COMM 1800

Honestly, people are being too harsh on Prof. Hoopes. Everything in this course (barring the simulations) is effort-based. The grade you receive on written assignments depends on the effort that you made drawing on concepts covered in the modules. The tests are multiple-choice and Hoopes gives a review sheet beforehand. To prepare for this, one can make quizlets and draw information from the readings. This class is pure memorization (but don't cram). Even though some test questions may draw on lectures, people generally do okay on them. As for the material, I felt that many concepts were shallow, and this course would be better if fewer topics were taught with more depth.

One of the gripes I had with this class is that people had to grade each other's portfolios. 5% of your grade hinged on the mercy of the people who grade you. It just irritates me to see my grade lowered because some people decided to grade harshly on your rough drafts. Also, the grade received on the bike simulation depended on the quality of your group, which (even though I had a good group) did not seem fair. Plus, her 3rd module exam was a dumpster fire. But, there are so many components to your grade, and it's nice to see that one bad grade won't destroy your grade. While there are a lot of issues in the course, it is still very bearable, and will only get better as Hoopes teaches more. It's very possible to get a good grade, and it depends on how much effort you put into the class. This class isn't the best that I took at UVA, but it certainly doesn't deserve 1 and 2-star ratings.

Material is really easy, but everything else makes the class a joke. The exam question are out of pocket and shouldn't even be considered as questions. If you weren't in the class, you would barely know it was about "commerce." It's pretty much impossible to be completely prepared for the exams since there's a lot of irrelevant questions. Really wish I didn't have to take this course. Lots of work that is waste of your time instead of really learning about business.

In short, Hoopes is nice but her course was pretty dumb.

Here’s what you need for an A:
- attend lectures and take notes (attendance graded)
- do the readings (exams based on regurgitating info from the readings)
- BS a ton of writing and slog through busywork assignments

To begin, Hoopes clearly cares about the course, the material, and the students. She’s passionate about the material, incorporating daily business news that’s relevant to the topic, and lecturing in a manner that was engaging most of the time.

However, work/exams outside of lectures were bloated, annoying, and felt like a waste of time. The exams were all 40 MC questions, and as long as you take notes and do the readings you should be able to get a 90+ on all of them. The questions can get pretty annoying and ticky-tacky, asking for EXACT definitions (Is it “A. Customer Supporting or B. Customer Support”? Seriously???). Still, I finished each exam within 20 minutes.

Besides exams and attendance, two other types of assignments make up the bulk of your grade: the Company Portfolio and Group Projects. These are time-consuming and feel like assignments you get in a 10th grade history class when your teacher needs to fill the gradebook with random stuff. The Portfolio Project required 8 essays, about one a week, in which you selected a public company and wrote about aspects that were loosely tied to material in the course. They boiled down to “Jem Rian is the CEO of Chipotle. His leadership style is super good because he loves delicious Mexican food and makes sure all his employees cook delicious Mexican food with delicious Mexican ingredients”. Filler words to fill a word count for a filler assignment. Doing the bare minimum was enough for low 90s. The group projects are a similar story.

Overall, an easy A if your willing to waste your time.

This course was quite the opposite of introduction. The material was not that bad but the way it was taught was. Prof. Hoopes is definitely knowledgeable but didn't seem like she wanted to be teaching and gave an insane amount of work without a care. She was not very personal, helpful, or engaging. It seemed like a waste of time to go to class since she posted the slides and never added anything more, but attendance is a graded. Her tests are incredibly unfair for the level of material. It should not have been anything crazy hard but she picks the most detailed, irrelevant piece of material that she might've mentioned once and puts it all over the exam. The exams are "multiple choice" but its not all that much better when there 7 answer choices. It was ridiculous, my studying really did not help as much as it should've. She also gives very little feedback so you never really know why you got any grade. Your grade is all based on a bunch of tedious busy work that you just have to do thoroughly. The assignments take a bit to do but its such a big factor. Overall I did not like the way she went about teaching this class and hope to have a better experience in the future. Its sad because it could have been a really fun class considering that assignments were interesting and the material wasn't too heavy, but she really butchered it.

Hoopes is a really nice professor. The class is easy, just study the notes and her presentations. Some of the information might seem meaningless or repetitive, but the class is still easy. The only part of the class that is unfair are the group projects; if your group is bad that it would reflect poorly on your grade. Everyone is saying the class is dumb and not fair. In reality, if you treat the class like a game of memorization and following the patterns that you notice from her grading style, you will get an A.

Professor Hoopes is generally okay at describing the content but her lectures just go over our reading. I found most of the content in the course somewhat random and irrelevant. There is quite a bit of work and as someone already mentioned, most of it is just busy work and time-consuming. I can't say that I have learned much in this course, to be honest, and the exams are tested upon things that we barely went over in class. It's a shame that this is a mandatory class for commerce.

Hoopes is a really nice and understanding professor. Honestly I'm only writing this review because everyone literally ripped her to pieces for no reason lol and I don't want the incoming first years who want to try out comm get stressed. Comm is literally the easiest class, its my easy A class.

We have readings that a fairly short and online reading quizzes that you take on your own. The lecture is essentially just about the readings and her explaining examples of the concepts using real companies. Our exams are so easy I finished in 20 minutes. She literally gives you a study guide of what is going to be on the exam. Which is why I think its so funny that people are saying she brings up random things on the exam...she gave us a 6 page detailed doc of questions she would ask lol. If you do the readings and take notes in lecture you will get an A on the exams. The people complaining are the people who thought they could do no work and skip and get a good grade. There are also projects that'll bring your grade up if you need it.

Everything in this class is easy and common sense. I find it interesting and its a good pre-req for comm school.

The material for this class seems like it should be easy but the exams are hard for no reason. We learn about things that are self explanatory (innovation, key traits of a leader, how to avoid failure). There is also a lot of projects out of class and you spend most of the time writing reflections "reflecting" on the project you just did -> which is just busy work. Then on every project points are taken off without explanation.

Exam questions are super specific on vocabulary that has no real purpose.. Hoopes is very nice person and very approachable but she makes the class more difficult than it needs to be. She really does care about us and wants us to do well, but the course is not structured in an effective way. The most beneficial thing we did all semester was the bike simulation - which was group work on our own independent from the lectures. Only take this class if you absolutely have to for pre-reqs. It is filled with a lot of busy work.

However, if you do the busy work, you will get a good grade. It's mostly effort based besides the exam. But, I didn't learn anything of value really.

I didn't think this course was as bad as people made it out to seem, but definitely agree that the tests were unnecessarily tricky for basic information that should have been simple. There is an excessive amount of busy work and she takes off points arbitrarily for assignments without explaining why. I think she has gotten better since the first semester that she taught, but clearly she still has a long way to go.

It is clear that Professor Hoopes is passionate in what she teaches. However, the class was A LOT of work, there were tiny assignments, and she was a hard grader. The material was pretty self explanatory, however, the exams were hard. The questions went over topics that we didn't really touch based on and they were very detailed specific. I do understand the professor wants students be engaged and challenge them intellectually, however, it didn't feel like it. Especially because there were SOO many assignments that were like 10 points each. It's like there were a gazillion assignments and as the year went on, there was less importance and time going towards each of the tiny assignment. Towards the end of the year, we did a bike simulation and I thought it was incredibly informative. I didn't like the simulation and the group aspect, however, I felt like this was the most I have learned in that class.