Tom Thomas

Don't waste time in taking his class, he is not good professor. You will not get a fair and resonalble grade even if you work hard like hell everyday!

This guy knows his stuff. His knowledge on real world issues is just awesome. He does not teach strictly from the book. He draws for day to day life issues around the world and then relates them to the topics in the book. With doing that he keeps the classes interesting! His test are a little tricky, but after the first one you will get the hang of it. Just be able to theorize the things that are taught in the book. He does not want you to write out on the test everything verbatim from the book. He does give quizes just about everyday to see if student are doing the readings. They are one point each as long as you do the readings you'll be fine. Last thing he gives the students is a presentation or debate. Those are totally bonus points to just help students get the best grade they can get. It's really easy not hard at all. You work with a group of six, so you help each other out. I've heard about other Bus 682 and people say they're easy to the point you don't have to read the book, but if you really want to learn and challenge yourself take Tom Thomas he'll open your eyes to topics you've never thought of!

He is a wonderful guy who is not just available during office hours but he is also very flexible.He is a great techer who can bring enthusiasm to the class.He provides study guide before the exam and you just have to study what he gives you and you will definitely pass his class.he is very lenient in giving out grades.He makes sure that nobody fails in his class.I highly recommend students to take his class. If only he has another class aside from BUS 682,I will definitely take his class.

First the good news: He's a nice guy who is knowledgeable. In-class discussions are interesting. I learned a lot. Now the bad news: UNFAIR grading! He is very subjective with grading and does not follow the criteria for grading in the syllabus. If you are one of his class favourites (foreign student, fellow liberal, or someone who can "talk business shop" with him), then you have a chance to get an A. Most students received a B in the class regardless of the amount of effort. In other words if you want to put forth moderate effort you can get a B easily. If you want to get an A, then either be a class favourite, or really bust your a** and hope for the best. There is a huge chasm between the amount of effort required for an A compared to a B. This was discouraging because part of the grade is class participation. At least half the students never said one word during the semester, yet all but one student received at least a B in this category. He isn't good about giving feedback for assignments, and took forever returning assingments. My advice: take good notes, come to class prepared for discussion, get in a study group for exams, and if you have any non-liberal viewpoints you may want to keep them to yourself (this also applies to short essay test questions that ask for YOUR opinion). Bottom line: Nice guy, bad teacher. If someone gives him a good review it is probably because they were either a class favourite, or someone who didn't work very hard but still got a B.

I love this class so much that I would take it again. Professor Thomas is excellent. If you listen to his lecture carefully and prepare seriously the study guides for the exams you will get a good grade. The case studies are very interesting and this class is one of my favorite. My advice: Take 784 with professor Thomas!

Prof Thomas never taught this subject at graduate level before so his teaching style was pretty much like undergraduate I guess. He lectured a lot using slides. Occasionally he would show us some videos which we would discuss later on.

His grading was based on 25% class participation, 25% case study writing, 25% debate and 25% take home final exam.

The in class discussions weren't too much related with the course material because most of the students were international students and most of them cited examples from their own countries. He seemed happy with that fact though.

The subject itself was very boring to me and I couldn't understand most of the thing he talked about, therefore I never talked much in class. However I still got B+ for class participation and I believe most of the students got at least B+ in the class participation. This fact made me so happy because I have always hated class participation and was afraid to get a C or even D in it (which I didn't).

The case study project was exciting. We got to write up a case study on a certain company preferrably in the Bay Area. This was done in group. He would give another chance to fix the turned in case study in order to get higher grade based on his suggestions.

The debate was interesting and was not conducted in formal situation at all. We had fun doing it. Each person gets only about 4 minute to present the point of view, then 1 minute rebuttal and then about 5 or 10 minutes to discuss freely with the rest of the class.

The final exam was great. It was a take home exam and he sent us the question a week before it is due, so we have much time to do research on it. There were 2 case study questions. He basically wanted us to employ as many concepts he covered in class as possible to answer the questions. There're no right and wrong answers.

In the end most of the students got B+, only a few got A or A-, nobody got C.

Well, my review actually falls within the two extremes of the other reviews.

I had an ok time with Thomas in 682. You have to read pretty much a chapter for each class, which you usually get quizzed on (10 quizzes a semester, 10% of grade) which gets a bit much as the textbook is boring as all hell and you end up dreading having to read all that pointless jargon.

Class lectures are made with slides, also another boring format. Seems to me like in order to make this class better, this class needs a major revamp in structure/format of the class, to include more engaging activity and diverse materials. In his favor, i must say that the videos we watched were interesting, and he usually discusses temporary issues right at the start of class, which is cool. The debates at the end of the semester is also an enriching experience. Also seems like he's a pretty fair grader, and has a longer attention span than my other teachers, although sometimes I feel like he likes to hear the sound of his own voice (no matter what its saying) as opposed to making sure that the students are really into what he's saying...

Well, Professor Thomas is a new, so he is a bit dry when it comes to humor. His tests are short answer/essay, which it always hard for students. He is very nitpicky when it comes to what kinds of answers he wants to see on his tests. His lectures are boring, and doesn't have any sort of format because he doesn't really follow the book in any order, and he isn't structured.

Professor Thomas was great in this class. All Business majors have to take this class and they should take it from him. Before the midterm and final we were given a study guide and the questions came directly from it. We were given plenty of time to work on the class project, a team debate, and were allowed to choose our own topic. Professor Thomas is by far one of the best teachers I have had at SFSU.