Mwangi, James  

If you're good at physics and math, then you will do fine in this class. The homework can be complicated, but you need to do very well on the homework because it is hard to get points on his tests. I failed the first two midterms and the final was very hard. The tests are made up of problems that you have never seen before, they arent on the homework or in the lecture notes. You need to pay attention in class because he speaks really fast and his heavy accent takes some getting use to. At least he is helpful during office hours

Professor Mwangi is one of the most inspirational and content professors I have ever come across. He is always glad to answer his students' questions and really wants his students to do well. I thought he taught the material very well and at the end of this course, I feel I have a good understanding of statics. The only thing you should be aware of however, is that the test questions on both midterms and the final are very abstract and unlike anything you have seen. A good understanding of integration is helpful, as well as physics; but probably, a lot of what you'll be doing is unlike anything you've seen before. Expect to study the material a lot and do multiple sample problems in order to grasp the concepts better. I would really recommend going to his office to get more help for it is easy to miss certain details. Overall, I would strongly recommend him, despite the difficult midterms and final.

this guy is great, at first the accent can be difficult to understand, but it gets easier, he is one of the nicest teachers i have had and even though i got a b his grading curve helps becasue i failed the 1st 2 midterms. the most important part of the class is doing the homeworks, becasue they are a large basis of points. take this professor

Prof. Mwangi is awesome! He is very understanding of his students. I failed both midterms, had an F going into the finals, I did study my ass off, but I came out with a B. His lectures go quick and there isn't always time to ask questions. He sometimes skips over some very important parts of a project. But if you just ask him to explain it better he will do so. He is most likely the best Prof. in office hours. He will sit with you until you understand everything!! Take him if you can!

i love mwangi. his accent from africa is awesome and helps me stay awake with its fluctuations. i took his class a year ago, so i can't really help with the technical stuff, i just know he's a super dee duper kind guy. he always says hi to me even to this very day. i say take him. really, i think it'll start you off on the right track to finishing arce!

The class goes very fast with a new subject everyday. The homework can be hard and its important to do well on all of it. There are 2 midterms and a final, the final is worth 50% or 30% of your grade depending on what will help you more. I got a C on the first midterm, and a F on the second and was going into the final with a low D or high F and got a B+ in the class by doing well on the final. Mwangi has a strong accent but seems like a nice professor. I never went to office hours but was told he was helpful. Class is heavy on algebra trig., and physics with a little integration. Overall good teacher.

Mwangi is a great teacher. his accent takes getting used to for the first few days, but after that, his class may be kind of tough, but he makes you understand the material thoroughly so that you understand everything by the final. He also curves a lot! He is very willing to help whenever you have a question. I would definatly take Mwangi again.

If you have any trouble at all understanding accents, beware that he does have a deep Kenyan accent. Beyond that, I can't say enough good things about him. He is very clear in all his lectures, and he makes sure you learn it well. You can tell from his permanent smile on his face that he enjoys the material and teaching it. On one hand, I'm pretty sure he was a way tougher grader on his classes than any of the other sections of Structures. However, by the time the common final rolled around at the end of the quarter, I felt that his classes were better prepared than the other sections. TAKE HIM IF YOU CAN.

Mwangi seems like a good teacher during lecture, but when it comes to doing the homework I had to get help from other people or teach myself everything from the book. He uses oversimplified examples in class which don't prepare you for the homework. In lab, you spend most of your time listening to him lecture and building with basswood and cardboard and then scramble to get your paper in on time. Our midterm averages were 24/50 and 23/50, and most of our class was unprepared for the common final. In office hours he will repeat what he said in class word for word, which is not helpful. You also do very little in 3D which is apparently important in higher classes.

I don’t usually write poly ratings and I try not to listen to Poly ratings. Mwangi is a very strict yet ensures the best for his students...trust me, you wouldn’t know this throughout the quarter. My highest quiz score was a 15/30, yet I killed the final and walked out with a B+. I did the math and before the final I had an F. With a 20/50 and a 38/50 on both midterms, I passed. Every week when you turn your homework in there is a “pop quiz.” I went to his office hours a few times in fear of failing. Now knowing that I passed the class, I would definitively recommend mwangi. Don’t let your quiz and midterm scores bring you down...I wish I knew this throughout the quarter. For the final, the class has a review sheet that is quite similar to the final. This class definitely takes some work as all Arce classes do. Take mwangi. He’s funny (“what day is it?” .... whole class: “hump day”) and teaches the material. He is a great motivation as he always says “c’mon people, this is easy!” By the end of the class, you realize that everything really is easier than you once thought, especially when you’re shocked at your final passing grade. Hope this evaluation helps. I definitely recommend mwangi.

I failed James' class in a burning ball of apathetic flames, and he still says hi to me when I see him on campus. What a nice guy! He is MUCH more difficult than the other professors, but if you're an ArcE, it is to your benefit. You'll go into future classes knowing several ways to approach a problem when other students may be seeing the concepts for the first time.

James Mwangi is really nice guy. Unfortunately, being nice does NOT make you a good professor. To be honest, the only reason I passed this class is because I went to tutoring once or twice a week! I effortlessly earned a B in ARCE 211 and I felt more confident about the subject matter than in 212. I never knew what the hell Mwangi was talking about in class and I had to spend HOURS outside of class figuring it out on my own. He grades the mid-terms insanely hard and he gives pop-quizzes on material that I'd never seen before. It's also worth noting that I failed both mid-terms and needed like a 112% percent on the final to get a C-, but I got a C somehow. The curve he utilizes must be insane. I guess that's one good thing I can say about him. My experience with Mwangi was very negative, but I've heard the other ARCE 212 professors aren't any better. Good luck.

"Is that clear everybody?" Must have heard this 1,000 times in a quarter with this guy. Of course every time he asked this the class everyone sat in silence because they had no idea what to even ask. Mwangi's lectures are mostly based in how to derive the equations that you will use on the homework and NOT on examples of how to apply those equations to problems, this always made going to class feel like a waste of time. His midterms were gnarly, presenting material in a different level of difficulty than the homework or anything we had seen. The averages on his midterms were 70 percent on the first midterm and 55 percent on the second midterm. I swear the only reason the averages were this high was because of one or two ARCE major students who pulled 90 percents on the midterms. I got an A in ARCE 211 and felt it shouldn't have been this hard to get a passing grade in 212. He's kind of a nice guy but can also just be ridiculous when grading homework or quizzes and when you ask him about it he refuses to negotiate. His pop quizzes are also next to impossible. If you have this guy just hang on a hope to ride the curve.

IF YOU ARE A CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT STUDENT DO NOT TAKE MWANGI!!!

I will start by saying that he is a very nice man with good intentions, however this is the worst class I have ever taken. I got my first C in this class, and it was not because of the material... He spends the entire class going over derivations of the damn formulas, which we don't need to know and don't have time for. Then you are thrown into 9 pages of homework with no idea how to use the formulas. He speaks in terms that I have never heard before and assumes everyone knows what he's talking about, and gets upset when the class shows any sort of confusion. Anyways, I failed every single quiz, bad. It became kinda funny. You have less than 10 mins to complete them and it takes 5 minutes to copy down. Instead of realizing that the content is unclearly presented when we all fail, he tells us it's easy and makes you embarrassed to ask questions. I tried going to office hours because of this, and really got nowhere. I got an A on the midterm because I spent days teaching myself everything, but ended with a C because of the damn quizzes, intensely graded homework, and questions on the final I had never seen before.

Having not done well in physics 131, I was a little worried coming into this class. Professor Mwangi was very effective at presenting the material and I am leaving this class with a deep understanding of pretty much everything. The class consisted of nightly homework (usually only 3 or so problems per night), two midterms and a final. There were supposed to be quizzes as well, but I think because it was his first quarter at Cal Poly, he was not sure how fast the quarter system moved. We never ended up taking any quizzes, but he might adjust his schedule to accomodate these quizzes these quizzes for future courses. Also, EXTREMELY friendly and approachable, which made me look forward to going to class. I felt as though he cared that every student understood everything, and I would definitely reccommend going to office hours if you need any help. And, as he would say, "the rest is gravy." Overall, a very good teacher.

Professor Mwangi is a great guy. Although I had some difficulty understanding what he was talking about in class and had to teach myself some of the stuff, he was a great resource in office hours and I ended up with a B after failing both midterms. I've heard some pretty bad stuff about some of the ArcE professors. This guy's the man.

Dr. Mwangi is a very intense but kindhearted person. He can sound severe, but usually that's just because of his (awesome) accent or because he is trying to overly emphasize something important (he does this in class as well as in office hours). Mwangi is a fairly solid professor as well. He didn't necessarily spell out everything we needed to know, and much of the class was difficult. But that is the nature of ARCE 223. His 1 midterm and final exam were very fair (not easy at all but definitely do-able if you've done the homework, studied, and paid attention in class). He may sometimes go fast but he is ready and willing to explain things more slowly in office hours. He is also often open to talking outside of office hours, which I found helpful as I could never make any of his posted ones. The class itself follows one of two grading schemes, whichever benefits your grade more. Plus, he curves at the end (sometimes quite generously). - Scheme 1: hw/activity 15%, quiz 15%, midterm 35%, final 35% OR - Scheme 2: hw/activity 15%, quiz 15%, midterm 20%, final 50% Overall, Mwangi can be quite difficult, but if he is your professor you will be fine so long as you make this class a fairly high priority.

Masonry was the first class I\'d had with James, and I\'d heard horror stories about it. As it turns out, the class is actually rather easy (on an ARCE scale), there\'s not too much homework (also on an ARCE scale), and the material is relatively light, especially if you\'ve already taken Steel or Timber and know the basic design theories. James did a pretty good job with the class. He always told us ahead of time what we were covering, and made sure everyone understood it before he went on. And in a class with as many variables that keep changing what they\'re supposed to represent (OMFG I THOUGHT K WAS THE SPRING CONSTANT NOW IT\'S LIKE THE DISTANCE TO THE NEUTRAL AXIS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT NO WAIT THAT\'S D OH IS D THE DEPTH GOOD AT LEAST THEY START WITH THE SAME LETTER BUT WTF IS J THEN AAAARG I CAN\'T HANDLE THIS ANYMORE /wrists), that was pretty helpful. He\'s also relatively accessible during office hours, though he has a predilection for answering a question with \"Well, what do you think?\" I\'d take James again given the chance. He\'s one of the more underrated ARCE professors here at Poly.

Mwangi is a masonry maestro. His class is hard and fails people because he believes you remember the things you fail or get wrong. I had him a few years ago and he's right, I remember the test problems I missed to this day. Don't worry young jedi's, he'll curve the class in the end. Mwangi is a homie. Check-a-da-box!

Jesus. Christ. prepare for war. before you take this class know that everything he **says** is fair game for any pop quiz, midterm, assignment or final. This class will teach you how to be inspired by horrible grades. You may get the lowest grade out of all your friends who take 371 with other teacher but dammit you will know more then all of them combined about International Building Code. Even in it's learning brought on by fear of failing in it's purest, uncut form.

James is so sweet, really. Though the other two lab classes for steel did a TON more work (and understand the material better, I think), James laid the procedure WE were expected to know very clearly for us, step by step with references abundant. I LOVE his accent, though some found it frustrating. As with any lab class, you just need to stay on top of your submittals. And you WILL be pulling all-nighters. Welcome to the major. But James is really encouraging and super willing to help you out with any questions you have. Be prepared if you have a complicated name, he'll probably be mispronouncing it :) The man's from Kenya (I think)! Give him a break! Quizzes weren't bad at all, and are relatively insignificant in an lab class anyway. Great instructor, loved him to death. Worked my A$$ off, but loved him.

he sure does like his women, wet!!

James Mwangi is a really great professor! He knows his stuff and teaches it well. If you have questions he is more than happy to take the time to make sure you understand. Just be aware that his quizzes are 8-10 min and almost everyone fails them because 10 min is not nearly enough time. He is also a hard grader (especially when it comes to organization of Revit drawings), but that is because he wants you to know what you are doing wrong and correct it. Definitely take advantage of office hours and ask questions. Don't worry if you are doing poorly on quizzes because he puts a pretty big curve on the class. One of the better ARCE professors.

PEOPLE! PEOPLE! Are we ready? If you have never had a class with this man, be prepared for three minute quizzes, an unparalleled enthusiasm for hump day, and a Kenyan accent that you will spend all quarter entertained by and the next quarter missing, and James-isms. For being a rather short man, what he lacks in height he makes up for in having the loudest voice of any professor I have ever had. Don't be afraid of his grading, he embraces the learn by failing philosophy of a few professors in the department (namely Kevin Dong and Craig Baltimore) but always curves the class just before grades are due. James has frustratingly high expectations, but at the end of the day, when the cows come home, he is absolutely one of the best professors in the ARCE department.