COMM 1800

Class is insanely subjective. A huge chunk of your grade comes from group work and TA grading style. Grades are supposedly equally distributed across all discussion sections. Eh, this is a lie. Easy B+/A-. Subjective nature of class makes it hard to get an A. Exam questions are tricky and it's hard to tell what to study because his slides are useless.

Professor Leopold is a pretty good lecturer, and he's very experienced in business, so that's good. I have heard some things about the TAs grading being pretty inconsistent (despite Leopold swearing they're "calibrated"). I didn't think it was too bad, but this was just my experience. There really isn't much work for this class, maybe an hour or so at most of readings for each lecture. Overall, the class isn't terribly boring, but I do think some of this stuff is pretty much common sense. I would just recommend to do all of your work/readings early and thoroughly, reread the slides for the midterm/final, and put as much work into group projects as possible (you can get extra points for this at the end of the semester if your group mates rate you well).

The material in the class is not very hard to understand. The most work that comes from this course is just keeping up with the readings, doing the weekly homework, and completing group projects. These things aren't difficult to do, sometimes the reading is a little boring but it does help you understand business concepts so make sure to do those. To be honest the lectures weren't super helpful and I ended up just copying things down from the powerpoints and studying those notes with the assigned readings for the exams, but Professor Leopold is fun to listen to and I liked going to class to hear him talk. He's very friendly and knowledgeable about business; he even organizes lunches/coffee chats with students who want to talk to him to get to know them better.
I think that since this is an introductory course to what the comm school is like, some people find that they really dislike the format of the discussion section (which is understandable.) Every week you have to compete for class participation points in a 50-minute block of time, usually with some overly-competitive people (which can be pretty annoying). You are given a random group and have to work together on presentations/projects, so getting a "bad" group that doesn't want to meet up or is not on the same page can really hurt your experience.
Overall the class itself is not bad or hard, but I've noticed that for a lot of people who wanted to take this class to see whether or not they would want to apply to McIntire, their experience in their discussion section makes or breaks that decision. So if you don't like public speaking, competing with others to see who can talk the most in class, presenting etc...well, you might have a bad time in this course.

Not a difficult class per se, but it's hard to get an A. I got a 97% in the class but to be honest I could have gotten much lower very easily. I aced to exams but they were tricky in that many questions had multiple answers that seemed right. The HW assignments are pretty easy, you should easily get mostly 5s if you just put in 25-45 minutes for each assignment. Leopold is right in that the best way to prepare for the exams is to understand the last slide of the ppts titled "what you should remember". I enjoyed the discussion because most of my classes are large 300+ lectures like bio or chem and I missed the in-class participation aspect of classes. however, if you don't enjoy talking in class you probably won't like the discussion. Participate and you'll be fine. Also, try and get along with your groupmates, they can sabotage you easily because you'll lose points in the end if your groupmates don't like you. Good luck, you shouldn't need it though haha!

I really did not like this class. The material is not super interesting and the lectures are super boring. If you are not interested in going into the comm school, I would not recommend this class. A lot of the material felt like the common sense. The discussions are not super interesting, but it depends if you like your group or your TA.

Absolutely loved Leopold and this class! Lots of reading based quizzes and a few group projects. Exams are pretty easy. All the information is straight off the power points which he provides. Definitely take this class if interested in pursuing Commerce!

Even if you are not a Pre-Comm student, COMM 1800 is a great class to learn more about business in general. Discussion section is typically a review of a case study, and those were very enjoyable. As long as you put in some effort into assignments and small quizzes, you should get 5/5s on them. Midterm and Final are quite easy and should be grade boosters. Jeff is a great professor and really cares for his students, and personally helped me find an internship. Make sure to go to his office hours and get to know your DL well.

As a requirement for McIntire, this class was pretty much what I expected. The workload was higher with some long assignments and some short assignments, coupled with an abundance of reading. The midterm was relatively easy but the final was slightly harder. Your grade in this class essentially comes down to your ability to regurgitate facts from the reading and getting a good discussion leader. I had Margaret as my DL and she was not an easy grader and was boring to have in class. I heard from other students that they got higher grades with other DLs, which was disappointing. I know they are changing the course after the controversy with Prof. Leopold, but continue to expect a large workload and a curriculum that is not straight forward. Enjoy mixing with all the Pre-Comm first years!

I really loved this class. I personally learned a lot even though some things were basic knowledge. Professor Leopold was amazing and I always enjoyed going to his lectures on zoom. The hardest part of the class was the reading because there is a decent amount. However, the tests are super easy and rewatching the posted lectures will get you an A.