Scholz, Joachim  

This was Professor Jo's first quarter (he just got his credentials in January of 2014). Although he will DEFINITELY be better in future quarters, our class was basically his test class. Our client was his own blog, and we basically did marketing research FOR him for a quarter. Jo is a great guy, he is just getting the handle of things. The class has 5 individual (500 word) journals, 3 individual assignments (roughly 5-10 pages of marketing research/quotes from customers), and 4 team assignments. It is a lot of work, but any 418 class is a lot of work. Jo will be assistive if you ask him to, and he will be a cool guy if you let him. A grade of 85 is considered "excellent" to him, while an A is "perfection". I do not know of one person in the class that got an A on a single assignment, however I also do not know someone who got a C in the class. If you do the work, expect an 85 on each assignment. I would take him if you are interested in more of an innovative approach to marketing, but it is no easy A nor easy class. Most importantly, no midterms, quizzes or finals. Just the assignments!

Avoid him at all costs, by far the worst teacher I had all quarter.

Professor Jo, although new, is by far the most unprofessional, biased, and arrogant teachers I have ever had or heard of. Avoid him, skip a quarter if you have to. It will be IMPOSSIBLE to get an A (no one received one this quarter). It requires more work than any other class I have taken. On top of it, Jo thinks that he knows "how to be the best marketer in the industry", yet I noticed that most of his feedback was totally contradictory to what I was taught at Oracle and Apple in my last two internships. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT TAKE JO. You will likely pass, but you will digress yourself as a marketer and be in misery for a quarter. However, Jo is the kind of guy I would love to have a beer with. He's cool, but teaching is just not anywhere close to a good profession for him and his bullshit.

Beyond disappointed with this class and especially Jo. Each assignment can require anywhere from 3-10 hours to complete, and I recommend you never spend more than 3. You'll receive a B regardless of how hard you try so do not bother. All of Jo's comments when handing back assignments were downgrading and not very helpful. I understand he is educated and has a lot of experience with marketing, but the classroom dynamic is not for him. Like said in previous posts here, putting in A work will get you a B, putting in B work will get you a B-, and putting in C work will get you a C+. Coming out of this class, I am so glad marketing ins't my concentration. I know members of my team that are now scared of proceeding on in the marketing path because of this class. To anyone considering his social media marketing class, seriously don't bother. He'll make you feel shitty about the subject and you will be scared away from what usually is a cool subject matter.

This class was a ton of work. I am very glad I was only in 12 units when I took it, because otherwise I would've been completely overwhelmed. Jo was a cool guy, and his lectures were pretty interesting. I think the reason why it was so hard to get through the quarter was because it was his first class he had taught and so essentially he had no idea how much work he was assigning nor what his grading scale should be. I felt as though our group turned in top notch work, and he even said our work was some of the best in the class, but we all still only got a B. I don't think anyone in the class received an A on any assignment. If you are taking this class, just know this: it is a lot of hard work that takes a long time to complete, but there are no midterms or finals. It's three large chunks of work and then a fourth which is everything compiled into a final project. Lots of work and lots of time. Jo himself wasn't a bad person; he just doesn't know how to teach/grade.

100% the worst teacher I ever had during my 4+ years at Cal Poly. He is unprofessional, biased, clueless, etc. DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS. HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO TEACH AT CAL POLY.

Jo is awesome. I have never had an instructor that was as passionate about his teaching as he is. He truly takes his time inside and outside of the classroom to meet with students and better direct their learning efforts. (even gives you his number to get coffee). That being said, this class is a very large amount of workload. You have a group from the beginning that you will work on everything with. Try not to take this class at the same time as all other group projects like I did. It will demand your constant effort. Take Jo. He truly cares about his students and you will inevitably learn SO much. His lectures are entertaining along with his humor and German accent!

Learned more about marketing from this class than I have from my last three combined. Ignore the first few ratings, it was his first quarter at poly. He knows his shit.

Jo is a cool dude. Teaching wise he is still new and learning (I actually thought he was a student when he first walked in). He is very smart and is always willing to help out his students. His lectures got boring after about an hour. I thought this class was going to be easy, but it ended up being the toughest class I had all quarter. You basically get a team and work on a huge research project for the whole quarter. He grades pretty hard on everything. This class is a loooot of work, but there is no final. My biggest complaint is only having 30 mins to take a midterm that is worth 20% of your grade. A lot of people didn't get to finish it, including myself. I'm sure in like 5 years Jo will figure out what works for teaching, and he will probably be one of the best marketing teachers at Cal Poly. If you take this class you will learn a lot about marketing research, just be prepared to work.

To put it simply, this class has a lot of work. Jo is an interesting guy but I realized at the end of the quarter he put each group down a certain path in your research. It is very difficult to get an A in the class but it was a lot of fun. He gives you a textbook full of scanned readings from other textbooks (so go half-sies with a classmate or something). He wants you to have a discussion during the first half of the quarter but after the midterm, it is hard to really talk because there is a lot of information and other parts of the class that you are thinking about. Like someone else said, you get only half an hour for a midterm that is 20% of your overall grade. That midterm included 2 essay type questions, one of which I could have easily spent the entire time working on. Your "final" is the final report which has almost everything you worked on in the quarter as well as a presentation to him and/or the client that you are all given at the beginning of the quarter. Even though this was a lot of work, I had a lot of fun actually and this class made me want to look into going into market research out of college. My recommendation is to go to office hours and build a rapport with him so he likes you. That helps both in the business world as well as his class.

By the end of the quarter, I started to really resent this class. My main complaint is the midterm. You got 30 minutes to complete a midterm that includes 2 short answer questions and MC questions that'll determine 20% of your grade. If you're a slow test taker, it really screws you over. Another thing I noticed about the class is that participation is graded really arbitrarily. It seemed like whether or not you were a "lion", "kitten", or "meerkat" was determined by a day's performance, instead of a reflection of the quarter. Lastly, Jo isn't very concise. He devotes a lot of time and powerpoints to providing instructions to assignments to the point that it's unclear what he expects from us.

Good guy, he gave me the chance to redeem myself after misunderstanding an assignment. He's still really new to Cal Poly so naturally, the class isn't perfect, but I think it'll get better with time.

This class was a lot of work but hes a pretty cool guy and I learned a lot about marketing from this class and gained valuable skills.

Jo's "Listening to the Customer" class was one of the most rewarding academic experiences I have had at Cal Poly. Don’t let the daunting class syllabus scare you away from this incredible course. During the first couple of weeks, you will take online quizzes that continuously increase in difficulty. These short quizzes will boost your grade if you take the time to really understand the material. Altogether, the team assignments will account for the majority of your grade. Push yourself to go above and beyond the already high expectations. In the end, your teammates will play a huge part in determining your final grade—this will be a blessing or a curse depending on your level of commitment throughout the quarter. Jo’s guidance is incredibly valuable. Take notes during the meetings with him, and realize that his criticisms will only guide you towards the ‘A’. This class made me declare my concentration as marketing.

Good professor, enthusiastic about the class but almost no guidance provided. Granted it is a very open ended progress based class but sending out changes in project requirements hours before major portions are due is not okay. Lectures were not that useful, combined with very challenging reading quizzes. If you get anything out of this class it's because of your group, and their ability to learn from each other. Also, major conflict of interest for the project since he was dating the owner of the company we were assigned...that made any criticism near impossible.

This is my second time having this professor, while the first time was manageable, I have found him to be completely unbearable the second time around. Being a senior with only 2 classes to take until graduation, I can say with complete confidence that he is one of the worst professors at Cal Poly. I am a student who is used to succeeding in school, with a 3.5 I like to think that I am a reputable source for this evaluation. The professor has high expectations for graded projects and does a poor job communicating what those expectations might be and does not provide clear tools as to how one can fulfill those expectations. The teacher is always moving around deadlines and is changing requirements for tests. This leads to high stress and confusion. The quizzes are virtually impossible to pass, even with averaging the second attempt. The majority of the class is averaging at a D in quiz grades and the teacher is only trying to critique how we are taking the test rather than how he is making the tests. Lastly he makes up random terms that are not standby used in marketing which leads to confusion when he is lecturing. Half the time I have no clue what he is talking about and every time he asks the class a discussion topic, only a quarter of the class understands what he is trying to ask us.

Professor Scholz is undoubtedly smart. However, there is no excuse for being detached from and out of touch with your students. Each lecture felt like a one-way line of communication—he asks the type of questions that have on single answer that that you're expected to read his mind to guess correctly. His grading system was unfair to say the least. Confusing rubrics, unjustified assigned grades, and subjective, opinion-based feedback. By mid-quarter, turning in assignments caused various students extreme anxiety/stress. He doesn't take any feedback well, even when a large majority of the class is trying to nicely communicate the same thing. The quizzes are RIDICULOUS. Any student could read every word of the readings, take diligent notes, study these notes as if they were flashcards, and then take this 8-question 'quiz' and fail it. I would know because it happened to me numerous times. I am an industrious student—if I fail a quiz, it's because I was underprepared, NOT because the professor is out of touch with the student's progress in the course and retention of the material. Again, it seems as though he writes the questions without considering our level of expertise on the subject. We are learning, he is an expert. It seems very clear that he easily forgets that. I will say, though: his PowerPoints are awesome and he is very prepared for class. I don't think he's unfit for the course, but I think he does have to make a SERIOUS effort to improve his teaching methods.

I have never taken the time to evaluate a professor on this site, but in hopes that the Cal Poly faculty will see and make a change, I am writing an evaluation. I have had Jo for two quarters now, have passed both of his classes, and feel qualified to rate him. While Jo undoubtedly knows a lot of information about AR/VR Marketing, there is a difference between being a qualified marketer and a qualified teacher. As a student, I have never had a professor who was so blatantly self-centered and biased to their own opinion. I have also never had a teacher who was so unclear about course material, course expectations, and grading. It is really unfair that students are not able to succeed in this class, when it is his fault for not clearly setting adequate expectations for the subject matter. He grades heavily on participation, yet he creates an environment where you feel "wrong" for sharing your opinion. I agree with all of the comments above regarding his arrogant personality, but felt that not enough had been posted yet about his inabilities as a professor to clearly teach and communicate information and course objectives. I urge the Cal Poly faculty to seek more student opinion on his shortcomings as a professor, to better the learning environment.