Ruszczycky, Steven  

Steven, as he prefers to be called, is a very approachable, down-to-earth professor who does a very good job at presenting only what is relevant to the coucourse and the assignments he gives. Occasionally has trouble expressing himself in a class discussion, but if you talk to him before/after class or in office hours, he is very, very helpful with individual writing or any othere questions you might have. The workload isn't hard at all, and this was one of the classes I enjoyed the most. He is also very friendly! I would definitely recommend taking this class. Not too hard and you learn what you need to learn.

Steven was one of my best professors of the quarter. My favorite thing about him was that he takes the time to give feedback on each essay and indicated where one could improve. He is extremely kind and helpful. If you pay attention in class to what he wants on each essay, you will be fine. I highly recommend Steven for English 134.

Yeah Steven is cool and all but he really isn't a good professor. He does not explain anything clearly and his directions for essays are so vague yet he has such a clear picture of what he wants in his mind. I went to office hours several times and he was never able to help me. He had a couple favorites in my class and those people got A's on the essays and therefore in the class but everyone else got a B or lower. Aside from that, Steven makes you feel awkward. However, I thought it was pretty easy to get a B in the class and the overall class ambience was very laid back which i loved. There is about 4 papers in the class and reading and reading responses almost nightly. The workload is very manageable so I was thankful for that.

I came into this class after taking AP English classes so I did not know what to expect from a lower level english class. I had an awesome experience and my writing improved immensely. Steven is a good professor who really cares about his students -- if you show up and put in effort, your grade will reflect that. I went into office hours and the WRC multiple times and got A's on all the big papers. I highly recommend Steven for 134, the workload is very manageable and the essay topics are engaging.

Professor Steven was very approachable and easy going. His class was not difficult at all and was a nice break from my major courses. His workload was never too demanding and he was always open for new ideas

Dr. Steven is articulate, qualified, and friendly. Class workload was pretty low, not very interesting, but the final Photo Essay was fun and he wanted to bring out enthusiasm and creativity in the students. Good, not great, in almost all aspects of the class.

Steven is really nice a very understanding. It sometimes felt like we were wasting time by being in class, but it was nice when we had writing workshop days because we could work on our essays and he would be right there if we had any questions. You submit all assignments online and he gives feedback online as well. His feedback is very helpful and he writes notes in the margins and then sums up his thoughts at the end. He also gives you a chance to revise one of your essays for a higher grade at the end of the quarter. There are no tests or quizzes, no extra reading, and the assignments are all related to each other. The final photo project is really interesting and ended up being a lot of fun to do. Overall great professor!

Ruszczycky is one of the best professors at Cal Poly. His pedagogy is one that we’re all familiar with: partner discussion and then class discussion. However, what Rusczycky does differently from other professors is engaging students during discussion. Homework isn’t too demanding; it’s around three hours per week. There are two mini essays (called CRIT), two midterms, and one final that is graded. The mini essays sneak up on you so be aware of them. When you’re done writing, ask a classmate or a tutor at the lib to read your mini essays. Asking someone to read your essay could help you gain a few points. The midterms consist of objective questions and interpretative questions. The objective questions are vocabulary based. Interpretative questions require analysis of a poem, fictional work, or dramatic work. The final was modified and online due to the covid-19 outbreak.

Never had a better teacher in my life. Super funny guy and relatable to students! Kept things super interesting. I wish i could take this class 10 more times. GUNNA MISS HIM!!!

Dr. R is the worst professor I've ever had. He does not present expectations clearly, even though he provides a "syllabus" with information he still does not follow it all that well. English classes are meant to incite discussion and learning but this class made me want to beat my head on the corner of the desk until my viscera dripped out onto the floor and my spirit wandered to some other, less painful plane of existence. I was super excited to take Obscene Literature and discuss the meaning of texts but we did not do that. Instead, he mostly presented a few pieces of scattered historical info and chastised students for going deeper into discussion of texts because he did not think it answered the question he was asking. His teaching style is very set on discrete answers to limited sets of questions and he discourages deeper discussion or thinking. Additionally, he did not prepare the class well for his tests. They were take home but had specific words counts and the questions he asked were not well covered in the way that he asked them in class. When I went to go discuss the test with him in office hours he gave me 4 points back and when I asked him why, he said he "didn't really know why he took them off in the first place." Completely unacceptable. Also, I don't think he has the capacity to teach upper level english course as it takes him significant amounts of time to answer questions. He will sit in silence for long moments (30 seconds to a minute) contemplating and then give an answer that is either nonsensical or a question. He does this in both office hours and in class. Maybe he was having a bad quarter or maybe he is genuinely terrible but just beware. This information is also coming from an English major who loves to dive in to texts and I felt like he does not encourage this kind of behavior.

To do well in this course, you must read all of the texts. This includes poems, short stories, several novels, songs, and movies. It is not very difficult to get B on the quizzes and tests, but it is extremely hard to get an A. If you understand everything presented in class and can recognize the different works (there was a total of 23 works for the final) you will get a B. This is the only GE I have taken and not received an A in. To get an A you must go above and beyond the knowledge that is presented. This was unclear to me throughout the course, and I studied hard what we discussed in class, but continued to get just "decent" grades on assignments. At times, he can be unclear with what he expects from the students on a quiz. There are 5 or so quizzes about the recent texts. It becomes confusing at times what texts the quizzes cover because there are so many works, and once you have been quizzed on a work, it may appear again in the next quiz. I can remember a specific quiz where a student asked if a particular text would be covered, and he said it would not be on this quiz, but then sure enough during the next class when we had the quiz, the text was on there. Besides a bit of unclear expectations, this was a great course and it involves participation. Raising your hand and being an active student enriches the course for everyone.

I was really excited for this class because the subject material sounded really interesting. But, it turned out to feel like a high school level class honestly. He never mentions media, so this class should be called "LGBT literature". His weekly quizzes are insanely difficult, their never multiple choice and he asks super specific questions. So the entire class would stress over those once a week. He's also a really hard grader, gave mostly everyone C's or B- on essays. At first he seems cool but he's pretty boring and strict. The good things about this class is that everyone taking it was really nice, and there's a lot of "discuss with your neighbor" activities so you'll make friends. The material itself wasn't boring, he could do a better job at making it more interesting though. Overall it was a class that I really looked forward to never having to go to again.