Ugh...he isnt clear at all, he babbles on an on. Its very hard to understand where he is going with things and he isnt helpful at all. His tests are full of trick questions...i didnt sign up to learn how to decode a test, i didnt learn anything.

horrible professor...gave first exam day after spring break!!! Obviously doesnt care at all about students!! St cloud state should fire him

I wish the book wasnt a paperback becuase I sit down in class and am in constant search of something to knock myself out with.

He is extremely boring to listen to, the tests are mind numbing hard and his quizes are extremely difficult. I would suggest a different prof. for 484 if I were you because he fails to relate anything to business and last i checked this class was business ethics, correct?

His tests are VERY hard and doesn't relate any of the class to business and this is a BUSINESS ETHICS class. Take a different professor if possible. He doesn't seem to care much about his students. I go to class everyday and take notes and I still don't get what he's talking about. DO NOT TAKE HIM!

he is a horrible prof! seems to enjoy giving extremely hard tests! i go to class everyday still have no idea what he is talking about! it isn't even related to business whatsoever. i would definately take it with a different prof if possible!

Never take this professor. He is arrogant. The book can be quite confusing and he explains things the exact same way so there is no clarification. The class averages on his tests are terrible and he still doesn't get a clue. Useless professor and waste of time class. It really didn't seem to be that pertinent to my Business degree

There aren't enough bad things I have to say about Shaffer. He has TAs do all of the grading and his exams are not straight forward. Also, didn't show up for final and made us switch our schedule during finals week. One of the worst I have had.

Told the class he would make it as hard as possible.

I don't know how any of you guys could rate this guy good? His tests are insanely hard and almost half of the class fails them? His lectures are straight from the book and make no sense, he takes this class WAYYY to seriously, DO NOT TAKE HIM, WORST PROF AT SCSU!!!!!! ask anyone....

I never posted these because I always thought people were just bad students who complianed. This is the most inconsiderate, horrible teacher I have ever had. I was an A/B student, never failed a class till him. Tests way too hard, confusing topics he does not want to give extra help or explination. Have to suck up to get by, has those he hates.

this guy is realy bad professor I took him last semster i did not pass the class he thinks he is smart but not at all he just came to class and taking about utiliterian that the only thing he know don't take this professor i advice u to not take this professor.

dumbest class i've ever taken. at no time in my entire life will i ever need to know what i learned in this class. extremely BORING class, lectures are horrible and the quizzes/tests are immensly hard. avoid him at all costs

You can totally tell that this guy rated himself.

WORST TEACHER OF MY LIFE!!! I would not recommend him at all. His tests are SO HARD. He hands you a sheet of paper with definitions and problems and gives you 3-4 blank sheets of people to do the test. I got all A's this semester except for this class. I put allot of effort into the class and still got a C+. Also, couldn't sell my $100+ book back!

BY.... FAR....... THE WORST... PROF.... I...... HAVE.... EVER..... HAD.... If you are reading this knowing that you have him coming up for PHIL 484, all I have to say is... I feel EXTREMELY bad for you.. hugest **** ever, insanely hard class... everyone gets either fails or gets D's... your f***ed

He is a terrible professor who is almost impossible to understand on an already hard subject. His tests are extremely hard. with 150 students the average was a 65%.

I am an A student...this is the hardest class I have ever taken. Terrible class lectures, horrible help, the man talks as fast as he possibly can during his lectures; he doesn't explain the material he just stands at the podium reading to you...WORST CLASS EVER!! TAKE THIS CLASS AT A DIFFERENT UNIVERSITY OR WITH DIFFERENT PROFESSOR

This is the only class that I have had trouble with. I never have any idea of what this guy is talking about. The entire class is disorganized and worthless. What ever you do don't take a class with him.

Be prepared to cry during and after taking him

If you are reading this knowing that you have him coming up, all I have to say is find the nearest gun and shoot yourself right in the head..... This guy should NOT be allowed to teach. You will either fail this class or just barely pass with a C if you are lucky.. Ask anyone, he is notoriously known around campus for being the worst prof at SCSU!

This class is really hard for me. I can't focus on what is said. He needs to dumb down his course. I've never fallen asleep during class every and I falls asleep nearly every class session.

This professor should not be teaching. He is Extremely difficult to understand. I'm a 3.1 student after 3 years and I had to drop his class. Its like he's speaking in another language. He may know his stuff but he CAN NOT teach it. Do not take. I'm getting an A with professor Nieman and enjoying the class somewhat.

This class is hard. I am pretty sure i am going to have to retake it just to pass. If you can try and take it with a different prof, i would. Or wait til a different prof teaches it. Way too hard.

Horrible professor. By far the worst I've ever had. The course material itself is extremely hard and he does little to try explain it. He talks too fast and difficult to understand. Even the end of semester evaluation was so vague, didnt give the students an opportuntiy to leave comments and suggestions for improvement. Take him and FAIL this class

Haha! This guy is so stupid,he refuses to accept the fact that his major (philosophy) is a worthless major,and so he tries to make it technical when it's completely not! Using so-called 'calculus' and 'free-market economics' to explain things when he doesn't seem to know anything about them. A total idiot making a fool out of himself!

wow. I did not take these warnings seriously and I wish I had. This man is impossible to relate to. He stands and talks to himself for an hour and fifteen minutes while the class is bored to tears. It is impossible to follow most of the time, and the tests are rediculous. I am thankful I scraped by with a D plus so I don't have to retake.

Wow. I have no words for this guy..he shouldn't be teaching. He is too difficult and impossible to satisfy. I am curious to know if anyone has ever got an A from this course with him because they must be some kind of genius. I don't know how hard he is with the other phil classes that he instructs but just be glad if you dont have 484 with him.

Worst teacher ever! Soooo boring, this class drives me insane! He doesn't explain lectures good and never uses D2L. Not recommended.

I recommend highly not taking a class with this professor. Even when people ask him questions he can't even give answers. All he does is pace in front of class an rambles no teaching involved.

Easily the worst professor I have ever had. Lectures directly out of the book, does not build upon or clarify. 5 difficult tests including final, throws out lowest score. I felt that the multiple choice questions were meant to confuse us. I got nothing from this class.

Very one-sided and partisan in his belief structure. Is not open to theism or any type of faith based arguments. Entire course is structured on the defense of atheism or agnosticism and goes to great lengths to criticize and ridicule Christianity or other common American faith based denominations. Course should essentially be renamed "Atheism 101".

Very difficult grader. does not care about his students or their grade. His class is very difficult to follow, he talks about alien abduction everyday. if you are going to take this class I highly recommend you don't take this professor!!! he is terrible and the tests are almost impossible.. also his grading scale is really confusing and unfair.

There is NO reason this 200 level class should be more difficult than 400 level classes. His exams are ridiculously hard and are mainly essays. He would use large, unnecessary words in the essay questions that weren't part of our material, making it difficult to even understand the question.. He didn't seem friendly and didn't seem to care.

Worst class and worst professor I have had in 2 years of college. Every lecture is bullet points on a projector, which is pretty much from the textbook, so students became disengaged very early on. Offered no help when asking for it through email, seemed like he couldn't care less. His exams were awful, would not recommend his class!!!

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. He's not helpful at all. Lectures don't make sense. He doesn't take the time to actually teach you the concepts. The tests are absolutely ridiculous. 30+ point essay questions. I REPEAT, DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR.

Absolutely the worst class I've ever taken. Do not under any circumstances take this with him. Studied for hours, still would miserable fail. Expects word for word definitions of challenging theories. Most people failed every exam. He's rude, arrogant, not helpful in any way. Do not take.

Worst Professor I've ever had. Completely rude and will not help at all.

Terrible teacher. His lectures were read straight from a piece of paper and he never clarified anything. The tests were poorly written. I felt he really didn't care about the success of his students.

It is my opinion that he is passionate about people knowing that philosophy exists, it has good reason to exist, and it adds value to humans beings. The way he teaches the class seems very condescending. I feel stupid after leaving his lectures and talking with him after class. He is a "know it all". I want to learn Phil. but can't from him.

This guy is awful. The things he puts on the projector for the class are full blown paragraphs and impossible to keep up with or take notes on. Refuses to post them to D2L so you can reread them for anything you missed. Final grade average of 4 exams. Which have essay problems worth 30 pts. Avoid this class like the plague!!!!

This guy is awful. The things he puts on the projector for the class are full blown paragraphs and impossible to keep up with or take notes on. Refuses to post them to D2L so you can reread them for anything you missed. Final grade average of 4 exams. Which have essay problems worth 30 pts. Avoid this class!!!!

You can definitely tell he is a philosopher but the way he talks you never understand what he is really saying. He does not give you any yes or no answers to your questions. His notes are paragraphs long and he reads directly from them and you get no eye contact from him. He does not have give you any rubric or anything when writing homework.

Most boring class I have ever taken. Notes are super unclear, long and in paper format. All assignments are in paper format and are 25% of your grade. Exams are super hard and worth many points. Does not post scores and has no rubrics.

TERRIBLE! This is the worst class I have ever taken. STAY AWAY FROM HIS CLASSES!!!

He's literally the most boring professor ever. He sucks and he is an awful teacher. I would never ever take his class. I'm good at school studying laying attention etc and I can't focus in his class. I'm sitting in his class writing this right now. Everyone is sleeping talking or on their phone. He's awful. Sucks.

Teaching style is horrible, lectures are straight from the textbook & there are 4 exams (+optional 5th). Final grade averaged from the exams. There's extra credit but it can't be made up (even if hospitalized), he often doesn't announce it before. He doesn't put things on D2L. Material is easy & could be interesting if taught by someone else.

Lectures the entire time. Grade based off of 4 tests, optional final to improve grade. Doesnt use D2L. Notes on the screen but are paragraphs long. Doesn't post the notes. If you don't show up to class, you miss the notes. Moves too fast. Take a different professor if you can. I had to work hard for the grade I received.

He was very arrogant and judgmental of the students. His exams were nearly impossible no matter how much you study. Avoid at all costs for PHIL484!!!

He is an awful professor, he does not care about his students success he just provide the lecture without student involvment participation in class, you might revise very hard and fail completely. He is the worst professor that I ever took.

Strict with test retakes syllabus basically states that he will not allow a re-take or allow you to take it any other time than the scheduled time unless you have documentation of the death of a family member, or you your self are dying. Professor seems to have a problem with his e-mail since he does not get mail from the disability center office.

I am so regret that I took this class. The professor's lecture makes no sense and after he talked about the lecture he gave us the quiz right away.

Lectured the whole class every single day. Half of the things he talked about did not pertain to the test once so ever. He grades the test really harshly. He gives no homework so your grade is based solely on your test scores.

Horrible, have to read a lot outside of class and exams are really hard. Not very specific on exam review sheets either. Stay away.

He is someone you shouldn't take at all costs. Takes his notes from the book that he wrote. Doesn't explain a lot. Uses the exact same examples for something new that we learn so that we aren't able to understand it well. He usually says the word belief around 200 times in one lecture.

Have received good grades english and writing courses all my life. I thought it was me until I saw and could relate to the other reviews on this professor. He supplements the text with his own text and asks for advice on how to improve but lashes out when students give him feedback on his text. For fair grading don't reccomend this professor.

Harshest grader I have ever encountered. I always get A's and B's, but the way he heavily docks points has everyone in the class getting around 40-50 on exams. 10/10 would NOT recommend, unless your goal is to have your GPA severely decreased. Exams are really hard, wouldn't be so bad if there were more multiple choice but its all short answer.

Worst class I have ever taken in my life. DO NOT CHOOSE THIS PROFESSOR. I usually get As and Bs, I worked hard and I studied for hours on end for this class and failed every single test. There were 20 people in my class, 9 are failing and the rest have Cs and Ds, this class will ruin your GPA.

Worst professor ever. Never helped outside of class. Never responded to email. Entire grade is based off 3 test, and if you arent great with memorization youll fail. Graded extremely harshly and if you dont agree with his point of view dont bother taking this class.

Don't take this class! Stay away! only thing that he grades are tests and they are hard!

He is by far one of the worst professor I have ever had. He always misses class. I asked to meet him during office hours and he said I can just show up but I went 3x's & he was never in his office! I asked him for help but he didn't pay attention to what I was asking basically ignored me. Why can't he be replaced w/ a better professor!?

To everyone, please do yourself a big favor and DO NOT enroll with this teacher, he cancels his classes all the time, which sounds nice but he still expects you to do everything. He does not reply his emails and do not post grades, WORST TEACHER EVER. He is super lazy and his lectures are very heavy and not understandable.

He never answers emails. He also cancels class quite often and his lectures are long and confusing. He is a very hard grader and his tests are very hard.

DONT TAKE THIS CLASS IF YOU DONT HAVE TO! Were graded on ONLY TWO tests and hes an extremely tough grader! He also does cancel lecture a lot (very last minute) and doesnt reply to emails fast! I usually get As and Bs and I work really hard, but still earned a D! I DONT RECOMMEND THIS CLASS OR PROFESSOR!

DO YOURSELF A HUGE FAVOR AND AVOID ANY CLASS WITH PROFESSOR MICHAEL! The guy is a terrible mentor.