Class structure:
• Pretty small class (around ~20-30 people, think high school), which made it less "scary" when delivering speeches; you'll definitely know everyone in the class by the end of the quarter.
• Professor is very engaging during her lectures. Sometimes there were impromptu speech activities based on the lecture concepts, in which you get into groups & deliver a very short speech based on your assigned prompt. These were very easy since you could delegate spoken points across your group.
• Attendance is apart of your grade & mandatory! I personally missed 1 class, but I let the professor know beforehand & I received a 95% on my attendance by the end of the quarter.

Speeches:
• The class itself consists of 3 speeches--an introduction speech, an informational speech, a persuasive speech. All speeches are around ~5 minutes, & you can use notes during them. You must submit an outline of your speech (ie. bullet points) & the professor will provide feedback before you present. You also need some sort of visual aid (most people did slides) to accompany your speech.
• The last speech is a commemorative speech, which is a little different to the previous speeches--it's only 3 minutes & it consists of receiving/giving an award from/to a classmate. The professor briefs you on this later in the quarter.
• Even if you're "bad" at public speaking, the lowest grade I've seen on Bruinlearn for the speeches is a B--as long as you put in effort & demonstrate that you tried, you'll definitely be fine.

Final/Midterm:
• There's no midterm exam! :)
• The final is a multiple choice & short answer exam, entirely based on the study guide provided at the beginning of the course. There's around ~60(?) multiple choices questions, & 15 short answer questions (you only have to answer 11 of them). The short answer questions are pretty flexible--there's no required word count requirement, so long as your answer demonstrates your understanding of the concept. I personally used a Quizlet I found online, it's pretty much just memorization of vocabulary terms/concepts.
• Also, the final is taken during week 10, so you have one less final to worry about during finals week which is nice.

Overall--pretty easy class! Definitely improved my public speaking skills; as long as you put in the effort & you'll definitely get at the very least a B.

This will be the closest you will feel to a highschool classroom. Since it is small and dependent on "communicating," you get to know a lot of people around you. I enjoyed it, but the material itself is a bit boring since it is majority common sense. Very easy! Helped with others conversation skills a lot, and I saw a lot of growth. I would recommend, Mclean was funny too!

This class was very fun and I enjoyed attending. Attendance is mandatory and counts towards your grade. The class is comprised of giving 3 speeches and a final at the end. The final is multiple choice with some short answer and is just based on presentations Prof Mclean gives in class and then posts online, so studying for it was easy. Overall, I think that this class really improved my public speaking skills, and I also learned a lot from listening to other speeches. I recommend if you are looking for a fun class to balance out more serious ones. Super easy A as long as you show up. Grading on the speeches is not too harsh and the Professor is understanding.

if you want to learn the structure of the industry. workload is okay.

Awesome Professor! The work is super manageable, even if you leave it to the last minute. For a six-week course, I never felt overwhelmed with the modules as each week you work on a creative project associated with your make believe brand. Professor Mclean provides you with everything you need to succeed and get an A such as recorded lectures, slides, and student examples from the past for the week's project. Trust me, take this class. I was not a communications major and took this as an elective for HBS and do not regret taking this class for summer.

Really easy fun class. The professor is super sweet and gives lots of feedback which is super helpful. There was about 6 speeches that are all about 5-6 minutes and one final exam that was straightforward.

I loved this class, and I loved this professor. There were definitely times at the beginning of the quarter where it was a a lot of work, but thats just because I took it during C-Sesh Instead of a normal quarter. Totally doable class, and very interesting content. The class is paced out by the professor, so if you are looking for a class that you can do at your own pace, as fast or as slow throughout the quarter, this is not the one since there are about 3-4 assignments due at the end of the week every single week.

This class was literally the bane of my existence. I didn't use to mind public speaking UNTIL I took this class...now I hate it. We had to submit outlines of our speech before we performed them, and her comments were so subjective. She nitpicked the smallest details that she didn't like in our outlines then gave us awful scores.

The class itself was chill and the content was easy. The final exam was straightforward and she just repeated the same questions that were on the study guide.

Comms 1 is a great class otherwise, but please just take it with another professor if you can.