Retz, David  

Retz is a great guy but this was a rough class. We didn't follow the material that the other sections did so it was difficult to study with friends. The labs had nothing to do with what we were doing in lecture and the class was run inconsistently, no quizzes, a couple of homework assignments thrown in, labs announced online. The midterms were straightforward.

Professor Retz is a nice person but he is still struggling with teaching. The whole class itself is unorganized because he doesn't follow through with the schedule. We had 7 labs and they had nothing to do with what we learned in lectures. The labs are strange and he doesn't provide enough instruction. However, he did get better at teaching. Overall, take him if you would like to have a laid back class and like to learn things by yourself. Reading the book and powerpoints are helpful.

David just started teaching this past quarter and he was absolutly the best teacher ever. Well he wasnt very good at teaching, but it is the easiest A you can get at Cal Poly. First day of class he said, he would like to give everyone A's. If he is not fired for following up on his quote next quarter do whatever you can to get him. You might not learn much, but he is the nicest and coolest prof I have ever had.

Did a great job of simplifying a complex area and making it interesting as well. Would like to see more of this guy.

Retz is probably the goofiest, nicest guy you will meet. However, he cannot teach to save his life. If you take this class, you will have to live off Google and learn everything on your own. The class is supposed to cover MIPS assembly and various other random things. We never spent ONE lecture on MIPS syntax. Had to learn it s-o-l-o. The hw is credit/no credit and we had 2 quizzes 2 midterms and a common final. With the best of the quizzes and midterms being counted and the other thrown out. Overall, if you want to learn from lecture due to the fact that we are paying$$$$ for it, dont take retz. If you want a breeze of a class with labs you can turn in whenever, take retz.

I loved retz - he was really helpful and this class even helped on my interview. No sour grapes here.

The class is pretty laid back -- work on weekly labs in teams of 2-3 and all multiple choice quizzes, midterm, and final. However, be prepared to teach yourself all the material. Retz lectures through topics extremely quickly, and his lectures don't have much relevance to the class work he expects. He never really covers any of the material needed for labs/quizzes/exams and expects that the class more or less understands all of it. Very nice guy, but not the most helpful teacher. A plus: he asks a Jeopardy question every lecture and if you answer correctly you get a bag of tangerines and peanut butter cups.

Retz does not do this class justice. His lectures are "meh", sans the Jeopardy question of the day, where he gives young, poor, starving college students rations for listening. However, Retz doesn't know how to teach the material effectively, opting instead for a teaching method of "talking about his past" when he needs examples pertaining to class material, and acting as if we still live in the 1990s. The tests are not that hard because they are multiple choice, and you don't have to attend class at all except for tests if you don't want to (honestly, it wouldn't change much). Also, his office hours are actually not that bad. Tl; dr: This class is like Julie with 225 if Julie didn't know how to teach.

Retz is the sweetest old man. He presents everything in class and has practice finals and midterms that really help. Labs are easy if you know C and homework is completion not correctness. Pretty straightforward class and great professor.

I'll be upfront and say Retz is not the best at conveying material. However, your grade consists of labs that can be done in teams, a multiple choice midterm, multiple choice quizzes (he drops your lowest score of the 3), and a multiple choice final. How's that for a low stress programming class. If computer architecture is not your area of interest as a computer scientist, this is the best way to go.

First of all this is an easy class, a lot of prof Retz's material can be found on websites like chegg. He is a very entertaining guy and he loves to talk however be aware more than 50% of the time those entertaining talks have nothing to do with course material and many times nothing to do with his exams, if you will look around you will find that nobody is paying attention because everyone knows that most of it what he is talking about is irrelevant to course and his exams. however his exams arent tough. He is a fun entertaining guy and he can pretty much talk about anything, this is more or less an easy B class. Whether you attend his lectures or not you can easily get a B in his class, you are here to learn then take somebody else.

THIS IS THE EASIEST CLASS I HAVE TAKEN AT CAL POLY. RETZ IN HIS HAWAIIAN T-SHIRTS AND SHORTS EVEN WHEN IT'S RAINING, IS THE COOLEST GUY. NO MIDTERMS, NO FINALS, JUST DAILY LAB ACTIVITIES, 3 QUIZES AND A FINAL PROJECT. IT'S SUPER FUN AND INTERESTING. THE CLASS WAS TWO HOURS EVERYDAY, YOU GET OUT AN HOUR EARLY EVERYDAY IF YOU FINISH THE LABS EARLY. THIS IS THE EASIEST AND FUNNEST CLASS YOU COULD POSSIBLY TAKE FOR AN AREA F. RETZ IS THE BEST!!!

Wow. If you're looking for a higher div class that you'll get an A in with literally 0 work, take this. I can confidently say this is the easiest class I'll ever take in my entire education career. Starting from Kindergarten. It's that easy. Just show up every day (and even then, about half way through you dont need to show up anymore), and you'll get an A.

Super chill. Very helpful with lab questions and procedures. Had a German exchange student lab partner so he and Retz were talking German so I knew we were getting good lab scores! Very relaxed on pre/lab report grading.