Great teacher! I feel more confident after taking his class. I was not born a speaker, but Kochian makes you feel like you can be one.

Professor Kochian's class is really chill and since it's a small class, you'll get to know everyone pretty well (at least I did). Most of the time, you're listening to other people's speeches so if you're not interested in how other people do their speeches, you don't have to go to class. When your class isn't presenting, you're probably going to have a "workshop" day where you meet up with the professor and discuss your future topics. In terms of the grading process, I do admit he is an arbitrary grader, but to get good grades it's pretty easy. First, make sure you do a topic that's really interesting. Don't use a boring topic that's going to make everyone fall asleep, and trust me, Kochian will probably be on his blackberry the whole time. So for instance, the last speech that we had to do was a persuasive speech. Don't do some lame topic like "Why everyone should turn green" or other cliche topics, do something out of the norm like "Why prostitution should be legalized" or "Why you should date the good guy instead of the bad boy". Second, make sure you take advantage of multi-media. Use PowerPoint and pack it with images and also use youtube (BIG HELP--uses up a lot of your time so you don't have to talk as much). Third, memorize your speech. Kochian really emphasizes "extemporaneous" speeches, but if you're not an improv type of person, I'd suggest that you should really memorize your speech and practice it several times. Fourth, have fun with your speech. Make sure you put enough personality 'cause honestly, since he's an arbitrary grader, he likes to see people get up there at the podium and really perform something. So to sum it all up, be interesting, use multi-media, memorize your speech, and have fun. With only three speeches and a final paper (Spring quarter only had to go to a speech&debate tournament and write a 3 page commentary paper on it--really easy), this class was pretty chill. If you want to be a Comm. major or whatnot, I would recommend this class.

I disagree with those comments saying Kochian is the "worst" professor. In fact, if you have to take Comm 1 as a requirement, than I would highly recommend that you take Kochian. I understand some people's gripes that he may play favorites, and I'll admit it straight up, he absolutely loves athletes and they are probably given more attention and a more lenient assessment than the average student, BUT I am not an athlete and managed a pretty easy A. During the class, you give three speeches and a take-home final along with a paper at the end. But the amount of points that the paper and final are worth relative to the speeches makes it almost irrelevant: you grade is basically predicated upon your speech performances. I highly suggest that you run your topic by him and try to identify something that HE is interested in. If he likes your topic and finds it interesting, there's a greater change that he'll get swept up in the subject and overlook some of the drawbacks of your performance. Overall, I found him to be highly concerned with improving my speaking abilities. Also, although I know that the book and course reader are REALLY overpriced, both are kind of necessary for the templates of the speech plans and the take-home final is straight from the book. However, if you can manage to get a copy from someone that already took it or split the cost with someone else and share it, you can make it work. I really enjoyed this class and Kochian made it a great experience.

If you have to take Speech I would say take Kochian. Although he is a horrible, biased, rude, and at times inappropriate teacher, he is from what I have gathered the easiest because it actually is possible to get a good grade. There is no doubt that Kochian plays favorites. If you're not an athlete, I would recommend getting on his good side by going to office hours starting second week and making small talk with him. The paper and the final (which probably will be a take home) are easy and as far as the speeches go, really spend a lot of time choosing your topic (but if he likes you he wont really care) and make sure you MEMORIZE your speech. He really focuses on it being extemporaneous and memorized. While the course is structured fairly well, Kochian tends to ramble on and on instead of actually teaching, so basically class is just composed of listening to your peers' speeches and Kochian's self-indulgent rambling. Even when I went into office hours for some feedback, I was told to just read the book. In conclusion, NOT a good teacher but possible to get a good grade if you play a little dirty and suck up.