Erik Peper

The Exams for this class are not so difficult, like many other teachers he gives you a review sheet, the only thing was that I had to look through 8 books (4 per quiz). These are $145.00 worth of books. I would have enjoyed this class much more if he didn't think that he was the only teacher on earth. All the readings and practices I learned in half the required work.

Anyway, if you take the class be prepared for daily logs for every week of the semester. If you have a good imagination, you will be fine. Keep up with the logs, you will need them for the two papers. If you want a good grade in the paper, make sure you include lots of praise to his lectures and refer to his specific examples.

On the upside, I did learn a lot of stuff about myself.

He is no doubt an educated man so his speaking skills are no problem, but he may come across as a smarty pants. He is on a pedelstool so high that I even observed the kiss up get blown off by him. it seems as if nobody is good enough to talk to him.

When I was able to catch him in his office, he spoke to me while still working on his computer, how rude. When he decided to look at me while responding, he seemed to be so annoyed because he was giving me "uh huh" answers and sighing a lot.

To conclude, you can very well get a good grade in this class. His personality sucks big time, but his curriculim has good intentions. If you need to interact with him you have to be a strong person. He can put you down so fast that you won't even know it until you think it over. If he would be a little more human and have some compassion towards the "non-PHD's" then i would highly recommend his class. I would give him an overall grade of and A+ as well.

This class was amazing. Peper is a great speaker. He will teach from the very beginning of class til the last minute left or beyond (sometimes) and dont worry its a very interesting class(outstanding). That makes the class an easy one, all you have to do is buy his own book(workbook included) and thats it. Forget the other books. 4 weeks before the mid and final, he will give you 10 essay questions to do at home and he will pick 4 for the test(blue book). Oh, if you wanna read the books they are all available at your local library. Weekly homework is a piece of pie, very indulging by the way. Just one thing to remember, if you do extra credit keep reminding him til the end of the semester because the Holistic Office is a messy place, everything gets lost there. In conclusion, Dr. Peper is an excellent professor, very knowledgeable and friendly.

PS:Got a b+ cause did not study much, my fault.

Peper holds a great welth of knowledge, but if your personalities aren't compatable, your in for a beating. I had some clashes with him, and let him know, albiet politely, that I was having problems with how he was relating to me in comparison to some other students in his class. In comparing the grades on my essays with my friend's grades, I soon realized that I was being penalized for personality. Despite showing up, turning in all my work, and writing fully informed essays to respond to his essay tests, I recieved a B- in the class.

He is very knowledgable, and he tends to let you know how he feels in sly ways. He does make little exceptions to due dates on occasion, but you'll probably get penalized for it. If it were not for his mastery of many subjects, I would avoid taking his classes. My advice, bite your toungue, prepare to be open to new experiences, and don't let the little things get you down.

As I wrote on my review that I handed in on the last day (in his presence): Hopefully, with budget cuts Segment III GE and/or HH380 will be eliminated. I got an A in the class without reading any of the books (I read about 1/2 of one of them). Not that they aren't good books, but when your goal is graduating sometime in the near future there are usually much more important things you need to be reading.

Peper would always start off the class by bragging about this and that (where he went to school - I won't tell, where he has been and where he is going). My only conclusion that I came to was that he must be insecure that he needs to pump himself up in front of us every Monday.

The weekly/daily assignments I think would be beneficial, as I was able to do some of them, however they are time consuming. You will get no feedback on your performance nor any input on how to improve your performance. Toward the end of the semester, I tried to see him numerous times via his office hours and even went so far as to make an appointment with him and...he blew me off. When I brought it up to him that I went to his office hours or the missed appointment, he seemed as if I was an inconvenience. I had to email him several times to get feedback - with only the last email with the subject as PLEASE RESPOND did I get a response. Albeit it was not very helpful. I had asked him where I stood grade-wise and in relation to point allocation, his reply, you are doing well.

Lastly, I do not feel any knowledge was really gained. It appears that Dr. Peper is more interested in himself and his research than his students. What confirms this opinion is that when people were filling out his reviews, HE WAS THERE LOOKING OVER PEOPLE'S SHOULDERS. I personally found this to be unethical and the sign of a truly poor educator.

Dr. Peper was not a good person to learn about holistic health from. I am a pre-med student who is also minoring in holistic health. This was my first holistic health class and what I've heard from other people is that "not to worry, it gets better than Dr. Peper." I think he is the chair of the dept which is a shame because he is the most self praising professor I have had. While lecturing he would ask questions to the class and when someone would answer he would stare away from them as if their answer was boring him and that he knew the answer already. The class was very large and not very personal so we were organized into small groups where we would review the weekly assignments that were from the workbook he designed. These assignments were handed in at the break and after that half the class would leave and we would be left with the people who were really interested in the class. Unfortunately he didn't recognize us as being more interested and treated the students as obstacles to his nightly commute which he referenced weekly.

The assignments were good if you did them but it really didn't matter since most people did them in class and handed them in at the half way point. The two papers were based off these assignments and I wrote them both the day they were due and turned them in at the end of class because at that point the class had turned into a joke for most of us. For the midterm and final he handed out the questions in advance so the six people in my group each got two that we answered and shared with the rest of the group before the final. This helped a lot as many of the questions were basically homework problems restated.

The main problem in this class is the professors ATTITUDE. He is a self satisfied, smug, condesending man who seems to think that none of the students have ever heard of alternative health before and that our perceptions of these fields are wrong and that we are not open minded enough - a right answer gets a stare down at the floor or at the wall and a vague nod with a reiteration of where our thoughts had flaws in them and how his experiences as a researcher have proved things that no one has ever thought of before. ANNOYING. As a student I want positive feedback on my performance and my class participation to be a part of my grade.

Also - what REALLY annoyed me was the way he dealt with our homework and tests ... the homework would be returned with a checkmark and no comments on them - same for papers - which would have been helpful esp for answering the finals questions. I had one of the highest grades in the class based off the papers and tests so he asked if he could keep them to photocopy and share with other students - but never returned them!! When I asked him for them he said to check this pile in the holistic health office - and none of my stuff was there. I do not expect to get it back either since its not in his office or anything. He did not like me (I talked in class a LOT) so when I went to get my grade at the end of the semester he took a look at my grades (which I could see upside down) and gave me a vague "you'll pass."

Overall - you have to buy over $140 worth of books for this class - he said we could share between our group members but its hard to trust people in class to return things at this commuter school. The assignments are good if you want to open your mind to holistic health but the teacher never seemed excited to be teaching the class or to hear other points of view or just class contributions. Leaving the class early (which I hated as I went to every class) was not penalized. Not getting my tests back or any comments on my paper was not good either. I am looking forward to the smaller Holistic Health classes, and for avoiding Dr. Peper for the rest of my time at State.

Warning: you have to buy 8 books, yes 8 books for this stupid class. you dont have to read them all, so i suggest you get them at the library, even though that may leave you running all over town to different branches. on top of that you have to do exercises & write journals every week, yes thats right, every week. some stuff was interesting, but most sucked. boring. lectures unclear, and he moves too fast to write down important info. however, exams are easy to bullshit. take it only if you are really interested in the subject matter.

Dr.Peper is very knowledgable about holistic health (he is the head of the dept). There are two tests (midterm and final), both of which are blue book. There are also two 6-8 page summary papers (double-space). Take good notes, but definetely DON"T buy all the books! There are about nine of them. Instead just get the book he authored (necessary), and choose one other. When you get into groups, assign a person to buy a different book. This way makes it easier to study for the exams. Students can better concentrate on one book they bought instead of spreading study time thin over a bunch of books (which some may or may not contribute answers to the test study quesitons). He gives out a list of about 10 or 12 exam study questions ahead of time in which from he will select 4 or 5 for the test. This class is very interesting to those who are truly interested in improving their health (mental and physical); if not, drop the class. It can get very "granola" at times. If you don't really need the grade, I suggest that students take it CR/NC. My mistake was struggling for an A (which I didn't get) and make-believing doing the health routines (important for summary papers) that would have been fun. Don't hesitate to do all the exercises, who knows it might help you live a longer life!

Erik Peper is a very interesting teacher. He is obviously interested in the material he is teaching, adn he presents his lectures in a way to be both interesting and entertaining. The class was once a week, three hours long - a very long time. But he realizes how difficult it is to pay attention for so long so he peppers his lectures with jokes and class participation exercises. If you actually go to class, you can learn a lot from him, and from the class. I highly recommemd it and him.

Erik Peper is well acquainted with his subject. His background in biofeedback research has prepared him well to teach this course. He has also written several books on the subject, one of which is the workbook for the course, Creating Wholeness, ( Peper & Holt, Plenum Press, 1993). HH380 demands group participation in small groups of 5-7 students, to practice and discuss the principles described in the lectures. Two quizzes, one at midterm and one at end, measure the knowledge reflected in the readings and lectures. Workbook pages, completed in the student's own handwriting are required to be turned in each class session.