Caldwell, Roslyn  

Dr. Caldwell is a really cool professor. She's open to different perspectives and encourages class discussion. She's really laid back about the class, until you start to turn in assignments. She grades super hard and because there are few assignments in the class, turning anything in is a terrifying experience. The final was way longer than it needed to be and she asks an unnecessary amount of detail of you. Regardless of her intense grading style, Dr. Caldwell is really a likable professor and truly tries to make class interesting.

In my opinion, this woman should not be teaching any course here at Cal Poly, nor any other university. The first day of class consisted of a ridiculous, self centered, novel about her educational history, while bragging of her success in the field for the entire lecture time. She is impatient, picky and has absolutely no common sense whatsoever. She was Queen Caldwell, high and mighty on her pedestal for the entire quarter. I've enjoyed every psych course here at Cal Poly, decided on this one and immediately regretted my decision. One quarter of my life gone. Don't make the mistake of taking any course with Caldwell. Absolutely RIDICULOUS!!!

Dr. Caldwell is the meanest instructor I have ever had. Not only is she very vague about her expectations, she also personally insults her students and attacks them in front of others. She has favorites and she'll show it. She likes to brag a lot about herself, so watch out--she's very arrogant about her achievements and thinks she's God's gift to the field. I really wish the Psych dept would get rid of her. She is not nearly as knowledgeable or professional and kind as the other faculty members; she makes the department look bad. From interacting with her, she truly gives off the impression that she doesn't want to see her students succeed. Worst professor in general, and only bad professor I've had in the Psych dept at Poly.

I honestly am so confused with the poor polyratings for Caldwell. Maybe she changed her teaching style this quarter, but from my experience, Professor Caldwell is fair, interesting and pretty easy. She's one of my favorite teachers I've had so far at Cal Poly. Her lectures are direct and engaging, plus she's relatable and knows a lot about the field. I am a psychology major and plan on going into Forensic Psychology, so of course I was interested in the subject which helps. But the class is a basic lecture with one easy group debate project, with one midterm and a cumulative final. But she gave us a study guide that mirrored the midterm so if you do bad on that, it's your own fault. I would really recommend Professor Caldwell for Forensic Psychology and I'm hoping to take another class from her soon.

Do not do your internship with Dr. Caldwell. She is not clear as to what is expected of students. She will make you feel very useless and at times cry. If you are a strong willed person, she will break you down. Bakari is great, but enter at your own risk.

Bakari might be a challenging internship, BUT IT WILL HELP YOU GET A JOB. When it comes down to it, you can do anything for nine months. Remember: after Dr. Caldwell, every other boss will be a piece of cake. Do it. Kiss ass. Then reap the rewards the rest of your career.

With the Bakari Mentoring Program, I got my first counseling experience. Now, as a full-time Counselor, I still list Bakari on my resume. Dr. Caldwell gave me sound advice on crossing many hurdles of counseling, although at the time is was referred to only as Mentoring. As a person of color, she encouraged me in ways that I haven't since been encouraged by white supervisors. In the real workplace, working in the field of administering services to at-risk youth, Dr. Caldwell's style is commonplace. Her style of leadership, both in the classroom and the the internship sphere, help prepare the next generation of those in the helping profession. There were complaints I heard about Dr. Caldwell, but never were the complaints warranted in my opinion. So I ignored them, did what I could to support this pioneering professional, and received positive feedback and support in return throughout this year-long internship. Kudos, Dr. Caldwell!

Abnormal psych with Dr. Caldwell is probably one of the worst classes I have taken. Not only is it boring, but you literally feel like you learn nothing in lecture. Dr. Caldwell's lecture consists of powerpoints that are basically skeleton outlines of the book and she does not try whatsoever to make them interesting. Her tests are the worst part because some of it she has never even MENTIONED. She also doesn't create her own tests so half of the time what she tells us in class and what the test answers are are extremely contradicting. Her study guides don't really help either because apparently she doesn't look at the tests before she makes them since she leaves out so much we need to know. Unless you plan on reading the textbook word for word I would highly recommend against taking this class.

I really enjoyed Dr. Caldwell's abnormal psychology class and her teaching style. I'm not a psychology major and was really interested in the material. I read the book, took notes, went to class, and went to her office hours when I needed help. She was very clear and approachable in office hours too. I don't know why my experience was so drastically different than everyone else's but I would definitely recommend this class. The only thing I didn't enjoy was the group project, but that was because I got stuck with flaky people. Also, she throws out unfair test questions and curved the test to make them fair.

I really enjoyed her! She was fun, brought up good discussion, and tests were very straight forward. She included video clips to show what she was talking about and that really helped and kept me engaged. Powerpoint slides were lacking, but the book she uses is amazing. I would read it for fun... but maybe because I'm a psych major. Don't let her bad rating discourage you.Super interesting class and good teacher! She must have changed her teaching strategies.

I don't know what I got in the class yet. I took the final yesterday. I want you to know that before you sign up for Psych 405 make sure you take it with the other professor. The last day of lecture, the day we could have been reviewing for the final, she decided to spend one hour (I am not exaggerating) discussing what people were doing for Spring Break. That is the most ridiculous thing a teacher can do. We could have been prepping for the final or going over lecture material that she suggested we read about so she didn't have to lecture on it. There were many occasions during lecture when she would say read this we don't have time to discuss it. She also curses quite often. She says that marijuana makes everyone, "sleep, hungry, happy." NOT TRUE. I don't know how she got her PhD. I don't know how she got hired at Cal Poly. She goes through her slides quickly while standing in front of them. She treats us like we are criminal adolescents. By the way she deals with those types of people on a daily basis so I understand why she can't break out of that mindset. She also told us that she doesn't like treating people with eating disorders because, "she doesn't understand the rationale behind the disorder." It is her job to understand the rationale and not be bias or play favorites when he comes to who she treats. I am so appalled by her behavior I can't even put it into words.

I took two classes with Dr. Caldwell as well as being selected to participate in her Barkari internship. She is without a doubt one of the best professors I have had a Cal Poly. Her abnormal psych class was my all time favorite class. She supplemented the material with clips to keep the class lectures interesting. If you are looking for an easy A this isn't the class for you. She expects you to show up everyday with the assignments and reading done. It is a 400 level class, this shouldn't be an unrealistic expectation. She is very willing to help answer questions on the papers and study guides via email and in office hours. If you want to really learn about psychology, and have a little fun in the process Dr. Caldwell is the way to go!

As to be expected from the other reviews, this was a frustrating class. While the tests are really difficult, she usually gives you a big point bump so you get a fair grade. However, I think it's ridiculous that it's necessary to give back 20 points every test. I thought the group project (a video and paper "infomercial") was a massive amount of work, unclear, and graded rather harshly. In terms of her as an instructor, she has a lot of field experience that offers a unique perspective to the material. (However, this is NOT what we are tested on.) While she is a pretty interesting person and had a good sense of humor, overall her teaching ability was frustrating. She blazes through the slides, which are not available online, and spends a good hour of class talking about how are weeks are going and giving unnecessary anecdotes about her "kids" (juveniles she works with). Not to mention, she gives out WAY too much information about them, and talks disrespectfully about them. If we spend too much time chatting about how she hates Beyonce (or how she thinks that people who are into BDSM have a mental issue, or how every person who commits more than one crime is a sociopath, or any of her other stubborn and uninformed opinions)then she will tell us to cover the material we missed by reading on our own. While she does give you a study guide before each test, I didn't find them particularly helpful. But then again, she gives you a big bump after the test so I guess it doesn't really matter. On a good note, I thought the textbook was well-written. Last thing: The DSM (5) has recently been updated as of last year (2013). However, a lot of the material we learned was from the DSM4 or 3. For example, subtypes of schizophrenia are no longer diagnosable and are considered outdated. Despite this, we had to do our entire project on the DSM4's version of schizophrenia. That came across to me as a professor who was too lazy to update her slides and tests. You'll most likely be stuck with her as a teacher for this class. If you have the option, for the life of you- take someone else. But if not, show up to class, chat with her in class, and read the book on your own.

I usually get along with professors that people complain about. Whatever, I can deal with personality differences. That's not what came into play here. First, a summary: she is an incompetent, bigoted teacher that will waste 75% of your time by asking the class about their weekend or telling stories about herself; the material she does manage to cover doesn't correlate with what's on the tests, she can't answer the questions you have, won't meet with anyone outside of her office hours, and has a TA patrol the classroom for anyone not paying full attention and docks attendance points for doing so. Now for the details. I hate everything about this class. She spends the first half hour to hour of EVERY class asking the 130 person class about how their weekend was and individually calling out people for being late or doing something other than listening to her ("hey, what are you doing with your nails in the back row? I wanna know! Let me in on the fun. What are you two talking about over there? Share it with the class. Oh, your phone rang? Please answer it on speakerphone and share the conversation with the class. Did you get a haircut? It looks so much different than last class."). She spends a majority of every class asking everyone off-topic questions and then making fun of them for the answers she forces them to give. A huge percentage of our grade comes from a group project with a paper, a video, and a presentation. That's fine. What's not fine is when it's a 15 person group. Where everyone has to write a part of the paper, be physically in and speak in the video and help present it to the class. ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME. 15 people can never ever, ever all meet at once. She doesn't write her own slides or tests, so what we do manage to cover in class does not correlate to what is on the tests, nor to what she emphasizes in class, nor to what she has us focus on in the study guides. When the powerpoint/any technology fails on her, she has absolutely no personal knowledge of the subject and will flounder to cover it on her own. She must read directly from the powerpoint slides or she will be lost. Don't even try to ask her a question because she will spend 10 minutes beating around the bush. "did that help?" No it absolutely did not, but try to move on please. She wastes so much time talking about unrelated topics that when she does finally get to the materials, she rushes through it, reading only what’s written on the slides, and going too quickly to take adequate notes. She also refuses to post her slides online. Her exams test your ability to minutely distinguish between the wording of the almost-exact answers, not your knowledge of the subject. On her tests she “gives back” points for questions that over 50% of the people miss. So upwards of 20 points. How about you write your own test that caters to the tiny bit of material you read to us. Also, she has a TA that walks around the classroom and finds where your name (displayed on your name tag that she forces us to put up every class) is situated in the list of names on the attendance sheet, and writes little notes next to your name based upon what you're doing in class. If you're going to force me to be here, in the class that I'm paying for, at least let me read for another class while you tell another 20 minute long story about how you hurt your stupid knee. I absolutely believe that Roslyn Caldwell should not be a teacher at Cal Poly. She is 80% incompetent and makes the quarter so long and painful. Her class is a huge waste of time and money, and is actually stressful due to her aggravating, inept style of teaching.

In all this was a very interesting class to take. I enjoyed the material and class days were informative but I only learned a lot because I took notes of the reading before lecture and just added to them in class. She used powerpoint slides the entire year and half the class time is used asking students how they are feeling or talking about her "kids" in Bakari which is a huge waste because it does not help us learn the material any better. Her tests were not that bad because she gave study guides although you had to study more than just the information that was included on those sheets. What bothered me the most about her though was the fact that she did not care about her students at all. Her expectations were unclear and because of that the group project (infomercial) grades seemed to be completely random and too harsh. Especially since she gave us groups of 15 to do a 10 minute infomercial, 15 page paper and class activity. She does not understand how difficult it is to coordinate FIFTEEN people. On top of that, she seems to be too preoccupied with Bakari and other stuff to even think about our issues with her. When brought up in class about office hours and talking about grades, she just said she had a lot of stuff to do - Bakari and her leg. She disregarded that fact that as a student, we have things to do too (other classes, work, clubs, etc.) and she was completely disrespectful of that fact. To be blunt, she gives zero fucks about her students and doesn't care if you succeed or fail.

First off, I want to remark that, for Psych majors, the people who were in her class this quarter are some of the least empathetic, bitter people I've heard talk about a teacher. Of course she wasn't perfect, but she was a very good teacher. People need to understand a few things: 1. This is her first class of more than 40, and it was well over 100, closer to 150. She had projects and activities that she had done before that worked well, and didn't realize it would be harder with groups of 15. She was learning how to handle all of us, and clearly that made it harder for her. Give her a break. She mangled her leg on top of it just before the quarter, and any of you who have torn a muscle or broken a bone knows how hard it is to do things directly afterwards. 2. She was not as rough as people act. She was incredibly helpful and nice, and really funny. She graded kind of harshly on the project, but thats because she told us exactly what she wanted us to do. The final was incredibly difficult as well. It's hard, but its a 405 class. It's not meant to be easy. She has a lot of material that we should know, and she can't cover it all in class, that's why we have a textbook. The people who are complaining about the final not following the lectures obviously never touched their books or took notes in class. I'll be honest, I never read the book either, and just from her lectures I still got a high B on the final. It is very manageable if you prepare realizing it is a hard class. Plus, she is one of the best people to visit in office hours so maybe people should do that rather than not studying hard and blaming her when they bomb the final. 3. She helps you so much professionally. She gives so many opportunities for dedicated people to help with her program, and it is an incredibly good program to have on your resume. She gives real life examples of the disorders, which others ignored because they thought it was a dumb story, but she used them to help us remember. She also is able to help people figure out where they want to go with a psych degree. Basically, if you are thinking about taking this class, don't hesitate to pick her. I absolutely loved her and am taking her PSY 260 class next quarter. I guarantee she will be leagues more prepared for large classes next quarter and you will be thankful to have her as a colleague and mentor. But realize, it is a 405 class. If you treat it like a GE you will fail. If you don't work hard and study on your own outside of class, you will not get an A. Don't listen to these people though. They are all being bitter. On our google doc for the study guide, you would be appalled to see some of the hateful, angry comments made about her. They need to start realizing they are failing because they put no effort into the project or the class, not because she was bad.

Well you think I would not be complaining about getting an A. I honestly put hundred percent in and it did pay off, but I wish I had the same experience as the person's previous post. First of all I do agree that a lot of the people complained it was to hard but I guarantee a lot of people put hardly any time what so ever into this class because they are lazy!!! It is not expected for one to get an A if you simply go to class and pay attention you have to read everyday and during the weekend in order to do well which is exactly what I did plus I have three other classes and work 16 hours a week as well as community service and activities. The one thing I hated was that we had to work in a group of 15 people it was not bad but it was especially difficult when two of the people( Group 5) did not even do there share for the essay and plus over half barely even did there share so I and a few others had to pick up the slack. I went to office hours several times and asked her questions politely and everytime she was rude and never answered my questions always went around them which really startled me because I'm always trying to broaden my knowledge and gain a better understanding of what I'm learning. Overall, one can definitely achieve an A if you put time into it.

Be prepared to work your ass off for this class. Read the book, study lecture notes, and know the information inside and out. Caldwell's class is no joke. Her tests are HARD and the massive project that you do is HARD. If you go into this class expecting to work your ass off then you'll be okay. She truly expects you to know it all. I personally did not care for Dr. Caldwell simply because her teaching style did not match up with my learning style - I was often confused in class and had to go to office hours for clarification - which gets pretty frustrating after awhile.

The quarter is only in the 3rd week, but so far her teaching style is definitely sub par in my opinion. So many students are falling asleep in class because it is so boring. She's pretty vague on what we need to know for the exams as well. "Read the whole chapter," she says. Then someone will comment on a lecture topic and she'll be like, "You read that in the book, right?... Yea, you don't need to know that." So it's like, really, don't tell us to read the book if there are things in the book that we don't need to know to pass your exams.

Avoid this professor if possible. I got an A- in her class so this is not a "I failed the class so the prof is bad" review. Caldwell is good at rambling and putting students down. Video clips can be interesting but her lectures aren't helpful, nor do they reflect her exams. You are better off studying online flashcards which she takes some of her questions from than trying to memorize all the information in the book. A lot of students essentially failed the first exam, she curved the exam 21 points. She assigns a group project and it was a nightmare! My class was oversized and we ended up in 15 person groups. She graded extremely harshly and despite saying she would grade individually, she didn't. Additionally, she graded incorrectly. She required everyone in the group be in the video, as the video editor, I made sure this happened. She marked are group down for not meeting this requirement and only after sending her several emails and pointing out directly where each member was in our video did she fix the grade. This class is a lot of material and cannot be easy to teach. However, Caldwell doesn't teach, in her own words "I'm not a teacher, I'm a professor, I profess" this translates to "I don't really want to prepare you for my exams or in general, I really want to talk about what I want to talk about... with no opinion from you" Note: she will want you to talk in class... just make sure its what she wants to hear.

Dr. Caldwell is honestly so odd. Her course consists of 2 midterms and a final. She "cancelled" class once so we had an out of class assignment too that was super easy. She gives study guides for her midterms and curves, even though she denies curving (she gives back points when more than 50% of the class misses a question) her first midterm was 100 questions and that sucked but the second was only 50. The study guides are kinda dense but they helped for both. Some are verbatim. She also has an annoying project she assigns with groups she picks. A 10 page paper, with a 10 minute game presentation thing that you have to create, and a 10 minute video/infomercial on a certain mental disorder. Caldwell is really strange, she doesnt watch TV and doesnt really know whats going on in the world but she knows a lot about mental illness and talks a lot about her kids that she deals with at her other job helping the youth in the county. Overall the class isnt horrible, really dry in the beginning but it picks up a little bit once she starts to get to know some of the class.

To start off, I did not do badly in this class, I am currently getting a B in the last week but the teaching was awful. This teacher has no idea what she is talking about. Not only does she know the bare minimum about mental disorders, but she knows nothing about the world. She once asked a student what a ukulele was.. Not only is her voice monotonous and painful to listen to, but her lectures contained nothing more than a few tidbits of information accompanying endless stories of her interactions with random people. Whenever anyone asks a question, she usually does not know the answer and goes off on another tangent. If you want to actually learn about abnormal psych, do NOT take this course.

I cannot believe this woman recieved a PhD in Psychology. She does not teach the information, nor does she care about her students. If you join her internship you become a mule to score her assesments. She is manipulative within her research teams. I saw this in each of her multiple research programs. The Psy program needs to know her failure as an instructor. If you dare to do an intership with her, and it goes as I am letting you know, please report it to the Psy department. Future Cal Poly Psychology students deserve better.

Worst teacher I have ever had. The tests are all minute detail. She is extremely biased, and has no problem failing you without any feedback as to what was wrong with your paper/essay. I mean NO feedback. And then she acts like she doesn't give a sh** about you when you talk in class, which makes appraoching her at all kind of hard. For example, she wants to know your feelings about multicultural issues but then when you share them with the class, she is too busy staring off into space or looking at her nails to pay attention to anything you said, unless you are a boy that is. The coolest part of the class is that we watched Katt Williams and listened to some good jams and basically didn't learn jack during lecture, but then she totally sticks it to you with ridiculously detailed tests.

save your self time, frustration, gpa, and a wasted 4 units by not taking this class. worst experience I've ever had at cal poly. can honestly say she is the worst professor/teacher i've ever had in my entire academic career. but if you love hearing pointless stories about her instead of actually learning, or if you love not having a clue as to whats expected of you in assignments/tests, then really take this class.

Worst Professor. I have never felt so passionately about a person in my life. VERY unclear of her expectations. She is extremely picky about stupid, particular, and unnecessary details making the exams very difficult. She contradicts herself all time and wastes the classes time to tell pointless stories about her personal life.... She is absolutely horrible.

Dr. Caldwell is the S**T!!!!! I dont know what all these bad reviews are about, this class was awesome! We watched movies and funny stuff like Katt Williams and she played good music for us, what is there not to like?! The tests were pretty straight forward, and in my opinion she almost gave us too much help for the final cuz it was cake! Dr. Caldwell was a great professor and i highly recommend her!

As you can see, there's some pretty polarized opinions on Caldwell. Strictly speaking, she is a horrible lecturer and very little is actually learned in the class. She reads summaries of the textbook off of a powerpoint for about half the class. The other half is devoted to playing music she likes, talking about her day, and allowing the class to be an open forum while she blatantly ignores student input (unless you are a boy or if you are a girl who laughs at all of her stories). If you ever take her class, just watch her when other people are speaking. She pretty obviously doesn't care. As for exams, she is very unclear of what she will be testing for, and very random tidbits from the text will pop up on both the midterm and the final. Sometimes, textbook and powerpoint material will contradict each other (I caught a few while studying) as well. Let it also be known that on the first day of class, when she asked for us to write 5 stereotypical words about different races, she forgot to include Asians. I don't think that's how you start off a multicultural psych class. I'm glad I don't have to sit through that mess anymore. It was a waste of time, plain and simple.

Business majors: A degree for the intellectually impaired, HA HA.