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Dr. McCaffrey was my adviser, which is why I thought it would be okay to take this class. I was wrong. She is an awful professor and if you can avoid taking her, do so.
The reason that I found her class to be awful is because:
1) She is rude and snotty the majority of the time. She recently became a published author and wants to remind you of that fact ALL the time. She will constantly suggest that you need to buy her book or her husband's book. She acts like hers is the ONLY opinion that matters and when you start to turn your portfolio in, she will tell you to your face that you either have to make the majority of the changes she suggests or you will fail the assignment. If you don't like the changes, you should keep the original copy and change it back after class. THIS DEFEATS THE POINT OF "THE CREATIVE PROCESS!"
2)She doesn't teach. She will assign you to pick up anywhere from 2-4 books. She expects you to read the books and then in class, she will hold a discussion in which she agrees with the author, hence why she chose the book. It makes her a weak professor and it is incredibly aggravating. Attendance is mandatory, so you basically go to class to hear what you've already read. She doesn't add anything to it, she just recants it.
2) She has NO respect for University rules. At Western, if you go to the doctor and get a pass for class, your note has to be accepted by your professor. If you have gotten to that point, obviously you were not well enough to make it to class. (Tests and stuff can be dictated by your professor, but they can't hold your absence against you.) She, on the other hand, uses the excuse that she gives you 4 free absences and that she doesn't want "to hear the sob story" of why you couldn't make it to class. If you get sick/busy anytime after those four, she will start taking five points off of your grade.
3) She acts like that Creative Writing is the only useful thing in the English department and if you aren't a creative writer, you are not an useful human being. You cannot simply write because you enjoy writing, it is all in the line of "this must be published!" If you are a creative writing major, that's awesome, but for everyone else simply fulfilling a requirement (like the majority of my class) we don't care. We just want to become better writers, not "publisher approved" writers.
4) She makes writing completely unenjoyable because her "suggestions" make it so that your work is more like her work. She is obsessed with this idea that you "show and not tell" in all of your work, but won't give you a clear example of how this is supposed to be done or will only give you a suggestion like "change the work to fit what I think it should be." If you try to be subtle, you are being too vague. If you believe you have the perfect mix, you are showing too much.
Also, she knows NOTHING of the nerd/geek culture, so if you attempt to reference in class, she will tell you that you are wrong and that you need to change it. Unless it is in her realm of "literary fiction," she believes that you can and should abuse the hell out of anything else because it is "not important enough to worry about."
5) She requires you to go to out of class readings. This something I hate in all professors who do this. These "readings" basically consist of whatever writer the English department has dragged to campus reading from their work and saying to everyone else, "Look at me! I'm successful!" It is simply a way that the English department can justify bring these people to campus, because with the exception of the Chuck Klosterman reading, no one would ever want to go. Students shouldn't be used as a guinea pigs for this crap.
6) She obsesses over the dumbest things. She reminds you at the start of every class period to make sure your phone is turned off because if your phone were to accidentally go off, you apparently destroy her zen and she doesn't want to teach anymore.
The dumbest thing she has ever said was in the event of an emergency, like someone just got into a wreck or is having baby, you should tell her ahead of time and step out whenever you get the call. If you knew ahead of time that you were going to have an emergency, it wouldn't quite be an emergency, would it? Also, if you have to leave class for said emergency, she will count you absent for what you missed. If you attempt to explain said emergency to her, that's a "sob story" and you have four chances to miss.
TL;DR
She's a mean, snotty woman who will force you to turn all of your work into hers. She doesn't teach at all and she will kill your creative process and make you never want to pursue another class like it ever again. Do not take her.
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