McQuaid, Patricia  

Dr. McQuaid was not meant to teach Managerial. I think Cal Poly assumed that any BUS Professor could step in and teach a lower level Accounting Class.... WRONG. She was really bad. I\'d say 85% of the class left at the break. 10% didn\'t come at all; they would give their homework to someone else to turn in. That leaves about 5% that stayed the whole hour and a half to two hours. That 5% sat there and struggled through dry lectures that provided zero insight into material that we were supposed to be learning. I can honestly say that I did not learn one single thing from McQuaid\'s lectures. The book with the lighthouse taught me everything I know. Don\'t bother going to office hours. The one time I tried to go, I was told that she wasn\'t in the accounting mindset right then, and to email her about my issues later. Really? You\'re teaching accounting and you can\'t even help me?! What a joke. The quizzes are super easy, don\'t stress over them, but definitely study for the exams. I didn\'t find the homework helpful at all; I just studied the book and the online quizzes and exams. Good luck if you have her!

Professor McQuaid was absolutely NOT meant to teach Managerial Accounting. The lectures were pointless, over half the class never even showed up! She always talked about her IT classes. She would try to trick us on quizzes by having questions on things we have never learned before. There is homework due every week that is graded very hardly and takes an hour to two to complete. There are 4 quizzes, two midterms and a final and she lets you drop one of the quizzes. This class was absolutely painful to sit through. If you can teach yourself an entirely new concept from a book then you might be okay, otherwise you will be miserable in this class.

It's pretty sad to see over half the class walk out of the classroom in the middle of the class (during break) and her not doing something about it. And by "doing something about it" I mean improving her ability to present the material and making it worthwhile to stay the last half of class. Another big mistake she made was during the midterm when she printed out ALL the answers on the midterm sheet. Then we had to wait for her to correct this which took away about half an hour of our time to take the test (because HER mistake). I will never take her again, especially for an accounting class.

I would recommend her to anyone, she is intelligent and presented the material in a clear and organized fashion. This was one of my favorite classes and favorite teachers.

very friendly and makes learning about computers interesting. i would highly recommend her. her tests are also pretty easy if you memorize the notes she hands out in class.

This class has a boring lecture and an okay lab portion. I believe that McQuaid tried her best to spice it up and make it fun. She is not tough, she gives one midterm and one final in the lecture and no tests in lab. The midterm and final are based purely on reading in the course textbook and she summarizes the reading into notes and passes them to her students. The lab has a lot of assignments which can be difficult to finish, she gives us atleast one week for two assignments in the lab book. She grades extremely fair and pretty easy. If you have to take this class, take it with her.

McQuaid was a very good teacher. She explained things very well. Her group assignments are simple and the presentations are even more simple. Her tests are fair and easy to get a good grade on. It is a lot of material really fast, but she does a good job. I would recommend her.

McQuaid is a very marginal professor. She is an extremely nice lady...so I guess that helps. She is also a fair grader and does not test especially hard. Her labs are straight from the book and are kind of a waste of time. some stuff helps you learn the material, but other stuff is complete review of programs that most Poly business students should know how to run. The lectures are extremely B-O-R-I-N-G. McQuaid loves to read verbatim from her slides, but all the tests are directly from slides which she passes out to you every lecture so it makes studying easy. Overall, marginal professor, but nice, and an easy B.

The lectures were very boring, but hey, that's pretty normal. She is a nice person, and goes out of her way to not make the class too strenuous. The exams are pretty much straight from the lectures, for which she provided printouts. The lab was pretty nice because if you have Office applications at home and are pretty comfortable with Excel, FrontPage, and Access, you can do all the labwork from home and basically only have to show up to turn in assignments.

McQuaid is a sweet teacher, she is totally cool and tubular!!! All you have to do is read the book and her Power Points and then pull into the test and get barrelled. She's cool take her! GOOD LUCK!@!

She's the best!!! Just make sure you save the P.Point slides she hands out and you will be fine...

McQuaid is a nice lady, but her calss is borinig (All of them) I've had her for many calsses and she does not seemed prepared. Don't avoid her she not real bad. You have to think of it as you only got 10 weeks and its over

McQuaid is a sweet lady who really wants you to enjoy the class. The lab assignments and tests are fairly easy. Just make sure you know everything in her powerpoint slides, and you will ace the tests. I highly recommend this teacher.

she is a very nice lady that isnt that hard. She was too easy i think, because i really didnt learn that much. If you are just looking to get by with a good grade take her but if you are actually here at cal poly to get the most education as possible i would recommend somebody else. I think she is a great lady, but she doesnt have the most demanding class.

Hey, she's EASY! The course material is really boring and dry, ut she tries her best to add jokes and stuff. Tests are easy, lab is easy, and in the end you get some cookies. Take her for an easy A.

The class is well mapped out. The pace starts out pretty fast but evens out in the end. She is very lay back and keeps a 7:40am class pretty lively. If I was an MIS major I'm not sure if I'd take her, but if you have to take the class as a req course I would definitely take her.

Mcquaid is really good at wasting time . . . I dont think I really learned anything the entire quarter. The only cool thing we did was make a website. There is one midterm and a final, each worth 30% of your grade, and some easy assignments. Oh, and you have to do a group presentation on a case study in the book. This class is not a lot of work, in lab you do your homework, you can even do homework for other classes if you choose to go. I find it very hard that she is the head of the MIS department, i think she would have been completely lost without the lab tech aide.

This is a very good introductory course for those who know nothing about computers. It'll be boring for MIS students, but this is just an introductory class and there's nothing she can do about it. She really cracked me up when she gave us cookies.

This was a very simplified MIS class. If you know about computers and are proficient with MS office programs this class will be cake. Tests are very easy and directly from powerpoint slides. You do not need to buy the book for this course but you will need access to the excel and access books. Take this class to coorespond with an otherwise difficult quarter. It will even everything out.

She is a scatter-brain. It's amazing she teaches a class about computers and knows hardly how to run one. THe class is boring and don't buy the book.

First off I want to let you all know that I am very good with computers and know excel and access like the back of my hand. The reason why I did poorly in this class was because of her class structure. The class work is so incredibly slow that it makes it almost impossible to pay attenstion. Not to mention she doesnt seem to know a thing about computers herself so I find that a lot of class time is spent with her trying to figure out how to do something very simple. Also a problem I have with her exams is that she makes the actual computer work worth such a small percent of the test grade leaving about 75% up to knowing the useless vocabulary.I scored a perfect on the computer portion of both tests but I still received Cs on the test because I didnt want to study the useless vocab. She would also assign quizes that dont have a thing to do with computers, instead she would put questions that just check to see if you read the materal; for example, What did budweiser do to increase sales? I know more about excel and access than this instructor and it makes me wonder how she is qualified to teach.

Mcquaid for 391 is not a good decision. She is very spacy and talks about nothing for 2 hours. she takes the whole class period to repeat herself over and over about useless stuff. She is very nice and friendly, just makes the class really pointless. I would recommend someone who is more on the ball as a teacher and actually knows what they want the students to walk away with

HORRIBLE. What a shitty professor. Tests count for almost your whole grade and you learn NOTHING from them. You will work your ass off on a web page for 4 points out of 1000, wow professor, great job. If you take her, you will be bored, you will learn nothing, and you will be miserable. She shouldn't be teaching, she used to keep students after class because she can't even get her own lectures to work! It is just pathetic, like watching a preschool teacher try to teach advanced modern physics. I don't know where she got her doctorate from, but they either need to take it back or shut their school down.

As many of the other ratings have already stated....she's loopy and forgetful and just looks lost half the time. You will have to study for the exams on your own. The Access and Excel Exams are easy if you come to class and make sure to ask her assistance (this is the part where you should use her). The assignments are easy. The quizzes are easier. Read the chapters since they're are short and full of vocabulary that she tests. That's all her tests mostly consist of....definitions! and attendance isn't really mandatory, especially the first half of class when she lectures since it's mostly just her reading the slides that are posted on blackboard. Good Luck!!! Didn't get much out of the class. Thought that it could be taught a lot better and more applicable.

If you want an easy class, take this. She is EXTREMELY laid back and if you miss a midterm, you can make it up by having your final be worth double. If you are taking a heavy load, you may want to take this class as there is not a lot of work and you can powder your GPA.

Great Teacher! website is easy, so are all the tests. it's cool because you have a computer in front of you the whole time, but i feel bad for her because you can hear people typing all through her lectures. it is interesting class and she makes it super easy to learn. don't think twice about taking her class...do it!!!

All i have to say about this professor is that she looks like she has a serious drug problem she she comes into class everyday and is in a haze. She is a total dits!! im sure she was dropped as a baby, and possible has a problem with staying on her feet. However here stupidity makes this class very easy to get an A in.

391 book for sale, much cheaper than bookstore, 805-215-8467

Lol, easiest teacher by far. Book way expensive thats about it. Test are soo easy, i forgot we had a test one day and i walked in, freaked out for about 2 min, then took it and got an 85. I got a 100% on every assignment. Its really easy, if u put 2 hours a week into this class you will get an A. I put about 3 seconds a week, got a B. There u have it.

Dr McQuaid is such a sweetheart, but she really does have trouble staying on topic. If you can deal with that, and you really apply yourself you can grasp the material with ease. The class is pretty boring, but her instruction is solid if you persevere.

This class is the most boring pointless class I have taken yet at Poly. I learned hardly anything. Lectures are incredibly boring which leads to most of her class spending their time on facebook and learning nothing. I easily taught myself how to do most things she tried to teach us. While I really like Information Systems I would not suggest McQuaid if you actually care to learn anything. It is really nice that the grade consists of your highest grades on 3 out of 4 tests but the only reason I did so well was because it was easy to ace every assignment. As long as you do your homework you will do ok but that does not make this class worth taking. Most classes were not worth attending at all despite how kind and friendly she is.

this class was pretty boring on most days. almost everyone was on their computers and not paying attention to her lectures. for the tests, make sure you read all those graphs and figures in the book because she tests on the most random stuff. and make sure you know how to use excel and access and read the case studies at the end of each chapter. otherwise, this class isn't terrible, just a little boring and pointless.

She talks a lot, does not know the material as well as she should, but I know nothing about computers and did alright in this class. Its a loooooooong 2 hours to endure but just take time on the assignments she gives you b/c they are very simple and she grades easily. If you get stuck, she is helpful in office hours. The key to this class is to STUDY for the midterms and final...more than you think you should. She is very picky on tests but she drops the lowest midterm. My partner and I got 100% on our project which was 25% of the class. Then the midterm you dont drop and final are a combined 60% so seriously study. The last 15% is the easy assignments plus this quarter there was an opportunity to write a one page paper for extra credit. Super nice lady by the way.

Bus 391 is one of the most pointless classes I have every taken, I honestly don\'t even know why it is offered at Cal Poly. That being said, it was also one of the easiest classes I have ever taken. McQuaid does her best to teach students the material, even though most of the time no one is paying attention. For the most part the subject matter is technologies/applications that most people are familiar with already (Excel, wireless, bluetooth, etc). Her grading is really easy and the tests aren\'t hard as long as you study her notes.

I would definitely recommend Dr. McQuaid. She has so much experience and speaks around the world and has numerous publications on software quality and MIS. She gives study guides for tests and is always available to help with projects and really cares about her students. Dr. Mcquaid always has a smile on her face, has a fun sense of humor and is very open to student suggestions on how to make her class better. The website project is really fun and the resume assignment is very helpful if you need to write or update yours. Glad she is at Cal Poly.

She LOVES to talk about herself. You may find yourself wondering how this woman even graduated college, let alone became a licensed professor. She\'s a little wacky and absentminded. That being said, she\'s a super enthusiastic and nice lady. You won\'t learn much, but you will get a basic idea of Microsoft access, excel, and web design if you\'ve never used them before. She also has making a resume as an assignment which is convenient if you don\'t have one or if yours needs some work. Her tests are harder than you would expect, but if you already know a lot about computers, you will ace them. She\'s pretty nit-picky about projects, so make sure you follow all the instructions.

I think this is the most boring class I have ever taken. Actually, the most boring class I have ever taken was geography with a blind teacher at Cuesta, but this is a close second. McQuaid just puts up the powerpoints and reads them off for the entire class period in almost every class session. The tests are pretty difficult, due to the fact that McQuaid tries to trick you and has very poorly worded questions. For example, there was one question asking about the quantity of something (can\'t remember right now) and the possible answers were A. Many, B. One, and C. Several. I could be wrong, but I think that the difference between many and several is very vague. McQuaid is a pretty nice lady, but is not a good professor, and I suggest taking this class with a different teacher.

The worse professor in the business department. She does not explain anything clearly. She never explained or taught any of the material that was on assignments. DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR.

McQuaid has the worst grading system possible. 15% homework, 10% final project, and 75% come from two of the three midterms you take (one gets dropped). There isn\'t a final besides the project. If you do well on the midterms and do all the work, you will do well in the class. However, if you screw up on the midterms... have fun picking up your grade. She assigns homework that takes quite a while to do and as you can see, it\'s barely worth anything. McQuaid takes YEARS or doesn\'t even ever respond to your emails for help. Also, just like what everyone else has said, she really does talk about herself a lot. One good thing is that she gives a bunch of random breaks during class.

She will literally take points off if you get on her bad side. For our project we worked side by side with another group. Ours was better by far and actually followed the guidelines. We got a C+ while they got an A. Who sucked up to her in class? The other group. McQuaid is all about busy work. She thinks she is a computer genius even though half the class knows what she does. The book is really easy to follow and the reading goes by fast. You could finish it in a day and have no need for the course.

McQuaid really likes to ramble on about herself. I'd say the only helpful things that came from this course was creating the resume, since mine needed a major revamp. There was waaaaaay too much busy work that didn't help with understanding the material at all. Everything you will learn in this class should already be in your head already. I swear she spent an entire hour emphasizing the difference between a website beginning with http vs a website beginning with https. There are three midterms, with the lowest being dropped. Lots of people chose to not take the last midterm because of this, but I recommend taking it. Its the easiest out of the bunch. I didn't study for it at all because I didn't plan on taking it, but I did it anyways just to see what I got, and it ended up being my highest score. The final project was a piece of cake, just follow the instructions and you should get an A. It pissed me off that she assigned the final part of it last minute, but it was just an excel portion that took half an hour to do. She rarely responds to emails either, just go to office hours. You'll have better luck reaching her.

I am a graduating senior and I decided to finish up writing reviews for the best and worst professors I had at Cal Poly. McQuaid was by far one of the worst. She was consistently unprepared for class. It sometimes seemed like she was just "winging it," and assigned projects and assignments that were poorly thought through. While all of the class's topics are things that students need to know, you will not learn them from her.

McQuaid is hands down the best teacher you could ever expect to take for a business course like 391. You have an access assignment, web design assignment, and an excel assignment, with her explaining each one for weeks, even though each one was a joke and took about 10 minutes. Her 2 midterms come straight of the slides which she rushes through in class, but if you study for a few hours before the test you'll get an A. Theres some other work along the way, but its all easy stuff. Overall, you won't have to put in any effort for this class and you'll probably walk away with an A. HOWEVER, if you are actually interested in Information Systems or want to learn, this class is not for you.

I went in thinking this wouldn't be so bad. I was very wrong. Her disorganization takes a toll on your grade. The midterms are all on material we never really covered. This is a "teach yourself" type of course. We have fifteen minute "breaks" every twenty minutes. So a large percent of the class time you are doing nothing. Then assignments come out of nowhere, and it is easy to overlook one and lose points. There are so many files scatted throughout polylearn that it is very hard to sort out the material you need and figure out what is due. There were three midterms and two lab(excel and access)tests. For our class, she spent most of the quarter on Access but she spent absolutely no time on the other topics. It was almost like she forgot she was also supposed to teach Excel and Website design, and crammed each topic into one day before testing us on it during dead week. Overall, definitely a passable class. She is a nice lady, but it doesn't change the fact that she can't teach. This class sucked. Good Luck.

First off, McQuaid is not the easy A that she is touted to be. It takes a 94.0 to get a flat A, which is no walk in the park in any class. Throw in the fact that the bulk of your points come from her sketchy 35-40 question multiple choice tests, and that those tests are uncurved and your task becomes even more difficult. The most frustrating part of the tests is that 80% of the questions are absolute cake, straight off the slides, but it's that other 20% that get you. Those questions are known as the legendary McQuaid originals, because they are worded so poorly that it would be impossible for them to come from any other source. Again, this wouldn't be a problem expect the tests aren't curved and it takes a raw 94 to get an A. Furthermore, there's scads of busywork that makes up a whopping 6% of your total grade. Not only that, while information systems is a vital topic for any business major, the material which McQuaid chooses to go over is anything but. In this class, you find yourself expending lots of energy with a limited return. McQuaid is a really nice and caring person, but the structure and content of her 391 class is severely lacking.

This class is very easy, but insanely boring. McQuaid is kind of air-headed and I really didn't like her style of teaching. She doesn't make the course challenging at all so you don't even want to try. The midterms are really easy and the course project is easy also, it just seams like busy work. The book isn't really necessary because she puts all of the chapters online. Easy A but you don't learn much.

I am currently sitting in her class during seventh week; however I feel that I am more than qualified to give her an evaluation at this point. Perhaps it is just the nature of this class, but I genuinely feel stupider after I finish this class. The concepts we are learning are extremely basic, and they do not warrant this class being a 300 level class. Given the course description, I figured that we would be learning about information systems and excel. I was hoping to learn more about VBA and macros in excel. Instead we are currently being taught how to design a google site that looks like a seventh grader could have made it 8 years ago. This class is a waste of time and should be replaced with something of actual merit. That said, his class is ridiculously easy.

This was the least organized class I have taken at Cal Poly. Assignments are NEVER returned on time, We never really learned anything in class, reading assignments were not made clear, and random lengthy assignments are given out at random and due within a week. If I had to take this class again I would take it with someone else. She is obviously passionate about information systems andI did learn a lot about what I am interested in and care about being able to do with technology, it was the lack of organization that made it a much more difficult class than it needed to be.

Dr. McQuaid is really scatter-brained, and if often all over the place when presenting material. She spends a lot of time talking about things that have nothing to do with the class, which is annoying given that she will barely spend time on stuff that ends up in the midterm and final. There is no real order to the class, and the structure did not really follow the syllabus at all. You will also be partnered with who you sit by for the class project, so keep that in mind when choosing your seat. The class project is pretty simple however, so don't stress it too much. Her midterms and final sucks, and is graded disproportionately on multiple choice questions that are confusing and hardly even lectured on in class. With that being said, it is absolutely essential to do the reading and review the power points for the midterms and finals. The assignments are easy enough, and she is pretty easy on grading them. Another thing is Dr. McQuaid is very hit or miss when asking her questions outside of class. Sometimes she is super helpful, and sometimes she can be vague or simply ignore you. This was a very frustrating class for me, and it can all be directly attributed to Dr. McQuaid. It's not all bad with her though. She is a very nice person, and one assignment is creating a resume that she will critique, which is very helpful for students that haven't really taken their job search seriously yet.

It's been 8 weeks, not the full quarter, but I just cant take it anymore. This class pisses me off. For the first hour we are lectured on info that we will see that day and on the midterm or final, never between and never after. Mcquaid reads off the slides and it is deathly boring and she makes airheaded jokes that make me want to smash my head through the desk. She tries to act like shes a lot smarter than us and I wasn't sure she even went to college until she mentioned that Auburn was her school because they got beat in the BCS national championship (HA). On top of that she always refers to stuff that happened 10 years ago and acts like it was before our generation. WE KNOW THAT THERE WASNT SOCIAL MEDIA AND SMART PHONES IN 1998, WE WERE THERE. The next hour we learn about access or website design or excel and she explains, very poorly, how to do super specific things that become unclear at times on the assignments. The assignments are pure busy work and do not enhance anything. The midterm actually wasn't too bad but some of the multiple choice questions couldnt have been answered by a computer science major because they were so specific. Overall, I am frustrated with this class because Mcquaid doesn't do a good job teaching a subject that can be very useful in your career no matter your concentration in business or even your major if it isnt business.

Awful class. Could have been used to learn relevant information applicable to all sectors of business. Instead wasted time fucking around with google sites, and listening to McQuaid drag on about nothing really. On the flip side, fairly easy. Pretty low standards. If you're the type of kid that hates Gorman, You'll love this class.

Just read the book and avoid listening to her talk about herself. All exams are straight out of the text

By far, one of the worst professors at Cal Poly. It makes me mad every time I realize that I paid MONEY to be enrolled in this garbagio. Lemme give you a quick breakdown of the course: fist 3 weeks: rush through publisher provided powerpoints and go through 4/5 online quizzes that you pay $80 for. next 5 weeks: hear her go on tangent, and brush on concepts that sound interesting (brush on==naming them) end of 7th week: oh btw, there is a huge project due in a week. 8-10th week: excel lectures on things that a 7th grader should know, or you can google (i.e. the average function and vlookup and whatnot) end of 10th week: oh just kidding, i forgot about 2 big google site projects! theyre due in a week, by the way. TLDR: basically she spends ten whole weeks on stuff that you can google on your own. Google sites, really? Guys, there's a reason why other people think business majors are dumb. Look at this 300--almost 400 level course.

Ok, before I give my evaluation, know that Professor McQuaid is an incredibly kind woman and has a great heart. My evaluation has nothing to do with her personality. Considering this, this was the worst class I've taken at Cal Poly. I chose this class for two reasons: 1) she was the last teacher available and 2) PolyRatings said it was an "easy" class, but man oh man was I let down. Her lectures were so frustrating, because she would spend the majority of the class briefly talking about textbook concepts we could easily teach ourselves, and would spend barely any time on the software programs (access/excel). After showing us how to do functions in the software program in a few minutes, she would assign projects that went beyond our understanding. One of the most frustrating parts was how she could barely answer questions because she wasn't the person who made the assignment. For her midterm and final, you basically have to memorize the textbook in order to get a decent score. We had to know 10 chapters of material and hands on Excel for our final, and she barely taught us those 10 chapters. It was just painful. What was awful was how she wasn't even available during dead week to answer our questions. She never responded to emails either. I rarely write PolyRating reviews, but I felt like what me and my class went through just wasn't fair. Reader, if you have the option to get another teacher, please do. Don't suffer.

Genuinely the worst teacher I have ever had. Read her reviews and figured it would be ok, it was not ok. She does not teach you a thing so if you like to 100% teach yourself this class is for you. If you want to struggle through every assignment not knowing the requirements this class is for you. Literally a waste of my time and money, dreaded coming to this class. DO NOT TAKE MCQUAID.

This class is a waste of time. McQuaid doesn't teach you anything that is on the midterm or the final. Most people messed around on computers during class. Any important information that she gives students is always in the last 20 minutes of class. To do well you need to read the textbook. We had to buy wileyplus and absolutely never used it, but I highly recommend using it as a study tool in order to do well on the tests. She assigns projects last minute, so be prepared to be frustrated. I'm happy to be done with this class because of how excruciatingly boring it was, but it's not the worst class I've ever taken.

McQuaid is a very nice person and has plenty of quality experience but her lack of IS teaching ability makes the class confusing. Her power points are clearly provided by the textbook publisher and her Access and Excel assignments are pre-written from another source so she isn't prepared for questions or concerns. The tests are pretty challenging and you definitely just need to memorize the text book, with that being said I was able to do well on both so it is not impossible just very time consuming.

McQuaid is a pretty terrible professor. She teaches a class that surrounds technology yet, she's very out of date and has no real current experience. I was very disappointed in the quality of the class and how information was presented. She was disorganized and was never prepared for class. She changed due dates all the time and wasn't consistent. Would not recommend taking her class.

total whack job

Really boring class, and you don't learn much. She goes over the same material in class, repeating herself constantly. I wasn't really prepared for her exams, because her inadequate teaching forces you to learn from the textbook. Her tests are annoyingly specific, too. During class it kinda feels like she doesn't know what she's doing half of the time, despite her background. I wouldn't recommend taking this class.

I'm taking the final for this class tomorrow and I can honestly say that I didn't learn anything. And not because I didn't pay attention- but because she just cant teach. Im completely relying on the textbook. Class time was horribly unproductive. I only went because sometimes she passed out handouts. If you can, do NOT take this class.

Absolute worst OCOB professor I've had so far.

One of the worst classes ever. Class time was not productive, she would often leave in the middle of class to go print handouts and would be gone for 15 minutes at a time. She would do very little teaching, and we spent a minimal amount of time actually working on different information systems. Maybe 1.5 hours of a "lecture" and then the last 25 minutes would be on Access or Excel. She handed out 3 group projects during week NINE that were supposed to be handed out weeks earlier but she couldn't even keep up with her own syllabus. I also found a discrepancy with my grade and emailed her 3 different times about after the quarter ended and she never once responded. I decided the grade wasn't even worth my time to pursue further with OCOB. It's an easy enough class because you don't really do anything until the very end of the quarter where she throws all these projects at you and then it becomes very hectic.

McQuaid is the worst professor I have ever had in my life. She is an old woman who has no idea what is going on in the modern world of technology, yet is teaching a class about it. She uses the textbook's resources, quizzes, tests, powerpoints, etc....sooo if you ask her any question that is not straight from the textbook she has no idea what the answer is. She teaches you for 10 minutes at the end of class and expects you to know so much. Also I emailed her 7 times throughout the quarter and she never responded once, even though I went to her office hours and called her out for not responding half way through the quarter. Try not to take this class lol

The worst professor I have had in my entire life. She gave the least amount of effort into teaching as possible, more than any teacher i have ever had. I actually don't think she added anything to the class. I did not actually learn one thing from her, rather on my own. I would highly recommend skipping on this teacher at all costs.

It was a very confusing experience. If you hang on tight and do your best, you'll be okay, just be prepared for chaos.

Professor McQuaid cares every little about her students. She is more concerned about herself. It is basically impossible to get an email response from her and just hearing her talk will put you to sleep. She has a detailed syllabus but does not present the assignments clearly. Her Access exam was very clear but for our Excel exam, she was all over the place. You will be teaching yourself this quarter. Buy the connect because she takes her exam questions from there. Get a good group partner because her projects are ridiculously boring and tedious. I would steer clear of this teacher. You won't actually learn anything and will just use the class as an email period. She is a disappointment to the Cal Poly Business faculty team. I ended the class with a B

Mrs. McQuaid is an absolute sweetheart, and I like her as a person.. but as a teacher she is simply inept. Has very little organization, is unresponsive to emails and just does not prepare her students. The class is still pretty easy but is just a joke.

This lady cannot teach to save her life. you would be much better off watching a 2 minute Youtube video on Excel than attending one of her pointless lectures.

McQuaid is the most useless teacher you will ever take. Very sweet lady, inept teacher.

McQuaid is a useless teacher for this class. She is the worse teacher I have ever had in Cal Poly.

She will just make you memorize all the handouts and books that covered in the lecture. You won't learn much from this class.

Currently BUS 395 is only offered once per year so you are pretty much stuck with Dr. McQuaid. Be prepared to waste half of the class listening to her stroke her ego while she talks about all of the famous people that she knows. To sum it up, there is very little relevant material covered in this course. It is really disappointing that 2/3 of the MIS series is taught so poorly.

Let's begin by comparing her qualities to Dr. Griggs'. McQuaid-Coherent and Knowledgable Griggs-Incoherent and ignorant. McQuaid-Understanding and willing to help. Griggs- Can't help because he fails to understand simple concepts of teaching. I'll stop there. In comparision to Griggs, she is a MIS god..... But then again a wood log compared to griggs compares the same way. I will choose to give Patricia Mcquaid a positive evalution. Although at times it did seem as if she'd rather boast about the people she knew rather than teach, i did walk away learning quite a bit about project management. I can say that previously taking bus 371 helped me quite a bit...So from experience, it is wise to pay slight attention in 371 and bring that knowledge to this course. There is a LOT of work in this class compared to the other sequence courses (393 & 394), so be prepared to do time consuming projects, mini-projects, and novel readings. Pat is a VERY fair grader when it comes to tests and projects, so as long as your fully understand the concepts and know how to demonstrate them, you will do fine. The majority of tests are driven from the powerpoints and lectures. All in all, this was a decent course taught and the MIS instructor was well-suited for the job.

I was hoping that this class would be better than her 391 course, but it is the exact same pointless, boring shit. It's a joke that this course is considered an upper division core IS class. Her resume may look good on paper, but she is a complete joke of a professor. Cal Poly is really shitting on it's students by putting this woman in charge of students' "learning"

Awful. Someone said that she's better than Griggs, but honestly they're exactly the same. In 394 you learn nothing. In 395 you learn nothing. I still like the IS concentration, I learned a lot in 392, 393, 496 and 498, so thanks to Barry, Kevin and Ericson. It's also exciting that they're bringing in two new IS professors. I'm sorry to all future IS students that you're required to take and pay for these two embarrassing courses. It could be worse than having a third of your concentration be useless...I suppose.

Dr. McQuaid is the only professor in the Information Systems concentration who has a passion for security. Her class has a lot of interesting information and current events that are salient to learning about how to troubleshoot problems and what causes problems. She provides information from various disciplines and incorporates it back into troubleshooting and the importance of quality of design for systems and projects. The novel that is assigned is interesting and funny. The book provides a memorable way to remember the processes involved in a software design project. Dr. McQuaid really cares about her students, values their feedback and wants them to succeed -- all excellent qualities in a professor.

There is a reason why I am writing an evaluation at the end of week 2 for this professor. As an IS, tech-based teacher, McQuaid prints and distributes all her material rather than just uploading them on polylearn. She makes us print two copies of the homework, one for her safe keeping and one for us to look over in class (we can just pull them up on a drive). She talks at us for 2 hours and brags about all the organizations she is apart of but probably has no role in. The class says software testing and the syllabus is completely about project management. Its a tragedy that such a good department has such a weak link.

It straight up pisses me off that 14% of my concentration is wasted on this class. We're two weeks in and already I can tell how this quarter will go. McQuaid assigns a shit ton of reading and vaguely and uselessly summarizes it in class while rambling the majority of the time. She adds nothing to the material besides what I can literally read by myself on the PowerPoint. The fact that she's been wasting 10+ years worth of IS Major' time just pisses me off. I'm paying for this bullshit?

Going from Burleson to McQuaid is like going from a great boss that knows how people work and how people learn to one who throws a shit ton of tasks at you and expects you to complete them because you went to one training exercise

every single rating on here is valid and true. Except the few outliers somehow claiming she is a competent and good professor.

Do you enjoy learning? Do you like your time being used effectively? Do you want to actually learn something from your assignments and projects? If you answered yes to any of these questions, McQuaid isn't your gal

yea let's take a midterm that has 20 multiple choice questions and 10 "short" answer questions. wtf?

Who the fuck assigns a massive project AFTER THE FINAL? This woman is a joke

I dont really know what she says during her lectures, but she got ass for days.

Not too many redeeming qualities as a professor. She thicc as fuck doe

McQuaid is truly one of the worst professors I've had here at Cal Poly. Don't get me wrong, she seems like a very intelligent and successful woman within her field, but I think that's part of the problem with her. She spends a lot of her lecture time discussing what she's done in the past, talking about different certifications she's received, and bragging about people she knows. She has no idea how to relay actual material to students, and wastes so much time in class. I think it's very sad that she is the only option for the culminating IS course at this time. The college really needs to consider allocating other professors to this class. I've tried to keep this as professional as possible, but she is honestly a trash professor.

Patricia is a homie fasho. Her lectures can be dry, but she's really funny and the class is basically set up for an easy B or A. She just a lil thick, but Barry stays heemin

McQuaid is a super sweet professor but her class is simply too easy. She lectures on so much basic material that should be considered common sense. She talks about herself a lot which distracts from learning more complicated material. When she presents chapters from the book, people across the classroom will zone out in a blink of an eye. My biggest compliant is her exorbitant usage of paper! McQuaid, you are an IS tech-savvy teacher - please stop giving us so many hard copies of material you have already posted on your PolyLearn. Also, stop making students print assignments to turn in as well as turning it in on PolyLearn. Everything is electronic so we should not be relying on paper!! All the useless handouts she gives her students gets old very quickly. McQuaid's midterm isn't too bad, just study the slides. There are some cool group projects. One great part of the class that I really enjoyed was reading The Deadline - a book all about project management. At the end of the day, I just wish that McQuaid held her students to a higher standard and taught us more hard-skills besides common sense.

Warning: if you sit in the front you might be chosen to submit your notes to the professor at the end of class

You get 100% on every homework/project that you do, even all of the ones worth 10% each, bc she's too lazy to grade it. She spends class trying to brag about her career, so you will learn nothing, but she takes attendance almost daily at the end of class. Also she leaves the room randomly and is gone for up to 45 mins at a time?? She was in the middle of a slide once and had to go bc she forgot where she put her purse.. But yet she rolls her eyes and complains multiple times about someone who got up to throw away a banana peal. Terrible professor but not a hard class

McQuaid is a complete waste of time. She is a disservice to IS concentrations at the college. Her lectures consist of her skipping over her powerpoints and student presentations. Her tests consist of things that we never covered in class. She gets angry by the amount of people who tune themselves off during class, but honestly provides nothing of worth when lecturing. She was always unprepared, and often left the class for a large interval of time (10-30 minutes) so why should students care when obviously their professor doesn't. McQuaid definitely has lots of experience and credentials but she cannot teach for her life. I feel sorry for each and every student who has to experience taking one of her classes.

One of the worst teachers in the history of all teachers. Taking her class was the biggest mistake in the history of mistakes. She is the laziest person in the history of lazy people. My group turned in a project in the second week of the quarter and we still have got 0!!!!!! feedback after!!!!! the final!!!!!! Holy moly this was the biggest waste of time in the history of wasting time. This class has the most ditches in the history of classes being ditched. She had the audacity to say that people didn't care. Like cmon. YOU LITERALLY have not taught me anything. I was once in the bathroom pooping when and I overheard some kids talking about their final and I learned more then than I did in her entire class. God damn. jesus. what a waste of 10 weeks. I cant believe that happened

In a total of 10 weeks, we might have received about an hour of actual instruction. This class is mainly Dr. McQuaid's opportunity to talk about herself and the many wonders of her career. The unfortunate thing is that this class could actually be pretty helpful if a real professor was teaching it. Her tests have close to nothing that was ever covered in class. This was a major waste of time and sad excuse of a concentration class.

McQuaid is the classic example of nice person, garbage teacher. She's always very friendly and willing to answer any questions you have. She's a decent, albeit unorganized, lecturer too. However, she is so bad when it comes to planning a course. She never follows her schedule, her assignments are vague af, and she pulls assignments/projects out of thin air. This isn't a hard class though, since it's just about Project Management and she's a pretty lenient grader. It's super easy to get a B and impossible to fail unless you straight up abandon the class. Attendance isn't super strict either, but you could miss things if you do. TLDR: +Nice person +Easy material(typical management/org behavior bs with some ITP-esque scheduling and estimating problems) +You won't be struggling at 2AM trying to figure something out -Unnecessary stress -Doesn't stay on schedule -Reading/assignments every week -Vague instructions on assignments -95% chance that she'll hit you with an assignment or project out of nowhere -Feels like you are wasting your time whenever working on anything for this class

She is #dumbthicc

It's a shame that every IS concentration has to deal with this pathetic "professor". Have to teach yourself everything and there is no sense of structure. If you want to do good in the class just read the book and do the busy work she gives you. You would think a professor who teaches project management would have a good idea of how to schedule a class. Nope. If we are behind on schedule, focus on the f*cking material instead of having us do pointless "current events" and case studies. That CCI project was god awful. Let's learn more than half of the material on the final during dead week cause that will help everyone learn, right? What a disgrace that we have to pay this woman for our education, thanks Pat.

She runs through her lecture slides so fast and always says "we'll look at that later" but never ends up coming back to anything, yet she'll test you on everything in her slides. I don't understand how this professor still has a job. I would think that Cal Poly would pick up on this MEDIOCRE professor but I guess she's been with Cal Poly for years and they just won't cut her off. The classes are pointless and the large group project is formatted stupidly. She assigns you a topic and each topic has a schedule for presentations/papers due. She just assigned us a topic on 04/11 and expects a 10 page single spaced 11pt font paper and 10 minute presentation in two weeks. Like what the fuck? But hey... she's stooooopid THICC.

I'll throw in what I wrote for her course evaluation... "I cannot believe this class is my highest IS concentration series course. This taught me nothing new! The first half of the quarter is all review from 394 and the second half is listening to presentations related to cybersecurity, not project management, and Professor McQuaid telling us personal stories that do not add to my education. I pay thousands of dollars a year to attend Cal Poly SLO. In no way did this course prepare for higher learning, an IS career, or stimulate my interest to learn more about project management. This class feels like a joke class put on by a high school coach that never wanted to be a teacher and is just wasting time until he can get on the field with his team. I've had middle school classes more enriching than this course. The course is filled to the brim with busy work that adds no substance to my education. McQuaid NEEDS to be replaced. She is utterly unqualified to teach this upper division class. Just because she has great professional experience, does not mean that she is an insightful or engaging professor. I do not understand how McQuaid still works for Cal Poly SLO. I learned NOTHING from this course. I spent lecture time getting the "copy and paste" assignments done. These assignments are completed by following directions an elementary child could do. This assignments were not beneficial to my academic needs. She taught me NOTHING. I fear the department will continue to read bad reviews about McQuaid and do nothing. She has dissuaded students from doing an IS concentration when she teaches BUS 391. She needs to go! Take her out and replace her with Jim Burleson for BUS 395. Burleson was excellent and engaging for 394, and he should be the one to continue teaching project management for 395. I will never donate to Cal Poly after graduation, if I know McQuaid is still teaching what is supposed to be the "most advance" IS course and wasting students' time, passion, and money. REPLACE MCQUAID WITH BURLESON FOR BUS 395!!!! I cannot say that enough. I started out hating BUS 394 and Burleson captured my interest and stirred within me a passion for 394 and project managment. Because of him I want to be in project management. Even with that desire, I still could not stand Professor McQuaid lecturing BUS 395. REPLACE MCQUAID WITH BURLESON FOR BUS 395! I should not hear previous alumni joking with me on what a ridiculous joke BUS 395 is. REPLACE MCQUAID WITH BURLESON FOR BUS 395! As a senior in their graduating quarter, this course has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth for the IS department. What a sad joke that only harms the students. How sad indeed. I am supposed to learn about project management implementation, but learned nothing that I can implement into my own life."

Professor McQuaid is such a nice person but such a bad professor. All she did was talk about her professional accomplishments and explain why Agile testing is better than Waterfall testing. This class is such a waste of time and a disappointment as someone who is interested in pursing a career in Project Management. I think that McQuaid's professional accomplishments make her qualified to teach this course, but she has no business being an instructor as she does not know how to use class time wisely, keep the class engaged, or make us want to retain any information. The only interesting things I learned all quarter were from the student project presentations, NOT her coursework. I think that McQuaid does care about her students and our success and she is a good resource to someone OUTSIDE of her classroom, but her inability to teach me a single thing in this class is frustrating, especially considering IS concentrations have one less class than other concentrations. It's obvious that because she has been teaching at Cal Poly for so long and has tenure, she will continue to teach this course, but I really believe that the only hope for IS students is the day McQuaid retires. Thank GOD she only has one more quarter at Cal Poly after she goes on sabbatical in the fall. I agree with everything the reviewer above said!

I'm currently taking this class via Zoom during the COVID pandemic. She uploads a meaningless, mandatory video lecture to watch before class, and then wastes our time for two live Zoom sessions each week. In the live sessions, we watch as she confusedly clicks back and forth between PolyLearn, random excel docs, Microsoft Project, and word docs. Don't worry, she'll manage to perform the LIVE version of all of the nothingness she rambled about in that pre-recorded video lecture. But make sure you're following along with the documents she's shuffling through- you'll have to regurgitate a randomly selected one of these into the Portal as an assignment upload by the end of class! Sitting through this class feels like I'm being dragged around cyberspace by virtual fish hooks lodged into my eyeballs. I've learned absolutely nothing. I can actively feel a pocket of emptiness growing inside of my brain, eating away at whatever remnants of academic motivation I can muster, and ugh, we're only an hour into today's lecture. "Have you not already polluted our lives with enough busy work?" "I won't hear your cries. You must also read this poorly-written novel." And oh, of course, there will be homework to do. Way to rub salt in the wound that this pandemic has given us all. But yeah, she's nice.

McQuaid is a good teacher. She is cares about her students (although it may be just because she doesn't want to hurt her image). This class was a TON of work for the projects, and the grade people got for their efforts didn't really seem to equate. Be prepared to spend 10 hours a week on the projects alone for this class for the entire quarter.

most disorganized and unproductive class I have ever taken. Complete joke.

what the heck

Dr McQuaid is a wonderful teacher and person. She is very helpful when students have questions and will go above and beyond to make sure students recieve a quality education. I have and will continue to recomend her to my friends. Jeff Hillier

Professor McQuaid's lectures were pretty dry...mostly straight from her Powerpoint slides. She spent most of the lectures talking about all the important people she knew, which was not really useful to know. Half of the class was Computer Science majors so I don't think it was smart that she kept putting down engineers' interpersonal skills. She tried her best to keep the class going, so I'll give her credit on that.

McQuaid's not a bad prof, but 498 was pretty boring. She probably only did a total of five lectures during the whole quarter. The rest of the time, we were doing labs (really simple), or listening to other student groups give presentations (snore fest). Also, since it's a software testing course, we tested the Cal Poly portal... kinda scary what we found. I think all the groups could've used more support. One bad thing about the course was that it was held in a lab, and she never quite understood that NOBODY was listening to her. EVERYONE was on the computer, fucking around. If she was smart, she would've asked everyone to put the keyboards on top of the monitors and turn the monitors off. One thing she's really good about is dealing with issues as they come up, though; she'll let you slide on deadlines if you have a good reason for doing so, and she'll work with you if something comes up. That was really helpful, and at least makes you feel like she cares about your success in the course.

Dr. McQuaid is a good professor. She is understanding and she is a great person if you get to know her. She has good connections in the field of Software Testing, and her class covers the topic well. You need to read the powerpoints before the tests, and maybe skim the text to do well. You will have to do a few group presentations, which are boring to watch and not fun to do. I reccommend this class if "software testing" sounds interesing to you.

Fuck this guy. Id like to stick my tounge up his ass.