Hughes, Gary  

Gary is just another professor. He rolls in and gives his powerpoint crossed w/ blackboard lecture and leaves. Homework, quizzes, and exams are directly from the notes. He tests you on everything about the notes though. Not just the big pic. Memorize EVERYTHING. Do that and you're golden. The quizzes and exams are pretty difficult so I'd avoid him if you want an easy A. However, he is very good about hands-on experience. (Let's you go on EC field trips, gives you a bag of rocks to take home to study, and has a lot of REALLY cool demos). So, if you want a lot of hands on experience, take him. Want an easy A? Take the other prof. Last note: around the end of winter quarter 2016, he was super busy with his research and stopped grading stuff (i.e. only graded 1 part of the 2 part quiz) Interpret that how you want.

Professor Hughes is a very peculiar person. He seems to have a great enthusiasm in geology and the course material as a whole, but comes off as so disinterested in conveying the material to his students. Hughes made it very clear that he does not believe lectures are intended to teach students, and in return he produces the most scattered notes I've had the misfortune of copying down. The worst part of Hughes is the way he grades, or more accurately the lack of grading. GEOL 201 consists of 2 quizzes and 1 midterm, all of which he failed to grade completely. After 2 weeks of waiting for our midterms back, he had graded about half of it, leaving the rest untouched. The class was easy and not much of a time commitment, but lectures are a struggle to get through.

Hughes is very disorganized in his presentations and repeats the same things over and over. The material is not hard to understand and the book helped me a lot for studying but the tests are difficult (no multiple choice). He would not give us the answers to quizzes and the midterms but instead told the class to figure it out themselves from the book/other students. He also never got around to fully grading our quizzes and midterms even after waiting weeks to give them back to us. If you can, take someone else.

In my personal opinion Gary Hughes is one of the worst professors I have ever had at Cal Poly. He knows what he is talking about but his lectures are the most boring things imaginable. At the beginning of the quarter he handed out bags of rocks to the class because we were told that we would have to memorize them for the quizzes, midterm and final but surprisingly he didn't even have enough bags for each person in the class. I would say only about 5 or 10 students didn't get bags out of the 65 or so in the class. The students who didn't get bags of rocks were at a major disadvantage because a major chunk of the quizzes, midterm, and final were memorizing and naming these specific rocks. When the students mentioned to Professor Hughes that there wasn't enough bags of rocks for everyone he simply said that he thinks he is doing a great job and that we should get over it and share bags, but its not as simple as it sounds. I personally never was able to look at a single rock from any bag because my schedule constantly conflicted with other students. For the quizzes there was a multiple choice, free response, and the rock section. He will not give you the answers to any quiz, midterm, or assignment because he doesn't want his students to "memorize and barf out the answers". He never graded our class' second quiz because "he didn't get around to it". I highly recommend going to the extra credit sessions because it seems like he favors the students who do. I believe this class was extremely unfair and should not of received the grade that I did. I highly recommend taking this class with a different professor.

Gary is the man. He knows his shit and presents it well. Whatever he writes on the board copy it down. All of the test questions are covered in the hw or lecture so i didn't do any reading. He loves geology and explains everything well, don't be afraid to ask him questions. And i recommend going on all the field trips. Make sure to study the rocks he gives you.

Puts up his sloppy notes, forces you to memorize an ungodly amount of material, proceeds to talk about how he's anti-memorization, then tests you on stuff you didn't learn.

Gary is the boi. He is a great teacher that presents the material well. He legit just writes everything he tests on the board so just copy everything down even the graphs and the pictures. He tests on everything. The book is useless and the homework is pretty simple. He says he has two quizzes, one midterm, and one final but they are all the same format and same level of difficulty. Do not take the first quiz lightly. Everyone fails the first quiz which tanks everyone's grade. The only reason I got a B is because i failed the first quiz which brought my average way down. The best way to study is to create a story on how the rocks are made and read the notes at least 5 times.

OK FIRST OFF this guy is not a geologist he is a STATS teacher. As a earth science major having take many geology classes this was not a good start. I had to re learn much of the information from other teachers because gary hughes thinks he can just teach it differently than any other geologist would. Some geologist teachers I would ask questions to had never heard the termanology he was using becuase he made it up. The rock bags were cool. but once again in my minerology class i had to relearn many of the minerals because he didnt call it the right thing or was very unspecific and would call the mineral by the group it was in. Over all very disappointed. ALSO CLIMATE CHANGE DISBELEIVER

I love Gary Hughes. Had a fun story teller vibe to his lectures, and was able to tie each class together. You might want to bring coffee or water or yerba matte to his class to stay awake and alert, however in my opinion his class was well worth taking.

Gary (as he likes to be called) works in industry, and covers material that will be used in industry. If you attend class you will do just fine. There are in-class exercises every week (that you get 100% if you write anything) then a quiz the following session. The quiz is identical to the in-class exercises, except for different numbers. Then comes the midterm (only one) it essentially all of the quizzes stapled together. He even says to go back and redo the quizzes to study for the midterm. Homework once a week, again, very very similar to in-class exercises, quizzes and midterm. So you are forced to do problems just like you will see on the test. There is one term project, topic is completely up to you, 2-4 pages and very simple. Gary is very clear about everything, very personable, never condescending and easy to learn a lot from. We have all had professors that seem like they are out to get you, he truly wants you to learn and is willing to help the whole way.

Excellent professor. Perhaps the easiest, most straightforward class at Poly. The lectures are crystal clear. The ICEs are exactly like the quizzes, which are exactly like the midterm, which is exactly like the final. No surprises in this class. Oh, and perhaps the only STAT class where you don't need to memorize any equations -- all calculator.

Great person and professor. He introduces the bases of all topics but doesn't expect you to do anything beyond application with a calculator and to have a general understanding when to use which methods. It's a pretty easy class where you actually learn a good deal. Definitely take this, even if it doesn't fit great in your schedule, totally worth it.

Dr. Hughes is awesome. He really enjoys teaching statistics. He relates his industry work to stats, which makes for a very interesting and thought provoking lecture. Dr. Hughes will teach you everything you need to know and more. He is a very fair grader. Your grade is directly related to the effort you put into his class.

Very straightforward and fair in teaching. Made things clear, hws/in-class-exercises/tests go together well. Even so, the class is not \"easy.\" requires some work and some memorizing/applications. Nice teacher and very knowledgeable.

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Professor Hughes is probably the most straightforward professor I've taken at this school. He's very linear and descriptive with his material, and definitely has an intuitive understanding of what he's teaching. Sometimes it may be difficult to follow him (he can have sloppy handwriting at times, but won't hesitate to clarify for you), and he could use more titles in his lecture notes, but he's still an excellent professor. Watch out for the final though. He'll teach you well, but won't be afraid to test you on it.

Dr. Hughes is perfect for engineers. He doesn't expect you to memorize pointless equations when he knows we will be using programs to perform the calculations for us. When I took his course a couple of years ago, it was focused entirely upon MiniTab. If you do the homework and pay attention 50% of the time in lecture, it's tough during a 6pm-8pm class, you should get an A.

Professor Hughes is a nice guys. He always responds to his emails and is willing to help you at his office hours. His quizzes, midterm, and final reflect the in class exercise assignments. I did not find the book work to be extremely helpful though. In the lectures, he goes over the examples differently than how it appears in the book. His notes may be a little bit unorganized when he writes the information on the board. However, it is not difficult to understand. The concepts are not difficult to understand. The questions build up on each other. If you get 1a incorrectly, you may get 1b, 1c, and 1d incorrectly as well. Make sure to go over your work while taking the quizzes and exams. For example, if I checked one of my problems closely, I could have gotten an A on the quiz rather than a C. I did that many times. He gives you plenty of time to complete the quizzes and exams. Sometimes, he stays after class to help you if you still have questions on the worksheets. Make sure to put units on everything because you get marked off a lot if you don't. The majority of the students in my class did not get an A. Only four people got A's and three of them were A-'s. Most people ended up with a B or B- in this class. There are no extra credit nor curves. If you are willing to learn, it is not difficult to pass the class.

I don't doubt at all that he knows exactly what he's talking about, but the problem is no one else ever knows what he's talking about. If you're like me and depend heavily on clear, organized notes to learn a subject, do not take his class. Every time he lectures, he takes notes in a very unclear tangled, interconnected web, kind of way. Yeah, that's my biggest complaint: his teaching. The subject should otherwise be pretty easy. Take another teacher if you can.

As some people have said below, Hughes can be condescending and is disorganized in his teaching style. The one time I went into office hours he made me feel like an idiot for having questions on the material we were learning in class and told me to go look up the answers on google. I would not recommend him as a teacher if you have never before taken a statistics class. The one positive thing I have to say about the class is that he let you take in a note card to the tests instead of having to memorize the equations. Overall I would give him a 2/5.

Gary Hughes was an awesome professor. Statistics is not a fun subject to learn, but he made it as entertaining as possible. It was not a big work load either. He demands full attention during his lectures, which I appreciate. He is also very personable. The only thing I found annoying about him was that he often repeated himself. The only thing I found annoying about him was that he often repeated himself. LOL.

Sloppy notes, not helpful in answering questions. Good with technology, presents sone real world application. Not a hard subject but he seems bent on teaching it in the most convoluted and confusing way. Avoid if possible.

Professor Hughes is a great lecturer. He comes to each class prepared and is able to move through the lectures at a good pace. His tests and quizzes follow a common format and are easy to prepare for. Great teacher, would recommend.

Excellent professor; clear, concise, and tries to apply his concepts to the real world. He has a very linear, systematic teaching style which serves as a great backbone for his lectures.

If you've ever taken AP stats, you'll have an easy time with the class. He presents material in a concise manner, but statistics, itself, is difficult to grasp quickly. There aren't many examples, so it's easy to screw up on the quizzes, midterm, and the final. He is a bit condescending/an ass, because he has an adamant "the real world sucks" mentality haha. I'd give him a 7.5/10.

Avoid Gary Hughes. He is so rude and does not care about helping students when they ask questions. This is not an easy class if you have no prior stats experience. There are weekly quizzes which are difficult.

Okay... I only got a B in his class, but I must say this man is incredible. He is actually one of those professors who cares about how you would represent Cal Poly after you leave and go work for industry. He helps you develop intuition for certain things which I think is one of the most important things you can learn by far. He is great and rather than other professors, he knows that modern technology is caught up with STATS and lets and makes us use our calculator STAT functions rather than plugging it into a formula. I would take his class. He gives out in class exercises which everyone gets a full score on if you turn them in. Then there are quizzes and if you can do the in class exercises, you will have no problem on the quizzes. There is one midterm which is pretty much a compilation of all the quizzes. Then finally there is a final.

Gary is a very interesting person. He has interesting stories from when he worked in industry that display the value of what you are learning, and may make you more interested in the topic. He also wants you to learn. Unfortunately, that is where the good points start to come to an end. His writing on the board is sloppy and difficult to follow, which might be okay if he provided useful out of class resources for self learning, or if he answered questions with any respect for the student at all. Unfortunately, we were forced to learn some key topics on our own from some text to speech videos that he made, or read from the 17 year old textbook which, as Gary puts it, 'is woefully out of date'. I really wanted to like this class at first, and I don't dislike Gary as a person. He does have a generally negative outlook on the real world, and I think this may contribute to many students dislike for him. As for my rating, this simply was not the professor for me - I was unable to follow his notes in class, and I was extremely unimpressed with the quality of materials that he provided for out of class learning with 'flipped modules'. If you follow the ICEs and the Quizes, they will point you directly towards what will be on the midterms - but only if you can learn the material in the first place.

This guy absolutely does not fuck. Avoid him, lectures are boring and dry, he refuses to answer questions because he thinks students should try to figure it out themselves. Class is not very hard, but it is very painful.

Lectures are terrible. Answers any student question with "What would an engineer think". Line of confused people visibly becomes nonexistent about 2 weeks in. If you want to do good in this class just skip the lectures and focus on the homework. Write notes while reading but learn how to do them purely by calculator!!! Don't try doing the problems by hand. Just learn the TI-83 or TI-84 methods. As well understand how to identify what kind of distribution based on wording. A group is suggested but I did fine learning by myself. The book will not teach the calculator methods; just google it and understand the concepts. Do the homework before doing the ICE's and definitely before the quiz. As long as you keep up the work, you'll be on track. Reading the book is faster than his two hour lectures filled on engineering philosophy and examples from his life (interesting at first, but repetitive). If you want to be shady, get old quizzes from friends or online (barely changes them). He as will give everyone like 100% on quizzes sometimes I guess to keep grades up (cool if you're bad at basic statistics). Quizzes are exactly the same as the ICE. Midterm and Final just the quizzes and ICE's slapped together. Generic class, pretty easy. Homework and Quizzes every week. Lots of grade cushioning if you're into that.

On the very first day, Hughes straight up told us that he doesn't want us asking him questions. He said that first if we didn't ask our colleagues, search online, read textbooks, and go to the library for information, he wouldn't answer our question. Isn't that your job? To help us understand statistics and answer our questions? He pretty much stuck to his word too; when someone would ask him a valid question, he would usually respond with a slightly aggressive and frustrated "Well you should know how to do it" or "We talked about that in class last week" instead of just answering it. The course material was learned mostly from doing the homeworks, and only partly from his lectures. Hughes' ability to make lectures interesting was hardly existent and this, coupled with the fact that he also seemed to dislike being there, quickly became one of the most unbearable lectures I've taken at Poly. Around week 7 it was obvious he did not care much about the class anymore, and told one of the other smaller sections that they didn't have to show up or do the work anymore, and that the final would be on only what he taught through those previous 7 weeks. This was only for the small section though, not the main sections. This was unfair to the main sections because they are likely to get much higher grades only having learned 7 weeks of material, but also unfair to the small section because they're paying tuition for this. Other Misc. comments: 1) Hughes will write complex equations and formulas on the board for half hour, then follow up with "but you don't need to know any of this because it's in your calculator." Then he'll show you how to do it in your calculator in about 30 seconds. 2) Since his approach to teaching is that students will be in industry one day and can't ask questions, he won't even take questions. 3) Your grade will pretty much be a mystery the entire quarter, as he doesn't put homework or quiz scores into PolyLearn. You never get homework back, but you get quizzes back without scores on them, only slashes if we got something wrong. If all problems are weighted equally, then you could calculate your score. 4) There is no guide to homework formatting. He tells you "If you think it's fine, it's probably fine" and refuses to expand on how he wants homework done. You could be getting D's every HW, or A's but you'll never know to fix it since you never get homework back or see grades for it. GRADES/HW/EXAMS: 20% Quizzes, 25% Midterm, 30% Final, 10% HW, 10% Project, 5% In-Class Exercises (ICEs). ICEs were given full credit as long as you did it, quizzes were just like the ICEs (but graded), and the midterm was just like the quizzes. The organization and grade system was probably the best thing about this class. Study the ICE, you'll do fine on the quiz. Study the quizzes, you'll do fine on the midterm. All in all, Hughes was able to teach STAT 312 curriculum at a satisfactory level, but I dreaded going to class every time.

Tells good stories, isn't interested in making this a pain-in-the-ass of a support course and forcing you to learn things you are never gonna use. He will relate everything he lectures on back to industry. Gary is a funny dude, if you want a prof who is going to just help you memorize all of the answers to get an A, avoid him. If you are looking to fulfill the requirement, learn about industry and have time to focus on more important major classes, take Gary. 25% midterm 30% final 10% term paper 20% weekly quizzes 10% HW 5% in-class exercise (participation)

I am currently taking 321 with Gary, and he is one of the worst teachers I have had personally. He takes so long to explain concepts and tells you certain things aren't important when they are etc. I am so lost in this class and will be hiring a tutor to teach me the material. One class, he even taught a section with an example problem that he completed incorrectly! We tried to tell him that the question was incorrectly worded but he insisted that the wording didn't matter! If anyone knows probability questions, then you know wording does matter! This class is ruining my quarter!

This is my first time reviewing a professor, and I must say, he is bad. I am in the class right now and am not learning anything. I think a tutor might be in order just to pass the class. It's not that it is all that difficult, it's just Gary isn't teaching us anything. I don't have time to teach myself statistics, but considering I haven't missed a class, I should be expected to have to.

Fun, and a bit of a personality. His approach to the Stats for Engineers course is that it should take a very practical, example-oriented approach to the topic. Basically everything is taught by example. Everything he teaches is taught that way to make it as easy as possible for us to apply Stat theories to the real world. The homework is not hard, but it should keep you thinking enough to keep up with what he's doing.

Its a pretty easy class overall, so it wasn't too much of a distraction from my major courses. The class moved horribly slow because of the people in my section, but that wasn't really his fault. Still, don't forget your adderall because holy shit. Chill teacher though, wouldn't not recommend.

Best Prof. I had so far. Went in to the class nervous since I am not a stat major. Turned out to be my funnest/easiest class. He gave us all these catapults we get to launch to design experiments. Get a good partner for that because you stay together for the quarter. He basically tells you everything that is going to be on a quiz/test before hand so there is no surprise there. HE GRADES SUPER FAIRLY which is awesome (by fairly I mean gives lots of extra points) and I always ended up getting A's even when I thought I didn't do that well) On the HW and class activities everyone gets 100% if you turn them in. He really cares about students and want you to do well. Always available in office hours and happy to answer questions. I wish he taught more classes I can take, so take him if you can!

Professor Hughes can seem condescending with his remarks about 'industry' and his excuses/reasons about not giving us key's to quizzes or homework problems. He doesn't seem approachable and seems arrogant because of this attitude. Ultimately however, he wants students to be more independent and confident with their answers to statistical problems and to apply it to real world data. Very structured well rounded class. He takes data of class grades and updates it statistically, you'll be aware of how you stand compared to the rest of the class. No curved grades. I'm at borderline C+/B-, I failed all the quizzes but Aced the midterm. Remember to study for your quizzes via his In class Exercises.

Clearly a really smart dude. He did a pretty good job presenting the material and the homework assignments, although long, perfectly paralleled what we did in class, and on the exams. He let you use whatever programs you wanted (excel, matlab, R) and let you turn in homework, basically whenever you wanted. The midterm and final were not very hard either as long as you go to class and do the homeworks well. Pretty smart guy, very approachable.

Dr.Hughes is a smart professor by going in depth in Time Series. He knows his stuff inside and out. Some of his homework assignments are practical to the real world like analyzing stock. Some of the concepts are not explained well and he's not helpful when you ask him questions. I wish he gives out computational instructions on how to do certain analysis in certain software such as Excel for the homework. Like someone said below, if you pay attention in class, you should pass.

Most frustrating professor in existence. He's not even really a statistician! He says he's a geologist and constantly talks badly about the ways statisticians do things which makes the whole class feel awkward because we're all stat majors and minors. He professor doesn't care about your grade. He says grades don't matter because that's not how life works when we graduate. He also says that answer keys or him telling you if/why you got something wrong is stupid because when we have jobs after we graduate our boss won't provide us with the answers...This argument is so unbelievably wrong because in order to do our job right in the future we need to know we are doing it right in class. We are supposed to make our own answer keys for the homework by researching and doing it right to begin with. If you ask him questions, he almost always responds with another question which usually doesn't help. Even though he is the most frustrating professor in existence, he grades fairly. There are 2 in-class exercises, 2 quizzes, a midterm, and a final. The in-class exercises are held a couple classes before the quizzes and they are extremely similar in length and difficulty. However, the quizzes take about an hour so they are like mini midterms. The midterms are the same difficulty as the quiz but a little longer and you get a notecard. He doesn't deduct that many points if you get something wrong if you show a lot of work so it's pretty easy to get good grades on the quizzes and exams. The in-class exercises and homework are based off completion, not correctness, which basically gives you a cushion for your grade. Overall, I would not recommend him if you care about your mental health and actually want to learn the material (which includes knowing if you are doing it right). Even though this class was an easy A for me, I wouldn't do it over again. If you want to take this class, take it with a different professor!! If you do take him, doing the homework is the absolute best way to prepare for the quizzes and exams. Also, I never opened the textbook...it's not referred to in any of the homeworks or in class so don't buy it.

By far the worst professor I have ever had in my entire life. This professor is an embarrassment to the statistics department and is a terrible representative of the department. He refuses to return any homework back to the students as well as failing to provide any feedback. He admits to ignoring students emails when students do not understand the homework. During lecture he is confused by his own notes and writes random unnecessary equations on the board without explaining what anything means or does. The day before our first quiz, as we had received no feedback if we were doing anything correctly, ended in a 45 minute argument with this professor. Many students expressed their concerns with him and he retaliated with sarcastic and inappropriate remarks, in the end students felt frustrated and ignored and walked out. He stated "What do you expect me to do, teach you?" His interpretation of "industry" experience means that student should figure out if they are doing something wrong on their own, meaning he will not help you. We NEVER received any of our homework back and after the second quiz he didn't understand why not one single student got any of the questions right, so he proceeds to give everyone 100% on the quiz. He forgot to give us the final project so on the last day he canceled it. Most students went to the department chair to complain and the next couple lectures other professors sat in the class to observe his teaching. DO NOT TAKE THIS TEACHER

Gary is a great guy with lots of knowledge. He is very good at Time Series but he relies heavily on "Learn by Doing" meaning you will probably spend a lot of time working on things that you don't know. He is very very helpful during office hours and really does care about the students learning. I believe I should have gotten a poor grade in the class however, I was very engaged, sat in front, took notes, and went to office hours. He gave me an A and I am thankful because it was a very very hard class.

Fuck this guy. Id like to stick my tounge up his ass.