Zahn, Jan  

very interesting instructor. take her!

jan is the best english teacher ever! you do a lot of in class work but nothing too big! there are a lot of essays but you have a whole week to finish them! she does not care how you put your essay together but as long as it sounds good. she is a really nice person who takes the time to help you out!TAKE HERE because your writing will improve!

Jan is an amazing professor! She really helps you develop your ideas in a clear and concise manner. Jan really makes writing easier and much more enjoyable! Besides being an amazing teacher she's a super cool person! If you get the chance to take her class, do so!

This class is excellent especially with Jan Zahn! I was dreading this class but once I experienced it with her I realized I learned a lot and it is not a very stressful class to worry about. She is super understanding, funny and tells great stories.

Zahn is SICK!!! she is a really nice lady, who understands that everyone is still learing. Office hours were a great help and she was very responsible about being there when she said..... she often added hours to help out her students.... one of the nicest teachers i have ever had and a great lady!!! very sad she is leaving!!

JAN ZAHN! BEST ENGLISH TEACHER EVER! I never was able to write a strong or even decent paper. She has changed my writing and allowed me to rock in my English 134 class. She is also very understanding, nice, and helpful. She is my favorite teacher yet at Cal Poly. YOU WONT REGRET IT! Unless you dont do your work and just plain lazy.

Overall a great teacher. She took a lot of time out to help students revise essays and work on their writing skills. Since it was her first quarter she made a few mistakes that you can chalk up to inexperience, but I would recommend her to anyone looking to take the class. She also says that she grades easier than all the other english 134 teachers.

I was not looking forward to this class thinking it was going to be busy work. But Zahn was an awesome teacher who graded on the easy side. The class was only boring occasionally and she is really in it to help out the students. I would definitely recommend her. I got an A and never spent any time on this class except for the 4 take home essays.

Jan keeps the class interesting. The essays are relatively easy and there is minimal homework. There are no tests other than the in class essays. She offers lots of extra credit. Her grading scale is relatively easy and i would reccomend her to anyone taking this class.

Jan is one of the best english teachers i have had. She is very fair grader that always gives you the benefit of the doubt. She threw in two movies for the class and had us write short papers on them which provided a good change of pace. When are class was struggling with a particular prompt she gave us extra time to complete the paper and even dedicated an entire class to talking about way to approach the paper. I never saw her in a bad mood and everyday she had nothing but positive things to say. You cant help but like her. I could go on but really she takes a dull subject and makes it as bearable as possible.

Fun class, very nice and helpful teacher. Highly recommended!

I actually ENJOYED this class. Not only did I learn how to improve my writing, but I also had a fun time. Yes, we did watch movies but we really got to see the meaning of it. She is full of energy and always is there to help when you need it. I DEFINETLY RECCOMEND Ms. Zahn.

like the last reviewer, I enjoyed this class too. I actually looked forward to going to it, we had fun and interesting discussions, and did fun writing assignments. Plus she integrates movies into the class which is always a plus. I think my writing skills improved immensely after taking Jan's class. Take this teacher if you can, you won't regret it.

I really wasn't looking forward to this class because English has always been a tedious, boring subject for me, but Jan made it a lot of fun. She really cares about her students. There is definitely work involved, but never anything excessive, and it is usually interesting. I highly recommend this teacher.

Although you are assigned many essays, you will enjoy ms. zahn. Be ready to put A LOT of effort into your essays. What i enjoyed about her class is the fact that we, students, were able to choose an essay topic that we were interested in. She is very energetic no matter if it is 7 am in the morning. if you decide to take her, go to her office hours because it doubles the fun in English. be ready to laugh!!! be ready to work!!! Her lectures were not boring because she kept us interested. I never enjoyed english, but after this class, i have a new appreciation towards this subject. Honestly, this class will definitely work your BRAIN!!

This was way easier than high school english! The easiest teacher of all time, if you go to class. After four absences your grade starts dropping by 1/3, so you go from an A to an A- and so on...I missed class 5 times and still got an A in the class. If you have the ability to take this teacher, DO IT!

Zahn is a very nice lady so really cares about her students. We had to write 3 major essays as well as journal entries throughout the quarter. We had a few reading assignment. Overall the class was easy.

Zahn is awesome!! she is so understanding and does not give a lot of busy work. If you talk to her and let her know what is going on, she is ALWAYS there to help you. TAKE HER, SHES GREAT, even at 7am in the morning

She's very helpful when it comes to improving your writing skills. I mean, this is an English class, so there is going to be a lot of work (3 essays plus a lot of other short stuff), but overall if you do the work assigned, you will probably get a decent grade. I liked her teacher method which was pretty lax, but it is still a class with a workload.

such a good teacher!! i definitely recommend her, she is the best!

Great teacher!! If you get the chance, take this class with Zahn! She is very understanding, and makes her class interesting! Loved it!

AWESOME LADY!!! If you get the chance to take her, DO IT!!

Dude. Seriously. She\'s by far the best professor I\'ve had. Makes me want to be an English major and have her all the time. She\'s so chill and open minded. If she had the chance to talk to her class about movies and life itself, she totally would! I had the privilege to talk to her about all sorts of philosophical/life issues after she graded my paper; Jan is phenomenal! She\'s so enlightening. For class, just make sure you\'re always there (she takes attendance...and it COUNTS). Also, participate; she loves that sh*t. There are four essays, no final, few quizzes. And you get to REVISE three of your essays to better your grade. I got a B: One, because I didn\'t show up or was late most of the time; and two, I didn\'t revise the last essay. Take her class, do what she says, and there\'s no reason why you wouldn\'t get an A. Good luck!

Jan is one of the greatest teachers I have had. You only write a few essays and she gives a couple of journal assignments, nothing too difficult. She is a fair grader and allows you to go back and revise an essay for a better grade. Best of all if you go to her office hours she will help edit your essay so you are bound to get a good grade when you turn it in. She makes the class interact and thus creates a very comfortable learning environment. I would take Jan again if I could.

Jan is a very nice lady. Unfortunately, she's retiring so this may not be useful. But if you read this Jan, you're awesome! I went from hating "writing" to actually liking it. I put writing in "" because she encourages us to develop our own style, much different from the "writing" we did in HS which was very formulaic. Enjoy your retirement, you deserve it!A

Jan is amazing. She added me to her second lecture as I was scrambling to find a 145 class that would take me (not enough spaces). The first day was a lot, her telling us all of the assignments there were to do. But at the end of the quarter, I feel like we didn't do that much. I feel like I've learned how to revise my essay for a better grade and how to better evaluate my own and others' essays, but the class isn't too difficult. She's all about arguing, so discussion days are lots of fun. There are four essays overall. The first one is evaluative, and you can rewrite it if you're unhappy with your grade (3 pages, 100 points). The second essay is a synthesis of two other essays, plus your own opinions (3 pages, 100 points). The third is a big research paper that has to be recent (within the last month) with some support requirements, and also an argumentative edge. This is the bulk of your grade, worth 400 points (7-10 pages). The final essay is a little two page thing on a movie (we watched Crash) (100 points). The rest of the assignments are little credit/no credit things that just enhance the essay you're currently working on. In the end, I don't think you can go wrong with Jan. I didn't do so well on my final essay and forgot one of the required components, so she let me revise it for an additional 20 points, which brought my grade WAY up. If you're a good student, she'll give you what you need, and she's a lot of fun. :)

Jan is an awesome professor and one of the nicest professors I've had. I had her at 7am and she was always bright, smiling, and enthusiastic. She keeps us entertained well. Her class was very helpful in learning professional writing skills. She is amazingly helpful in office hours. You should go to her office at least once before turning in a paper. Her assignments are somewhat fun to do. The end of the year project is huge so the best thing to do is don't procrastinate and pick a good group. She is a very fair grader. Overall, take Jan for ENGL145.

The teacher was really understanding of the class difficulties. She ended up cutting 300 pts of assignments out of the class and changed the due dates around to our advantage. It was her first time teaching this class so it was a learning process for all of us. I do not feel that we got everything we were suppose to get out of the class but it did enough for us so we can figure the rest out when the time comes. She teaches you how to learn and that is better than teaching us what we are suppose to know.

Loved Zahn, she\'s so funny and sweet. She makes the class interesting. Because, let\'s face it, we were a bunch of engineers and most of us hate English. This class is fun and not a lot of work, but she grades really really harshly. Everything has to be PERFECT to get an A. even to get a B. I revised my resume 3 times and only got an 81%. So proofread everything a lot. And you don\'t even need to buy the book, it\'s pointless.

Very Nice. If you can take this teacher, do. You will not regret it.

What can I say? Jan is such a great professor. If you have to take tech writing, by all means take Jan. It\'s not going to be an easy A but if you put in a lot of effort and you don\'t slack, then you will get a good grade. You also get to work on a fun project which you can chose to work in a team or by yourself. She also lets you revise some of your papers(resume and recommendation report and such) so you can do well in the class. Great professor! Take her!

Jan was a good teacher. Her class focuses more on the design aspect of technical writing, in addition to the writing. It was fun and she kept us entertained in class. Go into her office hours, it will help you out a lot.

Jan is probably the best tech writing teacher at Cal Poly...that doesn\'t translate into easy A though! 1000 points are given throughout the quarter, w/ most assignments 50 or 100. The final two weeks are worth 45% of your grade (450 pts). Make sure you get a good group for your 20+ pg. tech doc at the end of the quarter - it makes or breaks your grade! Zahn is pretty picky about the format of the tech writing...even more than the actual content, which seems odd. Regardless, I learned a lot from her, so take her if you can.

Jan is a very professional teacher and knows how to make your technical documents awesome. Definitely choose your group wisely for you will be working on the final project ALOT and be cramped with time. The class was challenging because there is a great deal of writing. But if you always go to class and go to office hours to see how you can improve your documents before you turn them in, you will do well.

Jan is great. She helps a lot and really cares for her students. She is very fun and motivated. She is very effective in teaching you how to write technical documents. Her grading is very nit-picky. She gives the opportunity to redo the resume and is really helpful with her comments. There is a large project at the end that is really fun and you get to present. There is no i-fix-it, which is great!

Great teacher but takes forever to grade. It took 7 weeks to get the first paper in and even then I am not sure how she grades. I guess she grades easily? I got straight B's until the end and I got out with an A. Stay awake 50% of the time and you will pass.

Jan is a wonderful teacher. Her class is somewhat common sense in my opinion. If you know your basics of how to write a document then you will do well in this class. She will basically just teach you how to write formal documents which could be useful in the future. There is one big project at the end of the quarter which was fun to do and was a great experience. My only complaint is that graded work doesn't get returned that quickly, we got our first assignment back in like week 7 of the quarter. Overall great and fun teacher with an easy class.

Great personality. Great teacher. Her grading is a bit...different from other teachers though. Content doesn't matter as much as it might in other classes. It's all about formatting. So if you are really good at following rules, go for it. But EVEN if you aren't take Jan...she is very approachable and will do her best to help you fix/improve your paper. I probably worked only one hour a week for this class...btw. There was one paper where I knew it was bad so I took it to her office hours three times, and ended up getting an A- for a crap paper. (formatting!!!! importante yo) no final. even better.

Professor Zahn is AWESOME. She is a really fair grader and puts time into her students work. She is very personable, not dry at all. Her course is FUN. Throughout it all, I didn't even realize how much I've learned until one of my friends taking another professor asked me how to format a memo, and I was wondering ...how do they not know that? Zahn covers everything very easily that it just sticks to me without effort. I also like how she puts everything on PolyLearn -- very easy access to HowTo documents. Take her if you can!!! Seriously. She'll really help you out on your documents, she has a very keen eye for detail.

extremely nice lady. highly overrated.

I enjoyed Jan's class a lot. The overall work load is pretty small, but you have to put a lot of time in to get a good final product. Jan grades mostly on the overall format and visual presentation of the material, not so much the content. Go to her office hours to learn what she wants and you'll get an easy A. The final project is a lot of work, so be prepared for it.

Digimon dawg.