2.1
Quality3.7
Difficulty20%
Would Retake88
Reviews20%
Would Retake
88
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
5
4
12
3
14
2
19
1
38
What Students Say
“Such an awful professor, I have him for buscomm and he is literally the worst communicator of all time”
BUSORG1101 - 1.0 rating“I'm wiring this as I'm sitting in Gary's class”
BUSCOMM - 2.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
66%
Textbook Required
50%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.38 avg changeRatings by Course
HRM1635
5.0
(1)BUSHR1670
3.5
(2)HRM1050
3.3
(3)HR
3.0
(2)HRM
3.0
(5)Difficulty by Course
BUSCOMM101
4.5
BUSCOM1101
4.3
HR
4.0
HR001
4.0
BUSHR1670
4.0
Reviews (88)
Gary likes to talk. He loves to her himself speak. Prob is his tests are made almost entirely from lecture notes. He takes an easy class and turns it into a hard one. Don't take gary... unless you enjoy mindnumbing ranting for prolonged periods
as an acctg major, this = most painful class ive ever had. gary blabs on and on, and his voice becomes more annoying as the semester progresses. crappy way of grading class: 10% participation (but he never shuts up for anyone else to talk) 35% midterm 55%(!!!) final. avoid him if you can.
Nice guy, boring teacher. He rambles and spends an entire class (120 minutes for my section) on 1 power point slide. His 2 tests are the only grades in the class,unless you count participation and they are based entirely off SPOKEN lecture. Keep away unless you are extremely good at taking notes.
Worst prof I've had so far at Pitt. Only two exams and participation count for your grade, and its a lecture with no time for your participation. Class moves terribly slow, and you'll only cover approximately one powerpoint slide per class. Avoid him!
No Comments
HE WAS AWFUL!!!!! VERY BORING AND UNAPPROACHABLE. AVOID HIM AT ALL COSTS
Very intersting lectures, but the class itself is terrible. Oh, and be warned: 10% participation (but he never shuts up for anyone to talk), 35% midterm, and 55% final
Gary is a very good professor, but I think the negative ratings are in many ways because he is "too good". He goes in depth on topics and is sure to cover everything and answer questions. His class is oriented towards learning and not towards passing a test, as more courses should be.
Lecture class--very dry. Be careful--only 2 tests determine your entire grade--midterm and final. I would recommend attending class often. Exams cover more lecture material than book material. Good luck....
He's very knowledgeable of subject. Overall was a nice guy. The lectures unfortunately were sometimes very dry. The Mid-term & Final had some very ambiguous questions. Although, 25% of class grade was based on pretty easy homework and 10% on participation. He will send, but NEVER under any circumstances respond to email --i asked others as well.
A lot of framework. How to apply it to real life. He likes to speak a lot. I am sick of this class.
This class is painful to go to, but attending helped when I was able to pay attention. He moves very slow through topics. My friend and I used to play hangman to stay awake. If you take his class, find a buddy.
Worst teacher ever..apparently you do the homework correctly and get a 50 percent for some unknown reason
he knows his stuff but man does he like to hear himself talk. never stops talking. takes him 10 mins to say something that should take 1 sentence. 5 easy homeworks. no use of the book. tests are hard (lot of material). and going to class is unbelievably boring. never will respond to an email. but is a nice guy
Horrible teacher. It takes him forever to explain simple concepts. I had the 8am class and he was late to class 90% of the time, kept blaming traffic. Canceled class a few hours before class started once and takes nearly a week to respond to emails.
I took him for IntroHR & wasn't sure about him. But I took him again for Global HR and I loved the class. Very interesting and he really valued students opinions and ideas. The class was not like Intro. at all. He is a great professor, however the topics in IntroHR are so dry & extensive it makes it seem like he isn't.
Professor Florkowski is a very helpful professor who is all too willing to give help if asked for it. Some of the material is hard to grasp and his tests are difficult if you don't know the material well. Going to class and taking notes is imperative. But overall not too bad.
A poor professor for Intro to HR, but it's a completely different story for the global HR class. The class was about 50% discussion based; he valued contributions to the class; the tests were tough but open notebook; he answered questions well and is very knowledgeable about the issues in international human resources. I recommend.
Midterm and Final only & 5 homeworks. Homework is easy, mostly just gathering info from random websites. Study book and slides for tests. Class is boring -not mandatory but he "knows" if you go and that counts towards participation, but go and take notes if you want a better grade.
Take notes on EVERY word he says. He rambles on and on and expects you to write everything. He curves nicely, but the tests are the hardest ones in CBA. To be safe, don't take the class not unless you have to. This is a GPA 'dropper.'
Not the most interesting class in CBA. Material is very dry. Professor Florkowski rambles about material not relevant to the class. I would not take this class if you don't have to. Also, there's no need to purchase this text book. We didn't use it much during the semester.
He isn't a bad professor. Spends a lot of classes on one powerpoint slide. An A is completely manageable without the text. Figure out when he wants you to write things down (he'll speak extra slowly) and when he wants you to answer a question in class and you're set for the class without having to write every word he says.
I had Prof. Florkowski for both Intro to HR and Global Workforce Management. Global is a lot more difficult and heavily discussion based. Also, the group project is worth over a third of your grade, so start on it early and pick a good group. Overall the class was okay, material was interesting at times and tests were very difficult but open book.
Speak fast, spent almost a class session just on one slide, have no idea how to go over the material before the exam, he is boring always put me into sleep
Gary Flowkowski is the worst teacher I've had at Pitt, thus far. Never hands back assignments or brings them like he says he will. Doesnt explain or mention assignments or due dates AT ALL. Has responded to one out of ten emails the entire semester. Don't count on him for anything. Reads notes straight off slides which is made by the book company
Terrible professor. I had him during undergrad and wasn't a fan but took a class of his again, Entering Foreign Markets, to give him another shot. BIG mistake. Never gave us assignments back until after our Final. Never posted review questions as promised. Spent too much time on items in the beginning of the course and rushed the end. BAD BAD BAD
He was extremely unhelpful during class and has to be one of the single most boring teachers ever. I know human resources isn't the most interesting of subjects for most people, but I've taken him in another course and his lectures are just as dry. It literally feels like torture having to sit through his lectures
I'm wiring this as I'm sitting in Gary's class. This was the final straw. In the week before, of, and after Thanksgiving, he has assigned: 3 presentations, a paper, and a group assignment he posted on courseweb, never mentioned, and came into class today wondering why not a single student had it done. For being a Comm prof, he has 0 comm skills.
Lot of group work, attendance is mandatory, and if you dont participate you'll also lose points. He's alright, doesnt do anything excpetionally well or poorly. No tests, just lots of speechesprojects. Biggest complaints would be #1 He's a pretty slow grader on assignments #2 The course was SUPER BACKLOADED with work. #3 Class is repetitveboring
Grades very harshly, not clear at all on what he wants. Took off 5 points off my presentation because I flipped my hair... so slow on getting back to e-mails.
Worst professor I personally have encountered in my three years here at Pitt. Unclear in expectations and extremely tough grader. Most boring lectures I have ever had to sit through and really haven't learned anything from them. HIGHLY recommend NOT taking this professor.
Gary is the worst professor I have experienced at Pitt. He has poor communication skills, puts kids to sleep in his lectures, grades completely subjectively and is unfair. This should be an easy A class since it is all common sense but Gary makes your work hard for the A.
Boring lessons, based on quite old publicly available reports. Difficult to reach - doesn't answer mails. No feedback and grading seemed random.
Such an awful professor, I have him for buscomm and he is literally the worst communicator of all time. All assignments are extremely vague and don't make much sense. Half the time he has to post an example because so many people are confused. Some assignments are just downright stupid. Learned nothing I didn't learn in fifth grade, I'm serious.
Pros: excited about the topic, knowledgable, lectures can be interesting if you like the topic Cons: extremely disorganized, grading criteria is vague at best, tends to get off track during lectures
he is horrible and misleading. no help for the final project. he doesn't care about your final grade and he says to not worry but you need to worry because it's worse usually than what you thought. HORRIBLE CLASS AND HORRIBLE PROFESSOR. Ruined my self-esteem and confidence. I learned that poor grammar is -3 points each mistake.
I would recommend taking this class with another prof, but apparently theyre all bad. In a recent assignment, the class average was below a 60%. He told us he will not be curving the grades, despite only one group scoring above an 80. Everyone else got in the 50s or 40s. The worst part is that he didnt even grade the assignment. Another prof did.
Gary is awful. He was so vague on every assignment and basically was setting us up for failure. We were thrown into every single assignment blind. This course in general is absolutely terrible.
I went into taking his class expecting to dread it due to these ratings, but he's not that bad. Just make sure you quadruple check your assignments for grammar/spelling mistakes and utilize all the resources he has on Coureweb. His courseweb might be the most confusing thing on this planet, but if you ask him to clarify something he will.
Very vague about every single graded assignment. Three grammar mistakes knock you down an entire letter grade. Doesn't cover graded assignments but will cover non-graded assignments like it is a life or death task. Not worth showing up to class as none of the things you learn are worth a grade. Been at every class and received no benefit for it.
This class is an intro class, it should not be that difficult to pass. His lectures are so boring its hard to pay attention. If you pay attention and have notes, you have the material to study for the 2 exams. The exams are so hard, but the material is easy to understand. Take him if you're a good test taker.
Unbearably boring lecturer who spends 1hr lecturing on 5 mins of content. Never regretted being an A&S/Business dual major more.
While this course is lecture heavy, material is interesting and he really wants everyone to do well. Meet with him outside class and was very helpful. All you have to do is go to class and take good notes. 2 tests that you NEED good notes. Only other graded work is an interactive group project over the course of the semester.
Professor is clear and straightforward, and he clearly knows what he is talking about. The course is very lecture heavy, but the material was somewhat interesting. Graded on two exams and a year-long simulation group project, which is actually pretty interesting.
Simply not a good professor. Papers almost every week that are graded very harshly with little feedback. He will give you a rubric but not the actual corrections on your paper. Very harsh with participation grade and forces you to do many projects outside of class that are not for credit at all. Boring lectures and a lot of work, look elsewhere.
He is passionate and a nice person, but I would avoid him if you can. Dry PPT slides, exams65% of your grade, and no study guide. After failing the midterm(which is unusual for me), I did much better by skipping some classes and watching the recordings later. He talks thru topics quickly so its hard to take GOOD notes and listen simultaneously.
For teaching a class on communication, this professor is ironically a terrible communicator. Half of my class failed the final paper because he was unclear what he was looking for on it, and he blamed us for not magically knowing. His feedback will help you improve your public speaking, but I would avoid at all costs.
Garys a very nice man but thats about the only positive thing about him. He a horrible lecturer. I was battling to stay awake for because his lectures are so dry. You only get graded on 3 things so its hard to recover if you dont do well on one. Just try your best to do well but its going to be a challenge.
HR management can only be so interesting. I think Dr. Florkowski did a nice job to put some life into an otherwise boring subject. He is a caring professor who continually offers to clarify points in class and meet in office hours to help out. Test heavy but not extremely difficult, thoroughly review lecture and get to know the simulation early on.
I really like this professor as a person and he is very kind. I would probably take him again because I do think he cares about teaching and his students. However, I found the tests extremely hard which may have not been the case for every student. He does offer generous curves.
Very long, boring lectures. No discussion. Just lectures. The material could have been interesting, but it was not. Grades on somewhat esoteric criteria that is not clear to students.
I really enjoyed this class. He's a crazy smart guy -- probably too good for this class. It is VERY lecture heavy, every class is a lecture with no real discussion but he does ask questions sometimes (can be boring). He's a super nice guy, just try to stay as engaged as you can and take notes because they will help you so much for the exams.
Definitely a smart man, but very unaware of his class and their thoughts on the material. Lectures were long and drawn out. There was also very little review of material once it was presented.
Avoid Gary. Does not care at all about his students. Will not respond to emails for days. Exams are tough and take up most of the grade. Just overall was a bad professor.
Would not recommend this professor. Extremely dry lectures, does not care about students, grade is based on literally 3 assignments. Test are extremely difficult. AVOID
Gary Florkowski is just awful. The content is easy, yet he grades every assignment super hard. He barely explains any assignments, so it is hard to know what he is even asking for. This class should be doable to receive an A based on the content, yet he feels the need to grade everyone so harshly. I would not recommend this class to anyone.
Gary Florkowksi is by far one of the worst professors I had at Katz. Lectures are 3 hours long and online. They are very boring because there is no engagement. He just reads the slides the entire time. Lots of assignments that just seem like busy work with no real meaning behind them. Takes a long time to grade. Stay away, awful professor!!
Completely inaccessible, Lectures dryer than leftover turkey, he could not explain assignment in a less clear way even if he tried, and also he grades extremely harshly so that not many people can get an A. Please don't take any class with Gary.
Gary Florkowski is a genuine guy who is very nice. I can say a lot of good things about him personally, but as a teacher, is not the the strongest at all. First of all, he is a tough grader. For a guy criticizing speech presentations, its equally as tough staying awake in class because lecture is so dry. He never explains anything either.
The lectures are so long. I can never tell if what he's saying is important or if it's just a tangent in his lecture. ALl you have in class are discussion boards, HR simulation, and finals. there's breakout work that doesn't even get graded. I show up to class only because attendance is required but if it wasn't, there would be no point to show.
Gary is such a boring lecturer. Attendance is mandatory. He takes forever to grade the assignments and the directions he would like us to follow are not clear. The Canvas course had dates that were incorrect and caused confusion with due dates. Although not good, he probably won't even end up being your worst option for this course.
According to his syllabus, I should've had an A, but he removed his class from canvas without even grading the rest of my assignments. Prof. Gary was not a good professor at all. All I did during his lectures was go on my phone. He would give random assignments that he expected you do to do that were worth 0 points. Kind of a tough grader as well.
Participation matters, there are multiple presentations and group projects. The work load is not overwhelming, but as long as you put in effort your grade will reflect that. His grading is not tough, although the professor would give detailed feedback for each assignment. No tests.
He is the type of professor who lectures with little slides, so it is important to put away any distractions and take good notes. If you pay attention, class is super easy (and occasionally interesting). No homework besides the simulation, which I found to be fun. Overall, not bad for an intro course, and I felt I learned more about HR.
For a six week course, you'll have a paper due every week where you'll be lucky to pull a 40/50 even while putting maximum effort into the assignments. Finds a way to nit pick your work to justify a lower grade and will wait until after class surveys are in to grade all of the classwork. Rather receive feedback without killing my GPA in the making.
Seems like a nice enough guy but is ironically an abysmal communicator. Never clear on directions, guidelines, or constructive criticism.
Terrible prof. Somehow he is incompetent with technology+communication despite teaching online communication. Tons of useless busy work assignments that aren't even for a grade but are for "bragging rights." Promises grades by a certain day and 2 weeks after you don't have them. Claims he thought he released grades. Class = waste of time+money.
This class is very exam-heavy (2 exams are 65% of your grade). If you take notes on literally everything he says in lecture, you will do well and find that the exams arent too bad, and he does curve very generously. He tests on material that he says in class and not whats in the power points, so if you are not a good note taker DO NOT take him.
Good professor except assignment instruction are always very unclear so its frustrating to work hard on an assignment just to get a bad grade because you didn't understand the instructions.
Professor Florkowski clearly knows what he's talking about. He's very informational. While his lectures often do take tangents, all the material you need for the exams is on the slides. The group project of the simulation and two tests make up the majority of your grade. He's very accessible outside of class, take good notes and you'll do great.
Easily one of the worst and boring professors I have ever had, HRM was an attributing factor in my transfer out of Katz. I hated every second of this class. Its HR, not rocket science.
Avoid at all costs. He provides no feedback on assignments and grades extremely harsh. He is also the worst communicator. He couldn't answer any questions regarding our assignments and often confused us more. His lectures were the most boring thing I've ever sat through. Do not take him.
By far the worst professor I have had at Pitt. The class had zero structure to it. We would do busy work projects all semester in a group that was worth nothing. The individual assignments were never clearly communicated and we wouldn't go over the correct materials to prepare us. I hope I never have to take his courses again.
This is easily the worst class I have ever taken in my entire educational career at Pitt. Gary is an exceptionally tough and subjective grader, the content we learn in class is basic and irrelevant, and the class was frankly a huge waste of time and money. I would recommend Pitt to take this completely out of the curriculum.
Gary F. If you can DO NOT TAKE HIM. I have never experienced such unclear and incompetent grading outlines and expectations for literally every single assignment. He leaves you high and dry for assignments that he does not tell you about and then grades ridiculously hard for no reason. You will not get an A in the class, even my advisor said so.
This guy never explains any of his assignments and always expects a level of work that he never communicates to his class.. Isn't this supposed to be a communications class? How can you teach a communications class without being able to communicate the bare minimum about what you want and are expecting in an assignment?? AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!
The worst and least understanding teacher I have ever had in my history of education. Even if you have to take this class for credit, wait until next semester for someone else. Trust me. He is not nice at all and makes a big deal for missing class or making up a test. Its almost like he has to do something for once.
Literally ruined my GPA and was one of the worst professors I've had. Avoid him if you can.
You have no idea what to expect of your final grade until the last day because he doesn't post any grades on canvas. Exams were also very hard and it was impossible to do good on them.
Delayed grading (often weeks-long), with feedback arriving only at semester's end. Assignments were vague and disconnected from course material. Uses outdated curriculum and inconsistent grading. What should be a fairly easy and straightforward course will end up being a trap, and not because the content is hard, because of the horrible professor.
Went to his office hours and studied so hard for the exams but still can't get a good grade for this class. He made an intro class way too difficult than it should be.
Easily the worst professor in the entirety of Pitt's business school. The only reason why I took him is because he is the only professor who currently teaches a class that is required for the sports management certificate. If I see a section of this course that is taught by anyone else later down the line, I plan on repeating it for a better grade.
In my experience, if you make an effort to stay engaged and participate in class, you should have no issue doing well. Gary is very accessible outside of class and is willing to work with you if you put in the effort. The lectures/content, however, are very boring and the course is definitely harder than it should be.
Gary is a nice guy. I also think he cares about what he teaches. However, BusComm is a tough class to sit through. Expectations are extremely unclear. Most of the time rubrics were recycled from assignments from previous years which were no longer relevant. There aren't any tests or quizzes, which is definitely a plus.
Rubrics were a little confusing - but if you ask questions he always gives good answers. Participating in class is key - pay attention and you will know what is going on and what he wants to see. We were only graded on papers and presentations - no exams. Very knowledgable guy.
Just avoid this guy at all costs. While he is very knowledgeable and passionate about what he teaches— his poor rubrics and confusing grading system completely outweighs any benefit from his teaching abilities. The rubrics for each assignment do not reflect what he expects and are often outdated. He's also the toughest grader I've had yet.
For an intro class he took it way too serious. Gave a crazy amount of work and this includes group work. I would not recommend him as a professor.
Gary was not a good professor. I advise you don't take him. He does not give clear instructions for what he wants, or good/any feedback for the grades he gives. He interrupts students in class when they talk, doesn't explain any of his assignments that are graded, and acts like it's your fault when you failed to meet his unclear expectations
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
66%
Textbook Required
50%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.38 avg changeRatings by Course
HRM1635
5.0
(1)BUSHR1670
3.5
(2)HRM1050
3.3
(3)HR
3.0
(2)HRM
3.0
(5)Difficulty by Course
BUSCOMM101
4.5
BUSCOM1101
4.3
HR
4.0
HR001
4.0
BUSHR1670
4.0