Western Kentucky University / P / Richard Patterson

I found this course really difficult, this was my second time around taking it and finally passing it. It is an online class, which makes it harder than most classes, and you have to have self motivation to pass it. There are no notes to take, he provides them all for you. He puts study questions at the end of each chapter notes to help you study for the test. He also post power point slides each week to go also with the notes. He, also, rotates weeks between discussion board postings and homework. On the discussion board you have to post an initial posting on a topic plus 3 comment post on others posts. And the homework is usually simple, most of the time it's common sense, sometimes you have to use the book or a website to answer them. These grades are easy 100's and sometimes 110's depending on how much you write each week on them.

The test on the other hand is much harder than the rest of the assignments. I didn't read the chapters most of the time, just studied the notes and supplement readings, and got between a 60 - 80 on every test.

The final assignment in the class is a paper over creating a tourism board. You have to use everything you learned in the class to write a paper over creating and implementing an idea to increase tourism in a town that currently doesn't have a tourism board. It sounds hard but its not, plus it counts as much as a test grade.

Between the discussion board, homework and final paper they will help to boost your overall grade in the class at least one letter grade if not more, that is if you do good on them, which is pretty easy to do. Don't let your test grades get you down too much, like I did the first time. As long as you get 60's - 70's on them and do good on everything else you'll get a B in the class.

Plus Dr.Patterson is an awesome teacher he'll help you out as much as he can, just email him or go by and see him in his office.

I took the online course in the spring and it inspired me to make hospitality my major. I recommend the course because you can do work on your own and on your own time. There are four tests, multiple choice, true/false, and sometimes compulation questions. Everything is online including class notes, industry news and supplement readings. You must read all of these (including the chapters from the book) because they will be on the test. He posts fun comics each week and your grades will also be online.

this was an internet course, so attendance was obviously not required. this was an easy course however when it came to grading i was confused. i thought i had a B in the course but when it came to posting the grade i got a C. Make sure you read the syllabus really well, that's what got me. Don't assume you have a grade and not check with him. he grades weird. but overall okay class for a lower level course.

The tourism class was about as interesting as it could be considering the topic. The only thing that I did not like about was the semester project. Dr. Patterson's semester project is rough and I told him that he needs to get rid of it. What you will have to do is pick a small town any where in the world and decide how you would draw commerce and visitors to your town. It sounds easy enough, but believe me it was a trip. What's so great about the class is that Dr. Patterson's class is online-I could not imagine sitting in class discussing the fundamentals of tourism. Yuck. He is a fair teacher and all in all, I enjoyed the class... the semester project...NO!

Dr. Patterson is awesome. He gives you a study guide before each test... if you study it, you will ace them all. His stories of past experiences add a lot to the class too.

Dr. Patterson is one of the best teachers I have ever had. He is entertaining, funny, and makes coming to class fun. His stories of his past experience really add to his lectures. He is cool!!!