Gerbasi, Suzanne  

Communication Studies

3.42/4.00

31 evaluations


COMS 101


Freshman
A
General Ed
Mar 2012
Gerbasi is probably the BEST Coms 101 teacher. First off she lets you do your speeches on whatever topic you want as long as it meets the requirements. Most other teachers pick your topics for you. In total there were 5 speeches. Second off, she is a very very lenient grader and she doesn't expect you to be the best public speaker ever, because she knows you have other classes to go to. She makes you write a speech reflection after every speech, but each one of those are like extra credit, because they are added on to whatever grade you get for each speech. Third, there was only 1 midterm in the class and the final. For the midterm it was very straightforward and she told us every question that was on it plus the answers, beforehand, so all you had to do was remember that. So all in all, putting in the minimal amount of effort will get you a B. Putting in a little more effort will get you a pretty easy A. SO TAKE GERBASI IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN!


Freshman
A
General Ed
Mar 2012
Gerbasi is a great Coms professor. At first, she will seem like one of the scariest professors you will have, but her facade fades pretty fast. Once you get used to her personality, she is actually a really nice person and genuinely cares about her students. Because she teaches at other universities and other settings (such as prisons!) she really likes bragging about her Cal Poly students (since we are smart, not criminals, etc.). Grading wise she is actually fairly easy. Your big things to pay attention to are staying as close to/within the speech time limits as possible AND not memorizing but speaking "extemporaneously" (which is basically a made up Communications word that she loves to talk about). All the requirements for the speeches are listed in the grading sheets she gives you ahead of time. Follow those precisely (and the other two things) and its almost guaranteed you will get an A. Most of my friends I talked too regarding Public Speaking said they "did well" when they got a B- on a speech. So in comparison, Gerbasi is a piece of cake. I definitely recommend taking her class.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Apr 2012
She is a complete BITCH! She grades subjectively so if she doesn't like you, you're basically screwed. She didn't like me because she gave me a bad grade on a speech and I went and talked to her. She doesn't like to be bothered by students' questions. She is not cut out to be a teacher. In speeches you have to be so blatantly obvious about including specific aspects that all the speeches end up sounding ridiculous. You might get an A but I doubt that you will enjoy the class/learn anything helpful.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Apr 2012
Not the best professor by any means, but an interesting lady and if you try you will pass easily. Lectures were all over the place. Don't buy the book. She assigned a total of five speeches. Follow the rubric closely and speak extemporaneously.


Freshman
A
General Ed
May 2012
BEST COMMS TEACHER BY FAR. EASY A IF YOU PARTICIPATE IN CLASS AND GET ON HER GOOD SIDE.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Aug 2012
Professor Gerbasi was awesome! If you have to take a comm class take her! She is a really easy grader. If you pay attention and participate in class you will get a good grade. Also try and do something different for your speeches. She likes to hear speeches on new things not the same old stuff, that will help you get a better grade. Try and be close to your time limit but don't freak out if your off, if your speech is good she wont dock you for not getting the time. One of the best teachers, she really cares about her students. Take her class!


Freshman
A
General Ed
Aug 2012
Suzanne was an amazing teacher! There was very few lectures in which I was NOT entertained. Let's be honest here, how many teachers do you know that take attendance by asking a random question like if you would prefer cherios or frosted flakes for breakfast? She is very humerous and it is obvious that she loves her job and cares deeply about her students' success. She claims that she does not offer extra credit, but if you do an evaluation of your speech after each one you can earn points back that you lost to your grade. She is a very "straight forward" type of person. If we did well overall as a class on a speech she would tell us, and if we did not do well she made sure to spend extra time helping us with what we needed to fix. She often told us that there is no such thing as a perfect speech. If you prove to her that you are trying hard and you follow her directions exactly then you will easily receive and A. Bottom line, take this class with Gerbasi and you wont regret it! She is definitly my favorite teacher so far.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Nov 2012
Professor Gerbasi is fantastic! She is there in office hours if you have any questions and she is very encouraging. I was very nervous about public speaking but she really helped me get over my fear. I definately recommend her if you are going to take Coms 101.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Dec 2012
Professor is an awesome Coms teacher. Sometimes she will be really blunt and can be intimidating but she really wants her students to succeed and is very straightforward in regards to what she wants from you. Unlike so many other coms teachers, there isn't much homework and she basically gives you the answers to her midterm and final, so there's lots of easy points. She clearly goes over what she wants from you for all the different speeches and so if you follow what she wants you can easily get an A or B on all of them. The only hard part was giving speeches basically memorized because you only get one notecard, but besides that the class is pretty easy and its not hard to get a good grade


Sophomore
A
General Ed
Jan 2013
Gerbasi is without a doubt the easiest and best teacher for COMS. I am literally petrified of Public Speaking and didn't even do that great on most of my speech but easily got an A. She grades super easy on the speeches as long as you follow all of her requirements. You can even bring up 4 or 5 notecards and she won't notice as long as you don't blatantly read off them. The midterm and final are ridiculously easy because she tells you exactly what's on it. As long as you put in a little effort to make sure your speech follows all the requirements and rehearse it a few times so you know it, it's impossible to not get an A.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Mar 2013
Gerbasi definitely gets mixed reviews but I really liked her! She gives about five speeches but keeps her lectures entertaining and very clearly outlines her expectations for each speech. She will give you the answers to the midterm and final and is overall very reasonable. My only word of advice is not to buy the book. You barely use it and it's not worth the time or money it takes to get it.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Mar 2013
I really enjoyed Gerbasi's class. There isn't anything I can add that wouldn't already be on here; just take her class. You'll be happy you did.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Mar 2013
Professor Gerbasi is a breathe of fresh air! She's quite funny and made public speaking actually quite a fun class. Her grading method is a bit interesting but if you find that you did poorly, you can do an evaluation of your speech to increase your grade. Homework is almost non-existent in this class besides preparing for speeches. Mid-terms and Final are easy so the only thing you need to worry about are all your speeches.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Nov 2013
Gerbasi is an awesome teacher to have. She comes off strong and a little harsh but when you get to know her and she knows you things get much better. She really is good at teaching and she will never test on something she didn't warn you ahead of time about. Also, go in for office hours as much as possible she likes those people!


Sophomore
A
General Ed
Feb 2014
Gerbasi is an awesome COMS professor and by far the most memorable instructor of any GE class I've taken at Cal Poly. She assigns about 5 speeches, the longest one being 6 minutes. The best thing about Gerbasi is that she grades on improvement over the quarter rather than the quality of each speech. Attendance is important as missing her class more than 3 times will start to bring your grade down. Overall the class is very social and laid back during lecture days. Gerbasi loves to have class discussions and laughs at just about every little joke. Take my word-Gerbasi rocks!! Take her if you can, you'll be highly entertained!


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Feb 2014
Loved her.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Feb 2014
Professor Gerbil may seem intimidating at first, but she's really not that bad. She makes you do lots of things that may seem annoying (such as video recording your own speech), but in the end they are just more forms of embarrassment which will make you a better speaker over all. Also, after giving your speech. Take the time do to a good writeup/analysis of your speech, you can make back up to 5% on each speech. I didn't ever receive lower than a 88% on a speech because of good writeup. I did feel she was slightly subjective for tests, but get on her good side and you'll be fine.


Junior
B
General Ed
May 2014
She is called a freeway flyer, meaning she travels up and down the highway teaching comms to anyone from cal poly students to inmates in prison- so she has all kinds of experience and stories with comms. She encourages classroom interactions, she has pop-speeches which is helpful. just make sure you dont read from your notecard and she will improve you as a comms student. She truly wants to see you succeed and improve and is flexible with due dates, kind lady with street-side comms knowledge. I'd recommend her.


Freshman
B
General Ed
Dec 2014
This teacher is really good, I'd really recommend her if you are trying to take COMS. All her material is straightforward, and she lets you know exactly what she's looking for out of your speech. She has had a lot of experiences teaching in different places making class more interesting and fun. She's a really great teacher and the class is really easy; and although I am a little bitter about ending with a B+ in her class, it was truly my most enjoyable class of my quarter.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Mar 2015
Professor Gerbasi is wonderful. She explained the concepts well and the exams were super straightforward. There were a lot of speeches, but she grades relatively easily if you show effort. Go to class, prepare for the speeches, and you will do well.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Oct 2015
Great teacher, she is very straight forward with her expectations and sets her students up to succeed. At first she seems pretty intimidating, but is actually really nice.


Sophomore
A
General Ed
Nov 2015
I actually did not want to take Coms at CalPoly so I took it over the summer at my community college thinking it would be easy but then I found out a CalPoly teacher was teaching it, so my plan backfired. Anyways let's just say Suzanne made my summer memorable. I loved her!


Freshman
B
General Ed
Feb 2016
Shes actually bad.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Jan 2017
Professor Gerbasi was probably my favorite teacher my first quarter here at Cal Poly. She’s very knowledgeable and makes it very clear what’s expected for speeches, but in the same breath she has high expectations and if you don’t rehearse your speeches or follow the structure, she can ding up your grade pretty bad. Speeches about every other week, a couple midterms with super easy questions from class lectures, and a final. Definitely go to all the classes because you don't want to miss the lecture material that'll be on tests or any speech info. I know of other Coms classes that had to do essays and stuff, none of that here! She’s a nice and funny lady who makes class enjoyable and gets to know just about every one of her students. Would recommend!!!


Sophomore
B
General Ed
Mar 2017
In short, Gerbasi is terrible...I hope you continue reading to understand my logic. The factor that stands out the most to me is her ridiculous grading scale. For every speech, she comes up with a random grade on the spot rather than based on a total of points in different categories. After going in to discuss the grade with her, she relays a "thats just how it is" mentality and will not work with you. When it comes to your final grade, you add up all the points you got for all assignments/speeches and INSTEAD of diving that by the total amount of points possible, she has MADE UP a range of numbers that determine your grade if YOUR total falls in that range. With her grading, if you were to get 93%...let me repeat that NINTY THREE PERCENT of the total amount of points possible, you would actually get a B+ in the class. Basically, SHE ROUNDS YOUR GRADE DOWN. She insists she "doesn't do percentages" but any intelligent person would understand that grades are BASED off percentages. On a side note which personally I find very important, she insists stressing how important it is for college students to "find our voice" and develop our views in life yet she NEVER fails to stress why her opinions (especially political) are correct and will even criticize, as I witnessed in class, a student for not sharing her opinion. I regret taking her class because I truly believe I could have received a better grade with the same amount of work and effort I put in for a different professor. Thanks for reading, and good luck.


Freshman
A
Elective
Dec 2017
Pretty cool teacher, and it's quite easy to pass but it is super diffucult to actually pull an A in that class. Fun class, but unless you're willing to put in the hours to practice your speeches, you don't have much of a chance to get an A.


Freshman
A
General Ed
Dec 2017
Interesting professor who interjects a few stories relevant to the course material that makes the lecture quite a bit better than the somewhat dry material could have been. I like the focus on speeches, although quite a big portion of the grade is based on essentially memorizing different information about speech of which a decent portion seems to be marginally useless for most of the class. Fair grader as long as you stick to the structure that she lays out, and definitely tries to make giving speeches as easy as possible.

COMS 102


Freshman
A
General Ed
Nov 2012
I've seen a lot of varied evaluations but I was overall impressed with Gerbasi. She recognized the point of the class is to improve speaking and focuses on that making the speeches themselves the biggest aspect of the class. Midterm and final were both nearly jokes as she goes over exactly what's on the tests but the speeches do need to be taken seriously. She recognizes and rewards hard work and improvement with her scoring but a solid initial speech first impression will buy some leeway throughout the course.


Freshman
B
General Ed
Mar 2016
Professor Gerbasi was awesome. She does have a pretty tough layout for the quarter with lots of speeches, but that's no reason not to take her. I can honestly say I became a better public speaker after taking her class!

COMS 201


Freshman
B
Required (Support)
Apr 2013
Gerbasi is a good teacher. She truly wants you to pass the class and lectures the class in a way that makes it possible for everyone to do well. She even revamped our final so that we were happy with it, and allowed our class to give input into the way we wanted the class to be run. Which I really appreciated! Its a total of 5 speeches, clearly laid out. I never received an A on my speeches, and I know few who ever did. However you can write evaluations that will boost your speech grade - so never miss those. Overall, good teacher she tries to seem tough but really she is incredibly sweet - Enjoy Gerbasi.

SPAN 504


Freshman
B
Required (Major)
Nov 2016
Taking this instructor is like being in a Twilight Zone episode. You just can