Marx, Steven  

Teacher does not teach at all. Takes attendance so you have to go to class. Grades extrememly difficult. If you got A's on high school papers you will get C's in this class. You will become a better writer, but at a sizable cost.

Ok, Marx did not teach during class. He read the essays we wrote outloud and that was it. You didn't learn anything unless your essay was being read and that is because other students critiqued it. All the essays were about the environment. The stuff about the environment we learned was cool, but not interesting enough to write an entire essay on. He never tells you what he wants from your essays either. You just have to guess. He grades really really hard for a first year english teacher.The best way to learn something is go to his office hours. Also, you will have to go on hikes. He takes you to Poly Canyone, which really sucked and so did the dairy farm. There were others but i didn't go to class those days.

This professor is helpful if you approach him. A very tough grader. He is n't very clear when explaining what he wants on his essays. He is arrogant and expects his students to know what he wants. I would avoid him if possible. If not, make use of office hours so he can review your essays.

Dr. Marx has a tendancy to go on rants about the environment and get sidetracked from the topic he's SUPPOSED to be teaching, which is English. He likes to take the class on trips, which does sometimes make the class interesting but doesn't have much to do with the class beyond trying to ispire support for his cause (converting everyone to Sustainability). He makes you buy his own book as a textbook and quizes you on the chapters. He does generally give good editing advice in the essays, but all you really have to do is give him what he wants in the essay and you'll do fine. Definitely a push-over, but if you actually want to LEARN something about English skip him.

Ok Marx was my first english teacher at poly.I got a C in the class cause i don't care to much for english but He is the hardest professor I've had so far. The first day of class he assigned a 500 word essay that was due the next class! His text book was some lame book he wrote it its about the environment and calpoly which is what he is real big on. You pretty much have 5 essays due and he grades hard and its very difficult to get an A on any of them. Another bad thing about him is that he posts everyones essays for the whole class to see and talk about it. He even posts the ones that are below a C so he puts u on the spot and makes u feel stupid all the time. If u don't like nature stuff dont take him he makes u take hikes up poly canyon at 7am and write about weird stuff like that. I did learn a lot from him because he grades hard and his grading is all through the computer so he leaves u comments which is pretty helpful. After I took him i heard he wasn't going to teach 134 anymore but take it from me if ur ok at english and want an A in the class don't take marx what ever u do!

What can I say about one of the worst professors I have yet encountered? Don't take him.

Fine teacher, but a little dry in the presentation. I wouldnt suggest having her at 8:00 in the morning, might be difficult staying awake.

Marx is a very liberal professor who focused the entire first month of the class on the liberal politics of global warming. The first two essays are both on the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and the third is on the global warming awareness events on campus. This would be acceptable if it wasn't obvious how Marx sees the issues and grades better if your opinions are the same as his. I'm pretty liberal, but this is overkill for an English class.

Dr. Marx was one of the most disappointing teachers I have had at poly. He is extremely liberal, and makes all of his papers about liberal topics. According to how he grades, he is looking for very simple, shallow writing. If you do research and explain your topic in depth, he grades you down. If you are a good writer, or even if you just enjoy writing, do NOT take this class. Very SUBJECTIVE, unfair grading system.

i absolutely hated this professor. I love writing, but nothing was ever good enough for him. Despite the fact that he used my samples as examples for the class, he still gave me a B. DO NOT TAKE THIS TEACHER. You will honestly regret it.

I got an A, no big deal. But this guy is an effing d-bag. He grades harder than his wife bangs him because she wears the pants in the relationship. He probably doesn't own a single pair of pants. All he does is try to push his wife's politics on you and she's a cuntbag. Google his wife, you won't.

I feel bad giving Dr. Marx such bad grades, (if there were half stars, I would have given him the benefit of the doubt and added a half star) but this class was ridiculous. Marx seemed like a really nice guy and I had no problems with him, and he seems genuinely interested in the things he teaches, but this class was insane. I was overwhelmed from day one. He actually sent everybody in the class an email asking us to have 50 pages read before the first day of class. When I read that I knew I was in for a crappy quarter because of this class. He gave us an excruciating amount of reading of material that was impossible to read with comprehension in the time frame he gave us. He expected us to read Paradise Lost in 5 days, an unbelievably hard book to read that is over 100 pages long. Don't bother reading it, you won't have time anyway. Read the cliff notes. The midterm was incredibly hard. We had to define 10 terms as half of the points, and about 8 of them I had never seen before. It is impossible to take notes in his class, you have no idea what to write down. Always mark down the things that are read in class though. On a positive note, the final was very fair and I think helped everybody's grade. In summation, I feel bad for giving Dr. Marx such a bad review but I have never been so overwhelmed by a class in my life. I just thank him for giving me a B.

the other evaluation put marx's class quite nicely. his class was horrible, i think it really made people debate changing their major because he was so bad...he has no teaching skills, and conveys books from an unemotional standpoint, which ruins the literature completely, especially when it's the renaissance.the only compliment i can give the guy is that he's great for office hours on a one-on-one basis...but he cannot teach a class of 30 english majors for crap. avoid at all costs...

Despite all the work, I don

This guy is a joke. He consistently belittled me as being "the guy in the back." Every time I raised my hand, he would even sometimes ignore it and call on someone else, maybe he felt they might be more insightful. Anyone who even CONSIDERS taking Marx is full of shit. If you value your self confidence and life, STAY AWAY. Also don't bring your dog to class, he seemingly HATES dogs. Especially if they even make so much as a whimper. He told us some story about a dog in his neighborhood that wouldn't shut up and he threatened the owners to "call the authorities." What a jackass. Even though I got an A in this class (only because I busted my ass to spite him) I warn EVERYONE to stay the hell away from this egotistical, pig-headed, bike riding, DOG HATER. I'll leave you with a quote from a movie that best describes his lectures. "At no time, during your incoherent rambling did you make any sense. We are all now dumber for having listened to you (Marx). I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I hate to say it but I didn't learn much in this class. I did all the readings but Marx doesn't do a good job of covering all the material. It was also difficult because he almost never went over historical background information. I'm not one for memorizing dates, which we weren't required to do, but the Renaissance now seems like just a big jumble of unrelated writings...We discussed a few themes here and there, but I didn't feel they were very relevant. Also, it seems absurd that we hardly talked about Shakespeare, and that we only read one of his works. The many essays we wrote were a bit confusing too. He asks you to add all these elements that you usually don't put in an essay. But on a positive note, Marx was helpful in office hours.

A well versed professor with a wealth of experience and knowledge! Whether due to his Stanford background or the sheer amount of text he wrote, his lectures sound like essays or scholarly journals. He inserts two-dollar vocabulary at every opportunity he gets (with occasional pause if he can't find the right word). In that respect, expect to increase your vocabluary base. His essay grading is fairly just: his focus lies on the grammatical/structural/cohesive aspects of your text. Content is not as important as the quality. Sometimes he is blatantly critical of your work, but its for your own good! He is very personal and responsive to the students, sometimes he will laugh harder at your humor then your classmates.

Dr. Marx offers expertise and insight but encourages the students to think for themselves. He encourages class discussion and rewards honest thought, effort and interest. He is easy to understand and listen to. Put 100% into your essays and you can't go wrong. He is much better than most of the other English professors. I actually had fun in his class.

Professor Marx is someone who knows his field. No doubt about it. However, as many English professors tend to do, he gets caught up in his own interpretations of works and leaves little to argue for his students. He likes to pick papers apart, and really, I think make students feel insecure about their writing skills. His tips are good in how to improve one's writing, he's just a jerk in communicating them to you. So don't take him if your feelings get hurt easily. Or if you're a girl with big boobs, cause he likes to look. That part was pretty gross. Also, just have like one thing to say about each reading, because if you get called on and don't have anything to offer up, he gets mad and complains about the whole class not participating. I wouldn't recommend him, but eh, I guess I've had worse.

Prof. Marx is extremely enthusiastic about teaching literature. His energy and excitement made me want to listen to his lectures. If you can pass/fail this class, I would use it. The hardest part is keeping up with readings for quizzes but using Sparknotes will guarantee at least a C on every test. The only reason I got a B was because I did not take the readings seriously. The group presentation is a bit annoying but I recommend presenting earlier in the quarter.

This class was extremly challeging and the professor treated the students like 3rd class citizens. He was rude, he belittled students in front of the class, and he played favorites. He did not want to help students and thought that he knew all of the answers.

I hate English, however, I thought that this class was okay for an English class. This is an ancient literature class which I found far easier than the more modern ones. There are universal themes and the meanings are not so difficult to understand than the others. The papers are not too bad. They are ten of them and they are all one page long. So there's a lot of them, but they are pretty short. The quizes were not very difficult except for the first one. CAUTION- there is a huge amount of reading in the first couple of weeks. If you get behind, you will be swamped. The things that I didn't like were the in-class essays and the final creative project. It's hard to write a good paper in such a short time, but at least it is over quickly. I am a physics major, so the creative project was very difficult for me. You have to explain and defend your project. I hate public speaking and showing everyone my work, so the last day was excruciating. I did not really experience the belittling that the other reviewers did. He was usually kind. He is really into technology which I really liked. If you can't make it to class, he will let you send it as an email attachment. He has relevant links on his website. He tries to find internet resources that have material not in the text so that you don't have to buy it separately. This class is not easy, but it could have been much worse with another teacher.

This class was one of the most enjoyable classes I've taken at Poly. I really liked how he and Cushing (they both taught the class) chose interesting texts to read... they were all basically love stories. All you really had to do was keep up with the readings, cuz you would discuss them in class. If you need to take this class as an elective or GE, this is the one to take because it really was not that demanding at all. You write a final take-home exam that's worth 60% of your grade, do 1 group presentation and write a paper on it afterwards, do an easy write up after group presentations, and go on a field trip to the Getty Museum (which you have the option of doing at your own leisure). It was obvious that Marx is very passionate about the topic and does his best to get his students to think. He's very organized- frequently using e-mail, a website, and even films group presentations for all to see through Quicktime. Overall, he was an awesome professor!!

Marx is a great English teacher, and for a GE this class was enjoyable. He taught with Prof. Jim Cushing; sometimes the lectures were boring and off topic, but the readings were all entertaining. The weekly quizzes were never hard, and the group project turned out to be a lot of fun. The final paper was actually not that bad. Overall, I'd recomend this class to anyone trying to finish their GEs

Although I'm not sure that it was ENGL 255, it was basically a class on classical literature around the number 255. Dr. Marx was a good guy. I felt he genuinally cared about his students, and i never felt his criticism to be detrimental to me, or the learning process. I felt it to be a relatively well put togther class.

Loved the course material, the books he chose were very interesting and insiteful. The class time sometimes was boring, but the reading material was great. Easy testing was not difficult.

This course did not fulfill the previously stated "goal" of the class and did not improve the students ability to use technology. Although the teacher is passionate about the subject, class organization and discuss was severely lacking. Also, the project assigned in class had to be completed entirely out of class and very little, if any, teacher support was given to the students in teaching them how to use the technology.

This class seemed as though it would be a very enjoyable outdoor class. Marx is very enthusiastic about his class and the material. You go on hikes one or more times and week, which can be a good thing, because you aren't sitting in a class for hours on end. But Marx is not at all what he seems. As part of this class you are required to make a webpage. WARNING TO COMPUTER ILLITERATE PEOPLE: Marx expects you to be able to able to learn computer applications with his so called teaching sessions. Marx in reality has no idea what he is doing himself, so he surrounds himself with people that do know how to do it in place of him. On grading, this man is extremely inconsistent. He appears really enthusiastic about your webpages or your work, but be warned, this excitement is equivalent to a C. Much of his lectures are false and Marx is not a good teacher. Unless you want to hassel with a teacher and fight for grades, I would not recommend this teacher to anyone. Ask anyone that took the class what their opinion is of Marx, and you will understand what I am saying.

This class is called Cal Poly Land: Nature, Technology, and Society. In this class, you go out and explore different places around Cal Poly that you never get to see regularly like Swanton Ranch and the Water Plant. This class is a great break from ordinary sit-down lectures. Sounds great, doesn't it. But take precaution. Don't take this class with another right before or after because you'll need time to get to and from places if the class goes on outings. Other professors do most of the talking, but when Marx gives a lecture, he seems to act totally clueless. This class consists of two assignments: a journal and a group website. My recommendation on approaching the journal assignment is to write lots in your journals. Marx tends to favor quantity over quality. Take lots of photos by checking out a digital camera from the Media Resource Center. It is also a good idea to record the lectures on audio tape since the journal requires you to regurgitate the lectures that are either in your handbook or given by the tour guides. For the website, go overboard with the graphics, decorations, and other kinds of creativity. Marx is a Mac user, so his instructions on how to design and upload web pages is totally off for PCs. Overall, the class is a great idea, but someone other than Marx should be the main professor. BTW, this class is offered every spring.

This class is very different. The entire class consists of hiking around cal poly and the surrounding land and learning about all the different aspects of it. I thought it was an excellent change from any other standard sit down class format I have ever had. Marx is awesome as long as you learn to handle him.

This class is a so much different than the typical class as you spend class time hiking around in the Cal Poly lands and get a glimpse of the great outdoors. This is a welcomed relief from sitting down in the classroom. But this class can be demanding since you are constantly trying to take good journal entries while listening to the speakers on the outings. This is only the second year this class has been taught, so it should only get better. Marx is not such a good lecturer himself, but other professors do most of the talking in this class. Your grade for this class is based on an individual journal and a group website.

the hikes and stuff were ok for some people, but not all. he EXPECTS us to make it to trips, and its impossible for some people that doesn't have cars, and have class right after it. some students even have class after it, and is forced to leave early. guess what happens if you do? you would be missing a chunk of information to write in your journals, and your overall grade would be lowered. what is worse is the web site. he bitches about what he does and doesn't like. i used to design web pages, and im sure every web designer would agreed to have a navigation bar on top where it is easily seen. instead, this foo tells us he doesn't like it and just list the links on the bottom of the page. so now you would have to scroll up and see what page you're on, then scroll all the way back down to navigate. im fed up with his bitchn' and basically u have to do it HIS WAY or else you'll get a lower grade. he doesn't grade professionally, but gives good grades to those who follow his advice. he'd fail a professional web designer if he didn't like it.. its that simple. also for other web sites, someone did something he thought was amazing (adding a movie, WOW) and the web site had nothing more but a video, and some links. he kept showing us that. its not always about how nice it looks. we put a lot of effort in our projcet, and he gives us a low grade basically because he didn't like this and that.

Dr. Marx does not clearly tell you what he wants the journal and web site to look like. He wants you to get inside his head. My advise is to make a deal with your fellow website classmates. One can take notes on the hikes and the other can work on the website. That way one person can take class time to work on the site and not do the hikes. This cuts the work in half. That worked for me. But you got to watch your fellow classmates work. They might take the easy way out and plagerize notes or website info. My job was to work on the website. Ask him to pre-evaluate you site about every other week. This will give you an idea what he wants done. Take his suggestions, make sure all links work, be creative like add a movie or sound and chances are you will get a good grade. Here is a topic that someone might want to do, those red hand prints on campus. Cal Poly is not as safe as you think. GOOD LUCK taking this class.

Professor Marx is by far one of the most disappointing teachers I have had, or will ever have at Cal Poly. First off, he knows what he's talking about (He has his Ph.D from Stanford) but he's a horrible teacher. Imagine the horrible Chemistry teacher you had in high school who was extremely smart, but couldn't get across anything to his students. He grades the essay's ridiculously hard, regardless of your effort put into them, or if you went to his office hours. Honestly, there's just no winning. He will either write "vague," "repetition," or "deviation," on all of your papers. I'm an English Minor, and honestly, this class made me seriously reassess my choice. If it weren't for other teachers in the department like Troxel, Cushing, Inchausti or Fitzhenry the department would fall to crap and Marx would lead its descent into oblivion. Do not take this course as a G.E with him, you'll either get a C, C- or a D and he's not easy to pass on the GWR. If I hadn't taken the GWR and already passed I honestly don't know that I could have with this teacher.

Marx was so kind to come back out of retirement to teach this shakespeare class, so he was just there mostly to have fun and enjoy teaching something he was very passionate about. We got to go on a field trip to Santa Barbara which was fun. The GWR was super easy and he gives you the topics ahead of time. ALL of shakespeare's works are on sparknotes which he actually RECOMMENDED we read. Most of the class was watching movies, talking about it in class, performing, and writing, all can be done by just reading the sparknotes or watching the films. He was a great prof. and was really energetic and super into the topic!

Man, I can't believe some of the reviews. I thought this guy was great. 354 is Bible as literature (if fit my schedule and requirements) and I found it very interesting. The discussions were thought provoking and I liked finally knowing where so many of our cultural references actually come from. I thought he was a clear instructor, graded fairly, was sensitive about handling the discussions (there were a few people that had their own custom Bibles when coming to class...if you know what I mean), created a good environment for discussion and allowed individual creativity in interpretive papers. The quizes are just common sense if you did the reading, and there are only 4-6 one page papers due AND the class is interesting. I recommend him, and the class. I does knock out a couple of requirements at once.

don't bother taking notes in class. for the quizes, you just need to have read the chapters assighned. most of the grade is based on the papers. he says make them only one page, but what he means is see how much you can fit on one page, make it single space and shrink the margins or font size.

Dr. Marx is quite possibly the best professor I've ever had the great pleasure of taking at Cal Poly. Contrary to other accounts, I found him to be genuinely excited and open-minded regarding student comments and projects. He is well versed in all that he teaches and takes great effort to deseminate all that he can unto his students. If you are looking to merely get a class over and out of the way, I would highly recommend looking for another professor, but if you are truly interested in learning, Dr. Marx is the way to go.

Ecoliterature with Dr. Marx was a healthy, invigorating and intellectual experience. Not only is he passionate about literature's role in the environment, but he conveys that passion to the class both in the classroom and out hiking around Cal Poly's beautiful natural assets. I highly recommend this class.

Dr. Marx is very good at belittling students in the already difficult job of in-class presentations. Every student in our class was afraid to give these presentations, because we can't remember one positive comment that he made. It was inappropriate to say these criticisms in class in front of the student's classmates, and certainly does not facilitate learning. Dr. Marx also seemed fairly close-minded in his ideas about Shakespeare, and didn't seem willing to expand his horizons with student comments. He also rudely interrupts students in their comments when he feels they have spoken too much in class, and instead calls on someone who does not have their hand raised. Dr. Marx's knowledge on the subject was so extreme, and his syllabus so exciting, that these negative qualities were quite a disappointment.

Egomaniac? Megalomaniac? peevish, strange little man with spitting lisp. Hitler? No. Dr. Marx. Completely innured in the entropy of his chosen profession,he is cemented in ancient, fosilized ideas and neither learns nor listens to his students. Harsh.embarrising, public criticism. Do it his way and just accept he's a shrivled little academic and you might do ok. Don't dare make a suggestion about how the class might be improved. Don't say you don't understand something. Just hang your head and try to survive. If you want to excite him (watch out for the spray) just paraphrase what he say and parrot it right back to him. Like tetnus, rabbis, and public bathrooms, avoid if possible.