Moss, Robb  

Moss is an idiot. He doesn't really know how to convey the material. I can read the book and understand it better than he can teach it. His test are pretty easy only because the material he covers makes you feel like you're in 7th grade. He's not very approachable at all, but then again, why would you approach an idiot and ask him for questions. He's just striaght out stupid!

Moss is a good teacher. You'll do homeworks that aren't that much work. They will be calculation based. His tests however are pretty conceptual. Take the difficulty of homework calculations and cut it in half for the tests. BUT, be sure to know the concepts. He told me he gives tests from mainly his class notes. So study those really well before exams with less emphasis on the homework. Overall, presents the material well, pretty energetic, and a good guy.

Great guy but super lazy...all you have to do is get a copy of one of his old tests and it's cake.

I\'ve found that people either love him or hate him. Personally, I thought he was great. He\'s very energetic and explains material in a way that I thought was very effective and straight forward. I don\'t know why people are calling him an idiot in previous posts because I\'ve found that he knows this stuff inside and out and has a ton of experience and stories from the field that he shares with the class to keep it interesting. I can see where people may think he is hard to approach and seems ignorant, but he will answer your questions in office hours and is generally a nice and very funny guy. He will tell you that his tests are very straight forward and all from the lectures, but I would argue that they are pretty detailed and can be a little tricky, but not unfair. I also had him for CE 488 (risk analysis) and those tests were extremely straight forward.

Dr. Moss is a great teacher and presents the material in a very clear manner. He really knows what he\'s talking about and has a lot of experience with the material. The tests are pretty hard but it comes straight from the notes, so as long as you pay attention in class and study hard you will do fine. He also is very approachable and will try and help you with anything that you don\'t understand both in class and in office hours. The book is on reserve at the library and it is pointless to buy because it\'s only used for reading that goes over everything covered in class. Take him if you are really interested in Geotech and Earthquake Engineering or just want a very knowledgeable professor.

Moss is an okay teacher. He is very clear in lecture and homework, but I felt his tests were a bit ambiguous. I do appreciate that he doesn\'t overload with too hard to understand concepts, he keeps the class fairly basic. I\'d recommend this class only because Moss is EXTREMELY knowledgable about the material, gives weekly homework of only about 5-7 problems (1.5 hours tops), and is straight forward about the material.

DONT BUY THE BOOK. I used it once in the library and never touched it again. i dont know why so many people hate moss. maybe his teaching style suited me and not others. overall, the class was chill. i only went off lecture and homework and almost set the curve for the midterm. i spent only 2-3 hours on hw each week. im definitely not a genius (ive got a 2.91) but this class seemed very straight forward. im disappointed i only got a B, but his final was pretty rough

I have to give Moss some credit for being a decent teacher- not that the material is that hard...it's dirt engineering. Indeed the only calculations you do are add, subtract, multiply, and divide. But I felt he was WAY too nit picky on the tests, giving out half credit for rounding an answer off instead of getting the exact value he wanted. Or one test question asked about the specific weight of water...which is 9.81 by the way. Put 9.8? Wrong. Some people were able to argue some points back, but he is stingy. All in all, I learned how he graded from the midterm and consequently did much better on the final. So if you take Moss you will probably learn the material well enough, just be careful on tricky test questions.

Dr.Moss is one of my favorite professors I've taken at cal poly. He explains everything very clearly and is always very willing to answer questions. The guy loves what he does and it shows in his teaching. I never thought I would be interested in geotechnical engineering but I was proved wrong after taking this class. How the class was laid out: 10% hw 40% midterm 50% final The hw does not come out of the book, so it is possible to go without it, but I personally used it multiple times when I was confused on something. The book is listed as the 2nd edition which costs 150 dollars, but the 1st edition works just as good and is easy to find for 10 dollars. He makes the hw himself, and it's typically not too bad. The homework normally comprises of doing some basic calculations based on a given situation or interpreting some data. The midterm and final are much more conceptual than the hw. Even though the homework only covers technical work, it's important to understand everything he covers in lecture. There is always a true and false section, multiple choice, and a couple of free response. Don't be too worried though about knowing absolutely everything, just make sure you go through all of your notes and that you clarify anything you you don't understand before taking the test. I personally don't like the idea of your whole grade being based around two tests, especially since the class is not curved, but the tests are generally fair. I would say the part that was most difficult to understand was the last thing covered in the class, strength. Make sure you understand all the tests and how to interpret their data, and understand all the different long term/ short term situations.

He is a really cool guy: fun, knowledgable, and reasonable. I don't know how he grades, but I would imagine it will be fine. The lab is fun: not too much work and we usually get out a little early. The labs are relatively interesting too. Recommended.

There's no way you can avoid Moss for Senior Design (he's the program coordinator), so I guess this will just tell you what to expect. The one unit course in the fall is absolutely useless; several guest lecturers come in to speak about fluff to waste 2 hours of your life per week. During winter quarter, more useless guest lecturers come (instead of Moss and Valadao actually lecturing to give guidance on the project) and your group will be infinitely lost and confused as to how to create a design that is way over everyone's heads. I don't know how Dr. Moss expects students to create these designs when most of the plan sets have never even been mentioned before in our coursework and we only have very basic CAD skills. During spring quarter the final exams start rolling in (near the middle/busiest point of the quarter, which I found entirely unfair), which you are destined to fail (everyone does) because Dr. Moss and Mr. Valadao fail to review the material that will be covered on the exams. To top everything off, in the end they harshly grade your project as if it were an actual project in industry. So naturally, everyone gets a C or a D on the project. This entire course features poorly utilized lecture time, Moss's poor teaching/organization ability, and his arrogant attitude. Some major changes need to be made in this course for it to be useful and meaningful for engineering students transitioning into the working world. Our department should be ashamed of the ineffective "Senior Design" course they have created. This is honestly one of the worst courses I have taken at Cal Poly.

Not only is this guy an ignorant douche but he also has no idea how to teach. To top it off, he left for a full week or so and had guest lecturers come in which, surprisingly, taught more in their single lectures than he did in a quarter. His tests and quizzes are purely conceptual and you receive minimal partial credit for your efforts as well as getting unexplained deductions. There is no homework and that seems all fine and dandy at first but he gives you 2 pop quizzes that you pray you get half right and he gives lab assignments that he doesn't explain so he ends up having to give everyone the same grade since no one gets them right. Everyone in the whole class felt he was a huge asshole and that his teaching is terrible. Moss even pretends to be friendly and down to earth, throwing in bits of dry humor he probably rehearsed 5 minutes before class that are pretty much a slap in the face prequel to the worthless 2 hours of lecturing to follow. Don't take Moss if you don't have to, plain and simple, or you will see what I'm ranting about first hand. By the way, if you're reading this Moss, thanks for not returning my e-mail you socially inept bag of trash.

moss is probably the only racist professor ive met at cal poly. i hope you read this you sorry sack of shit.

Moss is by far, one of the worst teachers I have had here. I say \"one of\" because unfortunately, I just got by far the worst this quarter. But back to this guy. He comes off as a good guy with dumb jokes and stupid comments, but if you ever go ask him anything, you will find out that he (1) doesn\'t really know anything, and (2) is a total dick. He constantly contradicts the very book that he assigns and when asked about it, he will give an answer such as \"oh, well they are just nitpicking.\" No Mr. Moss, they are the foremost authority on this subject and you should listen to what they are saying. In addition, geotech is the easiest part of civil engineering, as the only math you do is addition, subtraction, and multiplication. You don\'t use any statics or dynamics or fluids or thermo. You basicly don\'t use anything that you learned after 8th grade. However, it is a very opinion based field. There are many right answers to different problems, and Moss only accepts his answer. He will even put questions on the test which can clearly be answered in two ways, and yet will only accept the one which he thinks is correct. He is incredibly difficult to work with because he is incredibly stubborn. Even when he is proved wrong (which happens very often), he will get flustered and try to defend himself by saying he was asking for something different. SCREW you Moss. This guy is an idiot. Don\'t take him...please!

Moss never missed an opportunity to not teach. Between furlough days, in class assignment grading, guest lectures, labs and him leaving for a week to pursue a research grant, he lectured about 9 times, out of the 20 scheduled class meetings. All told this class covered 1 (not exaggerating) new topic that was not covered in 381, bearing capacity which is basically just 1 equation. After we finished this topic I stopped taking notes, and dug out my old 381 notes. Call me weird but for some reason I expected the advanced soil mechanics class to cover new material, or at least cover the 381 material in greater detail, I couldn't have been more wrong. I took 381 with Hansen, and he covered this material in about three times the depth. It was amusing watching Moss ramble for half an hour trying to explain concepts that Hansen explained more thoroughly in several minutes. I think Moss was just trying to kill time. On a personal level he carries this sort of dickish, phony Mit Romney vibe . By that I mean he seems very insincere, he walks into class with a fake smile, throws out a bunch of dumb jokes that seem to follow a script, and engages the students with bits of artificial friendliness, but is completely different person on a one to one level. I went to his office once and he did not speak a single audible word to me, he responded to my questions with a series of grunts, ums, ughs, phs, ect. He would occasionally look at me, smirk, chuckle and shake his head in disapproval, then turn back to his computer. Not exactly approachable in my opinion, maybe he was just having a bad day, but I doubt it. Towards the end of the quarter Moss decided to leave and cancel class for a week so he could go study the damage from the earthquake in Chile (this was Winter '10). The day before leaving he went through a nifty little monologue where he tried to justify this trip which ended with these words, and I quote, “teaching is a priority for me, my classes are a priority”. I do not, for one second doubt that his classes fall somewhere on that list, but they sure as hell aren't number one. I think that's the real issue with this guy, hes cares more about getting his research grants and making himself look good than teaching.

Avoid. Fiegel is much better. Lectures are unclear and all on theory with no examples. Tests are on material not covered in homework where you have to figure out what to do on the spot. Projects are long and he is an incredibly harsh grader.

Dr. Moss is not a difficult professor. As long as you go to class and do your homework you should be fine. The homework is assigned once weekly and is not too lengthy as long as you have the examples from class. There are 2 lengthy projects that he will assign one week before they're due. The projects and homework are not graded harshly. For instance you could receive a 17/20 on the final project even if all of your final answers were wrong. He is more concerned about your process. I would recommend keeping your CE 381 textbook, it really helps to reinforce what Moss teaches in CE 481. He is not only a good lecturer, but a cool guy as well. I would recommend him for any class based on my experience.

Moss is a funny guy and has a lot of experience in what he is teaching. He does know the stuff, but I think that the course is not so deep as it could be. The homeworks are not that tough. However, I have not done well in the midterm, so my grade was not very good. I think he could do more exercises and at sometimes I get the impression that the could have his board better organized. Considering everything,I still consider Moss an good teacher and you certainly will learn a lot with him. Trivial tip: PAY ATTENTION IN THEORETICAL EXAMPLES IN CLASS THAT YOU MAY THINK IS WEIRD. This stuff is going to be on the final.

Overall Moss was a pretty good teacher. His lectures were dull but I feel like that was more of the content rather than his teaching. The class has weekly homework, one midterm, and one final, all of which are pretty difficult. It's hard to judge Moss' ability when this class sucks so bad. CE 488 is all set theory and pointless math that seem pretty useless looking at the big picture of civil engineering. You'd be better off taking a different ATE.

Moss is a great professor! He keeps this class relevant and interesting!

I had to leave an evaluation on Dr. Moss after reading all the reviews these moron undergrad students have been leaving. Moss is one of the best teachers in the CE department. He doesn't waste your time with any busy work or excess details. Everything is to the point and very conceptual. He never requires you to buy books, though he does give recommendations. I have taken classes from him at the three four and five hundred levels and his work load is always appropriate for the course, helpful and manageable. Some people seem to have found him to be a dick? If you ask stupid questions and waste his time in office hours on things you should be able to find the answer to on your own, expect a dick response. It takes a very bitter person to call Dr. Moss stupid or racist. If you can't handle Dr. Moss's class quit the profession because its probably a good indicator that you're going to be a failure.

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!