John Arthos just teaches the online portion of the class, and you will more than likely have a different teacher for your smaller section for Public Oral Communication. His lectures are very confusing, and long (about 50 min each, once a week) and he does a poor job of explaining the material that he wants you to know for quizzes and exams.

His class is designed poorly, and for a class REQUIRED by the college, it was a pain in the butt. Worst experience with a class ever.

Absolutely terrible experience in this class. Arthos does not clearly teach, the metaphors are too obscure to follow, and the online lectures are miserable. If you do not memorize the terms' definitions exactly as he describes them, you will not get credit for the question. For a speech teacher, he stutters and cannot clearly present his ideas.

Do not do this to yourself. This is the worst class that i have ever taken for absolutely no reason. Arthos does not know how to talk and then expects you to be able to rewrite every word he has ever said about anything in this class on the tests, otherwise you aren't getting any credit.

He is pretentious and rude. His tests are terrible and blames the students when most fail them. He is absolutely terrible at explaining anything during the lectures. His long-winded examples make zero sense and are unrelated and too complex to analyze with out extensive background knowledge (which he will not explain to you). Worst class ever.

You have to watch the lectures and read to even have a chance at doing well on the tests and quizzes. He takes words that have no connection to rhetoric and makes them vocabulary you have to know. He doesn't actually define the connection either. Just uses 20 minute analogies without making a clear connection. You better know lectures front to back

Online lectures are torture to sit through, the video quality is terrible (sound/image are way off making it hard to follow, although I doubt this is his fault), and his lectures make almost no sense. Definitely read the textbook and hope that helps you enough.

Fascination subject, horrible execution. Class information is in 10 different places. Most recent quiz had four questions asking which words Arthos uses in his lectures instead of the culturally accepted terms used in the textbook. All jumping through hoops, instead of focusing on public speaking concepts. IU needs to send in someone to re-org.

This class is torturous. Dr. Arthos' lectures are so poorly organized that it's difficult to follow along--they have no discernible outline or structure. He also does a bad job defining the concepts he wants you to know, and they rarely overlap with concepts from the book or content discussed in the lab sections.

Worst class I've ever taken. Arthos spend most of his time trying to prove how smart he is, yet he fails to define/teach anything. He is the WORST public speaker I've ever heard and watching him speak in the videos is torture. There's no way to avoid this class, but God, I wish there were.

The video lecture system is ineffective--most of the time the video is buffering, there is no sound, or the sound does not sync up to the video. Most people I know just read the lecture slides. The more he explains himself, the more confused I feel about the material. He forces you to memorize a ton of vocab, but makes up vague meanings for them.

Easily the worst class I've taken at IU. Online lectures were long and dry. Online homework was often very difficult and confusing. It seemed as if the homework was there only to justify the lectures. The amount of work and level of difficulty for this class was off the charts for it being 100 level. Unless required avoid this course at all costs

This was perhaps the most useless GenEd requirement I had to take. The textbook was unorganized and difficult to peruse and John Arthos' online lectures were boring and tedious. Getting a good discussion instructor is necessary to receiving a good grade in the class.

Easily one of the worst classes I've had to take at IU, if not the worst. I've never felt the need to come on this site to vent about a class, but in this case it had to be done. The class structure is very disorganized, with an overreliance on technology that doesn't always work and some of the driest lectures ever from Professor Arthos.

By far Coll-P 155 is the worst class I have ever taken. I am a psychology major, and this class is absolutely worthless. For someone with a 3.9 GPA, I have worked hard for my grades. I work even harder in this class and am told I will still get a B. this required course is a disgrace. It should not be reuiqred

Pointless, horrible lectures. Useless assignments that teach nothing. Grading rubrics that are needlessly strict. A disgrace of a gen-ed and a waste of time and money. If you don't have a good AI, you will hate this class. If you have a good AI, you will mildly be able to tolerate this class. Either way, you won't be happy.

He's by far the worst professor I've ever had. His lectures are long-winded metaphors that he forgets to finish. I think he cares more about seeming smart than making sure his students understand what he's talking about, but he is the only professor who teaches public speaking which is required. Please, for your own sanity, take it at Ivy Tech.

He makes up new definitions for already existing words and then expects you to memorize them for quizzes. That's it. Just don't.

I'd read the horror stories. They're all true. This is far and away the worst class I've taken at IU. The structure is incredibly ineffective, Arthos is pedantic and boring, and the content is painfully, painfully boring. Also, your TA can make, or break, your experience, so goodluck rolling the dice. If possible, take this class elsewhere.

He takes public speaking way too seriously. Makes up words and then quizzes you on them. Impossible to get a good grade in this class. Also leaves grading completely up to the AIs, which sucks when you have an AI who actually seems like he wants to fail you. The class is unorganized and has a ton of problems and is an embarrassment to IU.

John Arthos is horrible. His lectures and his classes are so disjointed that you never know what is going on. He creates his own vocabulary and teaches a public speaking course even though he is terrible at public speaking. What you learn in the course is more about speech theory than actually speaking, but you still are forced to speak. The Worst.

Professor Arthos gives online lectures which are very boring and confusing. You have to take word-for-word notes to pass the quizzes, which are ridiculously specific. He reads directly off of his slides, but the slides are not posted. He is not good at doing lectures, even though he is teaching a public speaking class. This class sucks.

This class blows. I highly recommend taking it through ivy tech, as it is a class that requires a ton of work, for something so stupid. The lectures are long and boring, and the online quizzes are over very small things that the lectures barely cover

This class sucks. Do not take him for P155, get the credit somewhere else because John Arthos literally cannot teach, and everything he quizzes you on is all interchangeable, meaning they all could be right, but he thinks they all could be wrong. Honestly, this class stressed me more than any of my pre-med classes, if that tells you anything.

He was only the lecturer, but boy was he terrible. For a speech class you would expect the prof to be able to speak well, but he cant! He liked to make up words too, so when you have (the completely useless) mini quizzes, you cant even look up what it means! He was absolutely terrible but unfortunately you dont have a choice in lecturer

This guy is a joke. Please I beg you don't ever take any of his classes. He has to be the absolute worst teacher I have ever had. I cannot stress how awful this class is. Do yourself a favor, don't take it or find a different teacher to teach you it.

This guy is a joke. Please I beg you don't ever take any of his classes. He has to be the absolute worst teacher I have ever had. I cannot stress how awful this class is. Do yourself a favor, don't take it or find a different teacher to teach you it. Not to mention the IU Canvas is terrible. Everything about this class is awful.

John likes to use complicated language to explain simple concepts. This seems slightly ironic since his class is supposed to teach us how to communicate our ideas to the general public. In my opinion, his class should be renamed speech theory because none of the content is applicable to the real world.

The Lectures that he does make little to no sense, and almost are never on topic to what is going on. He over complicates the lectures for no reason and after every lecture every student is more confused than when they started. We do two mini units a week and they usually make very little sense. For a public speaker nothing he talks about is clear.

John Arthos must have a great imagination because he just keeps coming up with words and his lectures are like listening a grandfather with alzheimer's . I find it honestly surprising that he actually has a degree and not that he was on academic probation at IU and had to sign a contract to work there so he didn't get kicked out.

This class honestly made me worse at public speaking than i already was. The class was so unorganized so we had no idea what we were supposed to do. There is so much busy work that it pointless. Half the assignments don't even work on Canvas and you're basically teaching yourself the material.

He teaches via recording, reading from a teleprompter, and still misquotes and misattributes basic high school level literary works. Because he cannot effectively communicate, his videos are confusing and nebulous, yet he places the onus of confusion on the student. That is not effective teaching, nor is it effective Public Oral Communication.

DONT TAKE IT UNLESS YOU HAVE TO. this class was more work than my Kelley classes and the teacher was so rigid and not at all understanding.

By far the worse class that i have taken at IU. Not only were John's lecture's extremely pointless, they served no real purpose when it came time for the actual speeches. The online portion of this class is literally a whole class in itself and requires way too much work for a public speaking class.

John Arthos is the worst professor at IU. He literally doesn't do an ounce of work for this course as he just makes you watch two year old videos he already made and then makes the AI doing everything else (grading, teach in person, etc.). It is incredibly ironic that he teaches a public speaking course yet he doesn't speak in front of anyone ever.

Easily worst class Ive taken at IU & I despised calculus.. a lot. Taught 2x a week by random lab instructors so youre never interacting with the person who has control over the course. Online lectures are extremely confusing bc Arthos uses loaded terminology/makes up definitions which makes it hard to follow the instructions of the speeches. 0/10

the speeches are useless and the grad students grade too hard.

This professor is terrible. You never actually meet with him face-to-face unless you were to go to his office hours. He makes videos as lectures and you can tell he is simply reading a script while occasionally referencing a powerpoint. He 100% makes up definitions for words so you can't look it up because you'll get a completely different answer.

This class is awful. Half of John's 'words' and 'definitions' are made up. Seriously. If I wanted a professor to read from a powerpoint, I'd be my own professor. It's not worth going to campus 2x/weekly to sit there and be taught by someone NOT John, for less than an hour just to have the person read from a powerpoint there too. Waste of time.

This is the first professor I have ever written a review for because he is just that bad. For even the most simple of concepts he chooses to go to the thesaurus to sound as academic and unnecessarily sophisticated. All the while trying to explain that speeches should be easy to understand. Extremely unclear and little relevance to in person class

I'm a junior and until now, have liked or been indifferent to every professor. Arthos is a prime example of ego and a lack of self-awareness. Although a gen-ed, I went into the class hoping to improve; instead, most of the class is about irrelevant, made-up, biased concepts that serve to make Arthos look scholarly, some of which will make you worse

The worst class I have taken in college, and having senior standing, that's saying something. Arthos was the worst lecturer, made up words and definitions, and was a horrible speaker. TopHat was terribly written. The individual lab instructor only made things worse, giving horrible feedback and made students feel bad. Neither should be teaching!

The class, this professor, and the lab instructor were absolutely awful. I took this class in my first semester of college and needless to say it did not give me a great first impression of IU professors. Tons of busy work assignments, did not improve my public speaking, nothing is clear AT ALL, lectures suck, and tophat is the worst thing ever.

This class is so so terrible. I have never written anything bad about ANY professor and I am a junior at IU. This class has so much busy work and they act like it is the only class we have. The due dates are SO UNCLEAR and then before you know it you missed 3 assignments. The TA is also terrible. I would absolutely not take this if you can.

How can someone who makes up words, mis-defines words, and teaches incorrect material via recording considered a "professor" of Public Speaking/Communication? If you go to him about a problem, he won't discuss at all, you're automatically wrong no questions asked, which is contrary to what he teaches about understanding other perspectives.

As someone who was a good public speaker and student, this class genuinely made me worse at public speaking. John Arthos is a bad speaker and a bad teacher. None of the quizes make sense, and the labs are even worse.

It was probably the worst class I've ever taken. Not even difficult, just so ignorant and useless.

His lectures are really really really boring, readings have super random questions. He needs a public speaking class more than any of us, his lectures are soo boring an stretched out. An easy A, just annoying busy work

Arthos doesnt even teach the class, as a bulk of the work is done by TAs. His only appearances come through these really obscure online lectures that oftentimes contain made-up vocabulary. Quizlet will be your best friend in this course. Also, ready yourself for a ridiculous amount of busy work.

Dr. Arthos is one of the worst professors I've ever had. His course contains made-up words whose definitions cannot be found online. They make the class so much harder and don't help people become better speakers. I don't remember what a single one of his words means. This class did not make me a better speaker at all.

This class was horrific. I have taken a speech and debate class before and I actually found value in that class, unlike this one. So much busy work. Its extremely stressful. Quizzes and some homework are to be done over the weekend, the work feels like it never ends. There is very little guidance on speeches and the content is disorganized.

I feel bad for anyone who is like me and had to take this course to complete their major. I can safely say that this class made me a worse public speaker. John Arthur doesn't even teach the class unless you take one of the two in person periods. All of the online courses are taught by TA's, so get ready to not understand anything. No leeway either

The grade you get in this course absolutely depends on which grad student instructor you sign up for. Look at the grade distributions on one.iu, some instructors give consistent 90% A's, some give 20% A's every semester. No centralized grading system so Arthos doesn't really do anything in this course except assign videos which do not make sense.

P155 is taught by a TA Grad Student, make no mistake. Dr. Arthos's only role in this class is confusing online lectures and forcing students to take weekly quizzes about said lectures. He has almost no involvement in the class and does not reach out to students. Your TA is your teacher in this class. It sucks and it's mandatory. That's about it.

p155 is the worst class i've taken at iu. im not even exaggerating. i'm a good public speaker, but the little assignments in this course are unbearable. too much busy work. confusing and over-complicated material. the speeches are really dumb, no one actually talks like how they want u to. -10/10 take it in highschool/community college if u can

IDEK why i'm posting this cause if you're taking this it's cause you have a major in the college of arts and sciences. if you bite through and just do the dumb assignments quizzes, you should at least be getting a B-ish. grading does depend on your AI though and hard they grade. I would look up grade distributions for the AI you're registering with

John Arthos was one of the worst professors I have had at IU. His course is horribly structured, forcing students to both watch his long and boring lecture videos and read and answer TopHat questions. These are highly repetitive, and reading and answering textbook questions is better than sitting through his lectures that will not help you at all.

Don't take this class if you don't have to. First of all, the class isn't taught by Arthos it's taught by an AI which is terrible. In addition the class has so many boring lectures and tophat assignments that are hard to keep track of. I would never. EVER, take this class again.

I'm sure he's a fine person, but he is my professor and I've never met him: no emails, not in person, and no direct contact whatsoever. He posts lecture videos online and has the AI teach in person, grade our stuff, and basically run the whole class. If you don't have a good AI then you might have a hard time in the class. He gives extra credit.

Probably one of the worst classes I have ever taken! Arthos doesn't even teach you, he has AIs do it for him instead, just showing how much he must care about teaching this course. None of what was taught made any sense and I'm 90% sure that a majority of it was made up by him and is not going to be useful at all in giving speeches. Awful class.

This course does not improve my public speaking skill at, despite it being a "public speaking" class. The words in this class are made up by Arthos himself, and is by no means useful for public speaking. A complete waste of time with so busy assignments which are just plain annoying. Choose your AI VERY CAREFULLY, since they determine your grades.

This is the WORST professor I have ever had. He is completely unapproachable, condescending, out of touch, and ignorant. His class is so disorganized that you will never not be confused. He posts old lecture videos making up things and quizzes you on what he said. This man is so egotistical that I get migraines from hearing him talk. DO NOT TAKE!!!

I honestly think that this class has made me a worse public speaker. His lectures are boring pre-recorded videos, and he spends a lot of time making new terms to fit whatever convoluted point he's trying (and failing) to make. Your grade is mostly just dependent on which AI you get stuck with. Take this class online if you can.

Instead of actually teaching public speaking skills he creates a course that tries to be deep and meaningful when in reality he is just overcomplicating a simple skill. He makes up most of the words he uses. We had a whole unit on 'commonplaces' which were things he just pulled out of his butt. Bad teacher

Awful class! This class is not truly taught by Arthos, he creates the content and then other faculty teaches the classes so you never actually meet or speak to him. He creates online lectures where he comes up with abstract and confusing terms and words for normal topics that should make sense, but somehow he makes that nearly impossible.

This Prof doesn't even exist, or at least merely a sad excuse for a teaching A.I who offers nothing as far as improving your speech. His course is full of terms that do not exist and are simply garbage made up of his own mind. The fact that this is a required COLL course is embarrassing. The entire course needs to be reworked and Arthos should go.

Actually a terrible professor. Probably a good person but his lectures make no sense. Dont try to reach out to him because he wont help you. DONT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HIM!!!!!

Although I never interacted with John, I absolutely hated the class. If it was not mandatory, I would not have taken it. He gives students so much homework that don't help the students understand the content, and are overall just busy work. His tests are so confusing and worded weirdly, in addition to questions that were not even in the lectures.

there's 0 way to contact this dude and he doesn't put the homework on canvas

Dr. Arthos constructs his own words and then strings them into convoluted sentences; subsequently, it can be synthesized that he believes himself to be the reincarnate Shakespeare.

Professor Arthos seems to be using his speech class to try to spread his own ideas rather than things that are well known and helpful to students. You are forced to learn new terms with no real meaning outside of just this course.

for p155, you literally never hear from him lol. theres just these old video lectures to watch then theres quizzes over them. just watch them in 2x speed right before u take the quiz and its fine. the videos are boring and don't ever make much sense though. your AI is really your teacher, not this guy. idk why he gets the credit lmao

I've hardly taken anything out of this class other than the fact that some landmines are unavoidable due to mandatory credits.

In this course, your instructor is your AI, NOT Professor John Arthos. You only interact with him over old lecture videos for quizzes. He is not a good lecturer in these videos! Unfortunately this is a required class, so you will soon experience this. Good luck!!

Avoid this professor. He makes simple concepts much harder to understand than they need to be and loves to hear himself talk. I took this for ACP credit and found his lectures confusing and over-elaborate. If you need a speech credit for IU, take it elsewhere and transfer it. It's not worth the headache of staying in his class!