Federman, Douglas  

This professor wasn't available outside of class. He told us not to email him and canceled his office hours. Participation is worth 25% of your grade and is supposed to be based off of two assignments and how much you participate in class discussions. However, at the end of the quarter he decided to discount the essays and base 25% of your grade arbitrarily off of how often he thought you participated. Go ahead and try to participate, but the majority of class discussions involve him specifically calling on certain students, so good luck. If you want to spend the entire quarter kissing up to this guy, then this class is for you.

I did not enjoy this class, mainly because I did not learn as much as I wanted to. His lectures were disorganized and hard to follow. It was hard to get an A on his midterm and final because his test questions were so subjective, and sometimes he did not go along with the textbook materials. In terms of his grading style....he changed his mind too frequently, which I did not like. Fall quarter 2013 was his first time teaching business law, so it was a very confusing class. Overall, he is a nice person, but he is not a good teacher. He did not make business law intriguing.

He is such a nice man and he wants you to do well. I took it when it was his first time teaching and he wasn't sure what he was doing and was disorganized but in the end he figured it out and i learned a lot. Some students in my class criticized him and were harsh about his teaching skills but he was so nice and he worked with us to figure out the class. He is such a nice guy!!! Be nice to him

As I write this I am currently sitting in the middle of Federman's joke of a class. It is week nine and we have learned basically nothing. After a ridiculous midterm and two jokes of assignments I really regret not taking this class with Carr. This man is an IDIOT. He can not lecture or even formulate a sentence. The grading system in his class is based on obtaining 1000 points. Again, it is simply stupid. This man has no teaching credential at all and should NOT be teaching this class. I can ride a bicycle yet am I qualified to teach a required course to students who are paying an obscene amount of money for? NO. A decent man, however a HORRID teacher. Jesus H. Christ this class is hell.

Doug's the man

Doug, I know that you take your criticisms seriously and I felt I did not adequately express myself on your course evaluation so I am going to leave my thoughts here for you and future students. - I do not think that a law exam should have 1/4 of it's points based off of true/false questions, especially T/F questions that are a paragraph long where only one changed word makes the question false. Law is so much deeper and complex than 50 true/false questions; I think this was a flawed way to test the understanding of your students. Promissory Estoppel is so much more than just "is this true or false?"!!!! I know that you treat the class as an intro to the business of law but I don't think that explains paragraph long true/false questions nor 1/4 of the exam being true/false. Law is critical thinking, T/F is not. - I do not think that participation points are appropriate in an undergraduate setting, especially when they are worth a fourth of your grade. While participation and class discussion is key, I fear that this form of grading is too subjective. Why harm the student that aces both exams but says nothing in class? You put yourself at risk of academically punishing the wrong students; the reasons why some students may not speak up is way beyond anyones guess. This participation grade discriminates against those with disabilities or language barriers. You may think that you are encouraging these kids to grow and mature and better advocate for themselves by grading participation, but let’s be clear: that process is not going to be completed in three months time. A participation grade is inappropriate in the sense that there is no true rubric or standard to grade on; theres no way to accurately calculate participation. - I did not feel that the guidelines for your essay on the midterm were clear enough. You showed us what you wanted to see on the midterm essay after we wrote the essay. While I understand that you can't tell us exactly what you want, because that would be giving away free points, it would have helped to have known a brief outline of what you wanted. In my opinion your prompt for the essay was too vague for how defined your expectations were; I think the 60% average on the essay speaks for itself. While you did give 25 points of extra credit to counter for this, your guidelines for the extra credit were also too vague for your expectations as most of the class did not maximize the extra credit potential. You did not share the average score after the curve but personally I felt the average score did not adequately reflect the talent of the class because the set up of the entire exam just didn't cut it. - I also disagree with the fact that your office hours were appointment only. I understand that you are a professional with a full time job but I feel that as a professor you are obligated to provide weekly office hours to your students. I can assume that the reason why students did not show up for your Friday office hours fall quarter is because fridays are awkward days for business students; your office hours went against Cal Poly Business culture. Classes also vary by quarter and just because nobody showed up to your office hours fall quarter that doesn't mean that nobody will winter quarter. You were a fine professor and you adequately presented the course material. In my opinion, what I wrote above is how you can improve. I'm sorry about some other posts that do not represent Cal Poly adequately as some people do not know how to assist someone in improving their teaching. I think you are a great guy with great intentions, there are just some ways that your class and students experiences can be significantly improved.

Mr. Federman was a wonderful teacher. It was actually my favorite class of the quarter. He's very clear about what assignments you'll be doing, and how much they are worth. If anything is confusing (because his wording is a little unclear at times) you just need to ask, and he has no problem answering it for you. The tests were not very difficult if you kept up with reading the textbook and went to class to hear the lecture. He even has a review and tells you every major topic that will be on the exams! He was very good about seeing what the students were and weren't understanding based on the test results, and even threw out questions from the test that everyone was missing (it brought my midterm grade from a B- to a B). He's a very smart guy, and the scenarios he talks about are often cases he's actually worked on. The way he teaches this class gives you an opportunity to actually think about what is going on in the world, and was a great experience overall.

First off, I am writing this review BEFORE he has submitted grades, so there's less bias here. I'm not a Business major & I did pretty well in his class so far & learned enough about Business Law (It's an Intro class, don't complain about not learning enough). His class consists of: -a few papers -a midterm/final *True/False Q's, Multiple Choice Q's, Fill-in-the-Blank/Short Answer -participation He makes it so if you're not so great at exams, you can make it up with papers, vice versa. If you put in decent effort to participate in class, that's what he wants--a responsive & interactive class. He teaches information that he believes is practical & useful for real life, not memorizing the textbook. Homework is only reading. His exams aren't extremely difficult, there is a good balance of hard to average questions. Like any class, if you listen/go to class, read the book & study, a B or A is definitely attainable. Any competent student should be able to earn a passing grade. If you don't, you're doing something wrong. Granted, you won't learn everything in detail, but if you're really interested, go read the book in detail or self study. Personality: He's a pretty funny professor. He's not mean and is willing to clarify information if you ask. Overall, I think the course met the standards for an Introduction to Business Law, no matter what major you are.

I had previously taken BUS 207 with Carr and failed the course. I decided to retake the course with a different professor - Federman. Best decision I've ever made. 60% of the course is based on assignments which are fairly easy and help you understand and apply the material to real life scenarios. The tests are lengthy but fairly easy if you pay attention in class and read the required materials. He is always available for questions and is a very understanding professor when it comes to a students schedule, if you can't attend class, need to reschedule the midterm, etc. The class itself is fairly interesting and he is a funny guy who doesn't dry lecture. Overall happy with this course and professor!

he sure does like his women, wet!!