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Helms, Eleanor

Cumulative GPA: 3.60/4.00 with 10 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 3.50
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 3.50

Philosophy Department, Cal Poly, SLO
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PHIL 312 Junior Grade Earned: B Elective 12:12 am, May 20, 2013 Report Evaluation		One of the best (philosophy) teachers I have ever had. Was able to present the material in such a clear and easy way to understand, which can be hard in philosophy. The tests are not easy and she is a meticulous grader but if you study and ask her help she is always willing to assist. I would recommend her for any class she is teaching and in fact am taking another one with her because I loved her so much. Word of advice: DO THE READING. She gives reading pop quizzes that can greatly affect your grade even though they seem petty

PHIL 230 Sophomore Grade Earned: A General Ed 1:31 pm, Mar 19, 2013 Report Evaluation		Dr. Helms is amazing. I just wanted to clarify that this class is hard because it's dealing with the big questions in life. You're studying material of philosophers who have intricate and specific ways of thinking about the universe and life. The hardest part is getting used to each philosophers terminology and understanding how they use. Dr. Helms is extremely helpful with this part and often can present each philosophers ideas thoroughly and clearly. Dr. helms takes her job seriously in that she aims to help students understand the material and use it to fashion their own ideas. So this class is hard, but is definitely worth it. As long as you put honest effort into understanding what each philosopher is trying to prove, and understand how they are proving it, then Dr. helms exams are fairly easy. (The work is hard but the exams are easy) Dr. helms is an extremely fair, and pretty awesome, professor.

PHIL 312 Sophomore Grade Earned: N/A Elective 11:50 am, Mar 13, 2013 Report Evaluation		Helms is a great professor. She presents lecture material in an interesting way, and I feel that if you study your notes well, the exams aren't terribly difficult, either. I actually thought her multiple choice quizzes are actually harder than her exams for this course, which were in-class essays where you get 2 notecards of notes with you. Some of the reading material is very difficult to understand, but honestly trying to get through it and even just skimming it and then coming to class, she explains the concepts much more simply and thoroughly than the text does. Be prepared to work a little bit, but in my opinion the reward for working hard in this class is worth is.

PHIL 230 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Elective 1:15 am, Dec 9, 2012 Report Evaluation		This class was both very challenging and fun. I feel the previous comment on this professor does not give this class the credit it deserves as I felt the complete opposite towards this class. The short essay assignments required a lot of thought to get a good grade on while also providing a way of mentally working through the material to make it easier to understand. The material can get very difficult to understand when reading the direct text(especially Kant), but the professor's lectures were able to make the text much more understandable and were very straightforward. The two essays (each 20 percent of your grade) were very challenging (I managed to get A of both, but not without a lot of effort), while requiring a good understanding of the material. The professor was extremely helpful during office hours, was very eager to answer questions, and even helped prevent me from screwing up one of the two essays. The midterm tests (each also 20 percent of your grade) I felt were very easy (especially the multiple choice), despite the previous comment stating that they were impossible. The multiple choice questions are based off understanding each of the philosopher's arguments and comparing them to those of other philosophers as opposed to of simply memorizing what they say. The professor's notes taken from class were the perfect guide for doing well on these midterms so I cannot see how the multiple choice questions could be difficult unless you didn't bother to read the notes taken in class or felt simply memorizing what each philosopher says as opposed to following their arguments as the professor clearly states to do to do well in the class (even on the syllabus) was good enough. Overall, I felt this class to be an interesting first encounter with philosophy, fun, challenging, and has all the tools you need to do well in it as long as you can put in the effort.

PHIL 350 Senior Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 10:36 am, Dec 3, 2012 Report Evaluation		Dr. Helms was an excellent professor and an engaging lecturer. I am not a Philosophy major but I can say that Aesthetics was probably my favorite class of the quarter. She always presented an interesting perspective on all of the provided readings and brought a lot more out of an in-class discussions. She required reading selections prior to class but it was nothing that was unmanageable. She also had three papers and two midterms as graded assignments for the class and all of them were very straight forward.

PHIL 350 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: C General Ed 12:47 am, Nov 30, 2012 Report Evaluation		I took aesthetics because it was the only C4 that fit my schedule this quarter and i wanted as many classes out of the way as possible so i can focus on my senior project. After taking phil 230 with prof. Graziano I was dreading this class. However, Prof Helms is actually an amazing lecturer and i enjoyed the class far more than I thought I would. I still am not that interested in philosophy really, but I wish Professor Helms was a teacher for my major courses. I got a C not because she made the class outrageously difficult but because I did not put the time and effort into the course. Professor Helms is possibly one of the most fair graders I have had.

PHIL 230 Sophomore Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 9:50 pm, Nov 28, 2012 Report Evaluation		Dr. Helms is an extremely respectable and intelligent woman. She knows what she is talking about and never misses a beat in lecture. The topic is difficult to understand but she does what she can to help you to the best of her ability. Office hours really help. The tests are hard but she does give a study guide that is a basic outline of what you need to know. But the class definently takes some studying and hard work. There are 2 essays and they take a lot of time to even understand the concepts, not to mention write the essay. They are hard. But she is a great teacher (at times a little boring/ her voice is somewhat soothing so you might accidentally take a short nap occasionally). If you want to have a teacher that knows what they are talking about and be open to learning about philosophy take her class.



PHIL 350 Senior Grade Earned: B General Ed 9:25 pm, Nov 28, 2012 Report Evaluation		The Philosophy of Aesthetics is a really interesting course centered around the ideology of what makes art good. It seemed like it might have been dull, and with any other professor, I'm sure it would have been, but Dr. Helms is an outstanding lecturer that involves the class in every part of the course. If you enjoy being involved in class, discussing and debating art and philosophy, this is the course for you. She could not be more helpful during and outside of lecture. It was a 2 hour lecture, which I normally dread, but not PHIL 350. Being a Biochemistry major, I only took this course to fulfill my GE and to have Dr. Helms again (after having her for PHIL 230).

PHIL 316 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 5:55 pm, Jan 29, 2012 Report Evaluation		I am not a Philosophy major, I took this class to fulfill my upper level GE's so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I ended up enjoying this class very much. It was not easy by any means, I can guarantee I would of never gotten a B in the class without the massive amounts of group studying we did as a class. However, Professor Helms is awesome. She is incredibly intelligent and all around an awesome person. She let us study for the final at her house while she made us dinner and homemade cider! I mean, how many professors have done something like that for you? If you want to take a thought provoking class that will broaden your mind and not make you work TOO hard then I highly suggest this class. Two 3 page papers and a midterm and final covering the reading.

PHIL 230 Sophomore Grade Earned: C General Ed 12:28 pm, Dec 6, 2011 Report Evaluation		Do not be fooled on syllabus day when this class looks like a joke. Sure, there is not a ton of work over the course of the quarter. The argument analyses (basically short essays) are extremely easy, and you can pretty much use sparknotes to come up with a decent paper and to pass her in class quizzes on the readings. However, her three midterms (which are 20% of your grade EACH) are extremely fucking hard. Absolutely ridiculous. The topics covered in this class are SO fucking dry and abstract, it'd be difficult to understand and pay attention even with a great professor (I'd imagine), but it is literally impossible to follow this lady's train of thought. Her notes on the board are scattered, random, and make no sense. The only reason I passed this class is because I was able to bullshit the written portion of the tests enough to recover from my complete fucking FAILURE on the multiple choice. The questions might as well have been written in another language. Now that I think of it, the books that we read might as well have been written in another language as well, because they made absolutely no fucking sense. This class was horseshit, I'm about to go drown myself in alcohol.

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