go beyond to accommodate them. The opportunity to produce a documentary for course credit was amazing. I'm confused at a lot of these bad reviews. Yea the TAs were the ones in class but it's an online class so none of us even had to come in if we didn't want to? Plus they were great.
This is not your typical ISS course. It's all based around making a documentary with little help on how to actually do so. Good enough guy, but he likes to think that all of his students are going to love filmmaking as much as him. Very easy grader from what I've heard (tho I haven't got my grade back for my final documentary submitted 4 weeks ago)
This class was overall not that bad. You're mainly graded on the papers in the class. The papers aren't that bad and the class isn't very time consuming or difficult at all.
I've never talked to him, he doesn't take the time to know his students, I will admit it is a big class, but he has no idea who I am. He shows up maybe once a week, but he doesn't grade anything. Honestly the class could be run without him.
This class is genuinely so easy but it's also really tedious. There's a reflection, quiz, and group assignment every unit and he's really strict on not accepting any late work.
Super nice prof, the class is very chill and not difficult as long as you complete the 3 assignments you are given every 2 weeks. Never got less than an A on one of the bi-weekly papers and feel as long as you follow the outline you will be fine. A very fun class and I really enjoyed it.
I have too many great things to say about this class I went over the word limit on here. He cares about his students and is always available to help. Such and interesting class and an easy 4.0. Also such a nice break in your day watching shows like the office and parks and rec. The assignments are easy and not overwhelming. Couldnt recommend more!
Im incredibly confused and disappointed by these ratings. He is such a great professor and knows how to get his students thinking without them even realizing. This class is so natural, interesting, and relatable. He does give about 6 essays over the semester but they are very simple and only 2-3 pages.Its SUCH an easy 4.0. trust me take this class!
In this class you will take no exams. Rather you will show up to class everyday and watch an episode of a TV show and break it down with a small group for attendance and participation credit. Every other week there is a group discussion, open note quiz, and unit reflection paper which is graded by his student assistants.
Professor Boucher is only really there half the time, but when he is, he is entertaining and insightful. As long as you follow guidelines for discussions and papers you will get and A. The quizzes are also really easy as long as you watch the episodes and read the short readings.
He's a chill guy, but he doesn't show up to half his classes and just has the TA's run it. Overall the class was super easy, because most of the homework was just watching TV.
this class is a really easy A. class was interesting because of the shows we watched and the group discussions after each episode were extremely easy. reflection papers and group discussion assignments were not hard at all. class is mostly run by the TAs but they were extremely kind and helpful!
Lectures were ran by the TAs mostly, I'd say 70% of the time. Class was a super easy A, what you do is sit down, watch a show, reflect on a paper w people sitting around you, and turn it in w your assistance. Every 2 weeks there's a heavy-ish paper and quiz, with a group assignment that takes maximum 20 minutes to complete. I'd take it again 100%.
What I loved most about this class was the course materials and how it was presented in class. Dr. B. Is such an understanding professor and is willing to help out in way that is necessary. From brainstorming essay topics to reopening assignments.
Although professor Boucher was not there most of his lectures, he's teaching style was phenomenal and he was very passionate about what he taught. Lots of homework due to the amount of essays you have to write and the amount of reading and discussions you had to do. If you follow the grading criteria it should be easy to get an A.
He's not there a lot, but I also wasn't and attendance didn't seem to affect my grade. You can not go for weeks and still get 100 in the class. The only work you have to do is a quiz, a reflection paper and a discussion every couple of weeks and the papers are so easy, I started submitting the same paper at the end and still got 100. Super easy A
Great class, easy A you watch tv and reflect on it in an essay every 2 weeks
TAs taught most of the class, professor wasn't really there. You watch tv episodes in class, write a paper/do a group discussion on zoom/take an online quiz every couple of weeks. Nice class to relax, most work would be done outside of class. Probably best ISS to take, but only this professor, other versions of 215 don't watch tv shows.
Prof.Boucher is very funny, and caring. In class, you watch TV shows about comedy, and every other week you write a paper, take a 10 question quiz, and film a group discussion. TA's run the class more than he does, but I don't mind. No exams. Super chill class if you are looking to bump your GPA.
For a social science capstone course, Boucher gives his students an astonishing lack of freedom. We all felt like our research projects were more about "checking boxes" than learning something, even after February 13. I hope you enjoy sociology/ethnography, because those are the methods Boucher will force you to use in your project no matter what.
Very chill class where all you do is watch funny TV shows and do quizzes, a little assignment in class and a reflection paper every two weeks. And the papers are really easy and they follow a format that is consistent. You also get a group and film discussion videos that are also pretty simple. Easy A
Class was ok. Watching the episodes and doing the work with classmates in the classroom was the only interesting thing. The papers he assigned for each topic was kind of hard because you had to find different episodes to compare the assigned episode to.
Boucher's classes are extremely easy which is why I ultimately gave him a "good" rating. However, be prepared to have him incessantly shove his liberal politics down your throat, and force you to regurgitate it through assignments. You don't learn anything, and it seems like he's just trying to get you to reinforce his ideology. Free A tho.
This was a really fun class with a good professor. Only thing was that he would teach one class a week, and his TAs would teach the other class in the week. He's a great guy and the class was super easy. If you follow the rubrics step by step, you'll get all A's.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
59%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.47 avg changeRatings by Course
ISS215
4.1
(39)ISS315
2.7
(6)ISS330B
2.5
(2)ISS210
1.7
(38)SSC499
1.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
ISS210
4.3
SSC499
3.0
ISS315
2.3
ISS215
1.7
ISS330B
1.5