Schaffer, William  

This is the worst teacher I have ever had in my entire life. His lectures are useless - he doesn't know how to teach. The way he teaches expects you to know the material extremely well before you even learn it. His office hours are worthless because half of the time I go to them is he is nowhere to be found. Sometimes he even refers one student to another instead of trying to help you understand the concepts. Of course, both students are just as confused as the other. This man is lazy and he cares nothing about students. Never take this teacher!! Ever!!

Schaffer is a horrible horrible teacher. He is not there at his office hours, his grader (which is probably just him) never returns homework so there is no way of knowing what you did right/wrong. His lectures lack the fundamentals of the topics, and focus on difficult and abstract problems (and the book doesn't help much either). He completely fails at preparing the students for the homework. He claims he will post notes and homework answers online, but most of the time it is weeks after the fact. I feel like I have learned next to nothing in his class even though I got a good grade.

EEEEEEElectrosttttttatic. Man, this guy's lecture is boring as hell. Attendence to his class are really low because no one understands his lecture. I learned physics pretty much by teaching myself and group studying. There are homeworks due everyweek, but we never get it back on time so there is no way we can study for the midterm. Midterm questions are totally different than the homework problems, even harder. Tests are open book, but they are hard. Unless you took physics before or willing to work your ass off the entire quarter just to teach yourself physics, take another teacher!

Boring. Stutters, tests seem to be on material right out of the book, I didn't pay attention in lecture. Open book tests. I would suggest other Physics instructors if you can get them.

I hated this guy when I first had class with him. I didn't understand much of what he was trying to say to say and learned more from the book than him. He's also terribly boring and his monotone voice is not something that keeps you interested. Yet, he knows this. He realizes that he's boring and knows its better off for the students to just learn from the book. His tests are terribly put together and he's always asking about how to improve them. Towards the end of the quarter I decided that he was a nice guy, not that great of a teacher, but tried hard to improve. So, maybe he's better at teaching physics now than when I took him.

The worst professor I have taken so far. His lectures are boring, and never makes an effort to help the students. His office hours are useless. His test are difficult and nothing like the homework. I work my ass off for this class and still got a C. Dont take him, take anybody else (then you'll probably learn something).

The first thing you'll notice is that he stutters, bad. He is a horrible teacher, but the class is very passable, and this is why. If you don't mind reading and teaching yourself out of the book, you can do very well in his class. He is alright in office hours, but doesn't really teach shit in class, in fact, you don't even need to go to class. His quiz and test problems are all similar to the book's problems, and all his tests are open book! Even the Final! And he told us in class that he doesn't like to fail people, so if needed, there will be a huge curve. Put in time to read the book, and do the homework. If you can understand the book, you're set.

By Far the worst teacher i have ever had. His lectures are worthless because he just works through equations for an hour every day and doesn't explain what any of it means. On the other hand, the book teaches the material very well. His tests are very difficult despite being open book and are nothing like the homework.

He is By far the Worst teacher I have ever taken. His Test are impossible nothing like the homework of lectures. Not enough time to do any of it curves the class which helps out but unless you can teach urself DO NOT TAKE this teacher he SUCKS so much.

Professor Schaffer is the worst teacher I have had so far at Cal Poly. To his credit he is an EE teacher and I took him for physics. However, he really didn't know the material. Several times he had to be corrected by students or simply didn't have the answer to questions. Every day he pretty much did useless derivations that know one, himself included, could follow. Everything, I learned was from reading the book on my own. In fact, class was so boring I began doing the Mustang Daily crossword in class just to stay awake and only about 1/2 the class showed up on average. Schaffer, also is very monotone and has a bad stutter complicating his already poor teaching. If you do end up taking him, you can take some comfort in the fact that he is a pretty nice guy just a really bad teacher. Also, while you will likly fail all his tests, the class average was usually 50/100, he does curve so you can get a decent grade.

Nothing anyone has written here about Professor Schaffer can possibly prepare you for the utter incompetency that he demonstrates daily in class. For me, his lectures were so ridiculously incoherent that they became humorous to listen to...and the stuttering did not help. Ask him a question and prepare to be misunderstood, ridiculed, and above all else: confused further. Schaffer probably knows the subject matter, but is apparently completely incapable of communicating that knowledge to his students. If you somehow have been cursed with his physics 133 lecture, make sure you read and understand the book, take notes in your book for use on tests, forget about the homework you spent time on, and definitely do not stress about getting F's on the exams, as long as you stay near the class average and do your homework. Look at me, I honestly believed I would be taking the class over and I ended up with a B and I never had a clue what was going on!

This guy really likes the online homework system that comes bundled with the book. The MasteringPhysics account along with the book brings the total cost of being able to do your homework to over 140 dollars. The system itself is plagued with sloppy programming and incorrect answers, making it tempting to ignore the homework and do something more prodeuctive and less painful like samming your dick in the oven. His lecures are almost impossible to take any usable information from.

Schaffer made me want to throw myself out a window. He knows the material, but can't present it at all to students. The stuttering isn't horrible, but it sometimes interferes with his pathetic attempt at lectures. I didn't learn a goddamn thing this quarter, and only the curve gave me a B. This man cannot answer a question, and BEWARE THE MIDTERMS! They are mostly theoretical and you too will want to kill yourself after taking one. Plus the homework is online on Mastering Physics, which is a flawed and useless program. Seriously, you can enter .0001 and get it wrong, and the system will tell you it's 10^-4. WTF? So avoid this professor if you want to learn anything.

very poorly structured class. The HW is worth 25% of your grade, but it doesn't prepare you at all for the exams (neither does the lecture for that matter). I can solve the mastering physics problems all day long, but his exams were pretty tough and theoretical. I'd recommend taking another professor if possible. Can anyone say EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEElectrons?

The guy wasn't a DICK... but he wasn't a great physics instructor. He ran a "tight" ship and that ship did not sail me to the land of physics... it went across the god damned river Styx into hell. He isn't HORRIBLE... he's just a little boring. Every day I would wake up, and pray to jesus to hit me with a car so I could avoid this thing. I SWEAR to you the clock moved backwards a few times in his class. Evil... no. Good PHYSICS teacher... no he didn't prepare you for HIS tests. Nothing did. If you are a good self teacher... go ahead, take him. All else, try him for EE he's probably okay at that.

This guy does not understand a bit about being a teacher! His lectures are made up in class and the quizes do nothing but screw you. He doesn't know how to present material either. The first five weeks were him complaning about how crappy the book was instead of actually teaching us the material that we needed to know. We didn't even start the last chapter that we were supposed to finsh at the end of the quarter. NEVER EVER take him for any class.

Scaffer is the most incompetant teacher I have ever had. Of the thirty some odd lectures of the quarter, who was only prepared for a couple. He vary rarely prepared for class, none of his example problems worked or he did them wrong, and his quizes/tests come out of nowhere. Schaffer spent the first part of the quarter complaining that he didn't like our text book. The homework was assigned sporadicly and it didn't really seem like he put much thought into choosing homework problems. The example problems that he did on the board rarely worked, and it was the running joke with the class that he would end the period by saying "Well I guess I'm gonna have to figure out how to do this problem and finish it tomorrow..." I would encourage anyone who is thinking of taking this instructor to find another instructor or wait another quarter.

Dr. Schaffer kicks ass I am very shocked reading the reviews on this page. I had the man for EE307 and EE228 he taught the class well. He presented the material in a what you need to know for the real world manner. There would be an occassional derivation but nothing like some other professors. His tests are extremely fair. The only thing I have against him is that he acts like a dick sometimes, I think its because he needs a smoke and he has to wait till after class to get it. Other than that excellent and sometimes funny prof.

Well, I don't know about frosh physics, but this guy is not too bad of an EE prof. It was nice to have someone without a thick, barely-understandable accent. Of course, he does stutter, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut that's not too hard to get used to. So I had him for two classes, EE 212 and EE 228. Both were not the easiest material, but he generally reviews concepts that you should know from previous classes, and can usually give a solid lecture. He does make some errors while at the board, and at times has to sit and stare at it before he realizes where the error occurred, but at least he's willing to admit it. His quizzes can sometimes catch you offguard, but the midterms and final are curved fairly generously, and the homework helps your grade quite a bit. Bottom line: A good option if the other prof's listed for your desired class have similarly average-looking reviews, and an even better option if you hate having to deal with thick foreign accents.

Absolutely HORRIBLE, he could barely follow the book. He would make his lectures 5 minutes before class, and I heard he was screwing up in all his other classes also. One of the poorest professors I have had in a long while. I really don't understand why professors try to teach classes when they have no clue whats going on. You should pass b/c he feels sorry that you are taking him, but if you want to learn more than what you could on your own take someone else.

Fire his ass! He sucks and has no real point in teaching or even having a degree. Im sure elementry kids have more brains then this guy. I almos want to transfer after I took him because he gives Cal Poly such a bad name. Hey Schaffer, go teach third grade science!

OK children, stop crying about Schaffer. He is not a tough professor, all you have to do is study the solutions to his quizes and HW's and you will do just fine on exams. He actually is a nice guy too, unlike most EE profs.

He looks like Billy Bob Thornton

Avoid Schaffer. This man does not enjoy dealing with students. He graded hard and had no problem if only very few people in the class did well. My partner and I spent a great deal of time and effort on this class to only receive a C. Our lab had to be fully complete by the end of lab. He was hard to get help from because he was always taking smoke breaks. We had no lab final which was nice but we had to do seperate formal lab reports, ones just like a technical journal article.

Don\'t listen to these dumbasses. Clint Eastwood, the Shaffdogg himself, is the best teacher you could possibly have... ever. He chain smokes and throws people\'s \"shit\" right on the ground. He don\'t give no fuck.