Potter, Gail  

Dr. Potter is an interesting person. She is a great person and cares about her students. However, if you go to lecture without reading the textbook, her lectures can be somewhat confusing because you are learning new material and she can be confusing at times. She assigns daily homework and reading and the homework is collected at the end of the week. The homework is worth a lot and it is important that you do them. Going to her office hours are helpful in explaining concepts or helping you understand what you are to do for the problem, but if you want her to give you the answer or ask her if you got the answer correct or not, she will not tell you. She also gives weekly quizzes testing the material covered during the week. 2 midterms. 1 Final

Horrible professor. She does't know when her students are struggling, which is all the time because she is very confusing. Shes also super awkward in class... stay away!

She is a nice person, I'll give her that, but she does not know how to present material. You HAVE to read the book before every lecture, or else you will be completely lost. She makes a lot of the concepts more confusing then they really are and is not good with clarifications. She was still making adjustments to the class up until the final weeks of the quarter, which to me gave the class no structure and showed that she was really unprepared to teach this class.

Professor Potter is a new teacher at Cal Poly, which will show in her teaching. She cannot teach students the material in class and she will rarely answer your questions in class and office hours. Her grading is very weird and she will never tell you the grade in the class. She makes up her own tests and quizes so the book will not help you at all! She makes you do loads of homework and a quiz every week. If you can take a different teacher do it!!! I am very good in math and got all A's, so its not like I am a lazy student that did not study. Her teaching was scattered and unorganized. I have never written an evaluation on a teacher before but I feel that students need to be aware of what they are in for.

I failed Potter's 218 class last quarter, and by some miracle got into another stats class this quarter with a different teacher. So far this quarter, I have gotten A's on all the quizzes and assignments. I didn't realize how awful of a teacher she was until I took this class with a different professor, and realized that it wasn't my incapability to learn the material but how she presented it and her lack of consistency in the course. I would advise NOT to take Potter for ANY statistics class unless you want a quarter filled with misery.

Cannot understand student questions, answer them, or explain material well. Would ask the class a question and stare at us in silence for 10-15 seconds before taking any action. Class is centered around worksheets she passes out every day, so taking your own notes during class would be useless and time-consuming. Test questions are weighted unevenly, so if you don't know a concept and it appears on the test, good luck. She gave a us a practice final to prepare for the final exam... and didn't post the answers. Homework due at the end of every week. Quizzes every week, 2 midterms, 1 final. Anything you hear about her is NOT an exaggeration. Leave before it's too late.

I liked Dr. Potter all quarter, but that's because I wasn't struggling with the material. If you are, she will NOT help at all. She refuses to clarify any questions during her tests and quizzes. She chose not to review for the final exam at all, and didn't respond to any emails before the test. She gives out a lot of handouts, so make sure you go to lecture, and gives a lot of homework. I wouldn't recommend taking her if you do not think you're going to do well in stats.

Prof. Potter is very sweet and nice, but she just bugs me. The first quiz in the class she failed 2 kids because they asked questions and apparently gave something away. Then later on in the course she said she would no longer answer questions about quizzes or tests. In every single quiz there was one question that was just appallingly written, made no sense, and most people got it wrong. Her excuse was that the interpretation of a question was part of the course. Chicken shit. She also finds "Intellectual Confidence" important, so that means no keys for practice finals. TL:DR; She teaches this class as if she is teaching it to stats majors, takes everything very seriously.

Don't take this class if you don't like people talking down to you. She will literally approach the class as if you're second graders and she speaks so slowly and annunciates so much as if she thinks you're stupid. She will treat you like a child.

Gail Potter is possibly the sweetest person ever. She creates handouts of her lectures for you to write on which are very helpful and her office hours are very useful. I read the textbook and then go to lecture and she explains the concepts very well. She is a great professor and I would recommend you take her class.

Potter is a very sweet lady. She is more than willing to help out on homework questions during office hours. There is weekly homework and sometimes there can be a lot of it so dont procrastinate till the last night to start your homework like I did. She gives out handouts every day in class so its not a good class to skip. I have previous stats knowledge because I took it in high school so the class isnt very hard for me but some of her teaching techniques were different than my high school teacher's. Take Potter you won't regret it.

Dr. Potter is a wonderful person. The first day I was nervous because all of the reviews said she was awful. To be honest, she is one of the most caring, happy, and approachable professors that I've had here at Cal Poly. Her homework is straight from the book and she sometimes adds on supplementary problems that she makes up. If you check your answers in the back then you should be okay with the homework scores, but her grader is very harsh on homework. Every time we would get back homework everyone would receive 12/20 or 16/20 on their assignments. I think I only received two A's on homework out of the nine that we did. The quizzes are straight from lecture, but make sure that you study the material days before and not the night or morning of the quiz. The midterms are challenging but if you go into her office hours and understand all of the concepts thoroughly then you should be fine. The group project will help your grade so make sure you hit all the requirements on that. The final exam was mainly on the material that was lectured the week before which was kind of annoying but still wasn't too challenging of a test. If you put in the time and effort into this course then you should be fine and pass. Dr. Potter is a wonderful lady and wants you to understand stats and pass the course.

Please avoid her at all costs. She is literally the worst teacher / professor I have ever had. She can't dumb down the material whatsoever, she gets mad if her students ask questions (which she never even could answer) and she doesn't help if you ask questions on quizzes or tests. I went to her office hour once, and it barely helped. I asked for help with the final project and she went over it BUT still gave our group a D. She seems like a really nice person, but she's actually a bitch. I have never despised a person more. Again: SHE HAS NO IDEA HOW TO TEACH! AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

Professor Potter is kind of a strange lady. Her lectures were uncomfortable to sit through and she teaches the students as if they are first graders. She is really smart and helpful but her personality is just awkward. She makes kids using there phones bring donuts for the class. I had taken stats before so this class was easy and the homework is annoying but doable.

This is the first time Dr.Potter is teaching STAT 302. Unlike other comments, she's okay. We have quizzes every week, homework. I like her style of the project. Instead of writing a full report on a single deadline, we have multiple deadlines where we type a proportion of the report and she gives us a feedback. My con is she doesn't seem to be concern with a student even though one's exam score is terrible.

Up to week 8, I was pretty satisfied with Gail Potter as a professor. I found that grasping the concepts of the class was significantly easier than usual. Her exams and homework assignments were straightforward. I had an issue with the fact that she refused to hole punch her handouts because it encouraged disorganization and also with the fact that her grading standards for the term project were unclear. But, overall I was enjoying Stat 302 and felt that I had a pretty solid grasp of the course. I went into the final with an 86% in the class, came out with a 79.4%. She refused to round the grade up and was initially evasive when it came to meeting with her to discuss the final. The class average for the cumulative final was a 67%. The averages for both midterms was an 85%, so obviously students had a grasp of the class. I felt that the way that Potter ended the class was extremely unfair to students as it did nothing but harm the grades of the students. If students that averaged 85% earned a 67% they were obviously students that had a reasonable understanding of the course but somehow were not prepared for the final and in my opinion, Potter failed her students (in more ways than one). In my opinion, Gail does not care about student success or the undergraduate academic community at Cal Poly and graded her final in an unfair way in order to decrease the average grade of her class.

Potter is very nice. She makes print outs for all the lecture notes that you write on. Make sure you study. She'll like you if you participate in class. If she likes you, you're set.

I'm just going to assume that this professor gets a low rating because she teaches the intro level stat courses where the majority of the students are taking the courses because they are forced to and hate stats to begin with. But, of the professors that do teach these courses I assure you potter is one of the best if not the best. She is kind of dorky but its does not interfere with lecture, in fact it makes it more entertaining IMHO. Overall great professor and super nice, especially in office hours.

Potter was a very well organized professor with course guides throughout the quarter. She was slightly heavy on homework and general work for the course with deadlines back to back. She expects you to be as organized as she is, which she makes doable it is just hard as a lazy college student. The best part is that she looks almost identical to Carrie Brownstein from Portalandia and plays the part by being just as awkward. Take her class if not just to see the awesome resemblance.

Terrible teacher. Her class is extremely annoying. She requirements way too much work and this class is easily the most boring statistics course Ive taken in long time.

Just show up, do your work and this class is any easy A. The project is spaced throughout the quarter and is easy to get a good grade on it if you follow her directions to a tee. She really is an awesome professor in my opinion.

she's pretty nice, but a horrible teacher. it's obvious she knows stats, but she is a really bad lecturer...she makes concepts more confusing than they really are. i read the textbook and that's the only reason why i understood what we learned. she weighs homework more than exams, which is stupid. she grades quizzes and exams badly too, she doesn't give much partial credit and isn't flexible if you approach her about getting partial credit.