STS 4500

Foley is a great professor and so much fun. He's a little goofy which made the class so much more enjoyable to attend and you can tell he really cares about his students and is willing to meet you where you're at. He prepares you well by front loading the course with a Problem Statement (which I don't think all STS 4500s have) due early October and the Annotated Bibliography due around Halloween. I appreciate the format because I saw some of my other friends with different professors really struggle towards the end because they had coasted through the beginning. I had a few gripes with the class though. He does require attendance (and he ends up being a little strict about it at the end in terms of your participation grade) and does not give you a lot of information when you miss class. He is also not an easy grader. He teaches two classes in the fall and one in the spring so you might get booted if too many people try to enroll and have to find a different professor. Either way he prepares you well and I don't think you can go wrong with Foley. #tCFF23

Professor Foley is an enthusiastic lecturer who does a wonderful job of teaching the frameworks and methods necessary to survive the sociotechnical portion of your senior thesis. The issue is that he has a patronizing tone and will make it known his personal preferences when it comes to every student in the class. He truly is passionate about the work he does, it is just he views his comfortability as paramount to everyone elses. I would reccomend him to anyone that is stable and confident in the work and research they find to be interesting. However, if you want his opinion, be mindful that he will give you more than just constructive criticism. TLDR: Take him if you're able to ignore his sassiness. If you do not want to take on the extra emotional managment, take Wylie or someone else.

STS 4500 is all about writing the prospectus (an around 10 page introduction to your capstone) which has a lot of moving parts. I think Foley did a great job with pacing the class and a lot of work that you do earlier can be copy and pasted into the prospectus and even other assignments. Usually, there is a reading to do before each class, which are long at the start of the semester, but get shorter. There are also reading quizzes every 2 weeks (on one reading at time) which are pretty hard, but aren't worth too much (they contribute to the participation score). Foley's grading can be a bit unpredictable, with assignments being graded basically on completion, while others are graded really tough but I ended up with pretty good grades. Overall, I would recommend Foley for anyone that likes to be a bit ahead on work or doesn't want to have to write the whole prospectus at the end of the semester with no guidance. #tCFF23

Rider Foley is the man. Take this section with him. Funny guy, always starts class off playing some random music that he found online. Super knowledgeable about STS as a whole, and really sets you up for total success in writing your senior thesis. Can't recommend enough.

Course itself (STS 4500) is aimed at Fall semester senior capstone work for engineering students. The final goal is writing a Prospectus, a ~2000 word research proposal for what you plan on writing your senior thesis about. Not that much work other than readings (which I only did before we had a quiz), as long as you made sure to not leave assignments to the last minute.

If you want an easy A professor this is not the right professor for you. But if you want to have a really well-structured semester to write your prospectus and set up your STS research paper then Foley is amazing at that. He assigns a bunch of "random" writing assignments but all of them add up and piece together into your final prospectus. So you end up doing more work early but have a high-quality prospectus done early that will be very useful in STS4600.

Also, he makes a bunch of unnecessary comments about random stuff but that's how he gets close to his students and I genuinely believe he tried to connect with every one of his 40 students when I took it with him.

Summary: no bs grading, mandatory attendance, prepares well for STS4600, interesting lectures (unique discussions/group work everyday, no lecture slideshows), interesting and genuine professor (referral!)

Wouldn't recommend taking this course with Rider Foley. He's an unprofessional professor overall and I have to agree with the previous review that he likes to make unnecessarily comments to specific students. He requires attendance for each class, yet his class is the most useless one that I have taken so far at UVA. The whole point of STS 4500 is to write your prospectus. Foley assigns additional and useless work compared to other STS 4500 professors and has a grading scale of only A,B,C with no in between. The class time was the biggest waste of time learning about useless STS frameworks with useless worksheets that we as engineers will never again use in the future. He comes across as arrogant and definitely is judgmental of his students. Can be harsh in grading and very subjective as in there is no defined rubric on how you will be graded so its basically up to his discretion. To me he went out of his way for some students compared to others based on favoritism. Will happily give you a failing grade on a discussion post or journal entry assignment so make sure you put the effort into each assignment if you do take his class. Do yourself a favor and take the required STS 4500 course with Laugelli, Seabrook, or Jacques instead of Foley. You will have less work to do and the professors will act in a proper professional manner with better less subjective grading.

Professor Foley is one of the most enthusiastic and considerate professors I have ever had for any subject. He really makes a point to reach out to students and make them feel appreciated as individuals, not just parts of the class. He often starts classes by asking individual students about themselves and their interests, complementing cool things they have going on, or checking in with them if he already knows them. He really makes an effort to build a relationship with each of his students so he can better accommodate their learning needs. He gives good and thorough criticism on assignments, always with tips to improve, and ultimately gives good grades if you show that you're putting in effort and engaging with the material. He's genuinely one of the most understanding and down to earth teachers I've had and I take every class with him that I get the chance to. He has an infectious enthusiasm and really tries to make the experience about learning and personal development rather than just ticking some boxes for a capstone. He's also very fair and understanding - I had a lot of health issues when I took his class and he put in a lot of effort to accommodate me reasonably and help me make a plan to get my work done.

The work for the class is pretty reasonable. Before every lecture, there's a reading to complete, then during lecture we usually had some sort of collaborative activity to facilitate discussions about the topic of the reading. He provides a lot of guidance on the capstone-related writing assignments. Outside of those assignments and the readings, the only other assignments are a hand full of discussion posts.

Foley singled out students in class and picked on them for non class related reasons, such as looks, attire, and home situation. It was terribly awkward and rather mean. He took pride in giving students 50 and 60%s on assignments instead of being a fair grader. Will respond to emails but won't actually help you on anything. He once got visibly angry and upset that students didn't boost his ego when he forced us to read a paper that he wrote. Snobbish and stuck up. He's also painfully inefficient and gives a slew of useless worksheets. Not as bad as Ann Reimers but my #2 worst professor in the E school.