Robert Sprinkle

This professor has taught: AGNR301, HONR279N, PLCY101, PLCY488B, PLCY698E, PLCY735, PLCY745, PLCY784, PUAF300, PUAF301, PUAF650, PUAF688E, PUAF699D, PUAF735, PUAF745, PUAF784

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Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/16/2025	I really really wanted to give Sprinkle a higher rating than this, but I just can't. I personally think he's hilarious and is clearly very knowledgeable on the material, which is very interesting. However, the course name has nothing to do with what is actually discussed, which is a point he brings up on the very first day. As for assignments, there are four memos with increasingly vague prompts that make up the biggest chunk of your grade and must be turned in on paper. You can turn them in multiple times and get TA feedback, which was actually great, but the assignments themselves were very hard to grasp and there is no guidance. There is a midterm and final exam, both of which consist of open-ended short essay questions about policy issues that are discussed in lectures or the reading. The grading seems very arbitrary and you just kind of have to write a well-formed argument and hope that it matches TAs' expectations of what should be in the answers to prompts (this goes for the exams and memos). Sprinkle as a lecturer isn't very engaging and the slides notes he posts are useless without attending lectures, which he acknowledges. I had to miss a few lectures for various reasons and am just hoping that I can take enough from the slide points and the readings to compensate for what I missed. If you aren't a strong writer, I would recommend taking this class.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2025	Loved this class. The professor was awesome-- incredibly knowledgeable and kind, always brought a new angle to each topic and emphasized the intersection of human psychology, empathy, and policy. The assignments were also very easy-- three short memos, a page long with no sources, and a long memo of your choosing. The thing with these is you can do them however many times you want until you get the grade you want and they'll all due at the end of the semester. There are readings, but you only really need them for the midterm and final. No attendance, but it's pretty important to show up to lectures: that's where he explains the slides. He is soft-spoken, but is oftentimes funny and engaging, and I think the content is interesting. I'd really recommend this class- it's a very classic college lecture, minimal workload, and the professor is one of the best I've had. I came out of that class feeling like I could talk about Locke's theories without sounding like an idiot.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2025	This class is very strange. All the memos are REQUIRED to be printed out and physically handed in — 3 small memos and a larger advisory memo that's worth 30% of your grade. They are entirely open-ended, with nothing to help except a single question (no rubric, format guidelines, examples, etc.). I'd never written an advisory memo before and the TAs were very unhelpful, only telling me to look up how to write one and offering no other advice. The TAs go through your work very fast, but I don't blame them since are over 50 people in this class. No grades are ever posted on Canvas. TAs said they "aren't allowed" to, so you'll have to go up and ask them your grade every time. Lectures are very boring. Exams are on paper and so vaguely worded I'd advise just doing the readings and studying overall concepts instead of trying to make sense of the notes you took while half-asleep in class.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/08/2025	Professor Sprinkle, though doubtless a knowledgeable lecturer, outsources all of his grading to his TAs, who themselves grade the assignments without any rubric or criteria; this results in what could generously be described as capricious grading. You are left entirely in the dark about your grade for the semester, seeing as the Professor and TAs are allergic to using ELMS for its intended purpose. The in-person, written midterm is not terribly difficult, but the method on which it is graded is opaque; the questions are subjective, so there is hardly an objective criterion, meaning the TAs have complete and total mercy over your grade.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/24/2025	PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE. The TA's are horrible. You ask them a question and they have no knowledge on how to answer it yet grade very harshly. The Professor is really nice though. You also do not know what your grade is all semester and the memo directions are so open-ended and make no sense but you get a bad grade on it if you don't give the specific answer the TA wants even though they don't give a rubric on any of the assignments. All the exams are also very open-ended and have nothing to do with the long readings they assign. Please take this course with someone else if you can. Worst policy class I have taken so far.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/20/2025	This class is fairly easy, but incredibly annoying and boring. Professor Sprinkle seems sweet but is not a very engaging lecturer. There are four memos, and you have to turn them in on paper, which feels unnecessary. The TAs give nit-picky feedback that forces you to rewrite memos. The exams are on paper free response questions. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have slides, and the notes he does post make no sense outside of the context given in lecture. This makes his exam questions tricky— I got 100 on the midterm since I used relevant examples from the readings but tbh the questions were long winded and made no sense.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/20/2025	This class is fine. Everybody says Dr. Sprinkle is incredibly boring, and they're right. He speaks slow, quietly, doesn't interact with the class much and often goes on tangets that make it difficult to take notes. Specifially in relation to PLCY101, the lectures almost have nothing to do with the assignments, as they are mostly made up by memos (60% of the grade) where you can chose any topic you want. The writing assignments also have SUPER leniant and you can just submit them as many times as you want before a certain deadline to get a better grade, but you can only get a C, B, or A, there aren't actual number grades. Even the midterm and final is based on topics that may have been covered in class but you can just get it from the readings on ELMS. Since the class is generally easy, and the TA's aren't super strict on grading, I'd give it 3 stars. To pass, skip the lecture and put effort into the memos and policy paper, then study for the midterm and final by reviewing and taking notes on the readings.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/02/2025	AVOID AT ALL COSTS Yes, the professor is super knowledgable but the structure of this class makes no sense. Don't know how I got a B in a 101 course, one of the TA's was horrible. The exams also are so open-ended which should be a good thing but it wasn't because if you don't write what they want to hear then you end up getting a bad grade.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/29/2025	Pros Really sweet and knowledgeable man Cons -Very dry lecturer. You will feel like going to sleep. -There are no deadlines, just turn in the assignments when you feel like it. I get his reasoning for that, but I don't think this is an appropriate format for a 100 level undergraduate course where many of the students are freshman or taking this to fulfill a major requirement (I was at a table with engineering majors). -One of the TA's shared with me that the class resembled the structure of a graduate course as it was very open-ended. I was not a fan - Unless you were at the lecture and took notes, the slides will not make any sense when reviewing them later.
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2025	Dr. Sprinkle is clearly a great guy and a well-intentioned professor, but his classes don't reach anywhere near that level. For one, the lectures are quite dull, consisting of monotonous projector reading with the occasional quip or question. Additionally, the content of both the midterm and final exam were not clearly and consistently connected to the lectures at all. The TAs did their best to help the students manage this disconnect and succeed - they did a great job of that, too - but even then, everything felt like a shot in the dark when submitting. 2 exams and 5 memos over the course of a semester is manageable, though. But overall, wouldn't really recommend him as a professor.
Robert Sprinkle Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2025	He is such as sweet and funny professor, I will say his lectures are unorganized but he makes up for it because of how nice he is
Robert Sprinkle PLCY101 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2025	Extremely, extremely boring. Lectures are hard to sit through. DO NOT TAKE WITH HIM
Robert Sprinkle Anonymous 11/26/2012	The sustainability department has already found a new professor for this class next semester. It's awful. He's awful. So boring. It's obvious he is a graduate professor. The readings he assigns are ridiculous. Plus the whole class is 3 assignments and a final. God only knows what grade I'll get.