COMM 3410

professor moore is anything but overrated, hands down the best professor I've had at UVa

I recommend this course, with some reservations. Sherri Moore is an excellent lecturer, and extremely knowledgeable about the subject matter. The tests are fair, especially if you use your cheat sheets effectively, while an A is still hard to get. The quizzes are every week and usually not too tricky. The only problem with this class is really its structure. She doesn't allow computers, phones, etc. so the only notetaking is by hand. There's also no textbook or online notes, so the only way to get the info is to go to class and handwrite lecture notes for about an hour (class usually ends early) every single lecture of the semester. No computers is a fair policy, and her being a good lecturer largely makes up for it, but there is really not one lecture all semester where you don't handwrite notes for the entirety of the class. That said, the content is extremely interesting, and Sherri Moore is definitely a professor worth having, so if you can get over the structure of the course, it's well worth it.

To begin, yes Sherri Moore is a legend - you don't need another person telling you that to figure out it's true. She is great, hands down. Get to know her whether you take this class or not.

However, I was a bit disappointed with the class itself. I had to take it since it is a comm requirement, but I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have to take it. A few reasons:

1) You have to hand write notes in class, and she moves so quickly that your hand is in pain by the end of it. Also, if you aren't laser focused through the whole hour, you will 100% miss some tiny detail that shows up on the quiz or test. Frustrating. That leads me to my next point...

2) The tests. It's not that they are hard, they are just annoying. I welcome a challenging question that requires critical thinking - we go to college to learn, and good tests teach you things. However, Sherri asks so many questions that involve knowing a specific exception to a law that only applies to the state of New Jersey or something. So you need to be lucky on two fronts: one, you were paying attention during lecture when she mentioned some tiny specific nuance and wrote it down; and two, you decided to include it in your cheat sheet. See what I mean? The 100 question final wasn't fun either.

3) The weekly quizzes were pretty annoying. Not that they were hard either, but it was just something that you needed to do every single week. It got exhausting by the end of the semester. Too much work for a 4th year.

I definitely learned some useful things, but nothing a YouTube video titled "Useful things to know about the U.S. Legal system in 1 hour!" wouldn't have taught me. Hope this clears stuff up for people.

This class was extremely interesting and applicable to every day life. Also, even if you are not interested in pursuing a career in law, Sherri Moore is an amazing, inspirational lecturer! She made even the dry material (property law) interesting and she was great at engaging the class. She is always available for office hours, and I highly recommend to take advantage of them and get to know her outside of class. The class is easy. Read over your notes before tests and quizzes and write really small on your cheat sheets. It was very possible to write all of your notes from each section on the cheat sheets if you wrote small enough. Great class, even better professor!

While Prof. Moore's lecturing style did much to liven the material up, this course feels a little misrepresented by the description and the other reviews. It is not a class about commercial law, but rather American civil law writ large. There's some in contract law and a tiny bit about the UCC (literally one article) that deals with business in particular, but that's it. No compliance, no ethics, no anticompetition. Even worse for an undergraduate course COMM 3410 deals exclusively with current fact, no theory. The course and the tests are 90% the law itself, treating it as fixed and rigid. In this regard, the class is comparable to high school, which is as boring as one would expect. The grade is 80% determined by tests which allow for a cheat sheet. While this makes the class straightforward as anything, it also means that the evaluation for knowing the law is an evaluation of rote memory.

Just take it.

Great professor. Boring materials. Annoying exams. Frustrating grading. Have little to do with "Commerce," while you can learn about the US legal system on Youtube in an hour.

IMO this class is overrated. Professor Moore is extremely engaging and passionate about law, but she can be a bit disorganized when her lecture diverts from the outlines. I am also not a fan of the structure of this course; no readings or anything to engage students more with the subject beyond 1 quiz you study for a week. I also think the "extra credit" policy- attending either one mock trial or writing 2 article response papers to make up at best 2% of your grade- is quite unreasonable for the amount of time you have to spend on such a small percentage of your grade. On the matter of grades, don't take this class if you expect to get an A, as the cutoff for that is a 95, and then an A- is 90-95. Do go to her last lecture though, it was very inspiring.

Sherri Moore is super sweet and a very knowledgeable Professor. Like the reviewers before me, I will say it is tough to get an A. I pulled off an A this semester but it's hard because the cutoff is a 95. However, it is very manageable to get an A-. The class is entirely lecture based and everyone must take handwritten notes. At first it was annoying because I couldn't write as fast as she spoke but once I got used to it, I actually liked it. It's nice because every thing you have to study is in your notebook. You don't have to buy a textbook or refer to any homework. If you focus completely on what she says the entire time, you will do well. That being said, she does ask a few nuanced/specific questions on her tests which can seem unfair. You have to pay very close attention to random details and that can be the difference between an A and an A-. But if you get the overall information, you'll be fine. Also, she lets you do extra credit which makes your lowest quiz grade a 100 which is helpful. In regards to the material, it is more focused on civil law and there isn't a lot of commerce involved. However, it is a great introduction to the US legal system. There were many non-Comm students in my class. Also, Professor Moore is fairly easy to follow in class and she usually writes out tough concepts on the board. I definitely recommend taking this class! Also, go to the last lecture!

Okay, let me start with this: I agree with all the reviews below. Yup. Every single one of them. Professor Moore is great and the class is interesting and it's more of an intro law class not a commercial law class but it's fun nonetheless yadayadayada. But I do take issue with people saying its a tough A. No it's not. Check the chart. It shows that 20% of the class gets an A. Not bad in my opinion. Advice to get an A is just pay attention in class. Most people zone out and that's how you get burned on the tests. Any minute detail can and will show up on one of the tests so just pay attention and you'll do fine. Dilly Dilly