COMM 2010

I took a writing workshop at UVA. The last day of class half of us were practically in tears. Our professor had not only taught us how to bleed our hearts out onto the page, but also created an environment in which we felt comfortable doing so. I’ve never been closer with classmates or a professor at UVA before. All of us were pursuing different majors, but our professor had revealed a passion in many of us we didn’t know we had.

I recently learned that English professors at UVA are often given only yearly contracts in order to prevent them from unionizing and asking for higher wages or benefits. Due to odd application timelines at many universities and only year or semester long contracts, many English professors face job insecurity.

And then there’s Roger Martin: instructor of the FOUNDATIONAL courses of one of the top business programs in the country- well, “best” according to US News and World Report. Here’s what Rogers’ class entails: a $100 online textbook which you will teach yourself each chapter from, a practice/homework set of problems, and then an online test every 2-3 weeks. Oh and then some pre-recorded videos that are reused every semester. So here Roger Martin gets to sit on his fat tenured bippy doing practically nothing. Oh, I take that back. Not nothing. He does take the time to construct carefully framed emails tied up nicely with a cute little accounting pun to compensate for his passive aggressive tone. He also holds weekly review sessions in which he doesn’t even bother to come up with new problems, just pulls from previous examples from the problem sets. But, you can bet your bottom dollar *duh dunce* he’ll rip you a new one on the tests.

To those taking Roger’s class: really rework problems until you genuinely understand the concepts behind them; take your success in the class, or lack thereof, with a grain of salt; and consider how this introductory course may be reflective of your possible future experience at McIntire. Although, if you do get into McIntire you’re guaranteed to be raking it in after graduation. If you’re lucky enough, you might be able to join the ranks of Roger and make as he does. If you don’t make it in, however, there’s plenty of other opportunities- just don’t become an English teacher at UVA as you likely won’t earn what you deserve and may not have a job after a year.

The course was totally online and challenging. The exams were online but open notes, but still very challenging even if you are allowed to have your notes. I liked the course and thought that it was interesting - the assignments and were online and mostly inputing numbers into a "spreadsheet" on a system that gives you practice/homework questions. You pretty much have little to no contact with the professor or TA's unless you reach out to them directly.

Accounting makes sense to me, so I didn't have the experience as many of the other people writing these reviews. If accounting is not your thing, this class is definitely going to be a pain in the ass. Roger doesn't give any leeway in his policies, so you have to be on top of how the class works. Pay attention to how the work load works and don't forget the extended topics in the later part of the semester. I never read the textbook. I just went ahead an answered the smartbook questions an only consulted the textbook when I had to, but I did take an accounting course at NOVA before, so I don't think this is necessarily a viable strategy.
The first test is not that bad, but the get progressively harder and harder. There will be questions on the exams that were not on any of the practice problems and you will have to work out based on your understanding of accounting. There is a curve at the end of the class, but I don't know how generous it is. With a raw score of a 936 I got an A+. I would recommend this class to ECON majors who are interested in the language of business, and anyone interested in understanding the basics of finance.

I didn't empathize with any of the harsh comments here until the final exam. Beforehand, the tests were very similar to the practice tests and homework problems. There were a couple of problems on the final exam that had not been brought up before, so the average was a 71.
I received an A in the class by simply doing all of the work. I highly suggest making good notes of the textbook to refer while doing your homework and taking the tests (because the tests are open-note). The other most helpful thing I did was take the practice tests he gives the day of a test so that the information was fresh in my mind, as problems on the test were often similar to the practice problems and sometimes even the exact problems.
I never interacted with the professor or a TA, but I liked the flexibility of an asynchronous class.

While the course is abysmally unfair in many many ways, Roger did give a decent size curve at the end of the course that bumped me up a grade level. As literally, everyone else who has even taken this course before has said: Comm 2010 is awful because the exams are poorly designed. Notice I didn't say "difficult". The course simply doesn't prepare you for around 50% ish of the content that will be appearing on the exams. The different parts of the course feel like their material is completely isolated from every other part. For example:
-I read the textbook chapter for the week.
-I answer 40 questions based on the non-quantitative parts of the chapter (90% never comes up ever again)
-I do a quantitative practice of around 15-20 questions
-I do a quantitative homework of around 10-15 questions based on the practice
-I do a practice exam that has application of the textbook and the quant stuff, but its stuff I've never seen before. Like, I technically have around 75% of the information needed for me to solve the problem, but since I've never done anything like this before, I can't be that sure that I'm doing it correctly. Especially since the problems are multiple-choice now, when all the homework had been working with tables and stuff.
-I do an actual exam that has A LOT of new content not seen on even the practice exam. That's right. The content on the practice exams is almost completely different from the content on the actual exam.

No amount of studying will make you better in this class. Roger actively encourages students to "guess new ways" he could ask questions on the exams. By his own words, sheer hypothetical guessing is the only real way to prep for an exam. Its honestly unlike anything else at this university.

I went in to the year expecting an A. I got a B+ and feel like I know everything about accounting. Here's what I found annoying about the grading. There are four tests. 1) Martin weights the first exam at 15%. This is kind of bullshit because its the easiest test by FAR and he says he does it to let us get used to the format but that's honestly just cap because it's the same format as the practice exam. 2) You can't really check over your work on the exams. The time isn't atrocious but it isn't where you can re-work more than four problems on the exams. Naturally you will end up getting 1-3 questions wrong just from simple math or silly mistake errors. 3) That's basically it actually, 2 silly mistakes and 1 question you actually get wrong... you get an 85 on the exam and now you need a 100 on the next two to balance it out. Want an A? Don't mess up. I got a 94 on the first test, was mad at myself, worked harder, and proceed to never got above an 85 after that lol. If I were to do it again I would complete all homework and practice problems of the chapter twice when studying and that way you can blaze through the ones you know on the exam and have more time to figure out the ones you are unsure of since the exams are open note.

I truly cannot express how much I disliked this course. Everything is online, which is super ignorant considering how important accounting is when studying business. All content is "taught" from assigning weekly textbook chapter readings. Professor Martin doesn't provide supplementary lectures unless he's covering "extended advanced topics," but, in my opinion, these would be extremely useful. He provides weekly review sessions, but these are pretty generalized and don't go into much depth about course content. I recommend using Piazza for help on course content and weekly homework/practice problem sets.

The practice and homework problem sets are helpful at reinforcing basic course concepts, but they quickly become very repetitive and annoying. Personally, I dreaded completing them every week. I'd say they usually take 2-4 hours to complete.

The exams absolutely do not reflect the level of difficulty presented by the chapter or assigned problems. Professor Martin provides a brief review guide and practice questions (which I highly recommend completing) before them. But, let me tell you, almost nothing will prepare you for the exams. The exams are online and proctored over Zoom. After completing each test, I'd return a Zoom screen filled with sweating, red-faced students. That should say enough.

This class is absolutely a weed-out class, and needless to say, it weeded me out. I came into this class as an “A” student and ended with a C-. If you're conflicted about applying to Comm school, this class will be helpful in making your decision. However, if you decide you're not going to apply, I recommend you drop the class as soon as possible. I, unfortunately, made that decision past the drop deadline. The content gets much more difficult as you progress, and my grades certainly reflected that.

This is the hardest class I've ever taken. Keep in mind that I'm calc 2 as well and this class is multitudes harder IMO. It's very easy to fall behind in the work and have to cram the practice and homework problems Sunday night. One thing that's good is the deadline is 3 am instead of 12 so try not to have an early class on Mondays if you procrastinate a lot like me. I hit about the average on the first two exams, did amazing on the third exam, and did pretty decent on the final (B+). Don't ask me how I did the best on the exam with the lowest average, I really don't know. Using the search bar in the textbook saved me a lot in the exams. Like others have said, a big make it or break it factor for this class is your time management.

Roger Martin makes this class harder than it needs to be for absolutely no reason. Every week you have textbook readings, textbook questions, practice problems, and homework problems. These are all very time consuming and I find them to be busy work more than actually helping me learn. There are 3 midterms and a final. All hard. He expects you to use the practice and homework problems to help you study and then will put a similar concept on the exam but add an extra thing to the question that we never learned. Roger Martin could easily teach this class in person if he wanted to so I don't really understand why he chooses to keep it online. It is much harder to learn material without any in person instruction. There are in person review sessions once a week, but I don't find them very helpful. The best way to learn in this class would be to go to office hours where someone can actually teach you. Don't take this class if you don't have to #tCFfall2021

Prof Martin is genuinely a good person, and I feel like if he taught in person more, a really good prof. This class is 100% online other than an optional weekly review session and his OH. Like others have said, unless you are set on the comm school do not take this class. If you didn't like anything in comm 1800 then take that as a sign to not do comm, and if you want to go to comm solely for marketing remember that you don't need a marketing degree to do that. I cried at least 6 times over this class (like big, mental breakdown sobs), have had a (minimum) .2 decrease in my GPA, and have dropped comm along the way. This class is genuinely not worth it if you don't want to do accounting or finance, and if you don't like those take a look into the McIntire Business Institute or a business minor because I wish I sure had.
Tests are rather conceptual and the homework and practice doesn't prepare you for it. If you want to take this class and you're hesitant about comm, go for it. But if you get below a B- on the first exam AND are unsure about comm, please for the love of god drop the course if not for your mental health but for your GPA (this course gets much, much worse). Prof Martin will tell you to come to his OH to see how you can do better but I have a 90% guarantee that his advice will be to think more when you do your homework. There are a lot of TAs but every time I went they didn't do a good job at explaining how and why things are they way the are but rather take an is what it is approach to explaining things.
If you're only doing comm for the money, do CS instead.
#tCFfall2021

Reading all of the reviews from 2017, I was scared to take this course. However, it was WAY better than I imagined. The workload was really easy to keep up with as long as you stayed on top of it, and it wasn't very hard to learn on your own. The exam preps helped with showing what types of questions were on the exams, so as long as you understood all of those, you would do just fine. I didn't have much contact with Professor Martin but I've heard good things about him and he seemed nice in his weekly emails.

Definitely agree with the more recent reviews. This class is not nearly as bad as the Fall 2018 reviews make it seem. I’m in the engineering school and took this for the business minor and was able to earn an A. Definitely read the textbook and take good notes. He has made the exams open note, so I would recommend taking your notes on the computer so you can easily control F to find what you need to answer a question on the exam quickly. I learned a lot in this class and actually thought it was kind of interesting but quite repetitive. Make note of the special cases/examples used to make a point because they will be on the exams. Good luck!

I recommend this class for anyone interested in learning about financial statements or more about business operations in general. I’m not precomm, but as an econ major I decided to take this class anyway because it is definitely useful information. It’s not a difficult class in my opinion as long as you’re willing to put in the time to study, read the textbook, and understand the material. I actually thought the content could be pretty interesting at some points. I took this class during covid so the online format was not a problem. I actually appreciated the flexibility of no set lecture times, but be careful with that: do NOT wait until the weekend to get the entire week’s reading/problems done if you can help it as it will just make your weekends suck. Overall, I did not think this class was that bad and I’m glad I took it. #tCFspring2021

I ended up with an A in this course and these are some of the things that worked for me. Actively read the chapter and pay close attention to the highlighted sections in the textbook. While reading, stop and think about how a certain principle not only affects certain accounting equations, but also how it can be applied to businesses in the real world. To study for the midterms, do every practice/homework question over and over again. If you even have a hint of doubt about a certain concept or principle within a question, do it again. The midterms in COMM 2010 are challenging and push beyond the level of difficulty of the practice/homework questions, but by understanding them to the fullest extent, it's not hard to get A's on the midterms. Also, I highly recommend taking the practice exams since they're more indicative of what the midterms will look like (not in terms of difficulty but in terms of format). Professor Martin WILL try to trick you on the midterms, so it's super important to read every question carefully and be very thorough. Fortunately, the midterms aren't a time crunch so if you work efficiently, you should have time to do certain questions over again. Also, Don't expect anything from Professor Martin. This class is a ton of work and we have to teach ourselves everything. However, I do recommend attending Professor Martin's weekly review sessions since we had the opportunity to ask him questions and complete more challenging questions. I didn't really get to know him but he genuinely seems like a nice guy. When doing practice problems, don't memorize how a certain transaction works in terms of the T-accounts. Try really hard to understand the transactions conceptually, and learning about auditing (outside of the class) helped me to do so. For the final, you need to Study your ass off. It's very challenging but a good grade is possible if you put a ton of effort into studying. At the end of the day, COMM 2010 took up a ton of my time and it wasn't an "easy A" by any means. But, this class definitely made me a better student and I definitely feel prepared for COMM 2020 and future accounting courses in McIntire.

I'm taking this class in Spring 2021, and he's been pretty nice so far. I haven't experienced any of his passive-aggressiveness. In fact, I'm actually surprised by these comments. I totally disagree that the TAs are barely more knowledgeable than you, though. I've been to OH, and they do actually know the material. All the piazza posts are answered by TAs pretty thoroughly and accurately.

I will say though, this class takes way too much time out of your week to have a balanced schedule. 10-15+ hours for me. I also agree with everyone else that if you plan to take this course, clear out your schedule and make sure you're taking easy classes. Exams are also HARD, somewhat on par with the homework and practice questions (but sometimes they're more complicated). I think people aren't complaining this year to him as much because it's open-note (due to the pandemic) and there are probably a lot more people cheating.

It makes me wonder how Fa18 ended up with so many As given that everyone here is complaining about how difficult the exams were. Did he curve after all, or did only the people with the Bs and Cs review? I really hope it was the former, but I doubt it since he says he strictly doesn't curve.

Roger is the best professor I've ever had!! Some of my friends recommended the class to me and said it was going to be one of the most fun classes I'll ever take at UVA. The exams were really easy as long as you study an hour a week. It's a low stress class and I would highly recommend taking it for a GPA boost!

Don’t be afraid to take this class; it’s really not that bad. The workload each week is manageable. You are only required to read one chapter per week, and there are practice and homework problems that accompany each chapter. Definitely take thorough notes as you read. Typically, I spread the work out over two to three days. It should not be that overwhelming unless you wait until Sunday when it’s due to complete all of it. Piazza is a great resource if you have questions. I thought the TAs responded pretty quickly – usually within a couple hours of a question being posted. In terms of preparing for exams, TAKE THE PRACTICE EXAMS! They are a great gauge of your preparation for each exam. I thought the exam questions were reasonable – nothing too crazy. This semester, there were three midterms and a final that combined for 75% percent of your grade. Yes, there’s not a lot of interaction with Professor Martin, but I did not find this inhibited my learning. By now, we’re all used to learning online anyways. Definitely ended up liking this class way more than I originally thought!

I really didn't think this class was too bad. What worked well for me was to take notes online from the textbook and then copy and past pictures from the text into your notes because the text has a lot of really good graphics. If you take solid notes for each chapter, the homework and practice problems shouldn't be too hard. The work each week is the same thing: Read the chapter (60 min if you take good notes and read thoroughly), do the practice questions (45 min), and do the homework (30 min). Those times vary depending on your strategy. If you take good notes on the reading and work to understand the material for each chapter each week, you should be fine. I got an A in the class and didn't feel like it was a huge grind. One thing that helped me was that I thought the material was interesting but some might disagree.

I personally didn't take this course, but my girlfriend did. I can tell you this...this class is completely online, Roger doesn't really teach anything, you might as well just learn the entire course material from textbook, this class blows. On a scale of 1-10 this class is ridiculous. If you take this class you might as well just not take it.
Here's how terrible this class was. My girlfriend, not I, my girlfriend took this class 2 years ago, and I'm sitting here in 2020 writing a review about the trauma and negativity this class has spread in the life of literally everyone near and dear to my heart.

This class wasn't the most enjoyable course for many reasons, but in my opinion the professor made this course even less enjoyable. He's not very responsive to student's questions, and can keep a very cold front. The class uses Piazza for students to ask questions, but many times I found that students' questions weren't answered until many hours later, which defeats the purpose of using Piazza in my opinion. He even sent an email to me when I did well on one of the exams saying I should answer people's questions on Piazza since it would be good practice for me.. felt weird to me that he was asking me to basically do a part of his job simply as a student.

Besides the professor aspect of this course, it was pretty stressful since your grade relies heavily on exams with not much room for error. I was expecting there to be a curve in this class after hearing all the horror stories, but we ended up not having a curve (which I guess was due to students doing well, but it was later found out that many got caught for cheating which of course would've bumped up the class average to look better than it actually was, so I feel that a curve should have been considered).
#tCF2020

This class wasn't bad in terms of content but the exams are hard AF. The class is structured with 3 midterms (15%, 17.5%, 17.5%) , Final Exam (25%), and other misc. stuff (25%). Tests should not be weighed that much of a person's grade especially if they do really bad on it. I did really bad on the first and third midterm, did well on the 2nd midterm, and got 100 on the Final so this class is definitely doable. Make sure to do all the homework and practice problems, read the textbook, look at the problems he puts in the folders, and utilize the TAs!! The TAs can be really helpful if you don't understand something or posting on Piazza is just as useful. Roger doesn't do much except host prior review sessions every week, so its at your own pace learning. Overall, I learned a lot in this class, but watch out for the exams! If you're not interested in accounting or not pre-comm, I don't suggest taking this class. #tCF2020

This is an online-only class through Blackboard. There are no lectures (recorded or live) and you must do everything yourself. The only live parts of this course are the office hours. Homework is a total chore and a time-suck but is usually not too difficult. If you really discipline yourself and do a little bit everyday you probably won't do any better but at least you won't get as many headaches from this class.

If you are not Pre-Comm (like me) and want an easy elective look elsewhere.

Definitely one of the harder commerce prereqs. However, it still a manageable class to get an A in. Do the readings and take notes and understand the HW/practice questions. Look over notes + practice exams for the exams and you should be fine. However, I do agree that it is very senseless for one of the most important prereqs to be completely online with very minimal interactions with the professor
#tCF2020

For an introductory accounting course, it is extremely difficult and time-consuming. The course is entirely taught online but is definitely not suited for it. Personally, I learn and retain information best if it is taught by a professor in the form of a lecture. However, the course is almost entirely self-taught in the form of online text-book readings. I actually ended up buying a physical copy since I hated the online version so much. The only other source of learning is the optional videos on Connect, but these only reteach the basic concepts that you will read about in the textbook and provide a couple of practice examples.

You are required to complete 3 assignments per week. These are fairly straightforward but can become time-consuming if you don't fully understand the content. Luckily, if are stuck, you can post questions on Piazza for other students and TAs to anwser. The question from the weekly assignments are absolutely necessary for understanding the exam questions, but I wish more were made available to practice. It annoys me that more were not, and yet towards the end of the semester, a few of the HW problems had a majority of their questions copied straight from the practice problems.

My biggest issue with the course was the exams, which I found to be extremely difficult. There is a clear disconnect between what students are expected to learn and what they actually learn. The specific issues I had with the exam questions was that the wording was sometimes confusing or noticeably different from the questions on the weekly assignments. There are approximately 25 questions per exam, meaning there is not much room for mistakes. Especially since exams are worth an absurd proportion of the total course grade: exam 1 = 15%, exam 2 = 17.5%, exam 3 = 17.5%, final exam = 25%. In total, exams = 75% of the total course grade while weekly assignments = 24% and misc. = 1%. I don't understand who would think it appropriate to put this much emphasis on exams when the course is practically self-taught.

I am definitely somewhat to blame for my initial poor performance, but if the average exam score for the first 3 exams was 83%, then the format and teaching methods employed, or lack thereof, seriously need to be reevaluated. My only advice is that if you do not perform well on the first exam, do not hesitate in getting a tutor; I thought I could improve on my own, but now wish I had gotten one sooner.

This class definitely had more work than my other classes, but I honestly didn’t think it was too bad. It can be kind of hard to adjust to having an online class at first, but after a couple weeks it should be easier. Definitely take advantage of the TA office hours!! I would often just go sit in there while working on my homework problems so that I would have TAs nearby that could answer questions when I had them. Also go to Professor Martin’s Prior Week Reviews - although it’s just for review (no new material taught), I think it’s a pretty good substitute for lectures. It found it helpful to hear him explain the concepts in a setting where I could also ask questions. Lastly, always try your best to start each chapter early in the week! I know I retained the information much better when I would work on the assignments throughout the week rather than rushing to get everything done at 10pm on Sundays.
Professor Martin is also really nice and willing to help if you need it! The midterms were not as hard as I had expected (although the second midterm was open-notes/open-book because of the coronavirus) and on both midterms he gave everyone credit for a question that realized was a bit too difficult/confusing. However, I spent so many hours for several days studying for the final - I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say I’ve never studied so much in my life - and I ended up getting a 69% which dropped by grade to a B- because the final is worth 40% of the final grade. That being said, only take this class if you need to.

BY FAR ONE OF THE BEST CLASSES AT UVA! ROGER MARTIN IS THE MAN

With this class being online, Professor Martin doesn't have too much contact with the students; however, he genuinely does his best to ensure that all students are comfortable asking him questions and he is always available to help explain the material. I took this class as a requirement for the Engineering Business minor, and I learned that accounting is definitely not for me. The final is worth 40% of the grade and can really hurt your grade even if you've done well on the first 60% of the class. Take this class seriously, especially the final, and getting a good grade is definitely doable. If you're particularly not fond of accounting, this class will be harder like it was for me.

I honestly don't understand the hate for Roger. Does he seem like a good teacher? Not in particular. Does it matter for this class? Not really -- he is more of a moderator who organizes the class than a professor, given that you learn mostly by doing the assigned readings and problems. I think the book is fine. I enjoyed the online format since I personally do not like going to class at a set time every week, and this course offers tons of flexibility in terms of where and when you decide to work. However, as mentioned in other reviews, if your style of learning is more geared towards in-person lectures then I can see how this class would be a nightmare.

This class is tough. Impossible? No. Just be regimented. Have a consistent routine to do the work each week. I tried to finish the weekly deliverables by Wed/Thu so I could have the weekend to review things and sure up rough spots come exam time. Do not stress, just plan your work. The exams are tough and TAKE YOUR TIME because it is easy to make a math error on those problems. For exam prep, make review sheets for each chapter with all the T-account equations and you will realize that a lot of the work is just knowing what/how to add and subtract for exam questions. Also do the practice exams they are very similar to the real thing. I got a B+ overall and got into Comm, so no, you will not be ruined for Comm if you do not ace this class. Just make it a priority and do not procrastinate. Accounting is also a very useful topic and you will learn a lot!! Have fun :)

Honestly, at the beginning of this course i thought all of the reviews were gonna be wrong. It starts off very slow and the concepts are very easy. Right after the first exams the course ramps up and the concepts become harder and you have less time to do them. I was still above the average on the second exam but got destroyed on the final because the study exam and the final exam were extremely different.

From two semesters of accounting with Roger Martin, be prepared for a pretty difficult course. Having rarely gone to office hours and none of Martin's own office hours, I kind of wish I had. After a while here was the best study method I found for exams: reread all chapters and do homework questions, which are usually harder than practice questions. make a formula sheet for yourself. The most helpful prep materials he gave us were the practice multiple choice and free response. Definitely do those because they are written exactly like they are on the exam. On the exam itself definitely give yourself time to go back and check every question because it's very easy to make a computation error. Overall, use your resources, go to office hours, and TA review sessions.

This course is a weed out prerequisite for the comm school and doesn't try to hide it. Made it out with an A+, and here's what you need to know to be successful.

Be prepared to spend a LOT of time independently reading and doing practice problems to really get the concepts down, as Martin and the TAs are good for reviewing material but not great at actually concepts. The Connect problems that Martin has you do with each chapter are actually useful, so whenever you get one wrong pay attention to the answer explanation. There are more multiple choice questions in the book itself at the end of each chapter, do those as well.

For the weekly homework and practice problems: try to spread out your work if you can. Some weeks this won't be possible, but it definitely helps. The practice problems come with unlimited attempts and an example solution with a nearly identical problem, so take advantage of those - the practice should be easy points. The homework is where things can get tricky. They don't count a lot individually, but if you keep making stupid mistakes they'll rack up and bring down your average. If you're confused on a problem, look through the practice and try to find one like it or reread the concept in the book.

The tests are hard. If you already do well on the practice and homework that's half the battle. Martin sends out review problems (taken from old practice and homework sets) and a mock exam. I advise doing the review problems first, making sure you've got all the concepts down there. Move on to the practice exam after that, and if you do well on that you're (usually) well-prepared for the exam (I thought the practice and actual exams were pretty similar). If not, you need to go to the problems you missed and have those down for the actual exam, since you're working under time pressure and accounting isn't something you can just figure out while you're taking the test. Double check everything you do: the exams are actually pretty short and there are a lot of multiple choice questions. A few dumb mistakes can knock you down to a C easily even if you know the material.

Overall, I'd say that this course was effective in introducing me to accounting. Did I enjoy it? Not really, but accounting is also a really useful skill. Wouldn't recommend for anyone outside people who are serious about going to the comm school, as otherwise you're subjecting yourself to unnecessary harm and stress.

This class truly caused me so much unneeded stress and anxiety. For people saying you'll be fine if you do the work, I have to disagree. I worked on the chapters throughout the entire week, never waiting until the last minute. I even felt like I had a good understanding of concepts, but the exams did not show this. I actually did very well on the first exam, but I was completely destroyed by the second midterm and final. I felt like I studied a lot for the second midterm, but I decided to put in 10x that effort for the final, only to do poorly again. If this were an in-person class, I think it would be exponentially easier and just better overall. This class made me feel so stupid even when I was putting in the work.

I think that for people that are able to teach themselves material, this class is fair. However, most of us enrolled in UVA for in person lectures and some students simply can’t learn through a computer screen. I can’t even say that if you stay up to date with all the work and go to office hours you will be okay, I pretty much always had the practice problems/ homework done at least 3 days in advance of the due date, went to TAs, wrote up outlines... pretty much everything you could think of. Still ended up with a subpar grade because, in my mind, I was missing a key part of the class- a professor. Overall, I think it really depends on your style of learning.

Most of the people that come on here will complain about them failing the class. Don't be dissuaded by their testimony. Unlike what everyone will tell you as they make excuse after excuse, the class is not impossibly difficult...the questions are all fair game and don't come out of nowhere. If you take copious notes and take the time to understand the practice and homework you will do fine.

Yes, Roger Martin sucks. He just does and if you ever send him an email he'll give you a snarky response, but that doesn't matter. The class is online and you get out of it what you put in.

At least the course content is useful unlike classes like COMM 1800

This is going to get a ton of down arrows but its the truth. People just take this class thinking it's an online class and they can manage their time and have one less class to go to during the week. Most of these people wait until the last second to do the assigned work and take absolutely zero notes when reading the chapter. You need to have a specific time during the week(NOT THE WEEKEND) to get the work done and you need to pretty much take notes on everything from each chapter except the stuff the online textbook doesn't have highlighted. You should be spending about 15 hours a week on each chapter otherwise you will not do well. For all these people saying the exams have material nothing like we did you are so wrong. About 25% of each of the exams was copied and pasted questions from homework or practice problem questions and another 50% was homework or practice questions but with different numbers. That other 25% was homework or practice questions but asking for something different. If you take good notes each week and redo the homework and practice problems a couple of times before each exam you will do well. I'm an E-School student trying to get the business minor, I knew absolutely nothing about anything business before this class and still finished with an A without the curve.

okay okay, this class wasn't the worst thing ever. The content, like the basics of accounting, is useful, but only if you are actually going to try to learn from the online material. And I think I tried pretty hard. The readings weren't exactly interesting, but I got through them. The homeworks were fine if you did them in groups. The exams on the other hand were disastrous. Our average for the second test was like a 70%, which the professor said was better than normal. That kinda speaks for itself. I am in e-school and took this class to get ahead on the business minor, but with the GPA tank this course is going to give me, I might not even bother applying. Take it if you have to. Accept that it's gonna be rough, and good luck.

Not an introduction to financial accounting course like the course title and syllabus denote. Be prepared for much more specialized problems. Would not recommend to anyone.

Roger Martin does not care about his students. He is the laziest teacher at UVA, evidenced by him making accounting an online course, so he doesn't have to do anything. We take our tests through an online proctor, which gave me technical difficulties on two occasions, interrupting my tests for hours. Of course I told Mr. Martin, and he didn't care. This guy rakes in over $200K every year to do absolutely nothing but repost old instructional videos. I am in Comm 2020 now (the next course taught by Mr. Martin), and two of our chapters were recycled from Comm 2010. To no one's surprise, Roger didn't even change the label on them from "2010" to "2020." If someone asked me how to actively ruin the great product of UVA curriculum, I would respond, "Hire Roger Martin!"

Not bad. Could have been better.

I won't ramble. Here's what you need to know: Difficult subject matter. No partial credit. Ghost professor (it's online, after all). Exam content is extremely different from general coursework content. Sassy/angry emails from professor. This class will eat up your weekends and completely dictate your schedule.
Good luck, friends.

If you can teach yourself material easily, this class is not bad. if not its a different story. roger is not helpful and this class should definitely not be structured the way it is. if anything. it would be beneficial to structure it like stat 2120 where there are recorded lectures over the subject material. the 5 minute "overview videos" are an embarrassing excuse for "teaching" a class

This class is very hard, and it's supposed to be. It's an online class, and Prof. Martin is your only option, and he's a pretty uncaring person. Doesn't help his students much at all. Makes himself very unapproachable over email. Exams are extremely hard despite practice exams being very easy. Be careful about that. Homework questions do not correctly reflect the difficulty of exams.

There's no doubt that is a hard course. I agree with all the reviews below to a certain extent, but here is my experience with the course and the outcomes. Luckily I ended the class with an A thanks to a hefty 4-5% curve at the end. Essentially, the layout of the class forces you to be fully autonomous because you have to learn everything by yourself. I never showed up to the professor/TA's office hours because I thought they were pretty useless in regard to the help they gave, especially for the exam review sessions. I found the textbook and the weekly practice/HW problems to be quite shallow in that they did not prepare you for the exams. The weekly assignments were basically an introduction to the topics covered in the reading to familiarize you with the basic key concepts. As a result, there is a huge gap for the exams because they push your understanding to another level, forcing you to apply concepts in various ways. In addition, the practice exams given weren't too helpful since they were far easier than the actual exam questions. If you only do the required work, you will not get a good grade unless you are an accounting god.

For every chapter, I easily spent 10 hours per week carefully reading and making concise chapter outlines to make sure I actually understood all the concepts. I think the reason most people did not do so well in this course is that they did not have a good grasp of the underlying concepts since the practice/HW questions only teach you the procedural part. You cannot simply do/memorize the practice/HW problems because that will not prepare you well for the test. The biggest part in succeeding in this course is going through every problem and actually understanding why the answer is right, and various ways you can get to that answer. If you only memorize the information and the steps, you will not have a good time on the exams. In addition, I found that going over the LearnSmart and multiple choice questions at the end of every chapter were good in understanding the conceptual part. All in all, this course requires a lot of work, and really separate those with a shallow understanding from those with a deep understanding of the concepts. I would stay far away from this course at its current state unless your set on Pre-comm.

Not much I'm going to add to what was discussed here as I think the most harsh are the most honest. The person who starts with "this will probably get downvoted..." along with those who say you deserve the grade you get are not fair nor reflect my experience in this course. I truly do not believe this course is designed to reward all the work you do because about 83% of your grade is determine by the three tests (150 for test one, 275 for test two, and 400 for the final). Your grade is out of 1000 so that means your final is 40% of your grade. I spent tireless hours taking notes reading the textbook and on the practice/homework problems but that is not reflected in your grade. I honestly spent at least 10 hours a week on this course. For the exams, I made a chapter outline for every chapter and how it related to the course objectives, made flashcards, redid all the practice/homework problems, did the practice exams and multiple choice, watched every single video given to us and I still did poorly. Leading up to the final, I started studying 10 days ahead of the final where all I did was wake up, go to the library, eat too many Bodo's bagels, and redo everything I just listed. I was at the point where I was dreaming accounting. The result? Still took a fat L on the exam. At a certain point, I have to ask myself, is it really me? I don't think so. I just really believe the exams do not reflect the knowledge I have about accounting. If you don't have to take this class, please don't. This class was not worth the mental, physical, and emotional toll it took on me. Never in my life have I felt so utterly stupid and hopeless about my grade. Bye bye GPA, it was nice knowing you while I did.

Worst class I have taken at UVA. It was unnecessarily stressful and took a toll on not only my gpa but my mental health . The structure of the exams does not provide ample opportunity for you to show what you understand (also zero partial credit rip) and honestly the whole experience is beyond stressful -- I could literally feel my heart in my throat as I sat in front of the online proctor before my exams, and I really do not get nervous for tests/anything school related ever. I don't believe this class should not be taught online and if it really must be, the TAs should be more helpful and respectful. I attended two office hours and received the most condescending treatment and felt incredibly embarrassed and honestly flat out stupid. After literally getting scoffed at I never went back, which is such a problem because I really needed the help. Overall not a great class and really don't recommend for anyone unless you absolutely have to take it.

Where to begin. I started off this course thinking it was a breeze. I did as expected on the first exam. Kept working hard, and understanding all the material. I even would help my friends with problems every Sunday. However, the second midterm and final. Let. Me. Tell. You. The questions were nothing like what the professor had been making us waste hours a week on. They were completely different and so pretty much everyone including myself did poorly on them. My advice to you is, learn everything he puts out there and in every method possible. For example there's always at least two ways to solve things (like a T-table and equation) so learn both. Go to TA office hours before submitting your homework, they'll check it for you (not give you the answers). Also don't take this class if you are not pre-comm. It's not worth it at all. I will say though, the curve in the end was pretty generous... so that ~kinda~ made up for the pain/suffering/frustration

I think people in the reviews have been really hard on not only the class but the professor. Also the people who are writing these and making the class seem like it's the epitome of misery are the ones who didn't do well in the class. I'll be honest accounting isn't for everyone just like anything else in the world. The class in online which, I thought, was nice because it gave you flexibility. If you're smart you'll spread it out your workload because, if you're taking notes and reading closely, it will take a couple hours. As for the exams, I'm not going to say their easy because if you don't study you probably won't do well, but they're not as hard as some people are saying. I didn't do too hot on the second midterm because I didn't prepare enough. Don't make that mistake. Start studying a few days in advance, go through all the practice material, readings, notes whatever you think you need to do but STUDY! I think people found the exams "impossible" because they required combining the concepts we had learned together which could come off as more difficult if you didn't understand some concepts. As for Professor Martin, I only met him once when he dropped into TA office hours, but he did not seem like the monster the other reviews are pegging him as. By no means is this class and easy A, but put in the work and work hard and you should be fine.

This class absolutely DESTROYED my mental health, gpa, and overall wellbeing/sanity. Online classes has its pros and cons but this was called self teaching. You will basically self teach with an online textbook and do some problems not even remotely close to the difficulty of the exams. Accounting in itself is a difficult topic but having to basically learn it on our own just makes it that much more difficult. I spent 6+ hours reading the text, taking extensive notes, doing the practice and homework problems each week. The professor is not an approachable person which can be seen through his passive aggressive emails and comments. After seeing the level of difficulty on the first exam, I prepared myself for the next midterm and the final and felt well prepared. However, this feeling went away quickly as I thought I was taking an exam literally in a different language. I would think that for the amount of money we pay, they would offer an in person accounting course especially as it is a pre-req for the Comm school. If you aren't planning on applying to comm, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. It will destroy you in ways I did not know were even possible. And if you are taking it for comm school, RIP.

This review will probably get down-voted into oblivion because it doesn't bash every single aspect of the class, but I'm going to do my best to be completely honest about my experience in the course. The best way to start this is by talking about how the entire course is online. I didn't find this to be much of a problem when it came to doing the homework and the readings. I enjoyed the flexibility of being able to do all the work on my own time without ever having to sit through a lecture. My process involved taking notes as I did the reading (usually about 2-3 hours of work), and then doing the homework and practice set over one or two days. I usually started about midway through the week so I wouldn't have to cram all the work in right before the homework deadline, and I was pretty happy with the result. It's impossible to get anything less than 100 on the reading questions or practice sets without actively trying to do worse. The homework tended to build on concepts already seen in the practice set, so I was usually well prepared for it, and my homework grade average was a high A. That said, the wording of the homework and practice sets ranged from acceptable to poor, and that made it very difficult at times to determine what a question was asking. When I ran into this I could usually go to Piazza and get some direction, but these clarity issues crop up to frequently to be ignored. I would sum all this up by saying that I enjoyed the flexibility, but there definitely were aspects of the homework that were just flat out frustrating. I was far less pleased with the online exam experience. Frankly it is the most stressful situation I can imagine a teacher placing on students, to make them totally responsible for their exam location and the reliability of their computer and internet in addition to having to be prepared for the exam. It at times felt unfair, especially when I ran into computer or connection issues that were outside my control. In terms of exam content, it's been interesting to see the different responses from students. I did not feel that the exams were a ridiculous as some students have claimed. We were given plenty of resources in terms of practice problems and a study guide. Each midterm was accompanied by two practice tests, and a number of selected problems that were given to us to work, as well as a list of key concepts. All of this made covering the material pretty straightforward if you were willing to dedicate the time (in my experience). I would typically read the study guide, cover and make note cards for the key concepts, work the practice tests, demonstration examples, and multiple choice questions, and then work any homework problems I remember being particularly hard. I was typically able to cover all of this material in three days, and I performed well on both my 2 midterms and final. I wouldn't say the course is fun, and it certainly isn't easy, but it's not the nightmare people are making it out to be. If you are willing to dedicate the time and not fall behind in your coverage of the material, you can expect to do well(ish) in the course. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who is not required to take it, but I definitely wouldn't consider it to be impossible, or even difficult. It just demands your time.

This class is no walk in the park. That being said, I felt like I truly learned a lot in it. I think some people are being a little bit unfair to Prof. martin and the course in general. The class was not 28hrs of work a week and it was not impossible or completely unfair. I did really bad on the second exam because I didn't have time to study, but I did work really hard on the final and ended up getting an A on it. In regards to best practices, DONT STUDY IN GROUPS for this class. It will be a huge waste of time and you will not understand your mistakes. Read the textbook closely and use the hints on the PQs. For the HWs, check with a friend or two before submitting. The class shouldn't take more than 6 hours a week.

While I’ll never say I enjoyed a single second of this class, I think a lot of people are being really hard on it. Was it fun? Absolutely not. But I will say that I learned a ton of stuff in this class and I know how to do accounting. Despite this, the class is incredibly fast paced and leaves very little time for recovery if you fall behind or don’t understand something, which I find to be a big issue. Also, taking accounting online is just ridiculous. The lack of actual teaching and guidance is unexcusable. I learned everything I know from reading a textbook. Roger made himself available in office hours, but I’m my opinion, that is not how a math based class should be taught, nor is it what I signed up for when coming to UVA (ESPECIALLY as a prereq for Comm School). Tests were slightly unfair, and the material at the end of the semester is very rushed. Also 90% of your grade is exams, meanwhile the homework and readings require about 6 hours a week. Classes like this are nearly impossible to get an A in. Despite doing fairly well overall in this class, I’m very disappointed with it.

Every review you have read before this I agree with 100%. At the beginning, I did not think the material was too bad, until it came to the first midterm. I diligently studied and did the practice problems, expecting to to okay. I ended up with a C and I immediately knew this class was going to be tough. Following this, we received an email from Martin to the stating that people with low grades essentially aren't working hard enough. I replied back stating how I studied for the exam and how I truly felt prepared for it, and I asked for friendly advice on how to go about improving my study habits for the next exam. I received a reply with something along the lines "only a DEDICATED student would know how to work the problems on the exam, you should try and see how I could change practice problems and ask them from different angles". Leading up to the second exam, I changed my study habits and tried to make up my own problems that were harder than the ones given, but again, the second exam took its toll with extremely tricky and specific questions and I ended up with a borderline D/F on it. As the final approached, I knew I needed to do exceptional to have any chance at a good grade in the class. For about 6 days up to the final, I just ate, did accounting, and slept. By the end of this period of time, I HAD to be prepared, right? Wrong. Over 72 hours of studying in 6 days got me a C on the final. I cannot recommend a class any less than this one. If you want to do obscene amounts of work, having any sense of progress in learning ripped from you from terribly difficult exams and snarky emails, this class is for you! With all due respect, I do not think Martin is a bad guy, and I am sure he is a genius when it comes to accounting, but making exams this hard and deceptively tricky for a class that is 98% self-taught is just ridiculous. I do know people who have done well in this class, but the VAST majority of people I have talked to have had a similar experience to me.

WARNING: this is a hot take. As you may have gathered from reading other truly scathing reviews: this class is hard; accounting, by nature, is hard, but blaming Professor Martin, complaining about the website being slow or the Proctors being rude, or even -- the worst I've seen -- criticizing the man for sharing the fact that he had to have surgery on his gallbladder and calling this "oversharing" is ABSOLUTELY pitiful, truly one of the most shameful things I've seen in my entire life.

While you may not have performed as well as you wanted to in the course, criticizing Prof. Martin and stomping your feet anonymously online is not going to change anything. If you didn't do well in this class and still want to go to the Comm School: great -- promise yourself to do better in Managerial and go talk to Prof. Martin about ways to improve. If you've realized it's not the right fit for you: thank Prof. Martin for showing you now instead of a year later when you're sitting in RRH unhappy.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, have some self-respect, and go on with the end of your semester without having to look back after you've calmed down in a couple weeks and wonder why you had to make it your personal duty to degrade Prof. Martin.

This was the worst course I have ever taken at UVA. It is extremely disappointing that we pay thousands of dollars to attend this school and they still won't pay for a class this difficult to have a real/helpful professor. Roger Martin is simply the worst. He is the least helpful and accommodating person in this world. I put in endless hours each week reading the textbook and taking notes on the readings and still barely know the basic concepts. This class is DIFFICULT and it should be in person because there is no way to just teach yourself these concepts by reading a textbook. This man simply does not care about the success or knowledge of his students. No matter how hard you work he will say you are lazy and stupid. He only likes the students who do well (the select few). I relied on videos online to learn the concepts and worked endlessly to just pass this class. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS UNLESS YOU HAVE TO. It successfully weeds out an enormous amount of pre-comm students. Oh, and RIP to your GPA. This class destroyed my mental sanity this semester. Good luck, friends!

AHHAHAHAHAHA WE BACK!

Never take this class if you don't have to. Chances are that you'll screw something up and get yelled at by the professor for being incompetent and that you shouldn't be taking accounting if you don't even understand the basic concepts. He's a horrible professor who will continue to torture his students for the rest of his time at UVA. If you were on the fence for pre-comm, don't wait until you have to take this class. I know plenty of people who had been eliminated from contention for the rat race to get into McIntire. Save yourself the time and headache from taking this course.

Honestly just a pitiful class. The exams with proctorU just give you more testing anxiety. This class the biggest waste of a class since ive been here. Martin is just your average entitled white male tenured professor who gives zero shit about your academics. You go to ask how to do better and he just says you are dumb. His exams are like if you read the material in English then he asks questions on the exam in spanish. Also, connect doesn't work at least half of the time. Martin sends snarky emails telling us to not email him, and over shares about his persona life. Like I didn't need to know he got his gallbladder out for god sake, he isn't getting any pity here. Sure this class was hard when it was in person, but at least the professor cared about her students learning the content, not like this dude. If you take this class, plan on dropping out of comm because it'll do that to you and honestly make you want to jump off of a bridge because no matter how much work you put in, he just kills you on the exam anyways.

To start, I will say that this class is doable for a lot of people. For many others, including myself, it was very challenging. However, having an online class is simply not the best way to learn this material for most people, despite how well they might have done grade-wise. It is sad that an intro accounting class creates this much stress and animosity among its students given how useful the content can actually be. The homework/practice problems are functionally irrelevant to your grade (something Martin never lets you forget in his weekly emails) and exams are definitely a step up from the homework/practice. That said, I did not think the exams in and of themselves were unfair. I think the most frustrating aspect of exams was that the material Martin gives you to study with is FAR easier than the content on the exam itself and if learning intricate concepts by reading a textbook alone is hard for you, you will likely struggle in this course. In regards Martin as professor, I don’t have much positive to say. His emails are rarely helpful and are often rather condescending. Overall, I can say I learned a lot but the course caused me an undue amount of stress, and I have never been more relived to finish a class.

It's not that bad. Just don't procrastinate the work, study the practice/homework problems, read the questions carefully, and you'll be fine. Don't let the other reviews scare you out of taking the class.

Look, there's no sugar-coating it. This is a hard course, and as you can see throughout the comment section below, it is clearly "weed-out" course for the COMM school. Roger Martin is a fine professor, not great, but also not the WOAT/Devil as everyone is making him out to be. In this comment, I'm going to give the most unbiased and clear-cut review I can and just lay it out:

1. Prereq for COMM - Like it or not, you have to take this class if you want to do COMM. And let's be real, accounting kinda blows, but you just gotta grind through it. And to be fair, it's really not that bad.

2. Taking it online - Some kids hate this, some like it. I was kinda in the middle. The downside is that you're pretty much teaching yourself all the accounting concepts through the readings. I'd say I spent around 3 hours each week going over the readings. I didn't take any notes, which definitely subtracted some time from my overall workload. When you don't get to go over stuff in lecture, it's much harder for the material to stick, and you gotta spend more time on it. The upside of taking it online is that it adds so much leeway to your schedule and honestly you probably end up spending less time in class/doing work. This definitely helps in studying with other classes and budgeting your time throughout the semester with non-school related things.

3. HWs - the homeworks are pretty straightforward and take about 2-3 hours to do each weekend. They are fair, reasonable, and do a decent job of testing you on the concepts learned in the readings.

4. Exams - the Exams are tough, as they should be. My biggest tip for studying for the exams is to pay attention to the underlying accounting concepts when reading over chapters and reviewing previous HWs. I think kids often get stuck in the trap where they just memorize how to do the problems on the HWs and think that that's enough to get them a good grade in the class. DON'T DO THAT! The Exam questions are harder than the HW questions in the sense that they will push your understanding of the accounting concepts slightly further. Kids who just memorize stuff get screwed and then they go and complain to Roger about how he's not a good teacher and this class sucks -- this is ridiculous. If Roger made the Exams exactly like the HWs, everyone who remotely tried to study would get 95+ on all the exams. For a COMM prereq, he obviously can't do this. This is not supposed to be an easy class.

Final thing, for some, accounting comes easy to them, for others, it's very hard. This is just the nature of the beast. I think that the most important thing to understand is to keep calm throughout the duration of the course -- your grade in Intro into Financial Accounting is not going to determine your future. And this sounds absurd to say, but to be honest people have been way too emotional/intense this semester about their grade in the class. For example, after the second midterm someone wrote on PIAZZA "I am really concerned about my future now, is there still a chance I can make it to comm school." In addition to this, apparently people have been emailing Roger complaints and berating him about how the course is unfair. This is all BS. People just need to calm down, sack up, and face the music. You may or may not get a good grade in this course, but I think the most important thing is to just grind through it and move on.

This class is difficult, but more due to the fact that you are "on your own" since it is online. Professor Martin is a tough Professor, but at the same time, this class is a weed out class, so that should be expected. The structure of the class is simple: read a chapter each week (takes about 1.5-2 hours), then do practice/hw problems (another 1.5-2 hours) each week. All in all, if you keep up with the work throughout the semester, you will get the grade you DESERVE. With that said, unless you think you will be really good at accounting, don't expect an A in this class. It is a hard class--not because the material is too dense and confusing to understand--but because you have to have the self discipline to learn everything on your own and master it.

Also, If you think comm school is for you, use this class as an opportunity to find out. If you get a D in this class, comm school probably wasn't meant for you in the first place. good luck!

It is absolutely ridiculous that the tuition we pay doesn't go towards an actual in-person class, but an ONLINE McIntire PREREQUISITE course where we have to teach ourselves everything you need to know about Financial Accounting and more. Roger Martin is without a doubt brilliant and intelligent in this subject. However, he is the most unhelpful, unfair, and least understanding professor I have ever had. The readings, practice, and homework problems are a good BASE for merely understanding the material. However, when it comes to the exams, Professor Martin will put questions that take everything 10 steps further and will not provide any practice problems that accurately reflect the difficulty of the questions we will see on the exams. For the first two exams, I redid all of the assigned problems we had for homework, re-read each chapter, did the review problems he gave us, and still got absolutely DESTROYED by the exams. Although I understood all of the material, the ridiculous questions he throws at us make you second-guess your answers/methods of solving them and you ultimately just don't get the points unless you're lucky. It is also very easy to miscalculate a single number and lose a ton, if not all, of the points on a question because of the unreasonable weighting of each question. And it doesn't help that the "Review Questions" he gives us for the exams are exactly the same as problems we have already done. or even easier. I, and many other students I believe, would've performed much better in this course if Professor Martin had given us more difficult problems to review with that are more representative of the types of questions he asks. Overall, I suffered a lot in this course and definitely had multiple mental breakdowns and blows to my self-worth throughout the semester only to end with a grade that definitely does not look good to McIntire. Hopefully the structure and preparation Professor Martin provides in future Financial and Managerial Accounting courses will improve.

Basically, you self-teach accounting by paying 100 bucks to read a textbook and 15 more for Chegg (trust me, you'll need it).

Your grade will not reflect the sheer amount of work you put in every week. Reading the textbook takes hours. Doing the practice problem takes several hours more. But doing all that, putting in all your sweat and tears and all, is about 18% of your grade. Not to mention that there are sometimes repeats and errors in the practice and homework problems. For a Comm school online course that we paid for, that is designed to build the foundation for our understanding of accounting -- seriously, this is not acceptable.

It's the exams, the 2 midterms and 1 final, that dictates about 80% of your grade. The exam problems are much harder and tricky. And most of the time, it's a fill-in-the-blank, so no partial credits are given. If your fingers trip up typing an answer, thats like 4% of your grade gone. Also, I wouldn't suggest doing the practice exams as the professor suggests because they do not accurately reflect the difficulty of the midterm or final. You're better off just drilling the t-accounts and the what affects what in your brain.

Unless you're pre-comm, avoid this class. Your mental and physical health will thank you. But for those who are stuck with taking this pre-req, what's the best way to survive? I'd say, pretty much sucking up all the busy work, study hard, but pray to Jesus, and hope that the accounting God is on your side during exams.

I agree with the review before this one. The class is hard; theres no two ways about that. But if you put in the work as he recommends, putting in a little every day, anyone can get an A in this class. I did poorly on the first two exams because I didn't listen to Professor Martin and I thought I could just coast through. For the final, I grinded for like two weeks and ended up getting a 95%. Overall, I'll probably end up with a B, but I definitely don't blame the professor for that. He works really hard to keep this course effective, answering countless emails and piazza questions every day. If you want to succeed, take what he says seriously. Don't cram every Sunday night because you won't get the repetition you need to effectively learn this stuff. I learned that the hard way; don't be like me lol. If you're not prepared to put in a lot of work, just don't waste your time with this class

This review is going to have a different point of view than most other ones listed. This is a difficult class, no doubt about it. I found it to be challenging, as a pre-requisite for McIntire School of Commerce should be. The Professor holds his students to a high standard and has never lied about that. Most of the very negative reviews are students taking out their frustration because they did not get the grade that they wanted. While I understand this, and I empathize with their struggle, I do not think it is fair for them to completely blame the Professor for their final result.I think this class is like most other difficult classes at UVa, you get out of it what you put into it. I say this not because I was one of the few people with an A, absolutely not. I personally ended up doing worse than I had hoped and I feel badly about it. But the blame that students are putting on Professor Martin here is not totally fair. This is not to say that there aren't things I wouldn't change about the way the course was set up, I would. But at the end of the day, you have to take responsibility for your actions. For a majority of people that took this class, they got the grade their work deserved. That's all. Maybe accounting is just not for you - it isn't something that comes easily to everyone. Maybe this course IS in fact harder than other Intro accounting courses (it most likely is, actually) but that's what you get for trying to get into one of the most prestigious undergraduate business schools in the country. Nobody said it would be easy.

This was an abhorrent class, do NOT take it unless you are the greatest accountant the world has ever seen. The amount of work overall is insane and the professor is completely unhelpful. The final exam is the biggest piece of confusing garbage to ever exist, it can be best described as cruel and unusual punishment. The other reviews for Fall 2018 go into more depth about the class structure and uselessness of the professor, I just wanted to let everyone know that this class will screw up your GPA, mental health, and future plans.

Don't take unless you are pre-comm. Very time consuming class but material isn't that difficult if you put the time in. Exams are a lot harder than practice and homework problems that you do because they are worded differently and are more complex. Also stressful because there is rarely opportunities for partial credit on exams since many answers are multiple choice or filling in the blank with a number.

Probably should've known from the first passive-aggressive email from Professor Martin that this wasn't going to be a good one. He kindly recommended that we spend 6-9 hours a week on the chapter, to properly master. Little did we know that Roger was underestimating. Aside from his poor estimation skills, Roger has a knack for sending remarkably passive-aggressive emails, getting mad when the student's that he (doesn't) teach don't do well on his exams. To make matters worse, he decided it was a great idea to warn students days before the final that "The final will be hard." Thanks Roger. Hadn't occurred to me that your final would be hard. Additionally, you best not email him "lacking civility." While Roger will email you complaining, and lamenting, that his students aren't working hard enough, or properly, you best not email him with any complaints. Roger Martin simply isn't a professor. He's a manager. He sits in his office, posts the occasional video here or there, and hopes to god that students don't need his help (he'd rather you just leave him alone). I'm sure Professor Martin is very good at accounting, I'm sure he teaches upper level accounting courses, and students may even praise him. However, he didn't teach this one. He didn't even create a good course. He had students read a $70 textbook, and pretended like he was teaching us. Aside from nothing, it's a tremendously disappointing class in one of the more important McIntire prerequisite classes.

Whoever decided to bully Roger back in the day has created an absolute monster. Roger is not an educator but a facilitator and has little regard for students. If we were on the Titanic he would have taken the last lifeboat on his own with a hearty "lmao y'all bouta drown. "There is little to no instruction in this course with TA's that don't know much more than you do. Don't take this class my friend, but if you must I would recommend taking some padding classes because you're in for a major tanking in your GPA. Shout out to Roger for sending an email out to say hey don't email me because many of you "lack civility." Roger has a major bee in his bonnet. If anything it will be a semester to bond with your fellow students down in the trenches.

The information in this course is not super difficult, and the homework and practice problems are doable but very time consuming . That being said the exams tend to be far more challenging taking everything "one step further." The real issue with this course is the unfair weighting of everything. I put in hours of work each week mastering homework and practice sets for it to only be 14% of my grade. The final is difficult and weighted WAY too heavily.. I was confident in my understanding of the skills learned in this class going into the final and came out of it with a score that resulted in my course grade dropping 2 entire letter grades despite doing well on the first two exams. The worse part of this being that he offers you no explanation for your final exam grade and refuses you the right to even see your mistakes!!! Professor Martin also is prone to sending super sassy and belittling emails to the entire class in response to select students behaviors which can be annoying

alright people. this is an online course. your grade in this class is not dependent on roger martin or his teaching, it's a result of YOU and your effort. clearly there is a higher degree of responsibility to an online course. If you are willing to put in the time and stay on top of the chapters, this class is very very doable and the material is not difficult. allocate appropriate time each week to learning and practicing, and i promise you will do fine. the tests were always fair applications of concepts in the book. Also, this is a prerequisite, it's not supposed to be "easy." Maybe instead of wasting your time complaining about your grades, you should be doing your work and studying for your exams. that is all (:

Class is very straightforward and tests are a fair representative of what is covered throughout. Doesn't take much work to understand the material and everything is very reasonable. Would most definitely recommend to a friend.

Y'all need to chill lol.

HORRIFIC CLASS. I am no longer following the McIntire track because of this terrible class! The amount of work in this course is ridiculous. I had to get a personal tutor who is in McIntire and was CURRENTLY learning material (in her accounting class) that I was learning in this course!! I learned more from her than from Roger's "structured" online course. Before each midterm you have work due the Sunday before that includes: a complete chapter, homework, and practice problems. You have to be able to complete and retain this information in week so that you know it for the test. ALSO LET'S BE HONEST... ROGER IS SO PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE!!! The course is incredibly challenging and weighed terribly. The amount of information you HAVE to understand weekly is ridiculous. You have to know how to do everything correctly because the test are mostly free response, so you know it or don't. I hope that you take my advice and ALL these students advice telling you to save yourself and NOT take this course.

I took this course to learn some basic accounting skills, and while I feel like I did get that to some extent, it was not worth the difficultly and immense amount of work and self-teaching. The exams are tricky and hard to do well on. You pretty much teach yourself the whole class, which is one of the many disadvantages of it being online. If you're taking this class to learn basic skills (aka not as a pre-Comm requirement), I would audit it, or better yet, take it somewhere other than UVA where you can focus on learning the skills rather than trying not to fail or trying not to get confused by poorly written questions. For the amount of tuition students pay at UVA, and the reputation the McIntire school has, the quality of 'instruction" for this class was ultimately quite disappointing.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. I REPEAT DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. unless you are really set on Comm school. The course is only online now, and I cannot even begin to emphasize how terribly put together it is. First off, there are practice problems and homework problems due each Sunday and they take up SO MUCH TIME. You have to read the chapter and take notes to actually understand it (which takes forever, especially when you have other classes to worry about), and the practice and homework problems are usually really long. I have never spent so much time on a class before. To top it all off, the homeworks and practice are literally ONLY worth 14% of your grade, when they take so much effort and dedication. The worst part of this class was definitely the final. Prof Martin made it cumulative (in a class that has way too much information) AND worth 40% of your entire grade (which is crazy considering it covers and absurd amount of information). Also, he likes to say that he really isn't trying to trick you with his questions. DO NOT BELIEVE HIM WHEN HE SAYS THIS. He goes out of his way to trip students up, which doesn't really prove anything about their competence in accounting. I literally had an A- in the class up until the final, because I put so much time and effort into learning the material, and the final was so unreasonable that I got a 50% and I'm ending the semester with a C (after studying for 16 hours straight in the library). The second midterm is also hard, but its nothing compared to the final. He also doesn't really curve, so he just really sets you up for failure and gives you no way out. Many people who did not deserve sub B grades in this class are failing or barely not failing, and I think that reflects on the teacher and the course rather than the slim possibility that literally everyone didn't prepare for the exam (when they were doing great in the class beforehand). It is a waste of tuition paying for an online course that does so little to actually help you. You teach yourself everything and really the only way to learn is to just read the textbook. I can believe Professor Martin actually gets paid for what he did with this class. This class seriously harms your mental health. If you can avoid it, please please please save yourself.

Stay far far away from COMM 2010. Over five hours a week are dedicated to doing the reading, practice problems, and homework for this course- only for it to have almost zero percent impact on your grade. The exams are not reflective of the material taught. Professor Martin chooses harder, more specific material to ask to separate the "good students from the great students." The final is worth 40% of your grade. Not to mention, you never actually get to see Professor Martin or receive any form of aid from him. The review sessions are led by young, ignorant and unprepared TAs just chasing a check. Save yourself the mental distress and do not take this class.

Professor Martin just doesn't know how to appropriately teach. I feel like I could have learned so much more if the tests actually reflected the material. Like, why would you save all the ridiculously hard questions just to put them on exams? Every single exam I studied ridiculously hard, went through every practice problem set available, and my grade still sucked. He could easily prepare us well for the exams and he just chooses not to. During exams for this class there's always one tiny little bit of information that could make or break your ability to solve the problem. It's honestly crazy that we have to know every minor tiny detail from this course considering how much material we have to learn. The amount of things we have to learn for this class is massive. I don't understand why the final has to be cumulative when students without exception will not have the time to review all the material in just a few days before they have to take the exam. That's another problem - while this class is online and has a lot of flexibility, the workload is crazy. not only do you have to do all the homework sets but then you have to go through every single one all over again in order to be even slightly prepared for exams. Then, during exams, he'll write questions that are insanely hard and then act like low test averages are "good". One time he actually emailed the class and said that two-thirds of the class scored above a 70% and then patted himself on the back for that "spectacular achievement". He also said that if you scored above a 70% on the exam you were "doing just fine". I DON'T THINK THE COMM SCHOOL CONSIDERS A 70% A GOOD GRADE. If students suck at a class, that's a combination of their individual work ethic AND the quality of the instructor. Pre-comm kids work so hard and deal with crazy workloads, so the work ethic part clearly isn't the problem....

This class is extremely work-heavy and ridiculous. Honestly, I kinda had fun with it at first because the material is challenging, but once I understood something, I was proud of myself. I scored above average on the first two exams and completely failed the final, which dropped my grade down a whole letter grade and a half (40% of your grade). On the final, Roger chooses the absolute most random and challenging questions that are MAYBE covered in one question out of the huge amount of practice questions you do. I felt pretty prepared to take the final and I was breezing through the review questions, but low and behold, I get F*CKED on the final due to questions that I do not believe represent our learning in the last couple chapters in the slightest.

The grade distribution for this course does not accurately display what students have learned and accomplished. Roger sits on a 6 figure salary and watches the lives of innocent, hard-working students plummet throughout the semester.

Honestly, Roger Martin sucks. His emails to students make him sound as if he thinks he is way above us...I emailed him once and he said something along the lines of "I don't know HOW you don't understand this" sorry professor, maybe if you were a better professor and had more accurate test questions that would HELP ME UNDDERSTAND THIS. The questions on the final/midterms do not represent what we have learned WHATSOEVER. they are easily 5x harder and ask for such specific stuff we never covered in the course. The exams are around 83% of our final grade. Excluding studying, that is 9 hours taking the exam. I spent at least 15 hours a week doing the homework, practice, and reading for like 8% of my grade. That is ridiculous. I wouldn't want anyone to take this course, unless the professor changes or the grading scale is improved dramatically.

Very difficult and unfair class in terms of grading and what is expected. Although, the professor has yet to apply the 'curve' so maybe not so bad. If not intending to do comm stay away from here.

This class is absolutely terrible. Do NOT take it unless you have too. Roger Martin makes this class so much harder than it needs to be - and he's admitted to it! The TA's justify his behavior by saying, 'This class separates the good students from the great students.' Unless you dad works on Wallstreet and you were born in an accounting firm.. don't put yourself through this pointless torture. The exams are 10% harder than any practice material or hw that you are given. I knew this class would be hard going in, but I never thought I had the possibility of getting a D in my life and yet here I am. Save yourself and your mental health the hassle.

Accounting is most certainly not the most fun or engaging course, but it is quite important and Professor Martin has done a good job of compiling the course information online in a way that makes it easy to digest. If you keep up to date with all of the work you will most likely do well in the course -- the professor doesn't really try to trick you at all on the exams.

Because the class is online you have a lot of liberty. I found the online aspect of the course to be very rewarding. Professor Martin always responded to your questions in a timely fashion. As long as you don't cram this class should not be too hard. For his tests, he used the same questions as the homework but with different numbers. The only thing I would say is that the class picks up right away, so there is almost an assumption that you have a predisposition to accounting.

This class was really boring. I have heard that managerial accounting is easier. It was only offered online in Spring 2018, and having to read all of the material was so confusing. What made it worse was that Professor Martin didn't want TAs (when they did sporadic online sessions) to teach us the material. We had to come prepared with specific examples and couldn't ask generally about an accounting principle. Personally, I would have loved to spend my tuition paying for someone to actually be there to teach it and take answers from the class, in a more traditional way. It probably even has an effect on people's grades because it certainly did on mine.

This class is now solely online and the course material is fine I guess, but it gets a little tricky. The main problem is the online testing if you have technical difficulties during your exam you're basically screwed. Martin will not give you any sort of help on that end, saying that it is your responsibility to prepare for the worst no matter what the issue might have been. This didn't affect me in the first 2 midterms but absolutely messed me up on the final. I lost an hour of the 3-hour exam due to difficulties and had to rush through the entire exam. The result was not pretty. You have to take this class as a Comm Pre-req but be wary that if you have even a little bit of technological issues, you are held accountable for it and will not get any support from Martin.

I personally recommend taking the online course. I've heard that they're switching all of financial accounting to online, so I guess pre-comm doesn't have a choice anymore. Anyways, the reason I liked it online was because of the flexibility. I didn't have class Mondays because of this online accounting class, so I was able to dedicate a solid amount of time to the course. I also think the it's easy to get a 100 on all the practice problems since you have unlimited tries. When I couldn't figure out what the answer was, I emailed Professor Martin and he quickly reached out to me an gave me a response. He is very reliable in terms of accounting help and is reachable. I went to the TA office hours and did the Zoom help and it was nice because there was plenty of opportunity to get help. The first test was tougher than I expected but I realized that it was pretty much all the practice and homework problems with different numbers. If you redo those problems again, you will do better on the exams. He also gives a very detailed study guide including what topics will be heavily covered on the final. Use this and make sure you know all the important material well. I got a B+ on the first test, A on the second test, and a B on the final and my grade got pulled down from an A to an A-. The only negative is that there is very little curving. I wasn't curved, but I know someone who was on a borderline of a B+ and A- who got curved up. The good thing with this class is you know what to expect on the tests and how you're graded. I've had friends in the in-person class who failed their second test because it was so hard. Our tests were more realistic in terms of expectations. l will say I was disappointed in how hard the final was and wish there was a bigger curve. Overall though, Professor Martin is a good person to take financial accounting online with.

Definitely take this class online if you can, while the online textbook is kind of annoying and clunky to use, the practice/hw problems and posted Multiple Choice review questions prepare you very well for the test. As long as you keep up with the work (Professor Martin posts "Hint" videos which basically walk you through every step of some problems), you'll be fine. I've heard from several friends that the in-class intro financial accounting section is a lot harder. I didn't use the online TA office hours via Zoom or the walk in hours, but they seemed accessible from the weekly email updates we got.

This class was definitely very difficult to get a good grade in so I recommend only taking it if really necessary. Although Professor Martin offers study guides and practice problems, you have to memorize how to do most of these practice problems to do well on the exams. The final was cumulative and pulled my grade down because it covered so much material and so many different types of problems.

Take this class in person if you can. Taking accounting online is probably the worst decision you can make. There is no curve, so if you do bad on the tests you will have no hope.