Norton, Vivian  

Prof Norton is a fantastic teacher!! She makes you work hard but she gives a review sheet before the test and if you do this review sheet and understand the material in it you will do very well. Her homework counts the same for one test and it is important that you do the homework each night. If you do this you will find that some of the questions on her test are directly from the homework. I learned a great deal from her. Thanks!! Also a good way to start a conversation with her is to talk about astronomy because she has a degree in astrophysics from Berkeley. Oh! I also found out that her favorite author is Sue Grafton. These are two things to talk with her about if you want to break the ice.

She came off as really harsh the first two weeks, but i later found out that it was due mostly to stress. as the quarter went on she became more pleasant. She definately makes time to help students in office hours. the tests are definately challenging and require a solid knowledge of the material. Overall, Norton turned out to be a good teacher-- you WILL need to work in this class, but it can be done.

I didn't actually take this class, I graded for it, but I have had Ms. Norton as a tutor for a couple of classes and would not have passed them without her help (Math 442 and 443). She LOVES math and thus tends to get over excited and talk too fast, but WILL slow down if someone asks her too. She gives SEVERAL examples and is willing to help the students during office hours and at appointments. Her tests and final are medium difficulty and are based on homework, previous exams and review sheets. REALLY. Her quizzes are mainly for attendance points and thus are often given when half the class decides not to come. If you are willing to come to class, do your homework and come to office hours for any needed extra help, she is an excellent teacher. If you are a slacker, I suggest not taking her class.

She is very picky -- she wants quiz/test answers written in the way she presented them to you at lectures, so attend to them! She is very punctual; she gives quizzes at every lecture, and they are open notes only (no textbook). She assigns about 4 homework questions for each section she lectured on, and do well on them because you are graded on every little mistake you get on them. She explains the material very clearly in lectures, but don't expect her to help you on tests -- she basically says "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that" because it seems to me that she thinks she will give away the answer by translating any part of the question you don't understand. Her tests aren't too hard, but always study!

Mrs. Norton is quite an odd teacher. She is really into the material and when she does lecture, one might wonder what the hell is going on. When she has her back to us let's just say you can't see the board. Then you go to her office hours and she is always playing her computer game and she laughs at every question you ask. Her tests are impossible, her homework is graded like were in the army, and her quizzes suck. Good luck!

This teacher is a pain in the ass. She collects and grades hw very hard. Thier are quizs every time the class meets. The test are also graded very hard. She takes of for every little possible thing. (for example if your graphs dont take up at least 1/3 pf the page then you will get -2 pts taken off before she even looks at the rest of the problem) if you end up having to take this teacher good luck. It is a possible class to get through. i seemed to survive

Good luck with Big Viv if you are already enrolled...my only advice would be to get out while you still can. I had Viv for pre-calc, and lets just say I am lucky I already knew this stuff, cuz she didn't teach me a damn thing!! I had the class 4 days a week from 8 to 9, and she canceled class twice. [ ... ] She was a pain in the butt to try and talk to if there was a mistake on her grading. Homework assigmnents due every day, which weren't a problem. Three midterms, which weren't tough, and then a somewhat tough final. Also, make sure you go to her office hours and ask to see your final grade, cuz I know I didn't get lower than a B on the final, and yet I went from a solid "A" to a "B-"....I think she just started giving out grades at random!!! Honestly, everyone else thought so to!

This was one of my first classes at Cal Poly and by far the worst for my first year (I also took BIO 151, which many know is very challenging... this says a lot). Norton was a horrible professor! I would encourage anyone who takes this class to find a section not taught by her. Her attendance quizzes were always given on days when she felt there were not many students in the room. This clearly expresses her personality. When there were a significant number of people missing from class she would have a "scheduled" attendance quiz and points would be deducted from the grades of those not present. This along with her final demonstrates that she DOES NOT care and DOES NOT want students to succeed. The final took the full 3 hours scheduled and was comprised of everything we had not been tested on before. There were no problems on the final that were represented on other exams. I hope for your sake that you save yourself a headach and get a different professor.

What else is there to say? Fine person, nothing interesting. Class was meh... Blah, blah, blah... Fine person.