Oliver, John  

Easy Orientation, show up to get credit for this class, John Oliver is such a great approachable guy I'm glad hes leading our department

It's a 1 unit class that's either credit/no credit. You show up to like the 4 classes during the quarter, you get credit. His mentor group idea is pretty cool, I had two pretty good mentors who gave me some good advice.

100 is by and large skippable. Do the two assignments and youre good. Parts of the lecture was interesting, but a lot of the speakers were just boring and eh. John though, is a saint. Fantastic man, wonderful teacher, and great guy overall. 10/10 man. John u da best.

This class was a 1 unit credit/no credit, so I don't have a ton of insight in to how he teaches, but from what I could tell John is an excellent person who is super willing to help any and all students however he can.

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At first he seems nice and lectures well but after the 1st test, you will get owned, no matter how hard you try. The 2nd exam was so bad only 6 people passed it and he made the WHOLE class retake it (no one got an A). If you ask him a question, you don't know what your going to get. He may answer it like a dick or if your lucky he will answer it. He does not give much mercy as far as grading. He might be calm personality but that is a front.

Oliver has been at Cal Poly a little while now, and has really come a long way from the teacher described in the other two posts. He genuinely cares and will help answer student problems, held Sunday study sessions before each midterm to go over all of the test information, and provided example after example on the simple computer modeled in the class. His lecture and lab were extremely intertwined, and taking one without the other might have hurt mine or anyone else\'s grade. I suggest taking him, but KNOW the stuff he\'s teaching, don\'t go into it hoping that the principles you understand will be enough to get you through.

Despite being terrified by the original one review I saw for John Oliver, I decided to just man up and take his course for cpe 229. WOW, am I glad I did. I can\'t say I\'ve had many courses at poly where I felt as if I walked away with a useful education, and after 10 weeks, Dr. Oliver secured faith in me and my major (EE). Computer architectures is cool stuff, but difficult to grasp at first and I had to put in a LOT of studying to keep up to speed. You\'ll go over the text\'s simple computer arch and then Picoblaze... both pretty elementary and appropriate for early understanding. I BOMBED the first midterm, absolutely BOMBED. However, I picked myself up with the 2nd midterm and final and walked away with a C+. He won\'t curve grades, but he has a system where he puts higher weight on a better scored exam, which I believe saved me. One homework assignment/week. Not to hard... just prepares you for the tests. Take Dr. Oliver if you want to know about computer architectures and assembly. You WILL learn. And I\'ll never look at laundry the same way...

This teacher seems very nice but in actuality, he's a jerk. He'd rather make the students like him than teach. He does not teach during classtime. He never does good examples. His homework is impossible. His tests are impossible. He does not give partial credit. I received some of the highest grades on the two midterms but when the final game I received an F. He gave no partial and was not clear in what he was asking on the test. I went in to talk to him after the final and he told me I got LUCKY on the first two midterms and that my final reflected what I deserved. This teacher is a JERK and should not be allowed to teach.

This teacher seems very nice but in actuality, he's a jerk. He'd rather make the students like him than teach. He does not teach during classtime. He never does good examples. His homework is impossible. His tests are impossible. He does not give partial credit. I received some of the highest grades on the two midterms but when the final game I received an F. He gave no partial and was not clear in what he was asking on the test. I went in to talk to him after the final and he told me I got LUCKY on the first two midterms and that my final reflected what I deserved. This teacher is a JERK and should not be allowed to teach.

Very difficult course with a lot of time required, but well worth it. :]

I feel compelled to write a rating for Oliver because his ratings are ridiculously and undeservedly low and because he really is a great professor and CPE 329 is an awesome class. This was probably my favorite class at Cal Poly so far, and it's the most enjoyable and fun class that I've taken since CPE 229/269. Remember those sh*tty Nexys 2 boards from CPE 229/269 that you had to program with some weird ass version of Assembly? Oliver did away with those boards for this class and got some pretty awesome STK 600 boards with Atmel AVR ATmega2560 microcontrollers, which means you get to program in C, and you don't have to go out and buy the boards (Oliver loans them out to you). The class mostly revolves around the 4 different projects (you have a lab partner). Project 1 is interfacing a LCD screen with board and printing out Hello World (pretty easy), Project 2 is interfacing a Digital-to-Analog converter with the board to create a function generator (somewhat more challenging), Project 3 is interfacing the board with a sensor of your choice (can be difficult, depending on what sensor you choose), and Project 4 is the final project (can be very difficult, depending on what you choose to do). Mixed in with these 4 projects is roughly 9 or 10 assignments (about one a week) that take you about a day or 2 of actual classtime to complete. You have between a week to 2 and 1/2 weeks to complete each project (just depends on how fast you complete the assignments). The 2 midterms and final are fairly straightforward. You will have nothing to worry about if you understand the projects and assignments and if you do your fair share of work on them. Oliver is not trying to trick you on them. Oliver is a cool guy, very friendly and always willing to help you and answer your questions. He's also a good person to talk to and to ask about senior project ideas, advising information, future classes and tech electives, etc.

Seriously one of the best teachers I've ever had here. I'm not sure why he has such a low rating. The projects in his classes are always fun. Looking back, they're some of my greatest moments in this school. If you like a bit of independence and a chance to shine he's your guy.

Dr Oliver is an awesome professor. Plain and simple. Yes his exams challenge you. Yes he makes you learn by doing. Yes he makes you understand the material. And if you don't get it or choose not to participate in the course then your grade will reflect it. Dr Oliver is one of the more outgoing professors that tries out something new, lets his student guide the teaching, and really lets you learn about the things you want to learn. I've had him for several lectures and labs now and always enjoyed the final projects which are typically quite open ended, allowing challenge by choice in what you're interested in. Do your education a favor and take Dr Oliver for at least one class to see what you are really capable of.

So this teacher sucks. End of story. He talks and thinks he's so cool because he knows how to use cuss words. Ya. Anyone can talk cool but are they cool? No. Especially when they try to be involved in your life and then when grading comes, you get no partial and everyone else around you does for doing the same thing. It's like he's punishing you for taking interest in you. Just a weird guy. Messed up dude.

The person below me pretty much said what I wanted to say. Here's some more info about this prof. This guy likes his lectures short even at the cost of you not learning anything from it. Terrible grading system. This guy was barely helpful when groups needed help with their programs. The TA was awesome and helped most of the groups. This prof. would tell you to do the things you were doing. Grrrrr. Finally, he's too full of himself and is extremely arrogant. Should've taken Dr. Benson. Sigh...... Well at least I learned a lot of new material not sure if I learned all of the things I'm supposed to learn, but I learned them from friends, other groups around mine, and the TA.

Dr. Oliver is one of the most underrated professor. He's really interested in having students motivate themselves instead of being lecture zombies. He is also very friendly in office hours and it seems like a lot of people's complaints with grading could be resolved by going and talking to him during office hours. If you want to learn a ton in 329 take Dr. Oliver.

I think Oliver is a great professor. He is friendly with students and is quite knowledgeable. I don't know how he taught the class before but he did some different things with it when I took it. First of all, it is a projects class so there was very little lecturing. Much of the class was spent working on projects like trying to get sensors and DACs to work with the ATMega. As he put it: the stuff you do in 329 is what you thought you would be doing all the time at Cal Poly. Another thing he did with this class was using "grading for mastery" which means that you have to master the material in order to pass. So in order to pass a midterm you would need to get over 90% on every question. That is really not as hard as it sounds and he allows students to retake midterms as many times as is needed to pass. Overall, this class is definitely worth taking with Dr. Oliver.

Great teacher and CPE Director. I had classes with him almost every year and he always made sure to keep his material up to date and cover the interests of his students. He constantly discusses with his students what they want to learn about and tries to fit it into his classes. He is also full of great life advice and it's easy to get stuck in a conversation with him about what to expect in college and once you get out into the working world. He is extremely personable and treats you like you're long time friends even when you just met him. You da man Oliver!