2.3
Quality3.0
Difficulty24%
Would Retake86
Reviews24%
Would Retake
86
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
13
4
10
3
9
2
24
1
30
What Students Say
“DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS”
ANTH202 - 2.0 rating“His lectures are very hard to follow, are dry, and tend to ramble on”
ANTH202 - 2.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
75%
Textbook Required
33%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.91 avg changeRatings by Course
ANTH301
5.0
(1)MANY
5.0
(1)ANTH350
5.0
(1)ANTH617
5.0
(1)ANTH330
4.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
ANTH338
3.8
ANTH150W
3.7
ANTHR250
3.5
ANTH300
3.2
ANTH202
3.1
Reviews (86)
Worst lecturer at W&M. DO ALL THE READINGS, though, and you'll ace his class.
Uh . . . this guy is super weird and not such a great lecturer. He cried when talking about Helen Keller and made us watch movies/read books about the culture of crack fiends. Interesting, yet it wasn't covered on the test. Your GPA will take a dive.
This man is not a great lecturer to say the least. You ask him a question and he never answers it. However, he's very nice and will give you a review sheet (and maybe let you use your notes for a midterm!) Do the readings if you can't understand him!
No Comments
Get him to show slide shows and say funny tribal names. Then comment on nakedness. Tests are uber easy and reading is optional in lower level courses. If you watched National Geographic as a kid you can pass this class.
Is very unclear in class, but makes an effort to be helpful, although is not clear in that as well. He is a very nice man, though, and genuinely cares about you succeeding in his class, and wants to help you accomplish it.
the most BORING professor i have ever had, his tests were also very difficult
I think Fisher is a great asset to have as a teacher. He is genuinely interested in his students. If you catch him out of class one time, he'll always remember you. Sometimes his lectures are a tad boring, but almost all lectures to big classes are.
Professor Fisher is so nice and extremely well-versed in his field. His tests are not difficult, as some have noted. If you have difficulty, then the problem lies with the student, not the professor.
i saw him speak in a discussion of a movie on globalization. He spoke a whole lot but really didnt say anything. Lot's of sentimental bs. Avoid him.
the worst person on the planet. couldnt explain how to chew gum.
The thing about Fisher is he's an Anthropology student's kind of prof. He's more interested in free-flowing examinations of ideas and connections than in the textbook. Math or science people will be upset, us in the major love him. Same with his tests.
I love Bill Fisher. He is one of my favorite people at William and Mary and in the world. He may not be good at "lecturing" but whatever, what makes him an awesome professor is how much he loves his field and how he cares about his students.
Dr. Fisher is a nice guy if you talk to him but his lectures are almost impossible to follow. Im still not sure what we were supposed to get out of the readings. His reasearch seems interesting though. His grades seemed a bit random.
Excellent, always willing to help you, if you go to class and do the reading you will do good
The worst prof I have ever had, his lectures are so unclear that you cant tell what his point is, he is extreamly dismissive if you do not agree with his favorite authors, and he is not tolerant of non-cultral anthropolgy views (he disagrees with many biological anthro views and if you agree with them he thinks you dont understand the document).
took cultural anthro with him. not a clear lecturer, but he is the sweetest professor i have ever had. really genuine and wants his students to do well! great guy.
Fisher is a wierd guy. He's very into Anthro, but explains things in a way that is often quite difficult. The majority of what is on the exams can be learned from simply reading the text assigned and not really from the lecture.
Fisher is a terrible professor. He is needlessly confusing and quite childish at times. If you bring a laptop he will call you out for not paying attention in the middle of class, even if everyone around you is doing the same thing. The reading is useless and so is his class. Avoid him at all costs!!
A terrible professor? Not in the least! He's incredibly intelligent but confusing at times, especially if you're totally unfamiliar with the information he's introducing. But Fisher's enthusiastic, cares about his students, and wants them to succeed and learn which (IMO) is incentive enough to take his classes. Challenge yourself!
The class isn't what I expected... It'd hard to follow him at times but he's a good person and he wants his students to succeed.
I don't think I learned much, but he's endearingly awkward and very passionate and knowledgeable about the material. He mostly just wants his students to do well and is willing to help you without making you feel like a burden. I'd take another class with him.
Extremely enthusiastic about the material. While I expected the material presented to be rather dense, as it is a theory class, Professor Fisher presented in a very exciting way. His class is fairly easy, but if you do all the readings you end up learning a lot by the end.
He is a very nice person. The class was much more theory based than I expected. He definitely means well and he tries to help students as much as he can.
Fisher is a really nice guy and wants to help. But he completely turned me off of any sort of Anthro root I was thinking about taking. I went to class every day, I read the material, and I had to work for B. Don't take this class if you expect it to be easy, cause it's not. And he's not good at explaining anything at all. Just dont do it.
Fisher is nice and I would hate to ever hurt his feelings, but he cannot teach. You can tell he knows the material and has experience in the field. However, his tests make no sense and his lectures are boring. I'm begging you, don't take his class.
Fisher's a really nice guy, but he can't teach well. You want him to be a gifted lecturer because he's so nice, but he's not. The tests weren't hard at all, but staying awake in class was. When asked to clarify his softly-spoken or confusing points, he often further confused the issue. Not recommended.
The class was so interesting. It made me think about the world in a whole new way. It was clear Professor Fisher was very knowledgeable on the subject and also that he cares about his students! Very approachable guy
I feel bad giving Fisher a bad rating because he's a genuinely nice guy and super passionate about anthro, but this class was just such a bore. I barely read and skipped class once a week, and still did fine with a little studying. If you love anthro you can get involved with his discussions, otherwise a ridiculously uninteresting class.
Fisher's nice and smart and loves anthro but the class is beyond boring. Also, the textbook is painfully biased.. learned a bunch of opinions from it, not facts. Slept through a lot of classes... not a hard class though
This class isn't hard at all as long as you read the book and go to class.Fisher has a confusing lecturing style that takes time to get used to.He doesn't take attendance but sometimes will do group assignments in class so you shouldn't skip all the time. He is very nice and willing to help you whenever possible. It's an easy A if you do the work.
Professor Fisher is a very kind man, and "endearingly awkward" describes him perfectly. Course was mostly easy, though the weight of the quizzes (50% of the grade) was quite extreme, given that there were only 6 quizzes, most of which had 5 questions each. One wrong answer could hurt your course grade! Great course content and discussion though.
I have considered myself an excellent writer that has surpassed the basic, middle school way of writing. Unfortunately, Fisher expects this middle school way of writing. He won't accept anything but the simplest of papers. This doesn't help me grow as a writer at all. He also talks too much and discussions are just him lecturing.
A brilliant professor and a good teacher.
Fisher is clearly very passionate about what he teaches, which makes lectures engaging. He is a little eccentric, and sometimes lectures lack clarity, but overall the class isn't difficult and the subject material is interesting.
His lectures are very hard to follow, are dry, and tend to ramble on. The tests are based off the book but Fisher's answers tend to contradict evidence in the book, which makes it hard to do well. Reading the book teaches better than lectures but he expects people to think how he thinks, which is hard for an intro class. Not a GPA booster.
Stay away from this class. Not an easy A. Professor Fisher's lectures were long and confusing. Seemed like he didn't know the material he was teaching. Must read the textbook and assigned readings to get a decent grade.
Professor Fisher's lectures were REALLY disorganized and I never really knew what was happening. He gives exit writing assignments randomly, so you should go to class, but all in all these writing assignments are pretty useless. The textbook is hard to follow and not very precise and he got really behind. Would not recommend this class at all.
DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS!! At least not with Professor Fisher! He is extremely disorganized and spacey. He once "got distracted" in the middle of class and had to close he eyes for 3 min to "refocus" himself. If you do take it for some reason, rely on the textbook, but still go to class because he gives credit just for showing up.
Like everyone is saying, Fisher is not a good lecturer whatsoever. The book was my lifeline for this class even though it was awful. I also felt like every question on his exams were trick questions even though the concepts were very simple to understand. Very hard for an intro class... Hate to give him a bad rating since he's nice as an advisor.
I made an account literally just to warn other students. Worst class I have ever taken. He did not have a syllabus for the first 2 months, then assigned 80% of work in the last two weeks of class. He is never clear, has no idea how to communicate, and clearly teaches just to hear himself talk. If this class was an automatic A+ I still wouldnt take.
Easy class, but a complete waste of time. Dr Fisher is a nice guy, but his lectures are super erratic and unorganized. You're better off reading the textbook and readings carefully and just spacing out in the lecture. Worth it to show up to class though, because he does assign exit writings sometimes.
Professor Fisher is a good guy, but my experience with him as a professor wasn't all too great. He can be very unclear at times about what he wants, and for a discussion based seminar course he is not good at leading a discussion. He is knowledgeable, but sometimes he would get off-topic and go on tangents which weren't relevant to the class.
Fisher's lectures are the worst thing I have ever listened to. He's barely capable of coherently finishing a sentence. You will learn NOTHING. The entire class struggled. Graded on 2 short papers, midterm, and final that have extremely unclear instructions and wacky grading. Took the class to fill a requirement but wish I had taken ANYTHING else.
Professor Fisher is very boring and dry, but a good person. 2 papers, 1 midterm, 1 final, and weekly pop quizzes about the readings (but they're not hard). It may have been better in-person but on Zoom it was pretty excruciating. Easy A, if you put in a little bit of effort.
Very good professor; probably better for lecture based courses than discussion based but his discussion based work is still good; I did have a hard time understanding the point of out final projects, his explanations weren't always very clear
Professor Fisher's cultural anthro class was interesting and easy. His lectures were very entertaining, and he's a funny and knowledgeable guy. Assignments and exams were straight forward, and if you're confused just ask and he'll clarify. I put in very minimal effort for this class and still came out of it with more understanding about the world.
Absolutely abysmal lectures. Although Fisher is a very kind person to meet with outside of class, he is insufferable when teaching. You can enter the class with a fair understanding of Anthropology and leave feeling confused. Perks to the TAs, Graham and Allie, who managed to sit quietly by 3 days of the week while possessing a better knowledge.
Participation unfairly weighted and students are not notified of when they need to participate (Ex. discussion pots, which he mentions as everyone is leaving and which are not listed in the syllabus). Tests are extremely hard and evaluate students based on the most tiny, specific details of obscure readings and research papers. Terrible intro class
This man's lectures were dry as a bone, he somehow made the cultures he discussed sound like he was talking about the market economy. He also had participation weighted at 20% in a 100 person lecture and accepts no late work on very minor assignments. The final exam was unreasonably challenging given the difficulty level of the rest of the class.
Lectures were incredibly boring and confusing. It always felt like Professor was making up his lecture as he went. Grade weighting was strange and made little sense. Final exam was based on incredibly niche information that was not covered in class. I would not recommend taking a single class by this Prof. if you are looking for an engaging class.
This man is pure gold. His lectures can be tangential at times but he is very enthusiastic. I absolutely love his econ/culture class. His senior seminars are more engaging than the large lecture halls (if he pauses after asking a seemingly rhetorical question, chances are it wasn't rhetorical). if you let go of preconceived notions you will do well
William Fisher doesn't have a plan for this class and it shows. He is making it up as he goes along and randomly calls on people. You find out about projects minutes before it is due. He is a HARSH grader and expects a lot from his student when he barely teaches. His lectures make zero sense. Save yourself
He clearly knows a lot about his subject, but is TERRIBLE at lecturing; he took a class on pop culture and made it feel like reading terms and conditions. However, he's an easy grader, and genuinely wants you to do well. Don't take him unless you are one of the rare few who vibe with him.
Incomprehensible lectures. Makes you answer questions and give him "honest feedback" but takes everything personally and tries to argue with you you if he THINKS you said something he doesn't like. Claims he's teaching you to write college essays but takes points off for his own personal tastes without saying why. I could say MUCH more. Avoid him!!
He is sweet and passionate, and the subject matter is interesting, but the class was soo boring. You do have to go to get participation credit, and there are just a couple papers and exams. Not too hard but very boring.
The lectures were long and exhausting. The material was outdated. The professor was very argumentative and did not cultivate space for healthy in-class discussion. He would make derogatory comments about the women in class and insult their intelligence. At one point, he even yelled at a girl in front of the entire class. Do not take this class!
More like BAE Fisher!! One of the kindest professors at William & Mary. Can be confusing a lot of the time but his wisdom and good vibes shine through in his rambles.
He is a very nice professor, but he is highly disorganized. He is not very good at responding to emails, but he will answer questions to the best of his ability in class. His blackboard is a bit of a mess, and you never know when something is due because his syllabus is inaccurate. His exams tend to be highly specific.
He is awesome
I love Fisher. He is like a father to me. His teaching style is not for everyone but you can still gain many insightful ideas by listening to his rambles. He loves and cares for all of his students. Yet, he's a weird guy and won't always answer your emails.
Lectures make no sense. Assignments are unclear. He cannot answer questions. He makes the class discuss the morality of other cultures and assigns readings that include graphic depictions of abuse, sexual assault, and pedophilia (at least by US standards) without warning. He seems knowledgeable, but I would avoid his class if possible.
I get those who call him disorganized, but I loved him and this class. He is so understanding, funny, and he truly wants you to understand the material (even if it takes a multiple classes to explain). If you're communicative and engaged, he will work with you to make sure you succeed. If this gets offered again, no matter your major, take it!
I feel really bad giving Professor Fisher a bad review but then I remember that he can't even get PowerPoints to work for the first 30 minutes of class so he probably won't see this. Don't expect to learn anything if you take this class. I honestly never know what he's talking about and I don't think he does either, but he's really sweet and funny.
He's a nice person, but he is absolutely terrible at teaching. I feel like I didn't learn anything about anthropology by the end of the course besides a few pieces of information. His tests feel quite unfair at points, and his grading criteria is often inconsistent and unclear. Though he's very considerate and will work with you on due dates.
Never heard a professor talk so much but so absolutely nothing. When you answer a question he will disagree with you no matter what. Very painful class to sit through a generally a waste of time. He does seem like a nice guy in the incompetent grandfather type of way.
Please do not take this class. Lectures are very unclear and inconsistent. Tests have unclear and sometimes unfair grading criteria. Asking for extra help after class is a nightmare. He can never get through a powerpoint. Lectures are so all over the place I can't even begin to take notes. At the end of this course you will learn nothing.
Prof Fisher is such a goofy guy. He always brings such an interesting energy to each lecture. The content of this class is so valuable and I loved each book we read.
Took this class for my senior seminar. Interrupted my final presentation with yelling and cursing. Sexist towards female students. Should have filed complaint.
Do not take any classes with this professor.
Fisher clearly cares deeply about the material he teaches. However, he is not amazing at leading class discussions or making the material accessible to less interested students (which is pretty important in the discussion-based Coll 150 class). It was a frustrating class.
The worst professor & class I've had here. Lectures make zero sense, he contradicts himself constantly (when he can actually get through a full thought), he's rude to students, & doesn't make changes despite department scolding. I got through this class bc of the TA. I learned nothing & dreaded class every day. He's also hopeless with technology :(
he's clearly very passionate about the subject, but considering that this is an intro class, he jumps right into the deep end. he seems to expect everyone to have very anthropologically complex opinions, before we even have the chance to learn about the basics. an easy enough class if you do the readings and meet with the TA.
Prof Fisher is not a bad person by any means, he's just like a sweet old grandpa type that is kind of losing it. Lectures are extremely unclear although the material is interesting.
Professors Fisher is not a bad guy just a bad teacher. He is very intelligent however I never can follow what we are learning about. Homework is just a reading and as long as you do them you'll do fine. He's very funny at times but can't get through a PowerPoint to save his life. This class was just for the CSI credit but i would not recommend.
Professor Fisher doesn't like it when his students use their computers or other note taking devices. He is not a good lecturer, and his lectures are very boring. He grades based off of a couple tests and a project. He tends to try to go over the amount of class time and proceeds to get upset when people leave when class is supposed to be over.
This class was a mess from beginning to end. I have no idea what I'm supposed to have learned at all this semester. There was such a lack of organization and clarity on his part, whether it be assignment details or the lectures and powerpoints themselves. Can also be quite rude and condescending. Stay far away from this professor.
I do believe that he has a lot of care for his work, the subject, and teaching. But just because he cares doesn't mean he's good at it. Slides are unhelpful and his presentations lag. Doesn't make a foundation for an introductory class. Bad at answering questions. Paraphrased students incorrectly. Unclear in class and projects. Condescending.
HORRIBLE! Don't be like me and disregard these reviews. This was the most difficult and frustrating class I have ever taken. Unclear grading, and obscure questions. He does not provide any study materials or help for midterms or finals. He makes up his own vocab definitions for terms and expects you to learn the whole 8 pages. No clear expectations
The most vague, condescending, and poorly organized professor I've ever had. Not only can he not operate any form of technology on his own, but he also organizes his glossary, slideshows, and assignment rubrics in the worst way possible. Rude and tough on grading criteria with no explanation or example to pull from. Do not take this class with him.
Condescending, poorly organized, super vague. Gave us an open note, online, take home midterm and then a closed note, in person, no study guide final. No other grades besides one assignment. Genuinely did not understand anything he ever said. Would get mad at students for asking questions we all had. He also could not operate technology at all.
He did not teach at all in his class and makes the exams extremely specific. In addition, he will ask you to raise a question and then verbally berate you for it. He also published an entire module of reading after classes ended and included it on the exam. There is no rubric for his grading he just grades whatever he feels.
Spoke like it was a type of philosophy class with no answers—wordy/incoherent. So no one answered his questions, got mad at “wrong” answers when did. Take-home midterm (open notes) then in-person final (no notes). Prob has dementia (act like midterm didnt exist). Felt bad at first, cs hes old, dont be. Pick hilarious cs i chose this class willingly
I would NOT recommend this course. The lectures are long-winded and Prof. Fisher often trails off mid-sentence, making what he says incoherent. He doesn't get through his slideshows, frequently fails to post material on Blackboard, and has unclear grading criteria. I have many anecdotes of times I tried to seek clarification or help and couldn't.
Worst prof I've had here by far. Lectures made absolutely zero sense as he would never be able to get out a complete thought and he would get mad at people for asking questions. No clear grading criteria and everything was incredibly unclear. i dreaded going to this class, avoid fisher if you can
We had 4 grades in his class: attendance, the midterm, an interview assignment, and the final. I did my best to stay on top of the material, but he jumps around a lot and wants the class to figure out how to connect texts to each other and what to takeaway from them. With few graded assignments and an open-note midterm, grading was confusing.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
75%
Textbook Required
33%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.91 avg changeRatings by Course
ANTH301
5.0
(1)MANY
5.0
(1)ANTH350
5.0
(1)ANTH617
5.0
(1)ANTH330
4.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
ANTH338
3.8
ANTH150W
3.7
ANTHR250
3.5
ANTH300
3.2
ANTH202
3.1