Pope, Megan  

MS. Pope teaches an easy class assuming you have no will to think for yourself. She presents clear guidelines for an A that are easy to fulfill, but at the same time completely contrary to what makes a good speech. She grades based off a checklist, just listening for you to use specific phrases introducing the next part of your speech. She is fully willing to entertain stupidity in her class, and will regularly punish creativity with a bad grade. Take this class if you give 0 fucks about your education.

I had Pope for a 4 hour lecture once a week and she always made the time go by fast with her energy and interactive lectures. She was also very helpful whenever I had questions about my speeches. As long as you do the work you should get an A. Pope is a good professor!

If you want a GPA booster, take Pope for COMS 101. Her class is crazy easy, but you won't learn ANYTHING. I have below average public speaking skills, didn't learn anything, and earned an A in her class. One thing you should know about her class is that even though it is easy, there is a huge amount of pointless busy-work you have to do on polylearn. It's not that bad because she pretty much grades on completion, but it is a time-waster. Someone on here mentioned that she stifles creativity, and I definitely agree with that. You have to give speeches her way (which is kind of a stupid way) to get a good grade. Overall, however, I would recommend Pope, especially because she doesn't give minuses. For instance 80% is a B in her class, not a B-. You won't learn anything useful in her class, though.

Probably the best COMS teacher there is at Poly. She is fun, exciting, and young - she understands our situation as students and knows not to assign loads of garbage like other professors might. "Hello Scholars!"

Pope's class was actuallly pretty painless for a coms class. We had very few solo speeches and quite a few group presentations. There was a intro speech that everyone got full credit on, and then a persuasive and informative speech. As long as you follow the rubric to the letter, you will be fine. We did some projects that were a pain in the ass but good for the grade. Overall, I didn't really like Pope as a person but I recommend her class.

Not gonna lie, I was dreading COMS 101. Luckily, I got Pope as my professor and I am SO happy I did. She is wonderful and actually made speech somewhat enjoyable for me. She is funny and super nice. I think she is the best COMS teacher to take. As long as you do your best on the speeches, do all the work, and your guaranteed an A. Go to her office hours, she helps a lot, and do the extra credit!!

She changes every quarter! It's ridiculous. When I had her class she made the class buy 2 books. One book we actually had a group project on (I only opened it about 2 times) and the other... it just sat in my dorm as a paper weight. I literally learned nothing new. The work she assigned was crazy. I felt like we had something due every couple of days. But who knows she might actually be easier next quarter... Don't forget she likes tacos...

Pope thinks that her 101 class is of vital importance. That said, it's a tolerable class. Her quizzes and tests are rather unconventional. She'll give you a blank piece of paper and tell you write down important information. That's all the direction you'll get. She gives a group project that requires a lot of preparation. For all of your speeches, get the audience engaged! If you give an average speech, but get people leaning forward, you'll get an A. Fun fact, if you're gay or she thinks you're gay, she loves to talk about queer politics while not looking you in the eye. Seriously, she'll talk about audience empathy and gay people's perception about every other lecture, but she will NEVER look at you while doing it.

She needs to understand that this is a GE that everyone needs to take and it is a COMS class. There are few speeches and many quizzes, which are open ended and she grades them harshly. She has poor time management and ends up making lot of things take home, but then makes the assignment have to be three to four pages of writing. Every speech requires extensive research and media, and she doesn't let you have notecards when giving your speech. Overall, I don't recommend Pope for COMS-101. You're better off which a different instructor.

Honestly, I loved Megan. Sure, she wasn't the most conventional professor, but come on guys, this is college. Nothing is conventional anymore. She legitimately cares about her students. At one point, I got full credit on my quiz, but she wrote "See me" on it. So as I went to talk to her, she told me that I was the kind of student that she saw going to grad school, and talked to me about how to go about that and what I wanted to do with my career. She took an honest interest in me and my education. She's both a great person and a great professor. You just have to actually put effort in to a GE class (shocking, I know), and you'll be absolutely fine.

She grades speeches in the most nit picky fashion, along with her quizzes. She is probably the worst coms teacher at Cal Poly. Not a good choice for your GPA or your sanity.

I am so lucky I got into her class because I crashed it. But it was really competitive to get in. She is a really cool teacher and makes Coms more interesting. Some advise I'd give would be to not procrastinate on your speeches. There are 3 individual and one group at the end of the quarter. Also the final was take home and pretty easy. Go to her office hours if you have any questions. And lastly study and read anything she asks you for the quizzes.

I thought I would dread going to this class, but it ended up being my favorite this quarter. 1 narrative speech, 1 informative speech, 1 persuasive speech, and a group project. Pope has a very open dialogue with her students and allows room for inputs. She was open-minded and super flexible about office hours. I can definitely say my public speaking AND writing skills improved. I really enjoyed this class and would recommend taking her!

Megan Pope is awesome!! She is super fun in lecture and always makes the whole class laugh. For a class that is required for everyone to take, and one that basically everyone doesn't want to, she still makes it fun and I actually look forward to going to this class. If you can get her I strongly recommend taking her!

I enjoyed Professor Pope's class. She is funny and easy going and actually seems to be interested in what you have to say. That said, she does assign a good amount of work, most of which is more time consuming than difficult. She also tends to nit-pick when it comes to grading. Just follow her guidelines carefully and you should have no problem getting a B or an A.

Prof Pope is a very determined teacher in the best way possible. The overall class all you need to do is find topics that mean something to you and follow the guidelines and it is a relative easy A or B! But most of all she is a teacher who can really get to our level and discuss with the students with a lot of respect. On top of that she is super fun and willing to try new techniques if you ask, super open to mentorship too:) you will find a great professor and great class here! Please take her

By far one of the best professors at Poly! She makes class fun and really cares about her students. I hate speaking in public or in front of a class but it was not bad at all with Pope! There were 4 speeches but they were not hard and she is an easy grader. Every speech has to have an PowerPoint but it makes it easier to give the speech. If you can, take her class and you will not regret it!

Pope was awesome. Easy class, moderately interesting lectures, not too much work. Cancelled class kind of often. Overall not very much work for a class.

POPE IS THE BOMB! She is really laid back and super interesting. She knows her stuff and understands that this class is required for everyone so its not too hard. She engaged the class in great discussions and made COMS interesting. Grades were based off easy online quizzes and 4 speeches that she clearly outlined what she wanted for. If you follow the rubrick and actually try to present a good speech you will do great in this class.

Professor Pope is new to CP and young but she in AMAZING! I just had her for COMS 101/PUBLIC SPEAKING and she was a fantastic teacher. The two hours went by really quickly. She always had and activity, youtube clips, or other relevant addition to help us stay tuned in and interested. TAKE HER. She makes things super clear and the only homework is a weekly handwritten 2-4 page journal assignment that takes all of 15 minutes max. The speeches were interesting and as long as you follow her rubric guidelines, you will get a good grade. You don;t have to be a great speaker, she understands that some of us and math or engineering majors and only take this because we have to but I would take it even if I didn't.

Now, I got an A in her class, but that does not mean she is a good teacher. She was opinionated, chose favorites, and very immature in class. Our classes were 4 hours long and I hardly learned anything I didn't learn in high school AP english. If you like being told exactly what to do and having no creative freedom, by all means take this opinionated Texan for COMS 101.

I will admit that Miss Pope was a little unorganized, but give her a break, this is her first year. However, she does not fail in her attempts to capture our attention. She is enthusiastic about teaching and is very approachable. She is super nice and allows two REALLY EASY extra credit opportunities, as well as an optional final, which was easy as well. Although we have more speeches than the other coms 101 classes, we have no final or quizzes. She focuses on the "public speaking" aspect of the class. We do have to write 2 journal entries every week that are a bit time consuming, but this class should be an easy A if you do the work.

First off, this class seems to be relatively easier than other coms 101 classes. Pope's guidelines for speeches are very straightforward but if you do not strictly adhere to her format , you will not get a good grade on speech ( no matter how good your speech is or how good you think your speech is.) This leaves not a whole lot of room for creativity for writing a real speech, but she gets the basics across. Take this for an easy B ( A is definitely attainable if you just do the work) but don't expect to learn anything different from your AP high school english course.

Megan Pope is really awesome. I took her 4 hour block every Monday and it really isn't that bad. Yeah she was unorganized but she replaced the teacher we were supposed to have a week before it happened so it really wasn't her fault. She's super nice and she basically gave everybody 10 -15 points extra on our group speeches because she felt bad for everybody that was under the time limit and got marked down. She's funny and excited to teach. She is someone you can talk and joke around with. Most people hated their coms class but mine was not bad at all. Oh and she raises A- to A so its an easy A.

I do not recommend taking this class. Although she may be personable, Pope is completely bias. Your grade in the class 100% depends upon whether she likes you or not. The final has absolutely nothing to do with what was taught in class and she has this weird lisp that's also pretty hard to get over. Take Stauffer!! Or anyone else you can! The only teacher Pope is probably better than is Kawamura.

Not great, not terrible. One of the first days of class, she asked who were engineering majors (I am), and she talked about how we see the world in a different way from her. Thanks for stereotyping and telling me what my views are when all you know about me is my major. She also seemed to have something against sorority girls. By the way, part of what is covered in the class is about working in groups with people who are different from you (With a big section about stereotyping.) This kinda takes away her credibility (another topic discusses in class.) Lead by example, right? I guess not. Anyway I got graded way down on my first outline because I did not write it in complete sentences. I thought the point of an outline was that it is not complete sentences, but apparently she's right and I'm wrong. I asked her if I could change it and get points back because she never said that it needed to be complete sentences. She told me that I should have asked her before I turned it in. If I had a question I would have, but I had no reason to believe that I was doing it wrong. Several other people who I asked did the exact same thing. I think she teaches COMS most quarters, so does this same thing happen every time? If you turn in an assignment one minute late to polylearn or don't bring a rubric with you to one of your speeches, you will be given a zero. You have to get the book. You will fail the midterm and final without it. I briefly read the chapters the day before and did well. So they're not that hard if you'ver read the book and taken notes of key terms. For the most part I enjoyed going to class and she made a friendly enviornment for giving speeches.

Prof Pope is incredibly passionate about the subject she teaches. However in terms of the tests we had to take in her class (1 midterm and 1 final) she kinda dropped the ball. The vast majority of her lectures focused on giving speeches, which was alright as that's what most of the class entailed. Unfortunately her response on how we were supposed to learn the material we were being tested on was to simply "Just read the book". Furthermore she placed a massive amount of emphasis on your speeches' outlines, and not some much how you delivered said speech. On both of my first two speeches I received D's just because my outline was not done in the format she wanted, a format she never specified!!! The grade for the presenting of the speech itself was very high, but my overall grade on it was poor just because of an outline. I hate to mark a professor down so much for their grading policy, but this was particularly infuriating.

The waiting list doesn't matter in this class apparently. Was 2nd on the waiting list and she gave 3 spots to other people who aren't on the waiting, but because they were girls or dudes that she favored. this teacher blows

Definitely do not take this class! Whatever to do just wait to finish your Area As. It's really not worth your time to take this class. Pope is arrogant, a horrible teacher, the final is near impossible, and she grades speeches based on how much she likes you. For your own good, do not take this class!

This is one of the most labor intensive classes you can take. She will assign huge projects, however doesn't even provide assignment description sheets. Will make you restart projects if she does not like the topic. Definetly chooses favorites. IS NOT WILLING TO COMPROMISE / WORK WITH YOU IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. TAKES 30% OFF IF YOU CANNOT MAKE A SPEECH. would not take again

From one SLOmie to another, don't take her class. She is super condescending and biased, and just screws around with your grades depending on if she likes you or not. Professor Pope does not give clear instruction to assignments, she does not lecture very well, and her tests are near to impossible to pass. Good luck if you take her class.

I really don't know why her reviews are bad? I do agree that sometimes she can be a but unorganized when it comes to assignments and all, but she's a fair professor. Theres basically 4 major speeches, a midterm, the final and a couple of assignments here and there that determine your grade. She grades speeches based off a rubric that she shows to you before hand, so you already know what she's looking for when she grades. Her final and midterms are usually vocab from the book, so know the meanings. Students who say that the final or midterm is too difficult dont bother to open the book. My advice to you is GO TO OFFICE HOURS and get help on organizing and preparing your speech. Public speaking, or coms, in general is a very subjective subject. If you want a better grade, you need to work on impressing the audience (her), so put in the extra effort. But seriously take her if you can, unless you don't like putting in effort.

Professor Pope is not awful like some of these reviews are saying. I actually started to really like her by the end of the quarter... I think because her sense of humor started to grow on me and I began to get used to it. I am a good public speaker but the majority of my class were not a good public speakers. People say she is biased but in reality, she isn’t. When comparing grades with my classmates, i thought she was very fair and the grades people received was really what they deserved. If you aren’t a good public speaker, you won’t get a good grade…its coms, get over it. You can’t be good at everything but instead of calling the teacher biased, accept it and work to improve it. It takes work to get an A on a speech in her class but if you follow all her directions and speak well, you can do it. Some people are saying she doesn’t give clear directions which is completely a lie. She provides a rubric, description of each speech (in her long syllabus), and provides sample outlines for each speech. She also briefly goes over them in class…they aren’t hard to figure out with a little common sense and reading the book if you are still confused. Follow the samples and your outline will get a good grade. She doesn’t lecture much, but who really wants to hear a boring lecture about communication anyways? I liked the lack of lecture. Her class comprises of 3 individual speeches (informative, sales pitch and a ted talk) and one group lecture. I found out that pope gives an extra speech than the rest of the coms 102 teachers but i didn’t care too much. Her class moves very fast and there is a lot of work….too much work at times but manageable if you stay on top of things! Furthermore, there are 3 papers evaluating your speeches, a MC midterm and final. There is also reading and homework to go along with it here and there. Professor pope is a very lively women with a huge sense of humor that is both funny and annoying at times. She makes you feel comfortable which I appreciated. I went into her office hours a few times in which she was somewhat helpful. Go to her office hours, ask her about topics and take her advice regarding them! I did email her several times regarding speeches and she was always really helpful. The worst part of her class is the midterm. she will tell you in the beginning that hardly anyone gets an A and most people get a C or below. Its ridiculously hard and there is no curve whatsoever. The final is not as bad as the midterm if you study. She will also tell you on the first day that hardly anyone gets an A in her class and this seemed to be also true but i worked hard and got an A. Do all the extra credit she offers because it can really help your grade in the end. I thought professor pope was a good coms teacher but If you are expecting an easy class that doesn’t require you to work hard to get a good grade, don’t take this class with this professor. However, i also wouldn’t shy away from taking her because i know she has made me a better public speaker. Public speaking is an essential skill in life and I think pope prepares you well.

Prof Pope is a homie. Cancels class often. No tests, just a few speeches. Decent lecturer. Just know there's almost no points in the class so every point counts.

She is a very insensitive teacher. Doesn't really care what situation you are in. Hates sorority girls. Has a lisp.