COMM 2010

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.