Professor Steen is so extremely nice and is always willing to help. His reviews aren't that great, but his class is definitely a good one to take if you need the units.

The homework assignments for this class are short weekly write ups where you just have to respond to a prompt he posts online, 300-500 words. As long as you put an actual effort to answer the question, you should get 100% on all of these assignments. Occasionally he'll give an additional small assignment, but they only take a few minutes (for example, one additional assignment was to make a contribution to Wikipedia) and are super easy.

The midterm and final reviews are useful and were the only things I studied before the exams, but make sure you know them really well. He doesn't give any trick questions, but some of them are not entirely straightforward so you really need to make sure that you know the concepts so that you know which questions to apply them to. The real challenge with exams for this class is that you don't have a lot of time, but he lets you use bullet points to answer the questions so make sure you do that and you'll save a lot of time. The best advice I can give for the exams is to bullet point the relevant concepts and facts related to the question and just write a few sentences afterward explaining your answer. I did almost none of the readings, but it's helpful if you do them since you can use specifics from the readings to better answer the questions. As long as you study and keep track of time, you should be fine, he doesn't seem to grade too hard.

The final project/paper is not bad at all. The good thing about it is that he gives you freedom to choose what to focus your project on, so you can insert your own interests into your project as long as you can relate it to the class.

The review below gives really good insight to what the class is like and how it is structured. Professor Steen is so fucking nice. He responds to emails within the day, often within a few hours in my own personal experience. He is slightly boring in lecture but he really cares about whether or not his students learn and understand the material. He's very accommodating and understanding as well. I'd recommend taking this class, it wasn't too bad.

Comm 154 with Steen consists of weekly discussion posts that were pretty short and simple to write. There was one 24 hour final during week 8 that included a bunch of essay questions. While Steen is extremely nice, he is VERY monotone when he lectures, and it was often hard to pay attention. The content of the class focused on technology including how we send information to each other. I ended up watching all the lectures at 2 times speed the day before the final. There is also a final project that you work on throughout the quarter. You can do it individually (shorter paper) or with a partner (longer paper). I recommend doing it with a partner because the length of the essay wasn't a big issue. Having a partner helped keep me on task and not leave the project to the last minute. Make sure to include a lot of information on how your research was conducted to get a good grade.

Professor Steen was always there if you ever needed help. The class was also full of interesting information that was actually pretty relevant to our generation. Recommend this class if you enjoy learning about the Internet and coding.

This class is boring as heck and although Mr. Steen is a sweet old man he is extremely boring and unorganized. I nearly gave myself a hernia trying to follow along with him throughout the quarter. Attendance matters which I knew from the beginning but honestly just took the L on that due to how much of a struggle it was to sit through his lectures. There are weekly assignments which are tedious discussion responses but not bad. The "final" is taken in like week 8 and is a take-home essay. It was honestly pretty confusing as the material, I feel like, didn't really correlate that much to what we had been learning. It was only like 3 pages tho and I did it in like 3 hours b/c it's structured but definitely gave me a headache. There's a research project due finals week which is 10 pages and you can literally write about anything you want as long as it correlates to how technology has changed society. I honestly thought the TA was a super hard grader bc I turned in the most fire paper and I only got a 93% when I think I definitely should have earned higher but oh well. I also missed points on the assignments which I don't see how you could grade these 300 word responses in a tough manner but maybe I'm just complaining too much. Also had COVID which made me turn in an assignment late and I still got half credit even though Steen knew about my circumstances. I'm assuming he forgot but I reminded him and never heard anything back which was annoying when I probably could have gotten a better overall grade if it weren't for that. Ugh hate complaining this much but I just really hated this class and if you're someone who likes to be engaged and organized and know wtf is going on probs don't take this class. Solid 6/10 class and very uninteresting if you're not a sciency person

Professor Steen is very approachable. If you have trouble understanding the contentS or feeling overwhelmed by the workload, he'd try to help you in the best way. 25 % assignments 25 % and 25% Final and Midterm, and 25% final but he made it optional for extra credit because of the campus shutdown.

I took this class for the communication technology requirement for the major. Prof Steen is so kind! He genuinely cares about students' learning. He wants his students to learn the topics well.

This class is mostly a history class on computers and kind of philosophy about technology and knowledge. You will hear the phrase "standing atop the shoulders of those that came before us" many times. This was interesting but not what I expected. There is a midterm and a noncumulative final. There is also a research project. None of these are very difficult but do study. You can skip the readings.

Steen was disorganized with slides, to say the least. He constantly switched between lessons and did not necessarily go over every slide, but expected us to know the material. He provides review slides but no study guide. I would recommend studying with a group to make sure everyone understands what he tries to say because it can be extremely confusing. The material isn't necessarily difficult, but the way he presents the information does not make much sense.

I liked Steen a lot! I would take a class with him again. I would know how to be prepared to take it - studying in groups, writing out summaries of lecture slides, skipping the readings, and going to his office hours.

The class during the quarter I took it is structured as such: two exams (midterm and a final), write up submissions at least once a week, and a research paper.

The midterm and final are not difficult. They can be a bit challenging if you do not keep up with the readings and if you plan not to, attend class at least though it isn't mandatory because Steen will definitely go over lessons that will be on the exams. These exams are essay questions - they are pretty straight-forward. The writing submissions are mostly response to the readings for the week so they are fairly easy.

Steen is an overall great professor and if you attend his office hours he will thoroughly explain to you concepts and ideas you are not sure of. For example, I came to him regarding the final paper for class. His lectures can be a bit boring because he goes on and on about every idea and it can often be too overwhelming but going to his office hours or talking to him after class will help you understand it as he would try to explain the concepts you are confused with.

Also, he is a slow grader - it could be because there are often 100+ students in his class and he doesn't have a TA so keep in mind that you'll definitely be clueless about your grade until pretty much the grades are posted. Don't fret because as long as you keep up with your writing response and do well in the midterm and final (which are both super easy) then you should be fine.

Really a nice guy, he would tutor everyone one one if he could, responds to emails in 2 minutes, easyest material ever, he's kind of all over the place when it comes to class structure, but everything he sais, word for word, he put online, in day to day sections, no attendance neccesary, just on Fridays when he gives quizes. Why not, an easy 4 units of you need 154.