Toby Egan

This professor has taught: BUSI758Q, BUSO702, BUSO703, HONR348D, PLCY100, PLCY201, PLCY302, PLCY388D, PLCY699W, PLCY790, PLCY899, PUAF711, PUAF790

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Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/30/2025	This class was so strange. If you've taken AP Government and Econ in high school, you should be coasting. For a class that's a requirement for a lot of majors, Dr. Egan was teaching it like it was the first time this course had ever been offered. Attendance policies would switch up randomly, the lectures had nothing to do with the exams, and the way they administered exams were really different as well. I haven't received any grades on assignments submitted after Spring Break, including my final. I only found out my overall grade by randomly checking Testudo. It's really clear that Dr. Egan cares about his rating here, he's a really nice guy and very interesting, but this course could have been way less frustrating. It's a relatively easy class if you study a good amount for the exams, but it will make you periodically very upset.
Toby Egan PLCY302 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/29/2025	I learned a lot in this class because of the way Dr. Egan set it up. He provided enough structure to help explore each topic deeply and, at the same time, provided lots of opportunities for personal and team exploration with debates, testimony and dialogue in class. Recommend professor!
Toby Egan PLCY302 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/29/2025	Dr. Egan is a very nice guy and is clearly passionate about what he teaches, however, lecture often had nothing to do with our assignments. His discussion post assignments were extremely long and tended to be graded harshly. He took so long to give final grades and did not even put in the grades for some of the final assignments. If you are not a policy major, this class may not be the greatest and although Dr. Egan seems very well-meaning, the class was often quite disorganized and deadlines were very confusing.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/29/2025	I absolutely resented the fact that the lectures had NOTHING to do with the exams. I felt like I could just skip all the lectures, read the textbook(which you will need) on my own time and do just fine on the exam. Other than that Dr. Egan is a nice guy who is well traveled and knowledgeable. Getting feedback and grades from the teaching team felt impossible.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/28/2025	Dr. Egan did a great job with this large class. He led interesting discussions and connected the topic broadly to the textbook. Some TAs were slow in grading. My friend's TA seemed to wait several weeks to provide feedback when I was receiving graded assignments in just a few days. So, getting that worked out would be helpful next time. Dr. Egan responded to each student and invited them to text/email/call him. When I texted him he responded right away. He asked for feedback in the middle of the semester and made adjustments based on what students said. I also was part of an end of class focus group he led, so I'm sure he'll keep working to improve an already solid class. Definitely recommend him to majors or non-majors
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/28/2025	Dr. Egan is a nice professor, but I did have a few things to say about his teaching style for PLCY100. To be clear, he's a nice guy and often offers help for students who need it, and his lectures are interesting, since he relates what we're learning to current issues. But many of the other reviews for Dr. Egan are spot on regarding the exams and grading for the class. The exams are entirely based on the textbook, and for the midterm, even though I took notes from the textbook, the review was misleadingly easy in comparison to the actual exam, which ended up being curved heavily. Yet, the final was genuinely easy and almost identical to the review sheet. The other thing about Egan is that he's a SLOW grader, which is kind of unfortunate, even given how large the class is. I finally know what my final grade is now, over a week after the final, but I didn't have any way to predict it, since most of the assignment grades from the past two months or so still aren't in Canvas. All of that said, the class itself is pretty straightforward, requiring very little effort outside of class save for one or two assignments and the readings, and my TA was chill and not a harsh grader whatsoever.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/27/2025	Dr. Egan encouraged students to be in contact with him via email/text and always stayed after class to answer questions. I had no problem with exams being heavily book-based, since he repeatedly said that would be the case.. My TA for the discussion portion of the class was nice, but read off the slides in a monotone voice and seemed to have no teaching experience. However, my biggest issue is the fact that grading takes FOREVER, despite Dr. Egan having several TAs. The midterm took nearly a month to be graded; it needed a massive curve, but that reflects the manner the TAs teach. As of today, I don't have any grades in since the beginning of April. For all I know I could have done horribly on a few assignments and massively tanked my final grade with no way to fix it since the semester is over. I understand there's a large number of students, but there's Dr. Egan, the four graduate TAs that lead discussion sections, and three undergrad TAs. There's no reason for grading to take this long, and everyone else I've talked to in this class agrees that it's an issue. A complete overhaul of this class's grading cadence is needed.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/25/2025	Dr. Egan is a very knowledgable and is a professor who is easy to talk with. My Testimony assignment (very fun main part of the course) was on a topic I picked. The lectures were really good and he is super approachable. I liked my TA (Ellie) and thought she did a great job. I recommend this class!
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2025	Dr. Egan himself is an excellent professor, and his teaching style and personality are very contributive to engaging class-wide conversation. Additionally, he does care about every student, and makes himself extremely available outside of class. With that said, the class itself does not reach that same standard. The lectures, discussions, and exams are disjointed and don't refer to each other. The exams are very book-content-heavy, though in the end he gave it a generous curve, and he takes a while to grade work (for reference, I'm grading this on 5/23 - he hasn't graded any of my work since 4/5). That said, he does take student input seriously, and adjusted the class per the students' suggestions. Overall, great professor, but I can't give the class itself an equally laudatory assessment.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Anonymous 05/20/2025	he seems really nice but GRADES NOTHING. the lectures are nothing like the test. they never mention any of the material of the tests in class. he also takes forever the grade things so going into the final I have no idea what my grade is
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/12/2025	Dr. Egan is a very knowledgable professor who is easy to talk with and very engaging. The comments about aligning the exams is right. At the same time, the exam curves solve part of that problem. My Testimony and other parts of the class made up for that relatively minor issue. The lectures were really good and he is super approachable. I liked my TA (Ellie) and thought she did a great job. I recommend this class!
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/12/2025	Dr. Egan is a cool guy, very knowledgeable, and does a terrific job at engaging students throughout lectures. That being said, lectures lack any coherent structure and do not follow the textbook whatsoever. Until the midterm, lectures are basically a discussion on current events and how they pertain to public policy. It was somewhat interesting, but then they cram all the lecture material into sections which in my case was led by a sullen and boring TA. That being said, the class is easy enough and the exams are curved. I'd take it again for an easy gen-ed or requirement.
Toby Egan PLCY302 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/08/2025	Today was the last class and I’ll miss it. Dr. Egan created a terrific classroom environment. I had the best team experience, our team debate was fun as was our testimony assignment and class discussion. This was my second class with Dr. Egan and I’ve learned a lot.
Toby Egan BUSO703 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/12/2024	The key to this course is engaging outside of class with your client organization. Dr. Egan set us up for success, was available any time to contact between classes, and uses his excellent expertise and experience to help us be successful. 5 Stars ***** Strongly recommended!
Toby Egan Anonymous 08/26/2024	This was my favorite class this year. I read the book associated with each lecture but a lot of the Friday discussions were lacking because most students didn’t read until the midterm/final. Dr. Egan cares about students and used lectures to activate the readings with real life examples. I recommend this course.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/24/2024	Dr. Egan brought Public Policy to life through actively engaging students during our large lectures. He was interested in student learning and connecting the topic to our lives and interests. The Testimony assignment was my favorite. Recommended!
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/06/2024	Dr. Egan is a cool guy. He seems very knowledgeable in the subject HOWEVER the tests do not reflect what we even learn in class. The midterm was 50 questions in 50 minutes. There were 5 short answers, 10 definitions, and the rest were multiple choice. His class has no structure and the lectures are useless on the tests because it is all based on the book. So as long as you read the text book you will be fine, I guess. Keep in midn that the book is never brought up in class. it is also really boring. So much so, that I almost changed my major from public poilcy to something else.
Toby Egan PLCY302 Expecting an A+ ashmoney 05/04/2024	overall: the class is very easy & very discussion based. Dr. Egan has a lot of interesting experiences that he likes to discuss so most people attend class. the "major assignments" are spaced out and don't take too much effort, but give you a chance to be creative & focus on topics that you find interesting. I'd highly recommend this class because it also fulfills a gen-ed. the class has 4 "major" writing assignments that are not hard and just give you space to express your interests. recommendations/heads up: -Give yourself like an hour to do discussion posts because sometimes they require a lot to do, but are still easy to complete -If you skim the readings on ELMS you'll be fine. No textbook required.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/02/2024	He's a great guy and I really do enjoy talking with him, but his class itself lacks a lot of structure and there is a LOT of variance for grades based on which TA you get. I got lucky with my TA, she gives pretty much full credit on everything, but I have friends who are getting graded much harsher than I am. The assignments are easy enough, but the exams are based solely on the textbook which we never even talk about in class. Instead, he lectures on random topics. He does want everyone to succeed which is nice, but he does not do enough to ensure that happens for the exams.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/02/2024	I honestly wasn't a huge fan of Dr. Egan and the class. I thought the information we learned was pretty boring and just felt like AP-Gov. This class is really dependant on which TA you have because mine was a very harsh grader. Overall, Dr. Egan is very nice but I wouldn't reccomend this class if you aren't required to take it. Too much work and the grading was very inconsistant.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 06/10/2023	I can get a sense that Prof. Egan is very successful outside of his teaching roles at UMD, but he displays a tremendous amount of humility to everyone's opinions during class discussions- except his opinion that schools are supposed to teach children morals and principles. He stood on that one. I hope to revisit him in my upper level Policy courses or he stays at UMD. You can establish your own network and brand if you take the out of class assignments seriously, depending on your ideal career path. The summary of this class is don't just sit around and talk about your passions, but get out there and.. here's how. If his assignment format stays consistent, my advice is to read the book as much as possible because tests are tailored more towards the definitions of basic terms of government and who is in office, and class is about applying those terms to real life situations.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/28/2023	Professor Egan made our large classroom fun and engaging with many good discussions about policy, current policy making and everyone’s views on current and historical issues. The tests were not too hard, knowing about how government works definitely helps. And, we all got to choose a policy to write and talk about. I would definitely recommend this class and Professor.
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/24/2023	Let me start by saying that Dr.Egan is a nice guy- he's very qualified but also down to earth and easygoing. However, his class lacks structure. The grades for our class midterm were way lower than expected and the exam had some questions straight from the book despite the fact that he rarely ever referenced the book in class. His lecture is usually about a current event/something in the news and can be kind of boring at times, but he doesn't take attendance.
Toby Egan PLCY302 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2023	Great experience in Dr. Egan's class. He is flexible and has assignments that bring in students' opinions and interests. There is a good amount of in-class discussion (we even went outside when it was nice) that you won't enjoy unless you keep up with the readings. Some of my classmates who don't like public speaking did not like the testimony assignment (basically a presentation of pluralism related policy that you choose). But I enjoyed hearing about my classmates interests. Highly Recommended!
Toby Egan PLCY100 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/08/2023	The class isn't over yet, but I have needed a lot of help from Dr. Egan this semester because of some personal problems/health issues. He has been great--Meeting with me one-on-one and providing accommodations. Not too many professors help in this way--especially in such a huge class. I also like how interactive the course is. He makes the large class much more personal and my friends in the class agree. I'm off to a good start as a public policy major because of this experience. And, my non-policy classmates are enjoying too.
Toby Egan PLCY302 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/07/2023	Professor Egan is very nice, knowledgable, and excited to discuss pluralism. He has no actual structure/game plan regarding course material, so the class is very easy. There is a final project and each assessment is in the form of a paper. Nothing too hard about the class, you just have to show up. I would take this class if you need an easy A for gen-ed, but overall not an interesting class at all.
Toby Egan PLCY302 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2022	I loved this subject and the professors were great. Dr. Egan teamed with Dr. Clark and the TA (Zane) was awesome. Diversity and public policy are super important. This was a good way to learn much more from teachers who care about the topic and about students.
Toby Egan PLCY201 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 03/31/2022	This was a very good class. In particular, I liked that we had autonomy to choose a topic that we wanted to explore more deeply. Dr. Egan was super helpful , chill, and gave good feedback. He’s fair and supportive of diversity. Recommended!
Toby Egan PLCY201 Anonymous 03/23/2022	This class was not terribly hard, but it was kind of boring. Dr. Egan is very nice, but his grading seemed a bit arbitrary. The class was pretty heavy on group work which was pretty annoying. I wouldn't take this class unless you are a policy major.
Toby Egan PLCY201 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/30/2021	One of the best classes at UMD so far. Dr. Egan cares about his students and really mixed leadership, our personal development and policy in an interactive and interesting way. I’m definitely signing up for another of Dr. Egan’s classes.
Toby Egan PLCY201 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2021	This was a great class! It was particularly fun to work closer with classmates on projects, learn about ourselves and the class guests were good. Dr. Egan is highly recommended!
Toby Egan PLCY201 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/06/2021	This class is really fun and really easy. There is a lot of interactive aspects with personality tests to understand yourself better and there is a lot of communication with your peers through group work and discussions. You really do not need to read the readings to do well in the class, but they do take attendance every day. This class is definitely not about policy and more about leadership, however Toby still brought in guest speakers who work with policy speak for the class. There is one big group project on a social issue of your groups choice that is really fun and interesting. Toby is really easy to reach out too and is super chill about everything. He actually cares about his students and likes to meet with students to check in often. I think the organization of the class is a little off as the last 8 weeks of the semester was purely presentations which got very old. Overall I would recommend this professor and definitely the course as well.
Toby Egan PLCY201 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/25/2021	The class is very interactive! Dr. Egan is very responsive to students and the class guests were great. It's a fair amount of work, but he does a great job supporting with information and is always accessible. Recommended!
Toby Egan BUSO703 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/31/2021	This is a project class where Dr. Egan is a facilitator. He did a great job of responding immediately to questions and helping our team to work effectively on our client project. Great class! Great professor!
Toby Egan PUAF711 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/17/2021	Awesome teaching and individualized support. Strongly recommended!
Toby Egan BUSO703 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/06/2021	Since taking his excellent class, Dr. Egan has written two letters of recommendation for me and given me great career advice. Thank you!
Toby Egan PLCY388D Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/03/2021	Dr. Egan Rocks!
Toby Egan PLCY388D Anonymous 11/26/2020	This was my best class during Covid. Discussion was good. I got to focus on a social issue I care about and the team project was fun. Dr. Egan was very accessible and super supportive.
Toby Egan PLCY388D Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/22/2020	He did a great job managing a fun and interactive class, even though we were on Zoom for the whole semester! I learned a lot about myself, developed a portfolio about my interests and research on a social problem I care about and am doing new things to make a difference because of this course. Dr. Egan Rocks!
Toby Egan BUSO703 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/08/2020	This is a breakthrough class that allows you to connect all of what you want to use from the program into a real project. The professor set us up for success, gave great feedback and coaching when needed. It's entirely team based and depends most on the learners, but the set-up is what makes it work for everyone. He did a great job!
Toby Egan HONR348D Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/25/2020	After this class, I had a team project that made a difference for children in the community and a portfolio that helped me see my impact, plan for my future and share on job interviews. Dr. Egan makes you work for an "A", but I can't say I have ever had a class that was more meaningful for me.
Toby Egan HONR348D Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2020	Dr. Egan is great. We were not only Do Good Challenge Finalists right out his class, but my team ended up winning the Do Good Challenge and over $10,000. He helped all of the innovative teams in the class and was really responsive to students--gave lots of feedback and was demanding, but fair. Now with his help, I have a great job and am working in an area that I discovered in his class. Don't miss the chance to take this one!
Toby Egan PLCY388D Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2020	He not only helped me and my team figure out a great idea with major social impact, but my team has now won the Do Good Cours e Challenge (his class has won it every year for four or five years) and The Do Good Challenge. Just from being in his class and continuing working on the idea we developed, I have won eight other innovation awards and over $20,000. Great Class, Unbelievable professor. Thank you so much, Dr. Egan!
Toby Egan HONR348D Anonymous 07/01/2019	This class is awesome because you get to work on your own portfolio and create social impact with your team. It's a lot of work, but worth it. The instructor is super helpful, but you will have to do a lot on your own--because the ideas are yours. Many helpful out-of-class guests! Worth taking!
Toby Egan HONR348D Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/01/2019	He's a solid professor in a course design that is all about your development and opportunity. Very few lectures, many outside guests and a focus on what you want to learn and get out of the course. He is great one-on-one and is super helpful. We got to see what other classes taught by other professors did with their projects and ours were by far the best across the board. Some of my friends are taking these projects forward into creating impactful entrepreneurial programs and organizations. Recommended!
Toby Egan HONR348D Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/06/2019	Not an easy class. Stay away unless you have a venture/project already in mind.