Yeah, it definitely all depends on the teacher and sometimes the other students.
I took a non-credit creative writing class one summer for fun....well basically, our required text was the overpriced poetry journal that the professor edited. He was also unduly harsh toward the students. He often called work "trite" or "cliche'."
In contrast, my for-credit creative writing classes were almost always good. The term "trite" became known as "familiar" if we wanted to let a writer know they could/should come up with a more unique way to say something. In grad school, I had some good classes my first semester -- the professor really let us go in our own direction, but he threw in some mandatory assignments with structured poems.
On the other hand, same grad program, different teacher -- HATED IT. Part of it was the classmates....just really hated sitting through their boring-ass poems.
Good luck....
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