Kurfess, Franz  

He really cares about you succeeding in class! The guy below me is partially right about how he doesn't really go into too much detail outside the slides but it was his first time teaching 102 that quarter. He's much more lenient with grading unlike his peers.

AVOID!!!!Whatever you do don't take him for 102. He doesn't teach anything. I had to learn everything from the book and online. All he does is reads slides and expects you to know how to do the programs. He doesn't help during lab so no one ever went. Lab quizzes were much harder than the other sections. Take Mammen if you can. He will teach you everything you need to know. Plus he contributes a lot to the final so he will focus on things that will be on the final. AVOID!!!

Kurfess is a pretty cool guy. He did a pretty good job in this class as well considering it was his first ime teaching it. There is a shit load of material so ther is no way to make the class easy unless you already know C or Unix. In either case the class was not to bad. Kurfess is an easy grader however he did use Dr. Nico's material and programming assignments( For those of you know have Nico you know that sucks...). The tests arent to bad and he lets you use open book and open note for all tests including the final. Overall Kurfess is good. I would definately recommend him.

Kurfess

[Fall 2005] Prof.Kurfess knows his stuff about AI, and he is pretty good at explaining it. Unlike many others think, I think his lectures are not boring if you are interested in the subject, and if you pay attention. His slides are helpful during lectures, and I don't think he just reads off the slides during lectures. Most of his labs are easy, and the assignments are fairly challenging (thanks to the bot environment we used this quarter) - but they are interesting. Prof.Kurfess is an extremely helpful and friendly person. 30% of the grade is from a group project, and there is a lot of scope in it to learn. Midterm was OK, and the final exam was a bit tough, but it was a take home final. It's not difficult to learn about AI in this class, and get a good grade if you put a reasonable effort.

This guy is really lenient and understanding in his teaching style. But I feel he\'s a bit too lenient. I barely learned anything about AI yet got an A in the class. Half the class didn\'t even ever show up to lecture.

Although sometimes it is hard to pay attention in class, he is a truly kind professor and he understands what it's like to be a student and lets you off the hook if you can't finish something on time. He really wants to give you a good grade.

Kurfess is a teacher that just doesn't care about grades. I slacked way more than I should have, and ended up with a B when I deserved much worse. I'm pretty sure a majority of the class got A's. He's way to easy on people and lets people turn things in late and it feels like a lot of students took advantage of that. He's a nice guy and deserves more respect. Give him enough respect to at least do the little work that he requires of you and you'll have a good time while getting a good grade.

Kurfess is great, enough said. No midterm or final, just weekly online quizzes. The quizzes were based right out of the lecture notes, which he makes available online. For this reason, like with most classes that put lecture notes online, I didn't find going to lecture particularly useful. Yes, there were clarifications and additional info during lecture, but the meat of the class can be absorbed by staying home and going through the lecture notes while taking the quiz. Programs weren't very difficult; most of the time the information for how to do the program was available in the lecture notes. Overall, Kurfess is just a really nice guy, and super lenient. He understands that sometimes you just forget to do things because you have a million other commitments, and doesn't hold it against you. Like others have said, people probably take advantage of this, but Kurfess is just so nice you'd probably feel bad doing it. Don't know how I got an A, but I'm not complaining! Definitely would take a class with Kurfess again :)

Kurfess is a great teacher and a great guy. He has some trouble keeping students awake, I think because of his "gentle" voice during lecture. He's not a boring teacher if you're interested in the subject he's got great information, but he lectures right from his course lecture notes, but he does add in useful information and if you stay awake, that information can be great when it comes to his exams. The book is useless except as a side reference, don't spend your money unless you're planning on keeping the book, get his notes. He listens to student opinions and is constantly looking for ways to improve the course, I think it'll only get better as years go by.

Kurfess is a nice professor and he is an extremly easy grader, however, he does not present the information in a very exciting manner. Frankly, its very hard to stay awake in his class. His tests are open note and open book (so buy them) and are easier than you think. CSC 480 kind of sucked, the information was extremly basic, but he did alright. Nothign spectacular, nothing horrible.

Prof. Kurfess knows his stuff, at least when it comes to AI. However, he knows it so well and has been doing it for so long that it's obviously become pretty damn boring for him, and in turn it's incredibley damn boring for the class. He has a huge set of PowerPoint -- the world's most boring invention ever -- slides, and this is the sole material for lecture. Worse yet, he doesn't elaborate *at all* on the slides: just reads them, verbatim, to the class. I can do that at home, and I did. Quite a bit. Of course, you might think the class would be cake, but the projects require so much coding that you spend a really large chunk of time on a class you probably don't care much for anyway. Advice: just stay away, I mean it. Someone told me never to take AI before I did, and I didn't listen. Don't make the same mistake.

Fantastic Prof. If you get the opportunity to take AI with Kurfess, I strongly recommend it. Open book, open note, open laptop midterm and final. A few lite programming assignments, and a group project. Powerpoint based lectures can get a bit boring at times, but overall a fantastic class.

Kurfess is a really cool guy. He responds quickly to emails and is always willing to give you a second opportunity to demonstrate your labs and assignments if you missed the date or you ran into a problem. But while he's a really cool guy, the class ends up being incredibly boring and in the end, mostly useless. Hours and hours of lectures about AI topics lead to almost no help to actually implement any of the AI assignments. You are left to implement an agent intuitively and if it looks ok, then you get full credit. I feel like I left this class not knowing anything about using AI that I didn't know at the start. You'd probably get a lot more out of just reading the book.

Kurfess simply reads off of his slides word for word, then will go on to say the exact same thing in a different order. The lecture for this class teaches you absolutely nothing. However, he is a really nice guy and understands procrastination and not being able to do your homework on time. This was abused throughout the entire quarter though, and I feel he just lets his students walk all over him. Taking this class really shows that AI is not as cool as you originally thought, and the lecture is equivalent to that.

He is a great professor with well versed expertise. It is easy to get a A grade if you submit all the Las and assignments in time and complete he final project.

Dr. Kurfess is a great teacher who presents the material in a really straight-forward way. You have the potential to learn a LOT if you just pay attention and do the work that is asked of you. He understands student difficulties really well and he's pretty much the nicest guy on the face of the earth, but please don't abuse it and actually be a good student so it'll be a win win :) . It's not hard to get a good grade, but why not learn a lot too?

Kurfess is very flexible and works to accomodate students. His tests are open note/book and are not too difficult. His lecture's are a bit droney but everything you need to know for the tests you can find in the books or lecture notes. The assignments were not that bad and the quarter project was actually pretty fun. My quarter project failed and so Kurfess let us do a presentation on why we failed and what we learned and I ended up with a B in the class.

I have nothing to say but good things about Franz Kurfess. He

I am a Software Engineering major, so this course was required. I went into the class thinking that it would involve actually creating some programs with a graphical user interface, maybe like a dumbed down version of 435 which I was taking the same quarter. However, I was sorely mistaken. We really didn't actually DO anything in this class. We wrote a couple of reports and gave a couple of presentations, but that was about it. If you just want an easy technical elective, then this is the class for you. Just don't expect to actually learn anything.

He's a great guy and a great teacher. He really wants everyone to understand the material and UNLIKE some of the jerk professors I have had TOO much of, he actually understands when students have difficulties and that we don't have all the time in the world for a single class. He's a great professor and he is straightforward about the material!

CSC 484 was a weird class. There is a lot of material about UI/UX and Dr.Kurfess knows his stuff. However, the class he teaches is extremely unorganized and often times I found myself wondering what we needed to do for our project and assignments. There were 5 assignments in my class and each one of those assignments were related to the course project. The course project itself was very vague, topics ranged from actual app design to experiments and usability evaluations of different systems. There are no test in this class, which made me barely pay attention in class. The best thing is that Dr.Kurfess allows for regrades which really saves your grade in this class.

Dr. Kurfess is easily one of the best professors in the Computer Science department. I find it rather interesting when people say, "they didn't learn anything". Honestly, to me, that simply demonstrates that those people do not know or have the skills to learn on their own without having a highly structured class force feed knowledge. That's where the beauty of Dr. Kurfess' classes shine. I've had him for CSC480 (AI), and CSC484 (UI Design) as well, and I've learned a great deal. Dr. Kurfess gives you the freedom to learn however you please. Because he doesn't really emphasize quizzes, midterms, or finals (except a couple in AI), you have a lot of breathing room. You actually *learn* what you want or need to learn, and that is bloody fantastic. In 484 and 486, he greatly emphasizes group work. You have a variety of assignments to complete, in addition to a group project. He's very flexible with the schedule and due dates, though. He understands that you have other classes and other things to do in life. Overall, if you need a highly structured class in order to learn, do not take Dr. Kurfess. You will diddle daddle and not learn anything. Otherwise, if you're a free thinking being, take Kurfess and absorb as much as you can; you won't regret it :)

Dr. Kurfess is one of the department's best because he is well organized, he has us do valuable projects and evaluates us along the way (so we realize if something is wrong before it is too late and we learn about the process, as well), and because he is quite willing to make sure that the students GET IT. He is approachable and articulate and simply cares. Sure, we do a lot of work, but that's what we're here for. His only drawback is that voice... he would be a great singer but it is somehow hypnotic and puts the class to sleep. This is not because he, his material, or his course are boring but because he somehow makes everyone relax. It's the darndest thing I've yet seen in college. But he is one of the great instructors. Take his classes if you can.

Franz Kurfess is a very nice guy, but after taking three classes from him, I have not learned anything. There are a lot of very interesting and useful classes at Cal Poly, but Kurfess's classes are not among them. His classes are really pretty easy, but right now I feel like I just wasted three quarters of my life.

Kurfess is a great guy and is really knowledgeable about knowledge and usability in computer science. However, I didn\'t understand the point of the class. He would have lectures, but there were no tests or quizes. The assignments were super easy (all 4 of them) and had nothing really to do with the lecture. Our course project was also super easy. The paper again was super easy. I though my paper was pretty bad but I somehow got a B on it and my presentation where I talked about nothing for 20 minutes.

This is the first C I have recieved in my entire life. I hope that says something to all of you out there watching their GPA. Do not take him--this class was a nightmare!