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Allen, Regulus

Cumulative GPA: 2.18/4.00 with 22 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 2.55
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 2.27

English Department, Cal Poly, SLO
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ENGL 305 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 12:04 am, Jun 20, 2010		A tenacious Renaissance drama scholar, Allen unfortunately does not translate that enthusiasm into stellar teaching skills. Like the other students wrote below, she clearly plays favorites, and when she disagrees, it\'s no secret. If you don\'t tell her exactly what she wants to hear, you\'ve done something wrong. If you\'re not a mindreader, you\'re probably subpar. And lord have mercy on anyone who brings in perspective different from hers. Just to give you a taste: I got a high A on the objective portion of our final, and a C on the subjective part. Take from that what you will.

ENGL 205 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 9:07 pm, Jun 13, 2010		DO NOT take this teacher if you can help it. She\'s worse than your mom. Every word in lecture she has planned out. Every quiz is the same and every midterm/final is the same. She really shouldn\'t be teaching college. Elementary is more her thing. Every day of the class was torture. the rubric for the essay was THREE pages long. she wants everything very specific and done her way. Don\'t take her if you want creative freedom. As an English major, I would have rather taken any other English class 3 times to avoid hers. We have no creative opportunity. It\'s like she\'s got a stick up her... well, you know. It\'s not worth the effort. >.<

ENGL 305 Sophomore Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 3:16 am, May 27, 2010		To the student that said \"hard teachers make us better students\": I absolutely could not agree more. Hard, intelligent teachers that expect a lot from their students but really, sincerely attempt to engage and assist those students to fulfill those expectations do indeed make us better students. Hence, stay the hell away from Professor Allen. The only thing cool about this professor is her wacky Harry Potter name. Regulus will choose favorites within a week of class, so if you have to take her, make sure to get on her good side sooner rather than later. Her grading is, as other people have mentioned, DIRECTLY related to how much she likes you, so this really is imperative to doing well in the course [I got an A on the midterm and a B on the final, but Regulus gave me ZERO points in participation because she disagreed with me every time I raised my hand, leading to a stunning C in the course]. She is indeed prone to interrupting students before they have finished talking, and the disgusted look on her face when she disagrees with your opinion is enough to dissuade the most talkative of students from participating. If you\'re looking for an extremely challenging yet fair and rewarding English experience, take a course with Paul Marchbanks. I guarantee you won\'t be disappointed.

ENGL 303 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 10:44 pm, Mar 23, 2010		Allen\'s grading depends mostly upon how much she likes you. She did not like me right off the bat. I read several student\'s papers and the grades were not relative to how good the papers were. English is a very subjective subject, so she should find some way to be as fair as possible and grade on content; in this area she fails. It sucks that we have to take her for core classes, as they are required for our major. When I have finished with her core classes I will never take another class from her. If you can avoid her classes, don\'t take them.

ENGL 347 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Elective 12:49 pm, Mar 11, 2010		Dr. Allen is awesome and hilarious! She\'s the best professor I\'ve had in four years at Poly. Don\'t be intimidated by how smart she is. I was struggling in teh beginning of the quarter and she helped me out so much! I don\'t think any ohter teacher would have helped me so much. I think I\'m going to get an A- in the class! I will DEFINITELY take another class with her!

ENGL 347 Junior Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 4:51 pm, Mar 3, 2010		Great professor, knows what she is talking about. However if you aren\'t an English major, this class will be extremely difficult for you!! She is a hard grader, gives you exact details of how she wants her papers to be written, if you fail to do so, don\'t expect to do well in the class. She basically expects you to be able to write like an English major and read about 50 pages twice a week. Extremely time consuming class for just a general ed class. If you are going to take this for USCP, C4, and GWR credit, you\'re better off with taking an easier C4 class that\'s also USCP and just taking the GWR test. She is an extremely hard grader, like previously said, and you are more likely to pass the GWR test than to pass the GWR in her class. Weekly quizzes on the reading, two papers, one midterm (your first chance to pass the GWR), non cumulative final (second chance to pass the GWR), and participation is a MUST!!

ENGL 347 Senior Grade Earned: B General Ed 5:35 pm, Feb 11, 2010		Allen is an excellent teacher. She does require her students to actually use their brains. She gives very clear expectations. However, you will have to work to get a good grade. Reading is about 50pgs per class day, and there are quizzes every few days. If you don\'t want to learn, aren\'t very smart, or are racist or sexist, don\'t take her class. However, if you want to challenge yourself and become a better student, Allen is a great teacher. She is actually one of my favorite teachers.

ENGL 347 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 11:14 pm, Jan 30, 2010		Dr. Allen is a very intelligent woman! She engages the class in great discussions regarding the readings and interpretations of African American Literature. Just make sure that you READ all of the assigned reading. She will have unannounced quizzes and you will not be able to B.S. your way out. Although the reading may seem intimidating by it\'s vast quantities, it is actually very interesting. For the midterm and the final it is imporatant to have a general recollection of all of the authors and their work. I think she grades quite fairly on the exams but may be a little strict on the essay portion and the class essay. Other than that, I think she was a GREAT teacher!

ENGL 303 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 8:56 pm, May 25, 2009		I have had the opportunity to take Professor Allen’s class on two occasions now. I can tell you she is a hard teacher. However, if you are an English major, you would be doing yourself a huge disservice in not taking her class. Let’s face it; if you want to just “pass” English and not learn anything, then I would suggest staying away from her class. You’ll only end up getting a bad grade and be upset in the end. But if you want to be an English major and learn to be a better writer, then Professor Allen’s class is the class you need to take. The care she takes in reading the first draft and putting all those comments on the paper only made me a better student overall. I learned to reread my stuff at least three times now before turning anything in. Which has made me a better writer overall. Face it hard teachers make us better students. Easy teachers make us lazy.

ENGL 347 Senior Grade Earned: A General Ed 9:36 am, Dec 16, 2008		I completely agree with the comment below. Professor Allen is one of the best professors I've had at Cal Poly. She is extremely knowledgeable about the course material and strives to create an open atmosphere in the classroom. It is a challenging class with a high amount of reading, which you need to do to keep up. You are graded on participation, pop quizzes, an essay and rewrite, the midterm and final. As long as you read actively and take good notes on the class discussions, it's easy to get high grades on the quizzes and exams because Professor Allen tells you exactly what to expect. This was a great class.

ENGL 347 Senior Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 1:10 pm, Dec 11, 2008		Allen is an amazing teacher, and it is easy to see her passion for the subject (African American Lit) and how well she prepares. She gives thoughtful lectures, and welcomes new interpretations of the works. She mostly encourages us to think for ourselves and find our own meanings. She is a fair grader, and i have never had a teacher that so fully lists what will be expected for each test. She also includes troubleshooting advice for essays, and common mistakes, etc. This is a prof that really cares. I cant believe the comment below. To say that all she does is talk about "poor black people" is an ignorant statement. She is surprisingly unbiased. This is a part of America's history whether you like it or not!

ENGL 347 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 10:08 pm, Nov 26, 2008		this is the worst possible teacher in our school. if you disagree, she will start to listen and then interrupt you. Everything is about poor black people, and how they are treated so badly. She grades very hard, makes you read 50+ pages a night. The biggest bitch of a teacher I have ever taken. If she never came back to Poly, this world would be better off

ENGL 205 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 1:32 pm, Aug 20, 2008		I understand why people are giving Dr. Allen such a bad rap, but she isn't that bad. If you have done the reading, the quizzes are tolerable and really good preparation for the midterm and final. Halfway through the quarter, she gave everyone a chance to give her any suggestions on how she could improve the class, and then she actually took them and made improvements. The second half of the quarter went much better than the first half. She is incredibly enthusiastic about the material, which is good because it's not exactly the most exciting era in American and British literature. Yeah, she's a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing because she's super sweet and a tough grader, but so what? You, reader of this polyrating, have been warned. She's a tough grader, but it doesn't take too long to figure out what she wants.

ENGL 205 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 1:47 am, Jun 22, 2008		Less "a wolf in sheep's clothing" than an inadequate high school English teacher masquerading as a competent university professor. The classic, and terrible, combination of bad teacher and harsh grader. I feel bad delivering too harsh a sentence, since I can tell it's difficult and stressful for her to commute to Cal Poly from L.A. every week, and she IS passionate about 18th century literature (which can be a bit of a snore)--but I love English and I just wasn't feeling this class. I liked my statistics course this quarter more than this course, and that's just sad for an English major. Allen is uninspiring, anal, and narrow-minded. If you enjoy formulaic essays, then fine. But I feel sad that I wasted my quarter on her class; I wouldn't have, had I a choice in the matter.

ENGL 512 Graduate Student Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 8:01 am, Jun 12, 2008		Dr. Allen made a strong effort in teaching 512 for the first time. I particularly admired her flexibility. Mid-quarter she asked us for feedback on ways to conduct class for the remainder of the quarter which I found very admirable. She is a strict grader, but it was also a graduate course...that is the point of graduate school. She was very reasonable with the material. Everything we read was on the MA reading list and was taught for our benefit. Her personality is great and she is very approachable. With a little more experience, she will be a great professor.

ENGL 333 Senior Grade Earned: Credit Elective 10:37 am, Apr 5, 2008		Ms. Allen is by far the worst teacher I have ever had. On the first day of class we basically played the name game, I felt as if I had teleported back to my 9th grade english class, except that was more interesting. She adds nothing to class discussions and comes late to class everyday. So my advice to you is.... DONT TAKE HER UNDER ANY CERCUMSTANCES. Oh yeah, Did I mention that your gade depends on how much she likes you. I hope she gets fired so no one else has to sit through what I had to. thanks for ruining my experience at cal poly Regulus.

ENGL 512 Graduate Student Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 12:00 am, Apr 3, 2008		Professor Allen deftly organized a seminar in which students were asked to thoughtfully engage with the material in discussions that were carefully guided so that we stayed on topic while exchanging a good range of ideas. I don't know what else we could've asked from her. Her expectations are clear and I was never confused as to what it is she wanted for a given assignment, or what kind of work would earn an A, B, C, etc. The tests were comprised of passages taken from works we read over the quarter, many of which we discussed in class. As long as you keep up on the reading and do a little review before the test, you'll do well. She is a very tough grader, especially on essays and papers, but I felt like she was genuinely interested in helping to improve my writing. I found her engaging, and if you are having a hard time, I would definitely suggest talking to her. She's really approachable, and like I said, I feel like she really cares about the success of the students in her class. I would definitely recommend taking a class with her.

ENGL 303 Sophomore Grade Earned: A General Ed 7:53 pm, Mar 26, 2008		Professor Allen is easily the worst professor I've ever had in my entire college career! Her teaching style is boring and she too often comes across completely unprepared. She comes to class late every single day, yet she will always mark off points from your grade if you are late or leave early regardless of the reason. She gives a multiple page handout for paper requirements, won't offer real input during office hours and grades incredibly harshly. She also has nothing to offer in class (did I mention boring??).

ENGL 303 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 4:43 pm, Mar 19, 2008		Professor Allen is a very intelligent and compassionate person. Unfortunately, she does not seem cut out to lecture in the classroom. When she wasn't sitting at her desk reciting the most basic biographical information on the literature, she was trying to have the students participate in class discussions which were built around the students essentially already knowing all the significance behind the material. Her expectations were very unclear and she left most of the class feeling completely unprepared for both midterm and final exams! The material is interesting, if you can manage to get beyond the dull classroom lecture.

ENGL 205 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 2:25 pm, Jan 24, 2008		Dr. Allen was a fairly new professor when I had her in the spring of 2007, and I don't think she had quite figured out how to structure her class. She seemed to be dominated by some of the students in the class, and was timid during lecture. Although it was apparent that she had a lot of knowledge and things to say about the reading material, she was unengaging and nervous. As a result, she spouted off large amounts of objective facts and dates rather than commenting on thematic elements of the texts. Her one midterm was extremely hard, writing intensive, and long. Her quizzes occured almost every class period, and were sometimes unclear. Finally, her paper expectations were extremely high, and the whole class was in shock when grades were returned. She means well, but needs to step back and figure out how to be more engaging and realistic with her class expectations.

ENGL 205 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 12:42 pm, Dec 6, 2007		While she wasn't as bad as the last student claimed, Dr. Allen is still a difficult professor. Her tests aren't that hard--as long as you take notes, and go over the works (key themes, key passages) you will succeed. Unfortunately, she is NUTS when it comes to how she grades papers. For our first draft she gave me a B (I have never gotten below a B+ on a paper), and then I tried to fix everything and ended up with a B- on the final paper!!! WHAT??! If you're a bad essay writer to begin with, I'd seriously consider going in to office hours LOTS before its due. That is what screwed up my grade, and I didn't get the A. Sometimes she did let the class dominate discussion too much, but it was refreshing to have SOME discussion as opposed to none. She's a new professor---I think she just needs to figure out what teaching style works best for CP students, and lower her expectations slightly.

ENGL 333 Junior Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 12:47 pm, Nov 1, 2006		Ok, I actually haven't even finished the class yet, but she already has me pissed off about her teaching ability or lack thereof. Frankly, she doesn't teach you anything. We come to class to only discuss the readings and it ends up being a class discussion that she adds absolutely nothing to. She just sits and listens. This makes it difficult to pick out what she wants you to write about on the tests and quizzes. You have to be able to interpret these writings on your own if you are to take this teacher. The format of the class is 10% comprehensive pop quizzes, 10% participation 35% 5-6 page paper, 20% midterm and 35% cumulative final. The structure of the quizzes and tests contain and excerpt from any of the stories, which you are expected to identify the author and title along with describing its context, thematic significance, and its artistic significance. The tests also contain a 500 word essay that counts for your GWR credit if you so choose. To be honest, if i didn't need GWR credit i would have dropped this class after the first day. She is also a very tough grader and counts off for any GWR mistakes throughout the course. In all, avoid this teacher, unless you want to have to figure everything out on your own.

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