Saenz, Richard  

Dr. Saenz was a pretty decent professor. i'm not much of a science person but i found this class to be fascinating. i hadn't studied astronomy since like third grade and it was a breeze. but, like any class, if you want to do well in this one, you have to study for the tests and do the reading along the way.

The class was boring. He has the most problems of any teacher I have seen with Technology. He tried to do presentations with a laptop and couldn't figure out why the screen went blank (he didn't have the computer pluged in). His tests were perty easy if you could pay attention in class. If not all the material was in the book. Mostly I went to class and did other work. Very boring lecture. I would take someone better for the class.

I was more than a little pissed off when I got a C+ in this class, but I don't think it was really Saenz's fault. He hadn't taught this class in six years, and it didn't show. The class was, however, organized poorly which is being remedied by the end of 131 this Spring. We only had class twice a week and had to learn the chapter in two days, everyone was always behind and the teacher simply didn't have enough time to tell us everything. The lab was a complete waste of time, and all of these were known ahead of time. Moral: I should have waited to take this class. Saenz was, though, great to listen to in lecture because of his wonderful sense of humor (spelling torque with the tao was pretty funny) and he was also great in office hours, able to illuminate whatever troubles you. I should warn you, unless you have a solid foundation in Physics, you should really take something introductory, otherwise you'll end up like me, with the old GPA taking a hit (I was a straight-A student until this class). In any case, Saenz is a good teacher, just avoid the twice-a-week classes and if you have experience here, you'll do fine.

Professor Saenz is great! He knows his stuff, but because he hadn't taught this material in a long while, he was a little unorganized. Subjects were rushed a lot. Tests are fair and he grades fair. I got a C because physics just wasn't my thing and I well deserved it. He's a totally understanding prof though and if he'll help you if he knows you are struggling and you ask for help. Go to his office hours! He gave me homework extensions like three times...chill guy. I'd also recommend staying away from the classes that are only two days a week though. Even though he has a sense of humor, physics gets dry after about 50 minutes.

Saenz is definately a nice guy - I don't think anyone could say otherwise - but he is a poor teacher. His lectures were nothing more than going over the simplest of the simple examples which had no application to the inane and extremely time consuming online homework assignments. Saenz will extend the deadline for these assignments if you ask him to though. His mid terms and quizzes were okay, my fault for making stupid mistakes, but the final was crazy. I wish I had taken Peters. :(

This teacher is a decent teacher. I fell asleep numerous times but it wasnt his fault. I dont htink i can stay awake in any 1 1/2 hour class. He really helps you out during office hours and has alot of patience. He gives homework online. THe tests are very few questions. usually worht 20 points each but they are not too difficult. If you pay attention (trying to avoid sleeping after 1 hour) and do the homework online u should do fine.

I thought Saenz was excellent at getting through all the material while making sure he didn't lose anyone along the way. The presentation can be a bit dull, but I have yet to see a physics teacher with the zeal of Feynman, so that never really bothered me. Tests were fair, and were based on a combination of the homework and in class examples. Grading was fair too, and he was always willing to help in office hours on homework or to go over the test. I'd take a class with him again.

saenz is not a very good teacher as far as i'm concerned. his lectures are hard to follow because he tends to skip around a lot. also, he gives computerized homework with a lot of problems that aren't mentioned or done in the book so you're basically screwed if you don't understand it. if you go to his office hours, he'll just give you the answer and you have to figure out what went wrong and why. physics 133 is already a difficult subject and its definitely important to have a teacher who knows what he is doing and saenz most certainly does not. if you end up signing up for this class after all, i would recommend getting together a study group to do the homework cause you'll regret it if you don't.

This guy is great, great to listen too in lectures. Never a dull moment. Take him hes rad.

Doctor Evil...I mean Richard Saenz really is awesome. This professor kept me entertained all quarter because he would say that funniest things like doctor evil. He is chilla than vanilla.

Saenz is a good professor with a good personality, and that is pretty hard to find in the cal poly physics department. he is clear, funny, and makes the time go by pretty fast. 133 is a pretty intense class, and he does a great job of making it not so bad. he gives two midterms, three quizzes and a final, and they are all very doable. in fact, on the 2nd test, he put on a question that a lot of people got wrong on the first test, so it was a free 15 points. good guy, highly recommended.

Bad teacher. Nice guy. Worked my ass off to get a C. Tests were ridiculous. Approachable though, and is more helpful in office hours. I would try someone else first.

I LOVED saenz. He was so approachable and he really wants his students to succeed in his class. He teaches using the old-school blackboard method and I really liked that because you can watch him work out problems instead of just having to scramble down notes from an overhead or powerpoint. He also does 5-10 minutes of review at the start of each class, so you almost learn everything twice, and it really sticks with you. Oh, and he sends you all his old tests and quizzes which really helps you know what to expect on the midterms and finals (which are pretty straight-forward and not too bad as long as you put out an effort to listen and learn in the class). I definitely recommend Saenz!

Dr. Saenz is one of the nicest professors Ive ever met. However... his lectures are 100% in this situatuion, derive this equation. etc etc. My notes were filled with drawings of a situation with an equation written next to it. Hardest class ive ever taken because he doesnt do a single example. our class average on the first midterm was less than 25%.... If youre an EE, take him, if not.. stay away.

Richard... Richard... Richard. What to say about him. This class isn't difficult if you've already taken an AP physics course in high school. It is; however, difficult if you haven't. His voice is pretty cool. I agree with that, but he teaches without any examples and numbers, which would have been nice. He kinda just throws a bunch of information at you and there you are. The most effective way to get through this class is to do the homework and legitimately understand it. He's a cool guy though, especially when he's working out on the elliptical hahaha... I'm still trying to erase that image from my memory.

He's a funny guy, but the class is boring regardless. I recommend going to every class and actually doing the homework rather than looking it up on Google since it's online (that's what I did). If I'd done both of these more often, the class would have been much easier. Two midterms, not straightforward at all (they're a lot harder than you'd expect from a guy like him), and quizzes every two weeks or so. Overall, I'd take him again, but definitely plan to pay more attention in class...

Hes a great teacher if need help during office hours. extremely friendly and helpful but during lecture...only one word can explain it all,messy. His lecture is awful and useless if you can not follow him (which i couldnt and probably 50% of the class). I went into finals with a F(55%) and amazing came out with a C-, so that means great curve. If you can learn out of a book ,then this is your teacher, if your like me who learns by lecture, dont take him.

He spends most of the lecture solving examples on the board. Make sure you take notes as the examples are likely to show up on the midterms. His midterm problems are predictable, he lets you know that he likes certain problems over others. As for the final, it was hard. Much harder than the midterms. I had an A going into it, and came out with a B+. 100% on the first midterm and 115% on the second and got a B+ in the class due to the final. I did not study for the final as much as I did for the midterms, but the final was definitely considerably harder than the midterms. Overall, I still recommend him. You'll be fine if you study as much as you would for any other 141 class.

Basically, all he does in class is derive formulas. If you want to do well, you need to study on your own, and go to office hours. however, his classes are not terrible, and he has an awesome voice. Also, he is a pretty funny guy. I definitely recommend him, he is definitely better than the other physics teachers. Also, the homework is not too bad.

Professor Saenz insists on not using numbers in his lectures. For most problems he derives the equation needed to solve a problem but never includes any numbers. However, there are numbers on his tests. Other than that, he does a good job of teaching the material and has a good, if somewhat dry, sense of humor. The homework is done through MasteringPhysics which is a website that turns homework into a graded quiz. This is not a very good grading format and left me frustrated several times. Expect to spend more time on homework because of this. Overall, Saenz is a good professor with interesting lectures.

PROS: Helpful in office hours if you are PREPARED to ask questions. Very visual with his examples. Curves. CONS: Notes are very disorganized and everything..EVERYTHING is theoretical examples with no numbers. He tends to put graphs on his quizzes.

Professor Saenz is a great teacher! Take him if you can. He has a great grading system and recognizes how hard physics 141 is for most student. He is very approachable. A very nice guy.

Saenz is really good at presenting the information.... presents material clearly and is VERY helpful in office hours. He frequently asks "are there any questions?" to make sure everyone is following... he's also the physics dept chair so he knows the prereqs to 211 and does not use too much complex fourier series kind of things that many people do not know of when they take the class. The only bad thing to him being the chair is that he does not teach that many physics classes, so consider urself lucky if you could get him.

He is one of the coolest teacher I have had here at Cal Poly. He always did his best to make the class interesting. He made sure we were all following along and was always there to take questions. The class was still very hard and the grading was straightforward. The labs went well. He really know his stuff. I would definitely recommend him.

You would think that the head of the Physics department would be a pompous old bureaucrat with little teaching skills, who shows up in a suit and tie and reads from the book for an hour. However, you'd be dead wrong. Especially about the suit and tie. The subject is complicated and challenging, no question. But Saenz made it both interesting and accessible. He gives you a week to do homework, and is always willing to help students out with questions. His tests are fair and challenging, yet always curved. Since this class doesn't have a lab, he does bring in demo's occasionally (when you can actually do them without a billion-dollar Caltech research lab). Saenz is interesting, intelligent, and even generous. Take him if you can.

Saenz is boring but he is an ok teacher for the most part. Yet do not be deceived by his pleasant appearance. He will do the easiest problems during lecture, he will be very nice at grading the easy midterms, and he will be flexible and helpful during office hours. It looks like a good deal right? Wait..once the evaluations are done, things will change drastically. He will tear you apart by giving a harder final and by grading three or four times more harshly than any midterm. Do not be fooled by appearances, he will wait to show his real side during finals week.

epic teacher with an epic voice. nuff said

Good things: > I thought he was a funny guy (but in a subtle way) > He was extremely helpful in office hours and went out of his way to help students. > Smart guy. Bad things (I mean, AHEM, things to improve upon) > could not convey the material of the second half of the quarter clearly. I was completely lost in lecture for the last 2-3 weeks. Proving Shrodingers Equation seemed pointless and time consuming and confusing. I used the book to learn a lot of the stuff. > I never thought I would say this, but he didnt assign ENOUGH homework to fully understand the material. I studied maybe 2 - 3 hours a week for his class, and came out feeling like I hadnt learned the material very well. Overall: is a nice, helpful, smart guy, but cant teach the material all that well.

Professor Saenz is a very nice guy. He loves physics and it clearly shows in his lectures. I had him as my Modern Physics professor and all in all he conveyed the material well and was easily found in his office. He likes to derive most everything in class which can be annoying sometimes, but it does end up helping you later on his tests. His homework was mostly straight from the book but if you needed help he was always ready to explain things to you and it never felt like he was frustrated with questions. Tests in his class were not too bad. Questions were usually pulled from homework, lecture note examples or basic knowledge of how things were derived, not actual deriving. In my class he always ended up generously curving the tests due to one or two tricky problems that everyone messed up on. All in all he is a great guy and an above average professor. If you have the chance to take him I highly recommend it. You will learn a lot but also be challenged.

Saenz is a wicked cool guy, but Winter 2015 was his last quarter before retirement so I don't know if anyone needs to read these reviews anymore. But in case he ever comes back: Saenz is awesome, but a little scattered. Like previous people have said, he does not like to give examples, it's always very theoretical. Then again, modern physics is a difficult class and I'm glad I had him because he knows so much about it. Overall I'd say choose him if you can.

Saenz is one of the best physics professors at this school. I've had him for Gen. Physics before, and can honestly say that few other professors can hold your attention in a hard subject. This class was more physics than I had originally anticipated (its NOT just memorizing star names, etc), but a lot of formulae and concepts come from 133, and are just applied differently. His lectures are straightforward, but watch out for his tests. He likes to catch you off-guard with random questions that you may have thought too insignificant to write down. He also likes explain questions, so you'd better know your stuff. Out of two "midterm quizzes" as he called them, the averages were both around 50%, but there's a nice curve. I thought I'd get a C, but I was wrong. There were only 5 homework assignments - he pulls test questions directly from them sometimes so do it and you'll be fine. Overall a great class and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in astronomy.

This is the second class I've taken with Saenz (the other was PHYS 211), and I've got to say it hasn't gotten any easier. I thought Saenz was a hard professor in 211 because of the subject matter (Modern Physics), but I was wrong. Astronomy with him wasn't just looking at pretty stars, memorizing their names and what they're made out of, but it was rather filled with crazy physics from 131 (gravitational concepts) and some chemistry thrown in. The grade in this class was determined in a really strange fashion, with homework turning out to be worth an enormous amount after he realized that he's running out of time to administer quizzes/midterms, which screwed me because I had done poorly on the homework. You must go to his class and attend almost every session to get the concepts that appear on his tests/quizzes, because there was almost nothing on his tests that you could've gotten simply from reading the book, attendance was pretty much almost mandatory. He likes to catch you off guard on things that may seem relatively simple when he lectures and you're flipping through your notes, but on the tests he asks extremely specific and in depth questions that forces you to really have studied and have a great conceptual understanding to answer. In conclusion, as with all professor that are very good lecturers (holds your attention and speaks very well in class), they expect just as much out of you when it comes to tests and won't hand over an easy A (or even B) even though you've put in SOME effort.

Saenz is far and away the most interesting teacher I have ever taken. One of the first classes I looked forward to. He really keeps you interested. Only negative was he seemed like he was ad-libing the grading and assignments as he went, so know one knew what was happening. Midterms were tough(he puts problems from HW's on there, plus if the whole class misses a question on a midterm, expect to see the exact same question on the next midterm) but he obviously had a wonderful curve at the end because everyone I talked to failed the midterms and got a B(which for the extremely little work we all spent outside of class was great). Take him for sure if you can.

this professor is experienced and skillfull but extremely dull. You can tell that he has lectured about the subject so many times that he has lost his enthusiasm for the subject. I bet that he has not done any work on this area for many years. In fact, I wonder if he even cares. Having said that, you can get a very good grade in this class if you take careful notes during his class and study the practice midterms and homework solutions. Do not assume that having good grades in homework, quizzes and midterms will give you an A. The final is very tricky....I was lucky that I got an A at the end. Go to the office hours and suck up!

This man is the coolest person in the entire physics department. Guess that's why hes da boss. Take him. You'll learn stuff.

E&M, the last required course in the phys degree program...supposed to be hard, but one would expect the instructor to actually teach in the lecture...Saenz seemed like a really nice guy, he was easy to approach, but his lecture was ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS, they severely lacked continuity and organization, consequently I basically taught myself the class