One of the best professors ever, he's one of those professors you're able to have a relationship after college.
Professor Dean is a great professor! He really cares about his students and makes succeeding in his class easy. There are two main writing assignments that make up your grade (along with attendance). As long as you show up ready to participate you should do well!
Donelan was a really great professor. He made the class go smoothly and quickly. This was not one of those courses where you are constantly fighting your sleep. He is a fairly tough grader, but the review process leading up to the submission should be enough to get you a good grade. Definitely recommend the course.
Professor Donelan is an Incredible lecturer and surely one of my favorite professors Ive had at UCSB. Overall my experience in Writ 2 was amazing and would 100% recommend taking his class! :)
Chris really cares about his students. He encourages in class participation and classes go by quick when your talking a-lot. Really interesting and useful material that's very applicable to life. Brings candy to class everyday. Just a great dude
Absolute best guy ever.
Definitely aloof in understanding that students are busy. Very annoying because slides are not detailed and he obviously doesn't spend that much time on the class. That being said, the lectures are pretty chill... that being said, the midterm and final involve memorization of knowledge I deem unnecessary to memorize. God, the calamity...
Now that you have come to our excellent school, please take this excellent professor's class as a reward for yourself!
Chris is a great professor if you are looking at Writing courses! His assignments were really helpful for us to understand genre and the essence of writing. His grading is labor base, so as long as you do the work, he will give you the points.
The course material is boring and out-dated, the professor is old school. There is an overwhelming focus of anything that's not literature, which is funny because I took 101 & 103 and those courses bothered to actually talk about literature analysis. Not a bad guy but the reading material is r***st and s***st, and he spent time justifying them.
There r 2 essays and the 2 tests aren't hard if you do the reading. However it is very obvious that the guy has a huge ego and he only likes people who are willing to entertain his personal stories. This doesn't feel like a literature course but an author's autobiography course. The guy's anti-tech and I'm stupid to have done my notes by hand.
From the comments it seems like all the positive comments are from his writing course but i took an english literature course with him. The course material is more theology than literature and he does not encourage debate or alternative interpretations. I wouldn't have survived this course full of puritan old white guys if it weren't for my TA.
This prof seems to think that assigning hundreds of pages of reading a week is normal. And that everyone should be able to easily comprehend the subject that's being discussed. He seems to think that this is the only class you are taking and that you have no life, so you can fully dedicate yourself to his class. Do not take if you don't have to.
Loved coming to every class as we worked through writing in a sense of getting those topics clear as opposed to grammatical stuff really. Labor based grading which made for an easy A. Tried my best with everything I wrote and tried improving from my feedback. Tons of peer review. Also had to make a presentation and lead a discussion.
It IS a writing class, so there is a ton of writing involved. Had to write in discussion boards every week & had 3? papers which he helped us break it up into smaller chunks. Was in his ACE class, but his feedback was great! It was more about topic flow instead of grammatical stuff :). Labor based grading which was refreshing. Love him!
Chris is the nicest guy ever. One of the coolest professors I have had at UCSB. Cannot recommend him enough.
Would recommend the law class and Donelan as a teacher. Assignments were difficult but he gives extremely clear instructions and offers support to students. He's smart, articulate, and knows what he's talking about. Get ahead of reading and assignments or you will fall behind. Learned a lot!
Worst professor I've had at UCSB. He's overly critical and wants you to conform to his way of thinking and doing things instead of inspiring you to be creative and learn in a way that's best for you. He's negative, boring and unapproachable and makes things more difficult than they need to be. This class was a chore and I'm glad it's over
His lectures don't add anything to the material. Talks about himself a lot. Difficult to communicate with. Boring class. 2 tests and 2 essays, unnecessary amount of reading/work. Old school in approach to teaching
I never thought that I would enjoy a writing course, but Prof. Donelan really made WRIT2 an enjoyable experience! You have to do all the work he assigned to get a high score, but I really feel like that I have learned something. He is kind of a tough grader if you are aiming for an A, but I think that this applies to all writing course at UCSB.
Love Chris!! So passionate and really great assignments. Would 100% take another class with him, one of the best professors at UCSB
Still an incredible professor since the last person who said it. Change your plans to take a course with this man. A very kind educator who will likely be very well equipped to support you whatever your circumstances are. I'm serious, add the class now, they fill up quick. Be ready to do much of your most important work during class!!
A great professor! He is funny and kind, and his lectures are interesting though they don't add much to the reading material. He is a very fair grader and he wants you to succeed in his class, so do read!
I loved Chris, super nice guy, made sure to get to know you. Freedom of topic choice for final project. Classes were kind of long, but he made them fun. Interesting course topic, conspiracy theory and urban legend hasn't been something I've studied so much before. Brought donuts last day of class. 10/10 take for a GE