PHSC497 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Jennifer German PHSC497 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	Dr. German is great, and I recommend taking her for your public health capstone. The basis of this class is writing your capstone thesis, which is very time-consuming. However, Dr. German set up the class to have multiple drafts of your thesis due periodically, which I felt helped in not procrastinating. She is also flexible in allowing you to choose your topic and is helpful in the thesis writing process.
Kendall Bustad PHSC497 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/18/2024	Do not take this course with Dr. Bustad. She has completely unrealistic expectations for students' writing. I have never had this much trouble in an english/writing class before. I consider myself a strong writer and I have been consistently getting Cs on our writing assignments. She grades extremely strict and takes off several points for the smallest things. Her feedback is obtuse and vague, and when you try to schedule a meeting with her to go over her feedback, she takes over 1-2 days to respond, and has little to no availability to meet when you do try to schedule it. It feels like no matter what I do or no matter how hard I try it is impossible to bring up my grade. No capstone class, where everyone is just trying to graduate, should be bringing your GPA down this much right before graduation. She nitpicks at the smallest things in your writing if they are not up to her standards and takes upwards of 5-10 points off just for "style" and "flow". Do yourself a favor and take this class with someone else.
Lakeshia Watson PHSC497 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/04/2023	Dr. Watson is a great professor for PHSC497, the course is pretty straightforward. She’s very sweet and understanding, and will help you with any questions you might have throughout the capstone paper. She also had some classes over zoom due to her schedule conflicts and our presentations were given over zoom as well. I can’t speak for how the other professors are for PHSC497, but I would highly recommend Dr. Watson!
Maushami DeSoto PHSC497 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/01/2023	AVOID AT ALL COSTS. She is the worst teacher in the school of public health I have ever had. She favors students in the class, treats all of us like 5-year-old children, grades all assignments very harshly, is extremely unorganized (the rubrics for assignments do not correlate with the actual assignment and she never answers emails), and takes forever to grade assignments. I am a straight-A student and getting a B+ in her class due to her lack of professionalism and teaching ability sucks.
Paul Levy PHSC497 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/03/2023	If you have Paul for your capstone, you'll be fine and get through the course, but it will be a frustrating class. He's a nice guy but disorganized and not good at communicating. Our syllabus wasn't published until the second week of class, and it became immediately inaccurate because he ignored assignments on the syllabus and added new ones with no notice. He splits up the capstone paper into 4 benchmarks, but he will not give the due dates until a few weeks before. Do not ask for an extension because he will not grant one. He does not use rubrics for his class, so he takes off points, and you have to email him and ask why. Speaking of email, he is AWFUL at responding. Do not expect a response for at least 3 days if not a week. The class is online which gives a lot of flexibility, and we have never gone the full 2.5 hours which is really nice. He also does not give filler assignments or busywork aside from a few quick and easy assignments in the first few weeks. Again, he's not completely awful, and I don't think he intends to be difficult, but he has a separate 9-5 job, and you can tell that job is his priority, not this class.
Kendall Bustad PHSC497 Expecting a B- Anonymous 10/26/2022	I have several friends taking PHSC497, and the course grades are entirely inconsistent. My friend in a different teacher's section said that the average grades on their assignments tends to be around 85-90 percent, in our class the average grades on assignments is like a 70 percent. Professor Bustad is an impossible grader, and her standards are impossible to keep up with. This may be the worst professor to take for this class. This shouldn't be tanking student's GPAs right before they graduate....
Adam Binkley PHSC497 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/30/2022	He is one of the best capstone professors out there.

Jennifer German
PHSC497

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/09/2024

Dr. German is great, and I recommend taking her for your public health capstone. The basis of this class is writing your capstone thesis, which is very time-consuming. However, Dr. German set up the class to have multiple drafts of your thesis due periodically, which I felt helped in not procrastinating. She is also flexible in allowing you to choose your topic and is helpful in the thesis writing process.

Kendall Bustad
PHSC497

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
04/18/2024

Do not take this course with Dr. Bustad. She has completely unrealistic expectations for students' writing. I have never had this much trouble in an english/writing class before. I consider myself a strong writer and I have been consistently getting Cs on our writing assignments. She grades extremely strict and takes off several points for the smallest things. Her feedback is obtuse and vague, and when you try to schedule a meeting with her to go over her feedback, she takes over 1-2 days to respond, and has little to no availability to meet when you do try to schedule it. It feels like no matter what I do or no matter how hard I try it is impossible to bring up my grade. No capstone class, where everyone is just trying to graduate, should be bringing your GPA down this much right before graduation. She nitpicks at the smallest things in your writing if they are not up to her standards and takes upwards of 5-10 points off just for "style" and "flow". Do yourself a favor and take this class with someone else.

Lakeshia Watson
PHSC497

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/04/2023

Dr. Watson is a great professor for PHSC497, the course is pretty straightforward. She’s very sweet and understanding, and will help you with any questions you might have throughout the capstone paper. She also had some classes over zoom due to her schedule conflicts and our presentations were given over zoom as well. I can’t speak for how the other professors are for PHSC497, but I would highly recommend Dr. Watson!

Maushami DeSoto
PHSC497

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/01/2023

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. She is the worst teacher in the school of public health I have ever had. She favors students in the class, treats all of us like 5-year-old children, grades all assignments very harshly, is extremely unorganized (the rubrics for assignments do not correlate with the actual assignment and she never answers emails), and takes forever to grade assignments. I am a straight-A student and getting a B+ in her class due to her lack of professionalism and teaching ability sucks.

Paul Levy
PHSC497

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/03/2023

If you have Paul for your capstone, you'll be fine and get through the course, but it will be a frustrating class. He's a nice guy but disorganized and not good at communicating. Our syllabus wasn't published until the second week of class, and it became immediately inaccurate because he ignored assignments on the syllabus and added new ones with no notice. He splits up the capstone paper into 4 benchmarks, but he will not give the due dates until a few weeks before. Do not ask for an extension because he will not grant one. He does not use rubrics for his class, so he takes off points, and you have to email him and ask why. Speaking of email, he is AWFUL at responding. Do not expect a response for at least 3 days if not a week. The class is online which gives a lot of flexibility, and we have never gone the full 2.5 hours which is really nice. He also does not give filler assignments or busywork aside from a few quick and easy assignments in the first few weeks. Again, he's not completely awful, and I don't think he intends to be difficult, but he has a separate 9-5 job, and you can tell that job is his priority, not this class.

Kendall Bustad
PHSC497

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
10/26/2022

I have several friends taking PHSC497, and the course grades are entirely inconsistent. My friend in a different teacher's section said that the average grades on their assignments tends to be around 85-90 percent, in our class the average grades on assignments is like a 70 percent. Professor Bustad is an impossible grader, and her standards are impossible to keep up with. This may be the worst professor to take for this class. This shouldn't be tanking student's GPAs right before they graduate....

Adam Binkley
PHSC497

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/30/2022

He is one of the best capstone professors out there.

Reviews for PHSC497