Forster, Sophia  

Professor Forster gives a very clear syllabus on the first day of class and does her best to stick with it. The course consists of reading short passages and discussing/ analyzing them the next day during lecture. Her course consisted of pop quizzes (usually on Fridays), one midterm, one term paper and one final. Putting all that aside, Forster took her class WAAAYYY too seriously. I took the course in order to fullfill a GE and she expected the students to treat the class as if it were one of their own major courses. Her exact words "I expect to to approach the pursuit of literary knowledge with as much inquisitiveness, seriousness, and effort as you approach the subjects you study in your various majors." And believe me she completely expects you to adhere to this. Furthermore, after the 3rd time you miss class she docks off 3% from your final grade for each absence. This may sound reasonable but if you were to miss an average of 1 class every other week your already down over a half a letter grade. Keep in mind this class was on a Friday. If your prepared to attend every lecture and treat the class like its a course in your own fucking major take her. I would not recommend her if you plan on slacking off in the course even a bit because you will hate your life.

My first impressions of Professor Forster were less than positive--she seemed strict, uptight, and humorless; I thought I was going to be in for a long quarter. But now that I\'ve gone through her class, I have to say she is definitely one of the best professors I\'ve had yet at Cal Poly. She is not, in fact, uptight or humorless at all, she is very eloquent and engaging in lecture, and she is clear, organized, and accommodating. Every class was fascinating. I\'ll warn you, her exams are challenging... sometimes she even takes quotes out of the stories/poems you read but leaves some words blank for you to fill them in (so you really need to know what you read inside and out). The readings were interesting for the most part, and if you do read and attend every lecture, it should be easy to get a good grade. I only got a B because I slacked a little in the beginning and my first test score wasn\'t so great. But overall I really recommend her. I hope to take another literature class from her in the future just because I enjoyed this one so much.

This class was not that bad. Yes attendance was important to get the notes but the material was not tough. Forster presented the material that made it easy to take notes and participate in the class discussions. Although the class did get a bit repetitive in the activities the material was not difficult. I am not a very strong writer in the use of my language in essays but I still managed to do well on the papers. There is quite a bit of reading and it is necessary to read every story in order to fully understand the discussions. Overall the class had a lot of reading but not too many assignments and was an interesting course

I'm not an english major, so I dreaded signing up for it, but I found this class to be just fine. Forster is really good at analyzing the material, so if you take notes in class, the tests should be straightfoward. We had a relatively large class, so no essays were written. There were 4 exams worth 15, 25, 30, and 30 percent of your grade, and they consisted of MC questions and matching (identify the passage by author and title). I'd recommend this class to anyone

If you like to read pointless stories about peoples weird ass dreams and stories that they make up in there head take this class. Forster is extremely annoying and boring to listen to. She doesn't give clear concise notes and expects you to copy a paragraph on a slide in 10 seconds. If you can get the notes from someone else and are good at memorizing, you don't need to go to class.

This is my least favorite class I have ever taken. Her tests are impossible and she expects you to remember every part of the lecture. She is annoying and loves listening to herself talk. She didn't mention the average on the first test because everyone failed. She skips around stories and your notes end up getting all jumbled, making no sense. Every other person I know who took 240 English had it way easier, this is my hardest class. AVOID THE CANADIAN

Very bad class. You will want to shoot yourself in the face every time you walk into this class. Her lectures start right on time and take up the whole two hours. Every. Last. Second. I'm serious. She even lectures after the exams. She gives you one hour to complete her 3 exams and then makes you come back for an hour lecture. Her exams were okay. They start off with multiple choice questions based off of the very few slides she posts and then off of her lectures in class. She speaks very fast and there is a lot to write down so the multiple choice is pretty difficult. The matching section starts off easy. The first two exams I am sure I aced it. The last two she got tricky and it was definitely harder. Finally, the last sections of all the exams were passage identification. She gave a couple sentences from one of the short stories you had to read and you had to write down the title of the short story or poem and the author. This really was not as bad as it sounds. I finished with a C+ mostly because I hated reading all these stories and would not pay attention in class because the topic honestly bored me. Most of my classmates seem to also struggle with this class since it did not interest them. Overall, there are so essays and passing the class is not hard. So taking credit no credit might be good. However, if you are taking it for a grade, like I did, maybe take another class.

I thought I wouldn't like the class at first glance after reading some of the reviews, but it turns out it wasn't so bad after all. The readings are interesting and the material is presented by professor Forster, in a clear and interactive way. I am currently taking the class CR/NCR, but I regret it now :( since the class has no essays; only 4 tests (multiple choice, matching, and identifying). If you remember or have a lot of prior knowledge of your English classes (it will help with the readings), I would recommend this class.

She's quirky & her jokes are pretty funny. She's really a sweet teacher & if you go to her office hours to ask questions, she can help you improve your exam scores. She's passionate about what she teachers & has pretty extensive knowledge of what she's teaching. She literally uses almost every minute of lecture (10 min break inbetween). Come prepared or you won't have any idea what's going on, especially in this style/type of class. If you read before, go to class listen/take notes, and reread the text (I know, who rereads?), but if you do, you will perform significantly better on her exams. The material she lectures on is fair game for the tests. They're not super difficult. I think she did a great job of maintaining a balance of difficult to average question ratio. Her MC Q's can be a bit tricky, but process of elimination should do the trick most of the time. I'd def recommend taking her class, if you do have a bit of extra time because it does take effort to get an A in her class.

The class is pretty straightforward, there's a lot of reading and analysis of the reading, but I thought most of the texts were fairly interesting. There were a few pop quizzes on the readings, but she drops the lowest score. There were two essays, which if you work on them prior to the night before it's due and talk to her, you can get A's on them. One midterm and a noncumulative final. Her grading was fair I think. Overall, about what I expected from an English course.

I took Dr. Forester's 5 week session during summer quarter in order to catch up on my general ed. I found her to be incredibly knowledgable, kind, and appropriately authoritative. She will definitely like you if you come to class having done the reading and having otherwise prepared to contribute to the discussion. Honestly, that is the key to most Professors, in my experience. The fact is, a large portion of the teacher's you'll have throughout college will not be teaching your major classes. Yet if you are still able to muster up some enthusiasm and interest for their field of expertise, they will appreciate the effort and I sincerely think they reward you for that alone. So, bottom line, Forester was like any other smart, professional teacher. I enjoyed her class

My previous experience with the english dept made me assume that most of the english classes at poly would be total BS. Forster totally changed my mind. She is a really really well versed in what she teaches. She knows her shit and is on top of it. The class had the same structure every day and the routine of it was refreshing. I had no appreciation for literature before this class but she has really opened my eyes to a whole new art. The readings were usually pretty short and all from the same textbook. It was neat to read works from famous authors and poets that you have probably heard of but never read (Thoreau, TS Elliot, Emerson, Hawthorne, Whitman, Dickinson, etc...). In class discussion are fun and engaging if you have read. She does grade her exams pretty hard. Overall, totally recommend taking this class with Forster. Very smart professors. Probably one of the most professional professors I've ever had

Professor Sophia Forster is a great teacher. She knows the course material like the back of her hand is extremely passionate about what she teaches. Two midterms and a final. The hard part is keeping up to date with all of the readings because she'll spring 5 or so pop quizzes on the class over the quarter. The pop quizzes aren't hard - you won't have to know reading analyses, just the plot of each story. I would highly recommend Forster. She is also very approachable and relies on class participation to make lectures more interesting and engaging.

What the guy/gal below said. Amen. I too took this class and have long since graduated from Poly, but I was cruising Poly Ratings for a kick and thought that I should pipe in and let you know how much of a joke this prof is.

At first I thought Dr. Forster was going to be really boring, but don't worry! As the quarter progressed she opened up more and I really got to like her. She is very willing to help during office hours - which is valuable when you are getting started on your research paper. Aside from that, I liked that her class was very structured and organized - you always know what to expect. She also picked some really great texts so I enjoyed a lot of the reading (unlike some previous core classes). All you have to do to succeed in this class is attend lecture, read, and put some time into your essay. Overall, I enjoyed the class and would recommend Dr. Forster.

To all the other English majors who have to take this class: it's not that bad. She can be a little dry at times, but the reading is pretty fun (compared to core III). Two midterms and a semi-cummulative final (the objective questions aren't cumulative, but the essay question is), along with a 6-8 page research paper. Only a few quizzes. And yes, she's from Canada.

Some students are put-off, at first, by her seemingly strict/uptight attitude, but she is really fairly friendly. She is excellent at explaining the material in a logical, orderly manner. She outlines basic interpretations and context without bias, then gives the class room to interpret further. She always graded me down on my essays--she has high expectations for logical argument, but she is a fair grader overall. People shouldn't get put-off just because she doesn't immediately seem super-friendly-social. I think she is one of the best teachers.

As an engineer I was scared to take this upper division english class to fulfill my GWR but it didnt end up being that bad. She gives 5 easy reading quizzes over the quarter and drops your lowest score. I barely did any of the readings and still got an A (its all about sparknotes). There are 2 long essays (3-5 pages) throughout the quarter, a midterm and a final. The midterm and final are the same with passage identification (author and title but not speaker) a short essay and a long essay for GWR credit. Overall lots of writing, class participation and group work but I got through it fine.

Overall, avoid if you can. She is knowledgable on her subject but her class is way too much work and she does absolutely nothing to make it better and going to her class just means killing your phone or computer battery. Fair grader but you'll regret being in a class with a teacher who talks at her students rather than educating us on the importance of what we're learning. Some are worse, but by no means would I recommend taking a class with Forster,

Dr. Forster is probably one of the smartest professors on campus, not to mention one of the most widely published! One of my classmates used her article as a source on his research paper! Everything she teaches is calculated and precise. If she gives you a good grade, you know you earned it. If you complain about her, you probably aren't English major. Love love love!