Bredeson, Dominique  

SHE ROCKS!! She's the kind of professor where if you listen to her lecture notes, do the assignment the way she asks and actually put effort in the speeches, you will do well in the class. It's exactly how college classes should be-- if you work hard and put in effort you will do well. Her class was fun and helped me a ton with my public speaking skills.

Worst teacher at Cal Poly. She grades on how she feels and is very confusing. I became worse at public speaking from her class.

Worst professor. She only talks about herself and thinks she's amazing. You will learn nothing from this class and your gpa will go down. She grades speeches on the format, not on the delivery. If you look down and read your speech word for word, you will get a better grade than if you have talking points and hit them all but in a slightly different order than your outline you will fail.

Professor Bredeson is a recent college grad starting at Cal Poly. She is a good lecturer and genuinely cares about her class. Due to the quarter system the class is fast paced but the workload is not unreasonable (short readings most nights, and of course 5 speeches). She is a fair grader and goes by the rubric. Furthermore on the first speech if there are common issues she might curve the speech and go over what people didn't understand. All in all whilst public speaking isn't my forte Professor Bredeson teaches the class very well and definitely goes out of her way to help students. If you're looking to take COMS 102 I highly suggest you try and get into one of her sections.

Dominique is a great teacher! She always goes over the reading and makes sure we are all comfortable with the material. The speeches aren't hard as she makes sure we all understand what is required. If there is ever anything a majority of the class misses, she will give us the points anyways and go over it. She is super fair and grades directly off her rubrics. She genuinely cares about her students and their success.

Dominique Bredeson was a great COMS teacher. I'm not a huge fan of public speaking and wasn't too happy about being placed in this class my first quarter of college. I was extremely nervous going into this class knowing I wasn't good at speeches but Dominique was a very helpful professor. I wouldn't say I'm any less nervous about giving speeches, but I feel like my speaking ability and speech preparation ability are stronger. She grades extremely fairly on speeches and is always willing to help you if you go into her office hours or send her an email. There wasn't too much homework except for writing speeches. Even then there's only 4 total speeches so the work load's not bad. Don't wait until the last minute to write your speech either, I did that for my second speech and I did much more poorly on it. She also gives extra credit, I didn't do any of it because it was mainly watching debates and I was too lazy, but if you do it, it could be very helpful to your grade. We didn't have to do impromptu speeches in this class either so that was good for me. As long as you pay attention in class and study at least a little, the midterm and final weren't too bad-- there's extra credit points on these too. She's a great professor and I would certainly recommend taking coms 102 from Dominique.

Pretty much the only thing that annoyed me throughout the quarter was her use of abbreviations. She comes up with these random acronyms and if you aren't listening to her every word, you won't know what she was talking about based on what she wrote. Other than that, her midterm was pretty simple and the final consisted of mostly questions from the midterm word for word. I wrote ALL my speeches the night before they were due and still always came out with at least a B on all of them. This class is just a pretty easy B.

I had Dominique Bredeson during her first quarter teaching. She has a lot of experience in the business world so her tips were very applicable. The class was manageable. The first half of the quarter was a lot of reading out of the text, minimal reading every night. The second half of the quarter was a lot more speech-oriented, which could get overwhelming if you procrastinate. There was one informational speech, two persuasive group-speech, and some ungraded impromptu speech practice. The midterms were multiple choice and short answer, out of the text and class discussions. The final was cumulative, but she returned your midterms so you can review them. She also holds a class review day before the tests to go over any and all questions that you may have. If you have them, she will answer them. She is very willing to help with speech outlines and is open-minded about how she grades tests and runs her class. We even had a class on Dexter because our room was freakishly hot. Overall, Dominique lead a very fair, educational class that I enjoyed despite being deeply afraid of public speaking. Would recommend.

Not sure why she's received such good polyratings in the past... I found her class much more difficult than it should have been for a coms course. She grades very hard on the first couple speeches, then seems to realize that about two people have As and tones it down on the grading. Does not present material clearly, and usually just says the material aloud expecting you to be furiously taking notes. That stuff will appear on your midterm/final. She holds classes where we can guess what will be on the tests and she'll tell us if you're right or not, but makes it so other students fill in what you have little understanding on. Despite these days, random stuff appears on the tests that you had no preparation or idea would be there. Would recommend taking another professor or at least 101 instead of 102.

Your grade in this class depends on 3 speeches, 1 midterm and 1 final. However, she grades the speeches harshly! Make sure to take advantage of the extra credit, because trust me, it will definitely change your grade from a D to B (my case). She is very helpful during office hours and will basically write the speech for you the way she wants it. I learned a lot from the class, I would recommend her if you have a light schedule!

First and foremost this class is an easy B. If you do a lot of work you will probably get a high B, if you do virtually no work you will probably get a low B. The amount of work required to get an A honestly probably isn't worth it. I don't think my public speaking actually improved because Bredeson is so particular with how she wants your speeches. She also takes the class too serious in general. Overall, skills learned are not very applicable outside the class. If you want to just get COMS over with and get a B, take this class. If you want anything more than that, I'd look elsewhere.

Definitely an easy B to get, but she's way to tough of a grader for a GE. I got A's and B's on my speeches but she counts you off on a lot of random irrelevant stuff and doesn't explain to you why or how to fix it. Midterm and final are basically alike, if you study you'll do fine. Make sure to get a good group for the group presentation at the end of the quarter or YOU'RE SCREWED. She's usually pretty understanding, but her grading on stuff just kills the class. Speeches are easy.

tests were written in unnecessarily confusing ways, grading of speeches seemed arbitrary despite having a detailed rubric. she was nice i guess but i overall didn't really like her teaching style. then again for coms i don't know how much better you can really do in terms of professors.

Dominique is way too tough of a grader for a required COMS class. The midterm had a ton of fill in the blank questions on random irrelevant information from the course. Speeches are not too difficult and group project isn't hard if you triple check that you do everything that is required. Definitely picks out people she does not like and holds a grudge all quarter. Can be very arrogant and not helpful at times but can also be funny at others.

Dominique is clear in representing the material she expects from you in all of your speeches, one midterm and final. She puts in the extra effort to help her students if they have any difficulties in presenting. I was relatively confident in public speaking going into her class. Once you get through your first speech, it's smooth sailing through the next 3 speeches. You have one informative, two persuasive and one group presentation for the entire quarter. Overall, Dominique makes it crystal clear what her expectations are for each speech. All of the rubrics and resources you need are on her polylearn so you can prep way in advance if you want. I was stressed at times in this class, and was probably my most time consuming of the quarter. That being said, if you can, take coms in general if you have a more low-key schedule. If I wasn't pre-registered into coms for the fall, I would recommend taking it at a CC. If you choose to take coms at poly, Dominique will be supportive and transparent with you on what you need to improve for your next speech. The midterm and final are a mixture of lecture, textbook and video material. Make sure you do your reading before class, as there are 3 pop quizzes during the quarter. Dominique offers extra credit 3 times throughout the quarter and this is a great way to earn back points if you bomb a quiz.

She was a pretty good professor, but the grading is a little annoying because she's super specific about certain things.She had pop quizzes on the reading, I actually did them &took notes on them and I failed both of them;you have to study for them. This class sucks regardless of your professor, so considering that she did a good job at not making it ridiculously difficult. I would say this class is an easy b.

I'm not sure why she is getting such good Polyratings. This was very hard for a COMS class, and not very good if you aren't good at public speaking going in. She is a hard grader and expects a lot from freshman who are just entering college. My class was at 7am and kids were always coming in late and some missed speeches (me included) because of alarm clock failure or sickness etc. and she wasn't very lenient. Overall you get a lot of work, and two big tests in the quarter, so it just wasn't an enjoyable class. She also did a terrible job of making the class comfortable with one another so it was super awkward during the speeches.

She sucks. She holds grudges on certain students throughout the quarter and takes her anger out on their grades. Personally I was lucky enough not to get on her bad side, but the friend I signed up with to take the class didn't do so great even though she had very similar work to mine. Dominique has somehow made COMS 102 a very hard and a very excruciating class. COMS 102 should be a fun GE that promotes creativity, however she has made this class unbearable with very rigid outlines and strict expectations. It seems as if she has deeper issues/unhappiness and takes out her misfortunes on the students. She talks about her dreams of becoming a sports announcer but is stuck teaching COMS. On top of this she squeezes in her own agenda into the lectures whether it be feminist/pro-Hillary views or boosting her own ego. Perhaps I am being harsh, but she has made me nothing but resent her, her class, and COMS 102. I didn't think it would be possible to feel this much hatred towards a silly GE class but anything is possible when you take Dominique!!

Do not take her if you are not good at giving speeches. and suck up to her if you are. She expected too much from a GE. I put in more than enough effort in time to preparing speeches, and with every speech my confidence increased yet my grades dropped. I was highly discouraged from wanting to continue to present speeches, and felt like giving up. In my opinion, her midterm was way too hard and was harder than some of my upper level major courses. When I talked to other students in the same course, multiple other teachers did not expect as much from their students as we were. I felt like I learned from this course, but was highly discouraged because of the grades I received.

Okay... so this prof. really sucks. Like i mean, reeeeaaaally sucks. I don't want to be mean, but i genuinely think that she hasn't taken a coms class herself in her life. Her tests don't reflect communication in the real world at all. If its vague and obscure, you'll get a test on it, regardless of it's in the book or notes or not. Better have a god-damned transcription of your interviews, could you need to cite them VERBATIM on the midterms. Don't take this teacher. Suffering and headache are all you can expect.

HARD CLASS. Content isnt hard-- just a lot of work making speeches, memorizing info you'll never need to know, etc. Since there are so many speeches and tests, there's hardly any lecture. Easily the most work I've put into a GE. If you're smart, you'd take a communication class at your local city college instead and get the transfer credit. Lesson learned. Besides that, she seems nice I guess.

She REALLY picks favorites. Everyone in her classes notices this. The work itself was fine but she is not a warm or kind teacher and not the type of teacher that actually wants to reach out and help you. If you are confident with public speaking, she is totally fine and her grading system is understandable and pretty fair. If you are not confident with public speaking do NOT take her course. She makes public speaking scarier because you can just feel her judging you the entire time.

Overall Bredeson was a decent instructor, but for COMS 102 she seemed to expect WAY more of us than any of my friend's COMS professors. Bredeson's lectures were usually interesting, containing TED Talks and relevant issues. The problem I had with Bredeson was that she required us to choose only current events and provide many peer-reviewed articles for our speeches. While I understand that current events are important, this made it extremely difficult to give a speech on something I actually cared about. In life it's rarely necessary to give speeches on topics you know and care little about, but in Bredeson's class I did this constantly. Public speaking is stressful and hard, and Bredeson definitely made it more so.

The class consists of 4 speeches, 2 exams and pop quizzes mostly, plus some participation. The speeches have to be written in a crazy rigid format that felt unnatural and unprofessional. The grading for the speeches was entirely subjective, we saw some of the best speeches get D grades and some of the worst speeches getting As. The exams were very difficult and are based 100% off of memorization of lists and diagrams (which is bullshit, I didnt learn a thing.) The pop quizzes were given at random over the reading, which was so dry that I couldn't force myself through it and just committed to losing the points. To sum it up, don't take dominique unless you are fine with completely subjective grading and rote memorization with no context for exams.

Our whole class agreed that she was both an unfair and crazy professor. She did not know what a curve was so the highest grade was in the B range normally for each speech. I received the highest grade on the first 2 speeches and I still received a C in the class. I went into office hours to ask for help on how to impress her and she 1. did not care at ALL and 2. laughed at me for showing my concern. Also, being a freshman at the time and being surrounded by mostly freshman, most people were nervous and when she noticed they were feeling uncomfortable in their seats she would explicitly call them out and make them say a mini 30 second speech on a random topic. I talked to 3 people on Cal Poly's administration to stick up for my class as well so I don't even know if she has been fired yet.

Honestly, if you have Dominique, you better get on her good side. She definitely picks favorites, and I am not one of them. I should have gotten an easy A in this class, since I am very good at public speaking. She cares more about structure than if you can actually speak well. Not only that, her midterm and final are all fill in the blank, word bank, and diagrams. She grades you on things she hasn't taught yet in class. If you can, don't take her class. Obviously I'm not the only one who doesn't favor her by her poly rating.

While this class is decently difficult, you will get out of it what you put into it. From what I've heard from other people in COMS 102, Dominique is one of the better professors. A huge bonus is that she has lots of corporate experience, which she briefly touches on in class. The class consists of four speeches, one midterm, and four pop quizzes (DO YOUR READING!!!), and there are plenty of extra credit opportunities to raise your grades. Tests and quizzes are very straightforward and straight from the powerpoints reviewed in class. As long as you practice your speeches and use flashcards for key concepts reviewed in class you will do fine. Public speaking is the absolute worst, but Dominique makes it a little less difficult to grasp. Also, don't be afraid to talk to her, she's actually super nice and is a great person to network with.

Professor Bredeson is a great instructor. She sticks to the deadlines on her syllabus, explains everything very clearly, and is always willing to answer questions/help out if you're having problems. She also has tons of experience in the professional workforce and gives a lot of super helpful advice for having successful interviews, etc. For a GE, this class is fairly rigorous, but it definitely improves your speaking skills significantly. The speeches are definitely not as bad as they sound; if you follow her guidelines and practice enough, you will get a good grade. The homework mainly consists of reading (yes, get the textbook) and printing things off of PolyLearn (definitely pay attention to these because you need them in class). Professor Bredeson shows a number of helpful/entertaining videos in class, which are 100% on both of the exams, so definitely take notes and study. The exams are largely fill-in-the-blank, but if you memorize the lists the provides on her powerpoints, you'll be fine. My assumption about the vast majority of poor reviews is that their authors did not follow instructions/put enough effort into preparing for the class and justifiably earned low grades. They should be unanimously ignored. Professor Bredeson genuinely wants students to get the most out of her class, and I highly recommend taking her.

I really would try to take a different teacher. She actually made kids cry. I thought I wasn't scared of public speaking before I took this class, left HATING public speaking. Now I'm terrified of it. She is extremely cold and her class is taught in a way that will only help COMs majors, it doesn't give you any real-life public speaking skills. I really regret taking her class, it was probably my worst class at Cal Poly so far. She REALLY picks favorites and if you aren't her favorite she makes you feel like you're really dumb.

On the very first day of class Dominique has you rate your speech anxiety. Having had a good amount of public speaking experience throughout high school, I placed my comfort level as being pretty high. Since this professor clearly chooses favorites, I was just constantly torn down with every speech I gave. She likes to pick on the kids she dislikes, give them a random topic and says "go", then proceeds to publicly humiliate them. Her tests were B.S., asking you to memorize the most irrelevant pieces of information that you will never need in the event that you need to speak publicly. Does not care about content, only structure. Class is much harder than it needs to be. On the last day of class, she gives you back the questionnaire that you filled out on the very first day, my speech anxiety went of up significantly. Thanks, Dom!

just literally listen to everything she says and do the reading and you'll get an A

Do not take this class, you will sourly regret it. The speeches were WAY too structured. She makes talking to people extremely rigid and unnatural. She grades very harshly and teaches things that will not necessarily make you a better communicator or public speaker. She also says things that lower her credibility, mixes up vocabulary, and uses acronyms to cover up the fact that she cannot spell (however, the acronyms just make it more difficult to understand what she's talking about!)

If you have anxiety, I would highly recommend taking another professor.

Dominique very obviously knows a lot about public speaking, but she does not make it clear until the last minute what is required of you. Additionally, she has no respect for anxiety and thinks it is a problem she can fix. She is inconsiderate and is not understanding of student difficulty.

Domonique has definitely been the most professional professor I have had yet. She has the experience and resume to teach COMS courses at Cal Poly. However she is very strict, and you must do assignment exactly as she says. She has 3 pop quizzes throughout the quarter, to make sure you stay up to date on readings. She was very knowledgeable and I believe best fitted as an upper division coms professor. Unless you are very willing to learn and can easily skim through a reading and comprehend it I would suggest taking COMS 101. Definitely not an easy A with her grading of speeches and the midterm, final, and quizzes.

Picks favorites and doesnt give a f*** about you or your grade. if you take her get on her good side otherwise drop the class before you have to drop out of school.

Bredeson is a wonderful professor. She literally gives everything you need to be successful in her class so there's not excuse to not do well. Her midterms are straight from her slides/notes, so there's really no excuse to not do well. Something really nice about her is if you show her your speech in office hours, she will tell you what you need to fix to get an A (she literally says what you should say instead). DO NOT let the other rating intimidate you, she genuinely cares for her students. She shows you how public speaking plays a key role in our future, which is something not all professors do. Yes, she can be a hard grader, but if you talk through your speech with her and practice, then you'll do incredibly well.

Dominique is not a good teacher. Speeches make up less than half of your grade. Over 50% of your grade is on worthless bs from readings or videos we watch in class. The midterm and final have nothing to do with public speaking topics and are arbitrary. She grades unfairly. Classmates told me I gave the best speech and I received a 70%. Others who gave terrible speeches reading off their paper got higher scores than me. She grades women easier. Avoid this teacher.

This class was not that bad if you gave her exactly what she wanted. Make sure to follow all the packet submission guidelines for speeches and GO INTO OFFICE HOURS!! She picks favorites so go to office hours and get your speeches revised, this will show her you care and hopefully this will give you some extra points. She is super straight forward about what is on the midterm and final, literally memorize the slides she tells you. Also a group project which she only gave us a week and a half to do but overall was not bad at all. Getting an A isn't easy but 100% possible if you put in a little effort.

Professor Bredeson is a great professor who made COMS one of the most enjoyable classes. This is the first PolyRating I have written simply because she deserves one. At first, I was intimidated by this class but she does a great job at making sure everyone understands the material and will tell you exactly how to get an A for office hours. She's extremely helpful and a fair grader. Better than all the other coms professors. For quizzes, don't be late to class and just make sure you do the reading and take note of main ideas. Speeches are not hard, by the end of the quarter I was able to present a speech the day before, this is not to say you should slack off. Pick good people for the last group project and you'll be fine.

Very hard for a gen ed coms class, definitely recommend getting a different prof

I have never felt the need to review a professor before, but I feel that I need to make it clear to other students who are considering taking this course with her what they're going to get out of it. Professor Bredeson will teach you almost nothing about Small Group Communication, instead you and your classmates in groups will teach the class almost the entirety of the course material while she sits in the back grading your presentations every day. I understand the "learn by doing" strategy of getting us into small groups to complete projects, but this course takes it to the extreme in which Professor Bredeson's presence becomes wholly unnecessary in the class other than a grader checking boxes. I question why I have paid her salary through my tuition when I have learned almost nothing from her. On top of that, the course was a lot of work that felt mostly unnecessary, to the point where I was doing more for this class than I was my major classes. I would strongly encourage those considering taking this course with her to choose another professor.

Do yourself a favor and don't take her. Literally the saying of the quarter was "bredeson's a b**ch". She's the female version of Askay, but somehow worse (I didn't think that would be possible). To get an A in this class you will literally have to live and breathe it the way Bredeson believes you should. Can't say I didn't warn you. Good luck!

If you can avoid it, do NOT take 217 with Dominique. While she's very knowledgeable about the subject and clearly has a lot of experience in the field, her expectations are pretty insane. The workload for her class was unreasonable. Additionally, she basically does nothing as far as teaching. She makes her students teach the class the material through several presentations that everyone has to do, and she basically sits back and does nothing. She's a very harsh grader and is quite inflexible, and she DEFINITELY picks favorites. And when it comes to assignments, it's her way or the highway. Trust me, if you take 217 with her, you'll be pissed off the entire quarter. Don't do it.

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