Ruggles, Philip  

Professor Ruggles is awesome. He's probably the best teacher I've had in the GrC department. Well, besides Macro of course. Ruggles talks fast so lecture never gets too boring because you're always busy taking notes down or following what he's saying. All of his classes whether it be 403, 320 or 411 all require dedication and have heavy workloads but if you do the work and show him you're putting in the effort, you'll do fine. Oh and extra credit helps.

His teaching philosophy is "learn by failure." He gives you rediculously long handouts, stating: "I am giving them to you so you won't have to write all that down." What he means is: "There is no way we are going to cover all this info. in class, yet I still want to make sure my tests have too much material to study for, so I will give you a buttload of hand outs, and expect you to take a fill-in test, and memorize everything." The midterm (for Quality Management) was a 60%. He offered an extensive and time consuming extra credit assignment on top of everthing else to accomodate for his impossible test. What kind of teaching and grading philosophy only allows quantity work to get a quality grade in a class that is all about Quality? He makes most students hate the subject he teaches.

Challenging but you will learn a lot.

Professor Ruggles is going to challenge you. Know that going in. Don't expect an "easy A" out of this man. But if you work hard, learn what you should, and ask questions when you need to, you will succeed in his classes. The best part - if you show that you work hard this will be one of the best professors that you will have. He can inspire you do to the best you can, and will be a great motivation during and after your college career.