Billie Lou Sands

Every review I've read has been absolutely true.

Her exams are long and tedious. I always test well and I earned low B's on her exams. They are trivial and random. They are not designed to test understanding or application of concepts. They are designed to evaluate one's ability to copy notes word for word and memorize them.

Her assignments are equally tedious and frustrating. Her "standards" are arbitrary and illogical. This was the first course I've ever been told *not* to use quotations in my writing. She will give you a zero and accuse you of plagiarism if you do. All upper-division writing standards are disregarded for no apparent reason. It should also be noted that she does not grade a single paper during the course of the semester. At any given time, she has between 2 and 3 undergraduate personal assistants (funded through the disability office) who do all of the grading. Don't expect her to be able to answer any questions about your papers. She hasn't read them.

Her lectures are deathly boring. She reads directly from her transparencies which consist of 10 year old material. The only changes she makes are by using White-Out to cover up old research. She is too cheap to run off new ones so the class is forced to read sloppy, incoherent notes.

Her speaking style consists of reading, which she can't even do. Despite the fact that she has been using the same notes and teaching the same content, word for word, for 10 years, she seems totally unfamiliar with the concepts. She literally cannot read her own thoughts off a page. Imagine trying to listen and comprehend what she's saying.

She is completely unable to answer impromptu questions or understand mildly complex ideas. Her use of examples is ridiculous. She has very little actual experience with children or adolescents. She has no children and it has been at least 20 years since she's been around one in a clinical setting. Her stories about her neighbor's 10 month-old don't quite live up to the class' expectations for anecdotal research.

Her personality is akin to a southern belle. Sugary-sweet on the outside but psychotic and vile on the inside. If you are in her good graces, you will get an A. If you aren't, forget ever trying to ask for help. You will be belittled and patronized. I have overheard her berating her own advisees (within a department that desparately needs students in order to survive). And the way she treats her student assistants is surely illegal, if not just rude, disrespectful and unprofessional.

And to think she used to be chair of the department. Obviously, I would advise anyone who can avoid her to do just that.

Sands seems like anice old lady at first but then shows her real personality. She is extremely boring. The lecture consists of her trying to keep her transparencies on the projector that are a basic summary of the book and her regurgitating the information on the screen. She can be very, very rude and haught. Which is funny because she always mentions how humble she is due to her humble backgrounds. She is very anal and a little old fashioned. There are two tests and a ten page research paper. If its one page less or more than 10 pages she takes off points. Her tests are word for word from phrases in the book or in her lecture notes. If you copy down everything the puts up you have a guaranteed A. So overall she can be nice but she can also be a apin and she is with no doubt boring!

Complete waste of time. Class attendence is required, as it usually is for professors that waste your time. Her lectures are basically a series of questions that you should be able to answer based on the reading. There is no useful information presented in class, unless students ask questions, and even then the chances are pretty low. Exams are fairly easy, so you don't have to work very hard to get a good grade, but the work you have to do is an irritating waste of time. Avoid is you want to learn something. Sign up if you can handle sitting through boring classes to get a good grade.

I don't mean to be so harsh but I hated this class! I couldn't stand coming to her lectures, sitting there and being spoon fed information. She does go by the book- but ONLY by the book. All of her knowledge about adolescents seem to come ONLY FROM THE BOOK. If you really want to learn about adolescents- just read the book and save yourself a class slot. I'm a psych. major and I thought it was pointless to give non-psych. majors case studies when all the information they could use was a paragraph on each theorist. Don't bother taking notes- all the info you need is in the book (almost exactly word for word). She is a horrible public speaker and it was hard to listen to her because of all the "uhs" and "ums" and "wells" ... if you can avoid this class DO SO. If you can't- well more luck to you.

Dr. Sands knows so much about children, their developmental process and their families that I truly regret not discovering her class much sooner. I am a parent with a nine year old daughter and a five year old boy, and everything she decribed about child development was right on the ball. Her knowledge is very valuable to anyone who plans to work with children or have children of their own. Believe me, if you truly want to learn about child development and their place in families and society, take her class. If you interest is just to fulfill a requirement and think that a child development course is an easy way out then try something else, because your interest is not in the subject and makes it pointless for you to be there. (I say this because a class that I took had many students, who constantly talked during class while she lectured, disturbing myself and others, and clearly showed their disinterest in the subject.)

Doctor Sands is simply an incapable and inconsiderate professor. Her lectures are just plain from the book and boring while her exams are demanding. The term paper was not given with enough instruction. Her office hours was not accessible to students. You have to wait for a while in order to be seen. If you are a child development major, i would suggest to avoid her class. You will come out ahead by self studying and reading the textbook. On the other hand, if you are enrolling in her class for general education purposes, her classes are simply too demanding.

Dr. Sands has great knowlegde about the field of Child Development. Her workload is fair. I feel that if you are interested in the field of Child Development, that you will gain alot from taking her class, but if your true interest is not in Child Development and come with the expectation that her class will be just fun and easy, because it is about children, then you should choose another class to fulfill your general education requirements, which is a reason that many students enroll in these classes and make it difficult for students in the major to get in. If you respect Child Development as a profession, then I feel that taking her classes will provide you with a great opportunity to gain invaluable knowledge in the field.

this chick is a loon in the full sense of the word. Let this be a warning to anybody planning to take her classes. She is a genuine retard. She is absolurely incapable of lecturing on a subject; she has minimal knowledge in her field. She is simply a very limited person. Please, please, please stay away from this half-wit. You will loose your time and gain nothing. This descroption is written in full honesty and is no prank.