LaPorte, Mary  

Being a freshman, and new to the whole college experience, Mary was a huge let down. She was incredibly rude and unprofessional. She talks down to all of her students and is very degrading. She always seems to take her jokes too far and then some. Whenever she speaks to you it's either very sarcastic and passive aggressive or it's a back-handed compliment. Being in her class is a huge beating to your ego. She is a very skilled artist but is horrible at articulating what she wants to the class and puts the blame on you when you don't give her exactly what she wants. She is also very flaky with emailing you instruction for assignments and still expects you to know what she wants, as if she thinks we can just read her mind. If you are forced to be in this awful class, my only advice is to not take what she says personally. Just get through the quarter with your head high and do a victory dance when you make it out alive. But if you can possibly avoid her, DO IT! I guarantee any other teacher will be more helpful and will actually TEACH, which is what college is for.

I took this class because I really enjoy drawing. Throughout this course I definitely learned more about the art of drawing, and can definitely say my skills increased. At times, I felt like professor LaPorte wasn't explaining the assignments very well and the whole class was confused, but if you go talk to her independently she is very helpful. Her grading is a little tough for a 101 class but you get the opportunity to re-do your portfolio from the midterm and you have until dead week or the final to turn it in and can receive up to full credit for it. I repeatedly went to her asking her how I could improve my drawings and she was always very helpful. Definitely take your pieces to her before the midterm and before the final to make sure you are doing everything correctly because the portfolio you turn in at the midterm is worth 35% of your grade and the portfolio you turn in at the final is also worth 35% of your grade. Overall, I learned a lot from this class and learned techniques I didn't even know existed. Professor LaPorte can be a tough grader but her criticism is very constructive and if you take the time to ask her questions and have her look over your work, it'll definitely benefit you and your grade.

Do not take this professor, she is not clear at all with what she wants. She does not help if you ask for help and she never shows up to office hours. I showed up to her office more than 4 times and she did not come once. She does not answer emails and tells the class she will do something, but ends up not doing it.

Bad bad bad bad bad. She was so concerned about a book that she was publishing that she would come to class completely unprepared. She would teach us archaic methods of how to do things. Comparitively, she was teaching us how to use the slide rule when we all have ti-89s in our hands. She is arrogant, condescending and completely unhelpful. I asked her for help in the class and she made me wait in her office for over 30 min. while she went around running random errands. This was during her fucking office hours, while I was skipping another class. On Tuesday she told us that our midterm would cover pages 1-80 in our text. She then told us the midterm was on the following tuesday. Our text was a glorified dictionary. Imagine studying pages 1-80 of a graphic design dictionary. Believe it or not, almost everyone either failed it or got a D. When we asked her for our standing in the class, she said "If you were doing poorly, I would have talked to you already." Well, I got a D, and that means I have to take it again. I'm still waiting for her to "talk to me about it."

Well, Mary was a very interesting experience. I would agree with a lot of the stuff the other students have said. Taking 232 made me question whether or not I supposed to be going into graphic design. She basically tore people down in her own sacarstic lingo, and would say things under her breath about some people. I don't feel that she really helped my design skill and spent her lecture time talking about printing processes, which are good to have a background with, but not the point of learning beginning graphic design. Our midterm was to be all multiple choice and based on the reading. When we showed up for the test, it was all fill in the blank and short answer...her response was, "I lied." That's just a great quality to have in a teacher. I'm so glad to be out of the class, and hope that the rest of my graphic classes can have better experiences. If you have a chance...take the class with someone else...like the new teacher coming in. You don't want to get turned off from your major this early in your college career.

Once you take Art 232, don't let it get you down. Graphic design really is a fun thing to do, no matter how much you may think you hate it when you take this course. Watch out for her tests, EVERYTHING is fair game within the assigned text. Most of the in-class assignments she has won't be useful at all to you in the future. The projects will give you a nice breath of the actual design world, don't slack on them. So you were warned, good luck.

Mary is very unresponsable teacher, everything said in the other ratings are true. In one quarter she never showed up to class on time, she was often over an hour late! The way she looks at design is this,HER WAY! She has even said herself that she always has a mental picture of what a students project will look like,if a project comes to critique without HER ideas stampted all over it, she will destroy it in critique with logic that is conflicting to every piece of desgin theory taught at poly, even theory taught in her own classes! I believe Mary is an intelligent lady, but she is extremely locked into her own world, which everything revolves around. In brainstorming in class she will throw ideas at you(that are not founded by any research on her part) and then expect you to use her ideas for your project, if you don't she will attack your design in critique. Mary will kill try to kill your personal creativity and replace it with her outdated design ideals. A word of advice,Take Katie McCormick's classes instead of Mary. Katie is a very talented teacher who is very exited about design, you will learn more than you thought possible from her, and fall in love with design in the process. STAY AWAY FROM MARY LAPORTE!!!!!!

AWFUL TECHER!!! AVOID MARY IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY HELP IT!!! She is a very sweet woman, but has nothing to offer as far as modern design goes. She's stuck in the age of the dinosaurs!

Mary is a great professor. She spends individual time with every student in the class if you seek her assistance, and will really stop and think about your project with you. Her critiques are always helpful, and she helped our class stop "liking" something about someone's work, and start thinking about whether or not it was successful. Mary is a fair grader, and can really tell how much work you put into something. I admit that she is a bit unclear or ambiguous at times, but that leaves room for creative freedom. Take her advice and you'll do well, and your design will improve.

AVOID MARY AT ALL COSTS. i've had this misfortune of getting stuck with her for two courses. she is positively the worst design teacher at cal poly - how she is still teaching here is absolutely beyond me. she has zero concept of modern design processes (everything she's ever done was hand-inked, she doesn't even know how to use the adobe softwares), has awful and off-the-mark ideas, and assigns ridiculous projects which you will never be able to use in your portfolio. it's as though someone walked in off the street and tried to teach a college-level design class in an exclusive art & design department. RUN.

Yea, if you have a choice I suggest taking an alternative to Mary; however, she has been behaving the past couple years (more so than others) largely due with Katie coming aboard. Lectures are dry and usually aren't about anything you care about. Projects are varied. Group critiques are very rare. But she is helpful and is good at heart. Her connections with alumni is a value because many times she will have stuff from them. Ok teacher. Just be prepared for it.

Although Mary is generally a good person, her methods of teaching/helping/critiquing are very preferentially based. If she LIKES what your idea is, she will praise any part of it. If she doesn't like your idea (99% of the time) she gets this really disappointed look on her face like she's silently scolding you. She then will rag on any/all sketches/changes/ideas you have for that project and will ultimately encourage the class to find flaws in your project during a group critique. She would really rather see people work on her ideas then their own. She also requires a HUGE number of supplies that ARE NOT NECESSARY AT ALL for the class. I recommend only buying supplies as needed. A BRAND NEW WATERCOLOR SET, FULL SIZE WOOD DOOR, HUGE PAPER.... completely unnecessary for ONE DAY of instruction in which the final project is NOT EVEN GRADED!!!!

I've never written one of these, but Mary is a special occasion. She's absolutely hands down the worst teacher I've encountered at Cal Poly. However, all graphic designs students are forced to endure at least 2 classes with her, which is a complete bummer and a let down to the whole major. I guess my advice would be to get rid of her and get a new teacher with a fresh outlook, but since that's not going to happen my advice for anyone preparing to venture into this torture should keep these things in mind. -Do whatever you want on your projects. If you're going to seek advice on your design, go to Katie or Charmaine. Pick concepts you're passionate about, its the only way you'll still get something out of these classes and the only way you won't go insane. Make each project something you are inspired to accomplish or else you're going to throw it together last minute. Especially if you're taking a class with both Mary and Katie at the same time. -Don't get on her bad side. She's extremely rude to everyone in general, but its worse to people she doesn't like. She tends to mock or talk down to students in general. Expect no respect on her end for you - try not to let it get to you. She's not going to treat you as a future designer like Katie or Charmaine, instead she likes to use all interactions with you as an opportunity to prove she's better or knows more. -Don't expect to learn much. Don't get bummed out that you wasted at least $500-$1000 on a class that taught you absolutely nothing. Instead be grateful that you learned how to do projects basically completely on your own - because that's what ends up happening. -Always expect to not know something was due, and don't fret if you're constantly confused - almost everyone else will be too. Somehow that's the class' fault and not hers, however. She has no structure and no organization and rambles for 3 hours about nothing pertaining to the class, then expects you to somehow pull out whats due for next class from a spew of nothingness. -You're going to learn how to 'sketch properly'. This means that instead of critiquing your design concept or direction Mary will resketch your sketches for you or spend a 3 hour critique going over how you sketched and not your actual design. She will almost without fail always skip critiquing digital mockups and go straight to the final. This means if you rely heavily on reworking a digital file (who doesn't in this day in age?) you're out of luck. Go to Katie or Charmaine, again. Because in class you're never going to get much feedback or instruction. -Keep in mind she has a lot of strong opinions that stem from how design was 30+ years ago. When making portfolio pieces for today's industry take her advice with a grain of salt. She's extremely behind the times. She doesn't like students in her class working on computers, which is absolutely ridiculous in a design class. While I value the process of sketching heavily before moving onto digital, in her class she seems to skip the digital step entirely leaving you out to dry. -She'll lose your work without fail, so always make sure you have a back up. Be vigilante in making sure your not getting no credit for work you did or being marked absent when you were there. Her class is a complete waste of time and she's useless. And its frustrating for someone to go from Katie and Charmaine's structured and meaningful classes where you form personal and respectful relationships with your teachers to Mary's class. An EXTREME let down and failure of the department. Basically, I hope she GTFO asap and is replaced by a younger, preferably male, counterpart so we get a fresh voice and opinion on design. But if you're a design student you'll have to take her. Be warned she's pretty nuts. Get ready for a bumpy ride and good luck. ;)

Mary provides inaccurate, misleading, and in some instances, unfinished project descriptions. For project two, when asked frequently for the project specifications, Mary responded that we were to “fill graphic holes” for nonprofit organizations. She made no note of any concrete details, despite the class’s consistent vocal concern for what the project requirements actually were. It was not until much later in the quarter, half a week before the due date, when she finally noted that the project would require five pamphlets for the selected nonprofits (a detail she neglected to mention on the written project statement). This rapid change in the project requirement is unprofessional, and the project in full should have clearly been revealed and stated at the project introduction. During the presentation for project two, Mary criticized and graded down my work for not having imagery on the covers, even though she and the project description had consistently stated imagery was not to be used on the covers of our projects. Her blatant disregard for her own requirements is concerning and degrades the integrity of her constantly shifting curriculum. Additionally, Mary fails to grade projects in a timeframe and manner that is respectful and beneficial to her students, which contradicts the basic roles required of an undergraduate-level educator. She managed to return our first project and grade in week eight of the quarter, and proceeds to grade projects during class time. Mary may be busy outside of class, but it still stands that her attention given to the Type II class is unsatisfactory. Mary is not an adequate teacher and should not be sought out as a professor, she is unprofessional and provides very little helpful feedback, if any at all. Her role as a professor is severely lacking. It is unfortunate that she is still part of this department, because the students and the rest of the faculty here have created a level of work and professionalism that is far beyond her means of what she can offer any of her students.

As a graduating senior, having experienced all the design professors I can confidently say that Mary is the most \"real world\" and in that sense the most valuable professor. The most common complaint from the younger kids is that she is flakey, last minute, indecisive, or implausibly demanding. However, as a professional these are all the attributes of a real client. I hear the younger kids complaining about the structure of Mary\'s classes, or lack thereof; with Mary you really need to set your own time-tables, and not expect her to hold your hand through the process because she won\'t, she pushes you in and expects you to fight your own way through. The younger kids say that she doesn\'t offer any information. However, this can\'t be farther from the truth than any of the other complaints. Yes, she\'s annoyingly ambiguous with her project briefs, but it\'s so you can tailor your own project however you seem fit, to build your own voice as a designer, and not be a cookie cut from the same mold/brief- an essential attribute of a successful designer. Lastly, Mary is clearly the oldest design professor, she may seem dated, but her experience is still 100% relevant. She doesn\'t offer advise readily, so you have to ask for it. But trust me, once you ask for it you can\'t shut her up. Very lastly, if you want a good grade in her class be sure to show her your progress each step of the way. With her lack of class structure it\'s easy to skip all the interim deadlines and just turn in the final project, but even if it\'s good work, as she puts it best \"don\'t surprise me, or I\'ll surprise you back\"

Mary is as bad as they come. She's always late, never organized, and never gives any constructive feedback. I effectively didn't learn a damn thing from her. I'm curious how our art department could have such a good reputation with individuals like her teaching some of the core design classes. Other teachers like Katie, as difficult as her their classes might be, ACTUALLY TEACH YOU SOMETHING. She's by far the worst teacher I've experienced at Poly, and it's a shame our department is impeded with her presence.

Mary knows her subject but rarely gives positive feedback. It is easy to get defeated in her class and stop interacting with her

Mary is an active detriment to the Art and Design Department. I truly don't understand why she is still employed as an instructor in charge of a critical major course and several high level electives. 1. She communicates poorly with students and is disrespectful of their time. Assignments were often emailed just a day or few hours before we were expected to have materials presentable in class. 2. She is often late to class. When in class she spends the time poorly, lecturing about archaic ideas and techniques relevant only to a small portion of the class's anticipated career directions (emphasis on marker-based rendering and insisting on thinking like an 'art director'). 3. The class as a whole is POORLY scheduled; project 1 was due all the way in week 8 during which students were expected to also be completing design briefs for project 3 and crucial production work for project 2. 4. Mary inexplicably requires students to use resources and 'outside professionals' that are costly and unnecessary. Students were required to purchase either an expensive set of markers (more than 100$ for most) or a graphics tablet which were only ever used for process work -- work just as easily completed with a single black pen and printer paper. Students were also required to have professional photography of the first project completed by a personal friend of the professor's. This struck many students as nepotistic and lazy, and denies the opportunity for anyone to LEARN product photography by DOING. To make matters worse... 5. Mary is a mean spirited person who actively cripples students' passion for design. She adopts a condescending tone when students present her with ideas and often sweeps them aside completely only to offer her own (apparently superior) alternative, fully expecting the student to be on board with her version of the idea from that point onward. She is extremely inflexible: when a student voiced concerns about the cost of the required photoshoot with the professional photographer, Mary, rather than allowing the student to even attempt to shoot the photographs herself or with the assistance of a friend, condescendingly and loudly insisted that she would pay for the students' photography fees or even help organize a 'bake sale' to help pay. The class's outrage at this lack of empathy and immaturity was palpable. Because of this moment, Mary singlehandedly shattered any in-class positivity for the rest of the quarter. Attendance after that day was consistently poor. I was rendered speechless by her words. Mary LaPorte should not be employed in art education. Callousness has its place--the world isn't nice. But there is a universe of difference between being 'real' and simply being an unpleasant, unhelpful person too blinded by ego to realize the unhappiness they are spreading. I have a feeling she chalks it up to stduents being lazy or too inexperienced to understand exactly what she expects. Advice for those who have to have her class: Be excited about your project idea so that you're motivated to work on it and don't follow her guidance if you disagree with it. Some will tell you that she's a representation of bosses and clients you'll have to deal with in the real world; I say you deserve better when you're the one paying the school, and not the other way around. Bonus story: she suggested to a friend of mine to base an ad campaign for slo transit on the potential illicit activities one could engage in while riding public transit. (Dealing drugs, specifically) THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

BOYCOTT!!!

Although my first impression of Mary seemed to be what many of these comments are saying, the opposite ended up being true. Mary is one of the most experienced and charming teachers I encountered at Cal Poly. She is extremely knowledgable about design and public relations. I never saw her degrading students, but I have seen most of the other design professors do it. Everyone will have different opinions and there isn't a monolithic experience for the art and design program at Cal Poly. Whether you take Mary or not, you're going to hate some of your classes and teachers, and love others.