there were 8 students who dropped his class within the first week cause he was so unappraochable, boring and cold. So what he has a PHd

Let's see...Assignments are for companies that no longer exist, therefore finding information is extremely difficult. It also makes the material seem irrelevant. The comments on marked assignments are like hen scratching, who doesn't use markup in MS Word? And why does he keep mailing back PAPER? Use EMAIL. Comments are not meaningful.

He put his course together several years ago and has not updated any of the content so your assignments are based on companies that went out of business several years ago. Comments and marking contradict content found in the supplied course material. He is probably smart but teaching was not his calling. He is awful.

Be prepared for your GPA to drop.I would highly recommend not to take it with Mark. Hard work usually pays off,well not in this course. I do not understand why it takes a teacher weeks to email back multiple times.

Not very helpful when I asked questions; hard to reach, and not very friendly person

old material. 2-3 week return time on emails. content through modules confusing as well. WORST. TEACHER. AND. CLASS. EVER. Do not take. seriously. do not take.

Pompous person whose goal is to prove how smart he is instead of promoting a learning environment. This was the worst learning experience I have ever had and I will be lodging a complaint with the university.

I couldn't agree more with the postings below me. Online course with the most ridiculous structure. Grading and feedback is outrageous. Absolutely would not have taken this course if I knew this is what I would be dealing with. Save yourself the trouble and DO NOT take this course through TRU-OL.

I have taken over 10 courses through TRU and this was by far the worst. This class was terribly organized and the handwritten markings on assignments were illegible. He also emailed me more than once with discouraging and unhelpful comments that were unrelated to the assignments. Would not recommend this class to anyone.

Avoid him at all costs. Extremely tough grader. Expects you to do Phd level work for an undergraduate course. He is on a power trip and wants to be addressed as Dr. If you address him by his first name or as Mr. he will correct you. Should definitely NOT be teaching.

I have nothing positive to say about this man. He would not respond to my email because i did not address him as "Dr". His feedback on assignments is hand written and I could not even read his writing, so have no idea what i did wrong or how to improve. His tone is extremely condescending, and is absolutely a useless professor. TRU take note.

Never had such an unhelpful, condescending"teacher". I've done many courses through TRU & distance, & also years at regular uni (I have a 3.9GPA).He is a Dr, but he is NOT writing prescriptions! His chicken scratch notes are useless. Expects you to read his mind with what he wants and theres only ONE correct answer in his mind. USELESS!

I am currently taking 3 first year courses at TRU, however I am in my final year at UVic. Comparing this course's workload to the others in just insane. But even worse is this prof! How does anyone understand his writing?! And it's either his answer, or it's wrong. In all 4 years of schooling this is my lowest mark. Would NOT recommend at all.

Honestly the WORST professor I have ever taken. Speaks with a condescending tone, and does nothing but put his students down. I would certainly not recommend this professor AT ALL. He is a terribly tough grader, and literally thinks he knows everything, even if you show him otherwise. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

This class has a ridiculous structure and unreasonable work load. It is impossible to effectively complete the assignments and make reference to all of the relevant information within the page limits. Salopek is a terrible instructor and should not be teaching at any level. Truly terrible teacher who designed a truly terrible course.

The worst part about this prof is his unclear guidelines and lack of grading rubric. It is his way or the highway. Marking is extremely subjective and he wants all the information but caps your ability to write. Forces students to sacrifice time and marks. The modules take as much time as the assignments. Feedback is illegible and is handwritten.

The amount of work for this course is not undergraduate. The modules themselves are exhaustive and the assignments are all case studies. There are no guidelines only vague statements which means students are at the mercy of his grading criteria, which he hides. Avoid like the plague. He would be better off as a researcher than as a professor.

I've taken a few history courses before, but never online. The books assigned for this course are extremely dry and hard to follow (especially for someone rather new to European history). He does not provide much extra insight into the course content through his notes either. Extremely tough grader, and hand written feedback practically illegible.

Very tough grader, treats students like he is superior to them, and does not reply to emails when asking him for help. He would not answer me when I was emailing about the final. Awful experience with him and the material is very out of date. Would not recommend him to anyone!! I just graduated my BBA with A average and received a C- with him...

It's a bit fishy that there is one comment out of 30+ that contradicts what the majority of people are saying. Can attest that majority rules when it come to this properly pretentious Cantab.

Impossible to please

Extremely hard marker. Papers I put a lot of time and effort into, that would get As in other classes, got me Cs in his. His marking logic makes absolutely no sense, his notes are hard to read, and he looks for any excuse to take marks away. If you're anything less than a B+ average student, good luck passing this class! Avoid at all costs.

TOUGH GRADER. IS NOT CLEAR ABOUT ANY ASSIGNMENT OR WHAT HE IS LOOKING FOR. MISERABLE TO TAKE ANY CLASS WITH HIM. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. HE DOES NOT EXPLAIN ANY QUESTION PROPERLY. RUDE AND ARROGANT....

An update to the reviews below: Mark has learned how to use e-mail and returns assignments that way. He still prints your electronically submitted assignments, handwrites illegibly, and scans it back at low DPI. The marking is aggressive and the assignment constraints are high. Good luck to anyone else trying to take this course.

Management Course: One of the worst profs I've ever had. Prepare to do 2 courses worth of work in one and struggle immensely. His course is horribly unorganized and his assignments are insanely long. You can tell by the way he marks and acts that he is over educated and cant do, so he teaches. Oh and hes a doctor and wont let you forget it.

One of the worst teachers I have ever come by.

Prepare to cry and say bye bye to your gpa. Mark is a bully and full of himself. Comments on assignments are vague. He doesnt reply to your questions and doesnt justify why he gives you a failing mark. Report him to the board, the schools president and others. He ruins lives and he really needs to go. Just read all the comments about him.

I am a B average student who is in the last course before graduation. His marking is extreme as he does not regard how much work is placed into the assignments. His feedback handwriting is atrocious to say the least. Very hard to pick out the theme of what his feedback is about. Would not take a course by him again or ever.

Im enrolled in Marks class and have been afraid to submit a assignment for a while now. I failed my first one and have not recieved a response from mark as to why. Its been 2 weeks now. I can barely make out his cursive writing with the low resolution. His feedback refers to things not asked in the questions. Hello? Why..

Don't take his online class. Being a 3.6GPA student, I still struggled even passing the class. He expects you to not only follow his rubric, but go beyond what he's asked. His expectation of your interpretations are way beyond what a student should know. There's even emails going out from fellow students with similar experiences. DONT TAKE

I am an A student who is barely passing this class. Vague feedback, unintentional about emailing, extremely rude, and very unclear expectations. I am in my last semester of my history degree and it is the worst class I have ever taken. Do not be a fool like the rest of us, learn from our mistakes. Do. Not. Take. His. Class.

I would never take this prof again, considering dropping and taking the class with another prof.

Ok, so admittedly I enrolled in the class and got cancelled it same day because 1. His reviews are TERRIBLE on here. 2. I received his email and it said to give him a list of your course schedule and when you will submit the assignments which is unrealistic considering some people work full time. You also need to write 50 pages for this class.

I have never experienced a prof like this. The workload is incredible, his expectations are beyond unreasonable and also unclear--I am an A student who could barely pass his assignments. I am in my last semester and had to drop this class. My graduation is now going to be delayed. Do not take a class from this professor.

*AVOID AT ALL COSTS.* Check BC Transfer Guide and take an equivalent course, then transfer it to TRU. Yes, he expects you to work hard and has high expectations- that's ok. I'm objecting to: unclear, handwritten feedback; unclear grading rubric; rudeness; and low marks (even when I carefully scrutinized his feedback & gave him what he wanted).

Not approachable and assignment instructions are often ambiguous. Grading for assignments is very subjective; if your principals and points are the same, but not worded exactly how he wants, he will give you an abyssal score.

First off, his assignments are unclear and not set up to learn. You pretty much need to read the entire text book and master all the course material before attempting the first assignment because he expects all that knowledge in the first assignment. He might know the subject, but he is a horrible teacher. DO NOT take this course through him.

This professor does not reply to your emails!!! Had to wait for an assignment to be marked for several months, he never marked my assignment. No feedback. I have taken two online courses previous to taking this course, and I have never hated an online class as much as i hate this one. Probably the worse thing you can take online, don't do it.

Honestly, worst experience ever. This professor brought to my life more stress and anxiety and that's it. He is a tough grader, cares absolutely zero about his students and it demonstrates perfectly on the way he is rated 1.6 out of 5. I think 1.6 is way to high for him.

AWEFUL! Do not take this course! This man is ridiculous. He does not respond to emails or answer his phone. Even after the final exam, I still had no idea what he wanted in terms of marking. Also, the person that designed this course clearly has very different political views than this professor.

Unreasonable tough grader. No feedback.

Mark is one of the worst professors I've ever dealt with. Marking is unreasonably hard and assignments make no sense using his outline that consists of 3 sentences. Has some of the worst handwriting I've had to deal with as a student and makes it so you can't even read what he's recommending to improve. Rude and will not answer emails. Avoid!!!!

This prof gave 2-3 sentences of feedback to 1200 word essays, both times essentially saying "you didn't answer the questions." Okay, but how? Clearly I thought I did. No feedback throughout the essays, just chicken scratch at the end. Wants you to answer questions not even in the essay instructions. Marks came back fast, that was the only plus.

The course is interesting but Professor Salopek makes this course hard for nothing. It is almost impossible to reach the teacher via phone or email unless you are extremely perseverant.

this was one of the last courses I had to take for my bachelor. I wish I temporarily switched institutions and found a transfer credit instead of doing this course. Each grade I received was lower than a 70 and there was little explanation (little readable explanations) for the low mark.

This professor needs to be reprimanded. He has been called out for bad handwriting which he will not type out for students, he has been called out for his lack of communication which he does not apologize for and when he is called out by students he leaves passive aggressive responses. I have never been so appalled by a lack of professionalism.

SUCH useless waste of time and effort. No help from the professor No justification on grades or any sort of feedback. Taking his salary home thats all. Such unprofessional email responses / with no timely response. For one assignment I had to wait a whole month to get it back. All the material is pretty generic in the online modules created.

Like most other OL courses, you will end up teaching yourself. Professor Salopek is frequently out of the office with no replacement and has yet to answer many of my emails. If you need help or guidance in this course, you will not receive it. Be prepared to only read and write essays. It is difficult to receive an A on essays and assignments.

While the grading criteria was clear, his feedback didn't help at all at improving my assignments. I'm so glad I managed to study with a few other students who were extremely helpful. Wouldn't have been successful in this course without them.

This was my final course of my degree, and he sure did make me work for it. Very tough grader, and any feedback he does give you can't read. Expects you to condense so much information into a few pages is ridiculous, then you are punished for it. Taking him online was definitely a mistake. The one saving grace was the exam was fair.

I did an online course with Mark Salopek through TRU Open Learning. The course is all reading and then writing papers. The final exam was you have 3 hours to write a 3000 word paper, no notes or anything allowed to help. It was extremely difficult and there was not enough time. I do not recommend him as a prof.

Horrible instructor. Avoid at all costs. Disrespectful, poor communicator, tough grader and does not care about his students or their learning experience.

I wouldn't take Mark again. One bad review is naught. Repeated and consistent bad reviews gives a good impression of how useless this professor is. I've been taking Hist 3731. The material is dry. The papers are confusing with their overlapping themes. I can only read about every second word with his feed back.

Seems to actively disregard what course he is grading, has mistaken upper level deep theory courses for highschool life-skills.

guidelines of assignments are unclear. the word are limits small and the topics are wide and deep. so you are left trying to decide what you should focus on. which in most cases are fine but not when he marks the way he does. his comments on your work are why didnt you talk about all this other stuff too even if that takes you over the limit.

This professor is extremely strict with grading and expectations, but does not communicate clearly what is needed to earn a good grade. I spent months carefully working on assignments I thought were strong, yet received unexpectedly low grades with handwritten feedback that is very hard to read or understand, making it difficult to improve.