ENGL390H | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/13/2024	I've learned nothing in this class, but the grade is easily attainable. Oftentimes, I'm just confused by her prompt because I never know what she's asking for. Or, she'll teach us some weird mnemonic and ask for us to include in our essays. I generally like english classes, but this class was not it. Prof Shea is a sweet old lady, but she's somewhat frazzled and will go on tangents. I expected writing assignments closer to our major/goals for our future, but our first was about rain gardens, and our second was about paper cups vs styrofoam. I have no idea when I'll ever need to pull these papers back up for reference. Overall, I'm a little worried since other english classes prepare you for writing grad/med school statements, but I feel like Prof Shea has not been able to teach us that.
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2023	To be honest, I do not think scientific writing is a priority class for a lot of students, and MBS made sure to acknowledge and accommodate for that. Her classes were online, asynch on some Fridays, and she's very quirky! The class is laid out to be pretty easy, and she's very accommodating for any issues you're dealing with. There's three assignments spanning the whole class, each one being broken up into sub assignments with both rough drafting, peer review, repeat. It feels a bit tedious at times, but it's honestly not all that bad. Her classes are intersting, she's quirky, and loves to engage with students. She's super sweet, and makes sure that everyone is able to succeed and pass the class with flying colors.
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/01/2023	This is an… interesting class. As a vague summary, I took Marybeth virtually, with classes MWF. However, around 1/2 -1/3 of the way through the semester, she canceled all Friday classes for asynchronous work time. You have 3 “assignments” throughout the semester, although each is split into multiple peer review and draft phases. Pros: You can take the class from anywhere, whether driving or sitting outside of your next class. In fact, she actively encourages it. She does not make you participate or even turn on your camera. Very easy A. Easiest class I’ve taken since high school, if not earlier. Maybe 4 hours max on this class including in class time. The assignments don’t even start until halfway through the semester. They are normally incredibly light assignments as well. For example, one was to write 4 topic sentences and 3 bullets under each one. Marybeth is incredibly lenient regarding deadlines. You really don’t have to show up and/or pay attention, as she posts all information online, and does not care about absences up to a point. Cons: The online format means I have made exactly 0 connections with my peers or the teacher (not Marybeth’s fault, but still lonely). This feels like the most ridiculous waste of time in my entire life. If you already know writing basics, you will probably learn nothing the entire time. For example, we spend pretty much our entire time going over basics such as that vs which, comma vs colon vs semicolon vs period, make the verb agree with the noun, etc. Other advice seems entirely useless, such as “only include three main points.” Like… huh??? She is incredibly flighty, and spends most of the time talking about anything but the class. This includes, but is not limited to Pokemon cards, Austin Powers, her various health issues, mooncakes, how she talks to her doctors about her health issues, how Zoom and Canvas are “stealing all our data”, and her research regarding her health issues (which at least is… vaguely related). She often treats us like 5-year olds, calls us her “M&Ms” or “darling kittens” which she has to “herd”. She basically does not use Elms, and instead uses her own website. This would be fine, if she organized it in any way that was remotely even equivalent to Elms. Everything from class (which is not only everything said in class, but lots of additional information she just never covers) is in one big webpage, with weeks in reverse chronological order, but within the week is normal chronological. One way or the other would be fine, but the mixing makes it confusing. She does often condense all of the info for assignments into a Google doc or something similar, but not always, and that still means you have to find it. Her phrasing is often confusing, and she’ll put things into instructions that she never said in class, or vice versa, or sometimes conflicting information, so it’s never very clear what she wants. Regarding the loose deadlines: this can be nice, but if you are someone who likes to stay on top of things, this means that peer review assignments keep getting published later and later. Initially, they were published roughly midday Saturday, but it has gotten to roughly Monday morning now (due Monday night). In summary, take this if you want an easy class with an easy A. However, you will probably learn nothing and be incredibly frustrated with her the entire time. She also does not really provide any feedback other than the grades, relying only on peers. This means that if you are doing something wrong, you might not find out until too late (given that she doesn't even provide any grades until after the final assignment submission).
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/25/2022	Awesome professor, all that needs to be said. Super accommodating and understanding, she gives all students ample time to turn in each assignment. You can tell she realizes that this class is on the back burner for most students and isn't the number one priority throughout the week and I really appreciate that. She is fun to talk to and class is pretty engaging. Highly recommend and she also grades pretty leniently.
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2021	Dr. Shea has been the most accommodating English professor I’ve had. The assignments are fairly easy and the due dates were mostly flexible. I just wish that the assignments were opened earlier as we often didn’t get assignment details until a day or two before it was due.
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/29/2021	Most accommodating professor I had during the pandemic. Her class was probably a bit too easy, and was not very much work at all. However, if you don't really care about English then it is a great class. I did pick up a few techniques throughout the class, and thought the assignments and grading were fair.
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Anonymous 05/18/2021	She was very nice and accommodating during the pandemic. It is not difficult to do well in her class as long as you put in an ounce of effort. I didn’t learn too much in this class. Depending on how you perceive it, it’s either an Easy A or a waste of money. I did learn a few techniques to improve my writing though, so that’s a win. Also, she was a bit disorganized. It seemed unnecessarily convoluted to jump back and forth between Google Docs, her blog, and the EliReview assignment submission website. I had to have so many tabs open on my computer for services that ELMS can provide!
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Expecting an A Anonymous 03/29/2020	Really helpful and engaging professor and just a really nice person overall. Her assignments actually do help improve your writing, and she tries hard to make her class useful but not a huge amount of work.
Marybeth Shea ENGL390H Expecting an A Anonymous 06/11/2019	One of the best professors I've had at UMD. Easy on grading and as someone who normally hates english, I enjoyed this class.

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/13/2024

I've learned nothing in this class, but the grade is easily attainable. Oftentimes, I'm just confused by her prompt because I never know what she's asking for. Or, she'll teach us some weird mnemonic and ask for us to include in our essays. I generally like english classes, but this class was not it. Prof Shea is a sweet old lady, but she's somewhat frazzled and will go on tangents. I expected writing assignments closer to our major/goals for our future, but our first was about rain gardens, and our second was about paper cups vs styrofoam. I have no idea when I'll ever need to pull these papers back up for reference. Overall, I'm a little worried since other english classes prepare you for writing grad/med school statements, but I feel like Prof Shea has not been able to teach us that.

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/21/2023

To be honest, I do not think scientific writing is a priority class for a lot of students, and MBS made sure to acknowledge and accommodate for that. Her classes were online, asynch on some Fridays, and she's very quirky! The class is laid out to be pretty easy, and she's very accommodating for any issues you're dealing with. There's three assignments spanning the whole class, each one being broken up into sub assignments with both rough drafting, peer review, repeat. It feels a bit tedious at times, but it's honestly not all that bad. Her classes are intersting, she's quirky, and loves to engage with students. She's super sweet, and makes sure that everyone is able to succeed and pass the class with flying colors.

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/01/2023

This is an… interesting class. As a vague summary, I took Marybeth virtually, with classes MWF. However, around 1/2 -1/3 of the way through the semester, she canceled all Friday classes for asynchronous work time. You have 3 “assignments” throughout the semester, although each is split into multiple peer review and draft phases. Pros: You can take the class from anywhere, whether driving or sitting outside of your next class. In fact, she actively encourages it. She does not make you participate or even turn on your camera. *Very* easy A. Easiest class I’ve taken since high school, if not earlier. *Maybe* 4 hours max on this class including in class time. The assignments don’t even start until halfway through the semester. They are normally incredibly light assignments as well. For example, one was to write 4 topic sentences and 3 bullets under each one. Marybeth is incredibly lenient regarding deadlines. You really don’t have to show up and/or pay attention, as she posts all information online, and does not care about absences up to a point. Cons: The online format means I have made exactly 0 connections with my peers or the teacher (not Marybeth’s fault, but still lonely). This feels like the most ridiculous waste of time in my entire life. If you already know writing basics, you will probably learn nothing the entire time. For example, we spend pretty much our entire time going over basics such as that vs which, comma vs colon vs semicolon vs period, make the verb agree with the noun, etc. Other advice seems entirely useless, such as “only include three main points.” Like… huh??? She is incredibly flighty, and spends most of the time talking about anything but the class. This includes, but is not limited to Pokemon cards, Austin Powers, her various health issues, mooncakes, how she talks to her doctors about her health issues, how Zoom and Canvas are “stealing all our data”, and her research regarding her health issues (which at least is… vaguely related). She often treats us like 5-year olds, calls us her “M&Ms” or “darling kittens” which she has to “herd”. She basically does not use Elms, and instead uses her own website. This would be fine, if she organized it in any way that was remotely even equivalent to Elms. Everything from class (which is not only everything said in class, but lots of additional information she just never covers) is in one big webpage, with weeks in reverse chronological order, but within the week is normal chronological. One way or the other would be fine, but the mixing makes it confusing. She does often condense all of the info for assignments into a Google doc or something similar, but not always, and that still means you have to find it. Her phrasing is often confusing, and she’ll put things into instructions that she never said in class, or vice versa, or sometimes conflicting information, so it’s never very clear what she wants. Regarding the loose deadlines: this can be nice, but if you are someone who likes to stay on top of things, this means that peer review assignments keep getting published later and later. Initially, they were published roughly midday Saturday, but it has gotten to roughly Monday morning now (due Monday night). In summary, take this if you want an easy class with an easy A. However, you will probably learn nothing and be incredibly frustrated with her the entire time. She also does not really provide any feedback other than the grades, relying only on peers. This means that if you are doing something wrong, you might not find out until too late (given that she doesn't even provide any grades until after the final assignment submission).

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/25/2022

Awesome professor, all that needs to be said. Super accommodating and understanding, she gives all students ample time to turn in each assignment. You can tell she realizes that this class is on the back burner for most students and isn't the number one priority throughout the week and I really appreciate that. She is fun to talk to and class is pretty engaging. Highly recommend and she also grades pretty leniently.

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/20/2021

Dr. Shea has been the most accommodating English professor I’ve had. The assignments are fairly easy and the due dates were mostly flexible. I just wish that the assignments were opened earlier as we often didn’t get assignment details until a day or two before it was due.

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/29/2021

Most accommodating professor I had during the pandemic. Her class was probably a bit too easy, and was not very much work at all. However, if you don't really care about English then it is a great class. I did pick up a few techniques throughout the class, and thought the assignments and grading were fair.

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Anonymous
05/18/2021

She was very nice and accommodating during the pandemic. It is not difficult to do well in her class as long as you put in an ounce of effort. I didn’t learn too much in this class. Depending on how you perceive it, it’s either an Easy A or a waste of money. I did learn a few techniques to improve my writing though, so that’s a win. Also, she was a bit disorganized. It seemed unnecessarily convoluted to jump back and forth between Google Docs, her blog, and the EliReview assignment submission website. I had to have so many tabs open on my computer for services that ELMS can provide!

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
03/29/2020

Really helpful and engaging professor and just a really nice person overall. Her assignments actually do help improve your writing, and she tries hard to make her class useful but not a huge amount of work.

Marybeth Shea
ENGL390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/11/2019

One of the best professors I've had at UMD. Easy on grading and as someone who normally hates english, I enjoyed this class.

Reviews for ENGL390H