McDermott, Steven  

This is a lame site. The comments are statistically insignificant. Most comments lack basic grammar and spelling skills.

Steve McDermott did a lot of public speaking himself; on the other hand, he didn't teach public speaking as much. Nevertheless, he was an entertaining professor who had a lot of stories/opinions/tangents to explain the material.

Very biased and sexist. Since this was my first speech class, I expected to learn a great deal of knowledge and training for speeches. He doesn't teach and he doesn't tell you what you need to work on in your speech. I can't believe he is a speech communication teacher.

McDermott is a pretty easy teacher. I took this class in summer school so I don't know if that affects anything. Class is kind of boring he rambles a lot. He explains assignments clearly but other than that it isn't really worth going to class. We took two tests both of which he gave us the exact questions for. I think he is also the easiest grader of the speech teachers.

Gives you the fundamentals. He keeps the class interesting and entertaining while helping you learn. Focuses on learning through experience rather than boring lectures.

boo-hoo, little one....have you tried student ratings dot com...or what?

"News Flash: you sound just like a whiny, hypocritical, kiss-ass that just ripped apart two nice people for no good reason." Two "nice" people? YOU have to be kidding! Either you are one of the two or you misunderstood who I wrote about. "What kind of a person goes on Poly Ratings just to bash fellow students, puts hurtful things in writing that other people will read, is apathetic towards single mom's (you must be a Bush-lover on top of your bad personality) and has the nerve to project all of his/her bad qualities onto others. My God! Talk about cruel. I think you just took the cake. If you think others are guilty of being mean to people, well guess what...they are not nearly as mean as you just were." The SAME kind of person who goes on Polyratings (one word, not two) to bash other people [teachers included], puts hurtful things in writing that other people will read ["get put through the tortures of undue academic rigor, go to a miserable bitch like lisa kawamura or an abusive and freaky-gross dude like winebrenner(he acts like he is making up for being a short fat bald guy with an inadequate and impotent penis!!! His behavior indicates that his only power in life is being a cal-polyester professor!). How about taking a class or two from Dr. Fahs...go ahead... try him! You will NEVER get a cancelled class there, FUCKING NEVER! and with Fahs, you may even learn about what it is like to get a D or an F! There's something you might want to know about, huh?"], and is disruptive toward students who WANT to learn (also learn to spell, mom's is possessive, moms is plural). The quality of your post proves why speech comm is a joke--you can't be coherent, correct, and even communicate with high school level grammar. There is your mirror.

Has anyone got any idea why anyone would be a speech major? These people are a group of jerks! Try math, we are alot nicer...

gee, here i am in the workforce...and what do ya know??? i am actually using the lessons Dr. Mc D taught in intercultural comm! yes, every day! i write letters to people from many countries, and have the sensitivity to at least have a look onto the web to find communication norms and standards of the cultures! yes, thanks to Mc Dermott, you silly little sick ass people!!!. why bash on him.? it is YOU who sux ass, poly dough, not McD! he is one of the few real people that the whole scom scum department has at all! god, am i ever glad to be out of there!

McDermott doesn't really teach anything in the class, he tells a lot of stories about his life that don't really relate to the material you're learning. In our class, he got really behind and we only had three graded speeches, which made them all worth a lot. The final is on the readings that he didn't say we had to do. The grading is a little arbitrary, but if you act like you know what you're doing in your speeches, you can get an A or a B.

Just listen to his stories and pretend to know what you're doing. Just have confidence in your speeches and you can get an A or a B.

Professor McDermott made public speaking very stress-free! There were only 4 speeches, a short essay, and a final. He also grades rather leniently. I am very glad I had him as a professor!

Great professor, enjoyable class, funny guy

This professor was very difficult. He did not clearly state how to do any assignment and the entire quarter was a stress. Plus his lectures were VERY boring. Try not to take this teacher.

This class was very easy but a complete WASTE OF TIME. He never taught anything and was really boring. If you want to learn anything about giving speeches, don't take McDermott. All he does is show up and make you give speeches. Then he messes up on our tests and gives everyone an A. Easy but pointless and boring.

Fuck this guy and his twitchy eye, he gives a bucnh of horseshit assignments. Take another teacher and youll save yourself hours of work.

Conceited, overweight, and obnoxious. If I had to liken him to a fast food hamburger, I would choose the six dollar burger from Carl's Junior. Gross and delicious at the same time.

McDermott was great for scom 102. You give a couple of speeches (1 nongraded and 2 graded) and do a group project and that was pretty much it for the quarter. You should take him if you can. I recommended him to everyone that asked.

Prof. McDermott is seriously the best teacher I have ever had at Poly. He is so interseting, my two hour lectures just flew by every time. You have three speeches and one big group project (NO FINAL!) They are all really simple and very straight forward. There are only two tests and he gives you the EXACT 40 questions that are going to be on the tests ahead of time, so all you have to do is look the answers up in the book and you are guranteed to ace his tests. I would definitly recommend McDermott to anyone!

This class was pretty easy, only three speeches and one group project. There is no final and he gives you all the questions to the two midterms before you take them. He had some interesting stories which made the lectures a little less boring.

This quarter may not be a fair quarter to assess McDermott as a professor. He apparently had a lot of personal issues going on, and didn't devote much time to the class. He cancelled three lectures and nearly half of the course work. With all the class time he missed and all the speeches we had to go through, he barely lectured at all, so the stuff on the test would be completely unfamiliar to you if you didn't read the book. (We didn't get the questions ahead of time.) The class on the whole was pretty easy though. He gives you some good constructive criticism on your speeches and doesn't tear you apart over little things. All-in-all, you could do much worse than McDermott. I would recommend him without hesitation to anyone dreading taking speech.

Professor McDermott was the worst teacher I have had at Cal Poly. He missed class 7 times and we had a 2 day a week class. That is almost half of the classes. This might have been ok if he would have taken this into consideration when he gave us our midterm and graded us un our speeches. He gave us the readings for our midterm 1 day before we took it and it was 6 chapters! Also, he kept taking out assignments so if you did badly there was really no way to make it up later on in the quarter. Bottom line, he was an unrealiable teacher that taught me nothing and brought down my GPA.

SUPER SUPER flighty. I was never really sure where he was going with some explanations or examples-- they were just mainly random tangents that made no sense. I got a good grade, but the class was still incredibly boring & a waste of time. If you have him, bring a good Cosmo or People magazine to class to help pass the time :-)

McDermott is an excellent professor. He teaches very clearly and if you follow his guidelines for whatever you are assigned, you are gauranteed an A. We had only one test in his class. Originally, we were supposed to have a first and second midterm, but we fell behind a little and he never assigned the second midterm. There is no final in this class. There is about an equal workload between writing and speaking. He grades very fairly and describes exactly what he expects. His grading is thorough and he will help you with everything. This professor made me like public speaking. He is excellent.

this guy quite honestly might be an idiot, wait now im sure. he is. the class is easy, just go to the books website and go over the questions and you will ace his test otherwise like me the test will kick you ass. i dont think he actually reads the assignments that are turned in so dont worry about that just forfill his criteria and you will be fine. this is an easy class if you follow directions and show up.

The most pointless class I have taken at Poly. His lectures are completely useless and have nothing to do with the material covered on the tests. He cancels class all the time and announces projects and tests days in advance. This is an easy class, but I feel dumber after listening to him. I can't believe actually I went to class.

it is very strange and disgusting that there is a semi organized, overt and covert effort to 'get rid' of mcdermott. with students and faculty alike allied into a gang of haters, we see cal poly scom scums at their worst.

This man is an idiot! I read the Poly Ratings before taking the class and thought to myself "There are 60 people giving me very clear directions to NOT take McDemott, but what do they know. It's not like they were doing me a huge favor or anything." I am almost (not quite but almost) as stupid as he is! Now do yourself a favor and pick a different teacher or you will find yourself sitting in his class knawing off your own damn arm just so you can beat him to death with it. It is not worth the easy B. Trust me.

Need a GPA boost? **Please read this entire review as it does contain the good and the bad**. Sure, he's kind of an oddball, but if you can get over that, then you've got yourself a B or higher, just look at everyone else's grade. He cancelled class once, never took attendance (though he threatened to do so), and I don't think we ever stayed the full two and a half hours. Here's a breakdown of the class: You have an intro speech(not for a grade), an informative speech(graded), a group speech(graded), an impromptu(not graded and some most of them lasted like 45 seconds) and a persuasive speech(graded). He has two midterms where the class finds makes questions and he gives you a sheet with all of the questions. There is no final, it's just that the persuasive speech ran through dead week, didn't even have to show up for final day. The only tough questions on the midterms are the on the information that he covers in class (which honestly wasn't a lot). On one of the midterms, one question was completely wrong so we brought it up during the exam and he said to leave it blank. And another problem went something along the lines of "which of the following three are the . . . " the answers were: a) one thing, b) another thing, c) another thing, d) all of the above. On the second midterm . . . two questions were thrown out. And we had yet another question where the answer could only be "d) all of the above". I swear to God this guy just takes the review sheet that he makes for you before the midterm and *tries* to put the information into question form. Needless to say, they aren't to hard to get if you at least look at the review sheet for about 10 minutes. I have to admit that I was somewhat impressed by his knowledge of historical figures. He would always be like, "Oh yeah and did you know that so and so did such and such??? Yeah you didn't". But then I realized that he's been listening to these speeches for the past several years. The only time I read out of the book was during the group project. We pretty much copied straight from the book and put it into a Power Point and got a good grade. I can't image getting lower than a B in this class. There are a few things I didn't like about him. First off, he rarely gives you back your speech grade (he's always like "I'm not done with them yet") and that kind of keeps you on edge about your grade. Another thing is his odd blinking patterns(sometimes it seems like he's trying communicate through blinking). I personally didn't mind it but some people did. I don't think he checks his e-mails and I wouldn't bet on finding him in his office hours either. But seriously look at everyone else they all got A's and B's. And if you can't stand him . . . sleep in the corner during the speeches (he seriously doesn't care) or skip that day (he doesn't take attendance). cliff notes: -2 midterms (You make up the questions) -No final (unless the persuasive speech runs past the last class meeting) -Vast majority of speeches were 80% or higher. -He's annoying? Yeah he is but get over it, you're going to meet a lot of annoying people in your lifetime.

If you wanna breeze through a GE, get McDermott. He goes off a lot on tangents, but the class was very easy. Never studied for the tests but still got Bs. The speeches are not that difficult either.

McDermott was an OK teacher, overall. He had some interesting things to say but he has the tendency to go off on tangents on a daily basis- and also cancel class last minute and not show up...which sucked. But he is a very cooky guy- and made the class laugh. I took this course in the summer and we didn't do a lot of things we should have due to time contraints, so i'd suggest taking his class in the summer! easy A!

Taking a GE is usually considered an 'easy A', you know things that help you create a foundation for harder classes you will be taking in the future. I was actually kind of excited to take Public Speaking because I am relatively interested in the parameters the class teaches. I read that McDermott was a laidback teacher who graded easily. SO WRONG. There is a line between laidback and straight up slacker. For being an 8AM class M thru Thursday, you would think that he would be a punctual guy for having such an early class. Not only was he late almost every single day, but he only lectured for about a week, and since he was so vague on our speech criteria, no one knew what to write about or how to give the speech or what he even wanted!! The midterm was a piece of cake, but u had to guess at what it was on really. Overall, I gave an intro "ungraded" speech, an informative speech, and a group speech. And a lot of the time, he just did not show up to class. And then would send a class cancellation email 3 hours AFTER class was over. And then he would send emails saying we would be having midterms the next day and everyone would show up and we wouldn't do anything. Are you kidding? In the end, he cancelled the final and sent us off not knowing what our grades were. I think he just gave everyone B's. So in conclusion, if you hate Public Speaking, do not want to learn anything, and wake up early only to be frustrated by an absent teacher, please take this class.

I have never given a Polyrating before, but after spending the past 10 weeks dealing with Mcdermott's b.s. I felt compelled to let potential students know that he's an idiot. I took him because I heard that he was an easy professor and that he cancelled class all the time. It turned out, he just wouldn't show up, and then he would send an e-mail 30 minutes after our class had already started saying he wasn't going to be there. He didn't show up so many times that he had to cancel our last speech and can't give a final because he didn't give us enough material. Sounds like a good thing, right? No... because now we all have mediocre grades because his Midterm was on a bunch of crap from the book that he never once talked about in class. I'm not a bad speaker, and I definately should have at least an A-. But I'm pretty sure that's damn near impossible with this guy. I have wasted over 20 hours of my life listening to the stupid shit he talks about all day. He would start talking about the Vietnam war, then get into his daughter's first job, then onto politics, and he'd forget what he was talking about in the first place. there's so many more reasons why to not take him, I won't even bother you with them. For your sake, I hope you already got the point.

he's an idiot. never shows up and never tells us when class is cancelled, he has stupid rules for our speeches, and he you can do everything right in his class and still get a B. yeah it was easy, but its really just a cointoss of whether or not you get an A or B. he's also really bad at speaking which was annoying cuz i felt like he did not deserve to be grading us down for little ticks when he blinks all the time when he's talking. avoid him at all costs

Mcdermott was the sweetest professor ever. its a really easy class, so i definitely recommend as an easy GE. 4 speeches, 2 tests, and a paper due with one of the speeches. he gives a relatively thorough evaluation of your speech when youre done, not in front of the class but on a grading sheet. hes really nice and cracks jokes during the year- he is also interested in you as a person and the topics you choose. I loved him and even though it was really really easy I hope to take a more challenging class with him in the future.

McDermott needs to be more considerate to his students. He missed class so often without letting us know beforehand so the entire class waited in the classroom without him coming at all. He barely lectured because he missed so much class. He just had us do speeches the entire quarter without teaching us how to communicate better. The class has four speeches and 2 midterms. A few students had to come in during finals weeks just to give their speeches because the schedule got pushed back because he missed so much class. Students pay to learn, not for their professor to miss class and make things a whole lot worse for their situation. MCDERMOTT!!! CHANGE YOUR WAYS!!!

I am not one that usually takes the time to rate anything online but if I can just convince one person not to take prof mcdermott I will consider it worth my time. Prof McDermott didn\'t show up at least 7 times this quarter and its not even over yet. This may sound really cool but it really is not because he never emails or warns you when he is going to not show up. His one midterm is on material never covered in class. At least five of the questions were marked incorrectly on the scantron so we all got c\'s and when we confronted him about it he said he would look into it further. Of course he never did anything. I\'m pretty sure he didn\'t even know the answers to his own test and that is why it was marked incorrectly. Even when he does show up to class, he teaches you absolutely nothing and goes off on tangents about himself all the time. Ironically, he is one of the worst speakers I have ever seen and I have to call him my speech professor. He doesn\'t even know the difference between a simile and a metaphor. I seriously wonder how he hasn\'t been fired. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

I love this teacher just a joy to be around and simply a nice guy. Okay he can be a little disorganized and doesn\'t always show up for class, but his lectures are interesting and he grades speeches very easily. This class isn\'t for people who are truly looking to learn about communication, however for people who are looking to practice speeches and bump up their GPA. Guaranteed A or B, and and all around genuine guy.

I had McDermott for COMS 102- principles of oral communication. He was nice and told boring, weird stories. But in the class itself, I didn't learn a single thing on how to give a good speech, which is the only homework he assigned (besides reading). We were supposed to have 2 tests on the reading. The first test was graded incorrectly, and the second one we didn't even take because he missed so many classes. He didn't teach anything of importance (a few rambles of communication related things that were irrelevant). Attendance was supposed to be part of our grade, but he never once took it. Huge waste of time. I got a B+ with writing speeches the night before so it's not that hard of a class, but he's just not a good teacher.

Everyone says they learned nothing from his class when in fact it accomplishes everything it needs to while exhibiting a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere. He accomplishes this through an informal class discussion on absolutely anything in the world. As long as you look like you are giving a speech off the top of your head, it won't matter how well written it is. His method is to get his students to feel comfortable making conversation in front of a large group of people, which inevitably leads to being a good public speaker. He does so with great success. This was an awesome class, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Do not take this class just because you think he will cancel class all the time (because that's what I did). I took his class fall 2011 and he only canceled class once! However, it is a fairly easy class. 3 graded speeches (2 individual speeches, 1 group speech). There are 2 midterms and no final. As long as you study the book for the midterms, you're fine. He's a pretty easy grader as long as you sound interested in what you're talking about and give good eye contact. I'm not a great public speaker and he gave me A-'s on all 3 of my speeches. You don't learn all that much, but I think he's a lot better than some of the other coms102 professors. Take him!

I took COMS 102 (Principles of Oral Communication). The class was not difficult. There were 2 tests, no final. He handed out a study guide, you\'d find the answers in the book, and see the exact thing on the test. I got an A-, and was angry at that even. If you want to learn something, he\'s not to great. He doesn\'t really teach anything in the course you\'d need to know. I was hoping I\'d learn a couple tricks or strategies for speeches. I didn\'t. He assigned 4 speeches, and while he said they\'d be graded on a certain rubric (example: cite sources, intro, talk about ...) and then not grade based on that. Basically, I got an A- because I knew how to give a good speech before I got into the class. I literally learned more useful material about public speaking in my high school intro to theater class sophomore year. Summary: easy class, nice guy, learn little to nothing.

This teacher sucked. It took him 3-4 weeks to return all speech evaluations because he kept "forgetting" them. He's lazy, boring and his voice always made me want to hit him.

Arrogant, unmotivated, certainly liked to flirt with the girls. Take someone else.

Sexist and his jokes can be demeaning.

I was suprised to read other student's opinions of Professor McDermott because the concenus of my class was that he was a pretty good guy and an easy grader. The tests are a joke and he knows it. There is practically no material taught in this class. The professor just sits back and grades the speeches. Other than preparing for the 18 minutes that you are actually have speak, the class is a piece of cake. During class you just watch other people talk and there is no homework. Basically, you give you speeches and you get an A.

Never had assignments graded on time. Didn't lecture much, if at all. What is this guy getting paid for?

Dr. McDermott was an awesome professor!! I would definitely recommend taking him for SCOM 102! Not only was he an easy grader and nice guy, but you don't have that many speeches which for someone like me was great. We had a total of 4 speeches. The first wasn't graded, the second was informative, the third was persuasive, and the fourth was a group speech. The two tests he gave us on the reading were a piece of cake because he gives you a study guide so basically you find the answers to the study guide, memorize them and you get an A on the tests! Soo awesome! I never had to read my book except when finding the answers to the study guide. Anyway, so if you want an easy speech class definitely take McDermott, don't listen to the other evaluations he was really great!

boring, lazy, unavailable

The class isn't bad. I hated talking in front of people but after the first speech it wasnt that bad and I got use to it. This guy is one tangent after another and his lectures are so random and boring. He gives you his tests before hand and you just look up the answers in the book but they are tricky and sometimes hard to find.

At first I was intimidated by the scope of the major "Socially Significant" project and the paper to follow, but it ended up being a really great experience and not overwhelming at all. McDermott is a friendly guy and I had no problem with his classroom demeanor. I found there to be some obscure questions on the test, considering I read every page of the book and attended every lecture. But I don't think he's unfair at all. I benefitted greatly from participating in the projects, in addition to the rest of the material.

I honestly think he schedules his class around him cancelling about 6 classes. I am not sure what to even say about this class but it was really fun and easy. I think that a lot of people got Bs and were surprised because he grades everything from the quarter after the final...so basically you have no idea. This guys grading is about as clear as mud. He knows SCOM 217 is a bullshit class which is why he sends us out to do a socially significant project which is brilliant.

McDermott is hilarious. He tells A LOT of stories... Basically that's all he does. I would definitely buy the book. Here's his website: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smcdermo/smallgroup.htm. He's scatterbrained and unorganized, but he's a sweetheart and a fair grader on projects. One piece of advice: get started on your Socially Significant Project EARLY!!! It'll be more successful if you do it continually throughout the quarter.

3 weeks out of 10 class is cancelled. 30% of our tuition is not provided to us. Everyone gets a "B"--what type of professor is this? Avoid. rambles and makes no cents, how are we supposted to lern with this type of faculty?

In all seriousness, I was close to an A in this class..but that doesn't matter. The reason students like him is because he talks aimlessly for the entire class, which enables students to go on their computer. So, you may think...."oh, well then that means he grades easy!" Not necessarily. He'll give you bad grades EVEN if it was HIS mistake for telling us to include something. He's a nice guy, seriously. but he SUCKS at teaching. He was probably good at some point in his life, but i really think he is getting too old. He digresses, doesn't explain himself, expects you to read his mind and include certain things for papers or projects.... Yes , you may have fun during class because you can be on Facebook the entire time, but don't expect an easy A or a B. He forgets things all the time...he changes his mind a lot..he's just old, plain and simple. Not a good candidate for 1. if you want to guarantee an A or a B , or 2. actually learn something , OR 3. Have a professor you can confront about issues with grading, anything....mcdermott is too stubborn and narrow minded for that. Nice man, i'd probably be friends with him if I was older. Bad professor.

I would never take this teacher again: Failed to present uniform, relevant material and lectures in the class. Most people didn't show up to class quite a bit of the time--a few people showed up the first, mid-term, and last weeks of class only. Commented on celebrity females' anatomies/faces one whole week (scoring them on a scale of one to ten!), told sexual/crude jokes, revealed crass/vulgar things he at times tells his wife; made a few females very uncomforable because of this. Told crazy, irrelevant (yet sometimes very entertaining) stories instead of dealt with communication research (or anything related to it). Obviously knowledgable in research and theories, but not that interested in teaching/giving students what they need. Commented on celebrity females' anatomies/faces one whole week (scoring them on a scale of one to ten!), told sexual/crude jokes, revealed crass/vulgar things he at times tells his wife; made a few females very uncomforable because of this.

What a jerk! He may think (and act) like he's god's gift to teaching but, believe me, he is not. Look elsewhere for someone else to take speech classes from.

His humor can be abusive, especially if you don't see things his way. Finding him during office hours can be hard when he keeps his door closed.

The worst part of the course is the paper, but Professor McDermott isn't as strict in grading as I was afraid he would be. He doesn't write the tests until shortly before the exams, so he isn't even sure what will be on them until the day of the exam. Still, the questions are all from the lectures, not obscure passages in the book, and you don't have to answer every question. Professor McDermott gets off-topic a lot in his lectures, but he usually explains concepts clearly in the other 40% of class time.

This teacher is a great one to take. he does not torture students like others tend to do. You learn from him, but without undue sufferring. Take him, and see how enjoyable cal poly can be.

Talk about

i love mr. mcdermott! he is funny and easy to talk to, which makes any of his classes so enjoyable. this was the 2nd time i took him for a class, and he's great. the class is just one project, that u work with someone with, a survey and some SPSS analysis. there were 2 tests, both multiple choice, and straightforward if you read the assignments and took notes in class. It's easy to miss class, but some days he covers important material not in the book. hard to get an A from him, but a B should be in the bag as long as u show up and do the assigned work which isn't hard at all!

Dr. McDermott is one of the best teachers at Cal Poly. It was a pleasure to take the three classes I have taken with him 312, 316 and 411. If you ever get the chance to take this professor, I highly recommend it. It's always nice to have a professor whom is constantly in a good mood.

I was surprised by my grade. There's no way to know. The test questions seemed disconnected from any materials covered--reading or lecture. Show up. Participate in discussions (he's big on in-class participation). Turn everything in on time. Maybe you'll get an A too. Never went to an office hour. Didn't do much work outside class (just the group project). Stopped reading after the midterm.

Man, where to begin with this guy. Over the course of the quarter he cancelled nearly ten days of class including the midterm - twice! Actually, that week, he cancelled three out of four classes and the following Monday. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with this except for the fact that, when he does come to class, he just tells stories from his life in Los Osos or about his daughter who is in a primarily African-American dance troupe. Also, the class tends to generally renforce many cultural stereotypes. Although in an intercultural communications course it's certainly necessary to acknowledge that there are very valid differences between cultures, McDermott often appears to be suggesting that these are true regardless of circumstance and that deviation from the stereotype doesn't happen. This is reiterated by one of the two text books "Our Voices" which, though informative and interesting at times, borders on blatant racism at others. The second text book "Intercultural Communications" should be transfered from a text book about communications to an example of how not to write. Perhaps future editions will have a brutal accident with an editor and a red pen, but until then it will stand in my mind as one of the most poorly written texts of my college career. Unfortunately, a large portion of the midterm and the final are taken from this book regardless of the fact that McDermott rarely, if ever, touches on any of the information contained in its pages. This portion of the test is given in multiple choice format; expect to be bewildered and lost as not a single person from my class felt prepared for this. In contrast, the essay portion of the test covered information that he lectured about in class. I felt the essay section was reasonable and well structured on the test. Despite my apparent ineptitude with the multiple choice, I still received and A- on the final. He actually did show up to class for the presentations, though they were crammed into three days of class. If you choose, or are required by a major or minor, to take this class from McDermott, expect him to be frequently absent and that you'll be bored when he does attend. Despite the seeming difficulty of his tests, your performance on them seems to be only distantly related to the grade you receive. I can't say class with McDermott was enjoyable, but I'm looking forward to receiving a high grade in return from the almost nonexistant level of work he demands from his students; only fair considering he demands far less from himself.

Hi there all you whiney little people! If you want to go to a class and get put through the tortures of undue academic rigor, go to a miserable bitch like lisa kawamura or an abusive and freaky-gross dude like winebrenner(he acts like he is making up for being a short fat bald guy with an inadequate and impotent penis!!! His behavior indicates that his only power in life is being a cal-polyester professor!). How about taking a class or two from Dr. Fahs...go ahead... try him! You will NEVER get a cancelled class there, FUCKING NEVER! and with Fahs, you may even learn about what it is like to get a D or an F! There's something you might want to know about, huh? But rest assured: in Fahs' class you WILL learn alot! and you will suffer for it every step of the way! NO you whiney little turds! McDermott will not tortue you. but fear not, because there is plenty of torture available with unavoidable professors!! And for all you whiners, "CAN IT!"..."SHUT YOUR TRAP"! Those of us with better things to do than slave away over bullshit details of formatting and perfectly structured papers appreciate a teacher that cares only to give the opportunity to learn, not to put us through hell! Furthermore, you can learn in McDermott's class, and it is up to YOU! And think about it...why are we in the speech major? YEAH, because it is the easiest program at cal poly! even the phys ed majors have tougher classes than we do! later people. make your schedule accordingly. "here", you have been warned.

Let me guess who wrote the second to last review...hmmm...must be the single most annoying person in or major. Thinks she deserves special treatment becuse she has kids and is older than the rest of us. "I don't want to learn, I don't want to work hard." Two hours of learning? Not her, she and her mousy friend have better things to do like make fun of others in the class, come to class high or drunk, talk out loud while teachers are lecturing, play dumb and innocent when called out, and then complain about having to go to school. Newsflash: no one makes your ignornant/lazy ass come here, you made the decision to do so. Just like you made the decision to have kids, deal with it and stop creating such a negative environment for the rest of us. As for this teacher, well he cancels class regularly, at least 2 weeks worth per quarter, and contributes almost nothing to your understanding about communication. There was one right comment from the holier than thou message below, there's a reason we're a joke around campus: because most faculty dont push us to learn and we dont push them to teach us. If you take Mmcdermo make him teach you. Otherwise you're throwing your money away and claiming to learn something. Fahs and winebrenner might be hard but at least they have standards and you can learn something! But then, I guess if your over 30 you already know all about what is important and what isnt, and how to get off by putting others down. Right?

Many classmates did not attend class as they felt the tests had little to do with lecture. McDermott enjoyed telling stories but really seemed disinterested in the students or in teaching. One of our books was interesting and the class had potential to be exciting and enhance our knowledge of intercultural communication. Not so. Was a waste of time.

Well, where should I start...Lets just say that I went to six class periods the entire quarter in a MWTR class and obtained a B-. If you want to miss a midterm, not turn in the main paper for the class, and fail to give the "needed" presentation on said paper, then feel free to join this class, you will get a B, no matter what you do. Some of my friends did all the work and they were given a C; I mean given his grades are completely arbitrary. RECOMENDATION, TAKE THE EASY B AND DON'T PUT ANY TIME IN THE CLASS.

Okay, so... right... McDermott is pretty amusing. Almost all of his tangents are very entertaining. If I had to say anything about him, it would be that the elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor. I learned more from the group presentation about intercultural communication, then I did the entire quarter from him. He told us to buy a book that we never used. I'm sure el corral will give me a full refund and apologize on behalf of the school. Instead of studying for the final I partied the night before. Because basically, you look at your 'notes' and you just don't have anything to study. Here is a sample question. In the Oprah Episode we watched, all southerners are raciest a) True b) False c) Not Necessarily

This class was out of control. McDermott spent most class periods bashing John McCain and Sarah Palin, telling anecdotes about his experiences in grocery store checkout lines, and reminiscing about the good old days in Georgia. He was always late to class, canceled it numerous times, and gave exactly zero guidelines for any type of assignment, midterm, or project. The grading is completely subjective; my classmate and I had almost verbatim answers on the midterm yet we got completely different grades, and the final grades were not at all what we were expecting. He is a nice guy, and it seems like he's getting older, sadder, and weaker...so you do kind of feel bad for him. But this class is a joke.

Business majors: A degree for the intellectually impaired, HA HA.