Sheikholeslami, Zahed  

I got this first quarter instructor as an accident. His lecture was the single most amazing thing to happen at Cal Poly. The lecture material was dense, but thorough, and he packed the board with equations and then examples. He'd pause for questions, and then explain them thoroughly, even the dumb ones, and he was cool with students explaining missed pieces to each other even while he was talking. You could trust to find him in office hours, and he was very reassuring and assisting then. There were two outside assignments that needed to be turned in - a single sheet derivation and a group coding project for a calculation intense heat transfer problem. Several hours of work, but then a short writeup and done for 15% of the grade. He collects no homework, spends plenty of time in review, and makes it amply clear what needs to be demonstrated on the tests with quizzes and direct statements throughout the quarter. The final was not cumulative nor during finals week, but instead a slightly glorified and completable test on the last day of class. This man makes you feel like an engineer, trains you not on perfection and form but on how to make the kind of assumptions you will need to make in industry. If at all possible, take one of his classes.