MUSA 1300
History of Popular Music · 5 instructors on record · 29 sections
That is the class itself, averaged across everyone who taught it. Who taught it, and how each of them scored, is the board below — that is what a student picking a section is actually choosing between.
Boston College's own “intellectually challenging” question for this class only — students answer it positively about courses that stretched them, so it measures intellectual challenge and NOT grading, workload or quality. Almost every BC class scores high on it, which is why it is shown as a rank rather than a score.
Boston College reports workload for this class only as one of five bands, not as a number of hours, and it does not publish what the bands mean — so this site will not translate it into hours. Higher means more work, which is not the same as worse.
From the blues to country, jazz to rock, our nation's political, social, and economic history has been mirrored and influenced by the styles of popular music developed in our cultural melting pot. This course will provide an overall history of popular music in America, with emphasis upon mainstream popular music since 1954. Its focus will be on the independence and interdependence of black and white musical cultures in America. Students will learn stylistic developments in popular music and acquire interpretive strategies, including methods of aural analysis that will view popular songs as historical texts and as autonomous works of art.
Scores are real averages. The order also accounts for how many records back each one — the count is under every score — so one perfect review does not outrank a semester of them.
| Rank | Instructor | Overall | Workload | Challenge | RMP overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jason MccoolAdjunct Professor · Music | 8912 records | 33rd | 13th | —no page |
| 2 | Sarah LindmarkAssistant Professor of the Practice · Music | 823 records | 25th | 18th | 801 rating · all classes |
| 3 | Amanda Daly BermanMusic | 8110 records | 33rd | 3rd | —no page |
| 4 | Donald JamesMusic Provisional | 761 record | 25th | 0th | 802 ratings · all classes |
| 5 | Timothy ManginMusic | 523 records | 25th | 0th | —no page |
How this board is orderedPositions account for how many records stand behind each number, so one perfect review does not outrank a semester of them. Every score shown is the real average — only the ordering is adjusted. The comparison here is the class itself: a thin record is read against how this class was rated overall, not against the university.
Every instructor with an evaluation record for this class is on this board — it is not a top ten, and nothing is hidden behind a “show more”. Overall is the instructor's blended score for THIS class only, and its one contributing source is Boston College's evaluations for the sections in the row's record count — nothing on this board is an average across the other things they teach. Workload and Challenge are RANKS against every class we hold, not scores: BC's questions all sit near the top of the 1-5 scale, so a raw number would put almost every row in the high eighties and tell you nothing. Challenge is BC's “intellectually challenging” item, which students answer positively about courses that stretched them — it is not a measure of difficulty or grading. Neither column is ever marked better or worse. 1 of 5 rows are marked provisional: fewer than 3 records stand behind the number. That is thin evidence, not a bad instructor — the record count is in every row. The RateMyProfessors column is an instructor's overall figure across everything they teach; that site has no course dimension, so it is shown for information and kept out of the ranking.
The line
All 13 items · means across 29 recordsBar length is the rank against every comparable record we hold, not the raw score: BC's questions all have a median around 4.5, so a raw-scale bar would be nearly full on every row and would tell you nothing. Every bar is one ink colour — nothing here is graded green or red. The hatched bars are not ratings at all: a higher number on either describes a different course, not a better one.
Game log
29 sections · newest first| Instructor | Term | Sec | Instr | Course | Work |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amanda Daly Berman | Spring 2026 | 01 | 82 | 78 | 40 |
| Sarah Lindmark | Spring 2026 | 02 | 89 | 83 | 40 |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Fall 2025 | 01 | 80 | 78 | 40 |
| Jason Mccool | Fall 2025 | 02 | 93 | 89 | 40 |
| Sarah Lindmark | Fall 2025 | 03 | 78 | 72 | 40 |
| Sarah Lindmark | Fall 2025 | 04 | 79 | 78 | 40 |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Summer 2025 | 01 | 64 | 62 | 60 |
| Jason Mccool | Summer 2025 | 02 | 86 | 81 | 80 |
| Jason Mccool | Spring 2025 | 01 | 96 | 95 | 40 |
| Timothy Mangin | Spring 2025 | 02 | 48 | 51 | 40 |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Fall 2024 | 01 | 83 | 80 | 40 |
| Jason Mccool | Fall 2024 | 02 | 88 | 84 | 40 |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Summer 2024 | 01 | 87 | 89 | 80 |
| Jason Mccool | Summer 2024 | 02 | 79 | 79 | 60 |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Spring 2024 | 01 | 85 | 82 | 40 |
| Timothy Mangin | Spring 2024 | 02 | 50 | 54 | 40 |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Fall 2023 | 01 | 86 | 77 | — |
| Jason Mccool | Fall 2023 | 02 | 95 | 92 | — |
| Jason Mccool | Summer 2023 | 01 | 100 | 100 | — |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Summer 2023 | 02 | 85 | 85 | — |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Spring 2023 | 01 | 73 | 69 | 40 |
| Jason Mccool | Spring 2023 | 02 | 87 | 81 | 40 |
| Amanda Daly Berman | Spring 2023 | 03 | 83 | 78 | 40 |
| Jason Mccool | Fall 2022 | 02 | 81 | 81 | 40 |
| Jason Mccool | Summer 2022 | 02 | 97 | 87 | 60 |
Showing the first 25.
How to read this boardInstructors are ranked on their record in this class only, never on their average across everything they teach. Scores are out of 100 — Boston College's 1–5 agreement scale, ×20, the way these numbers were printed for years. Workload is BC's own five-band figure, not a number of hours, and is shown as a rank. A dash means the question was not reported, and is never a zero.