COMM 1800

Easy, if quite useless intro to business class. Lectures and Book are the same material and not too challenging so skipping either is an option. The class website has lots of busywork 10-20 minutes of writing for discussions once or twice a week, and then 6 problem sets throughout the semester, but as long as it is long enough you will get close to full credit. Tests are easy and there is no reason if you pay any attention you should get less than a B, but you MUST have a 95 to get an A which can be a challenge.

This class is annoying and stupid. It is very easy to get an A- without going to a single lecture. I genuinely didn't even know what lecture hall the class was in until the first exam. However, it is certainly not an easy A and I'm not sure why people say that. Even if you go to class, it is a matter of doing absurdly well on a few exams to get an A. The material is very very easy and straight from the book, but only missing 3-4 questions on a 100 question test is still difficult. I didn't even go to guest lectures, which would probably have made the A more feasible. But, I also have a good 7-8 friends who got B+'s and A-'s even though they went to ever class. Makes sure you take all the practice quizzes.

Overall, this class was pretty easy. I rarely went to lecture, but I always made sure to keep up with the reading. The online discussion posts and assignments were annoying but not difficult. I got a B+ despite the fact that I skipped a lot of discussions.
There are two tests and a final which are purely memorization from the book. Kemp is a great guy and definitely knows his stuff, but his lectures are pretty boring and are a verbatim repetition of what's in the book (since he wrote it).
This class doesn't teach you that much about how businesses actually work. You mostly learn vocabulary and how to TALK about business. It's not a bad class though, I learned a decent amount and it's a great class if you need a GPA boost and don't mind reading.

Only take this course if you think you may want to apply for the Commerce school. You don't have to go to lecture. You just have to complete a fair amount of homework assignments. The exams are pure memorization. You won't learn much and it's not engaging, but if you do your work, you will do well.

My friends all screwed me over by telling me this was an easy A class you could skip all the lectures for. Don't do it. Every test is comprised of 80 easy questions, 10 you have to think about and go to lecture for, and 10 STRAIGHT out of the guest lectures or weird supplements. An A is a 95 which is difficult to get unless you go to every lecture, and I was guilted into wasting hours upon hours on stupid discussion posts once or twice a week that have very little impact on your grade. If you want a B/B+, skip all the lectures, don't do any assignments besides the tests and the occasional homework, but if you want an A-/A be prepared to study and work much harder than you thought. Would not recommend, the A- I got was definitely not worth the time spent in this class.

Unless you absolutely have to, don't do it. Please.

This will probably be the class that completely deters you from COMM. It's awful. Kemp is a nice guy and I really do like him, but this is the most disinteresting class I've ever taken. Other people are going to tell you that it's an "Easy A" which is a misleading at best and completely fictitious at worst. A 95% is an A. I went to a high school where 94% was an A and that was considered high. Trust me, that A is not easy to get. If you're smart, you can maybe pull an A- easily if you have a light course load. But if you have a decent course load like most people, you're going to be hurting in this class if you're not careful.

Just don't do it unless COMM is your absolute dream.

Worst class ever. It's pretty easy, but you definitely have to pay attention and put effort into learning the material if you want an A. My TA (Melissa Saunders) was needlessly picky and the class overall was filled with unnecessary and tedious work. Half of the things that come out of Bob Kemp's mouth either don't make sense or have to do with some random anecdote. Moral of the story: don't take this class unless you are pre-comm. If you have to take it, put effort into the "problem sets" and read the chapters before class. Read all the random extra crap he gives you and you should be fine on the exams.

I hope everyone who takes this course in the future will read this review. This course was NOT as easy as everyone makes it out to be. You need a 95 to get an A in the class, and Kemp makes it clear from day 1 that if you get a 94.99, he won't round up. All the tests are 100 questions, where many are very straight-forward (From practice quizzes) but some are just random things he or some guest lecturer said in class. Therefore, it is very easy to get an OK grade on each test - B+ is very doable by just doing practice quizzes and doing the study guide. But unless you pay attention in every single class (which gets boring after the 2nd or 3rd lecture), getting the takeaways that he puts on the tests are very difficult. I made a group with a few of my friends to designate one person to get each lecture's takeaways and compile them at the end. Lectures were literally an hour of kemp telling some life story, and 15 minutes of important stuff at the end. Not fun and mostly useless.

Homework is annoying. You do the discussion board topics which are a guaranteed 100 if you bullshit a paragraph - the graduate assistants have to go through hundreds of them every day. The problem sets are annoying because you will usually miss 1-5 on each one unless you spend a long time making them good. That's another thing that brings down your grade.

Overall didn't seem like a worthwhile course and I Feel like I know nothing about commerce. For pre-comm students I recommend doing some of your own work and applying to some finance/business related clubs - MII, AIF, GMG, VVF, etc. These clubs teach you way more than this class. After one semester in one of the aforementioned clubs, I learned so much about investing and finance. And yes, you can get into finance/Wall Street without getting a degree from the comm school.

Unfortunately, consistent with many of the recent reviews regarding this course, I would have to say they are right. Bob Kemp is probably one of the most deceivingly nice people I have ever met. Here's a quick tip for everyone: Unless you absolutely have to take the course, meaning if you don't get into the Comm School it would be the end of the world and you'd transfer or something, I would seriously reconsider before taking it. You can probably get the grading logistics from other reviews, so I'll be blunt. I changed from Pre-Comm to Econ major track in October, and I absolutely hated this class. The only reason anyone should take this class, in my opinion, is because it's a Comm pre-req. Going to lecture seemed more like a chore and it was ultimately worthless, and I'm a guy who loved going to Professor Elzinga's lectures. His "takeaways" stated in class that are on the tests can be different from what he actually puts on the test. The test structure seemed to differ test by test. It's simply just a horrible class, and I feel sorry for anyone who has to experience it. If you have to take the class, just read the textbook thoroughly, write down all the definitions, and try to get the takeaway notes from someone (not like it'll matter). Good luck.

Arbitrary class. Don't learn anything useful. Would not take unless you need to. Exam questions can be as unimportant as the 4th letter of an acronym from a 5 minute video or as broad as businesses need to bring value. I did not learn anything from the lectures and would have to teach myself the material. Only interesting part was some of the guest lectures. Everything is pure memorization, and if not that then it is taken from one of the 30 other videos, guest lectures, or articles that he requires you to remember for each exam. This class is out of date and a poor style of teaching. All around bad class.