Mastako, Kimberly  

Okay this was one of the best classes I have taken at Cal Poly. It was really cool, because there were many trips to down town analyzing the traffic patterns and even timing the lights to get a continuous stream through down town. She wasn't always knowledgeable about the computer programs and really stuck to the basics. She was a great lab professor, but I think she could be a tricky lecture teacher, just because she is very laid back when lecturing, but could be a harsh grader on a test. She gave us radar guns for one lab and we got to radar cars on campus to see if the speed limits were correct. Overall I would say she was a great teacher, a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. Take her for lab if you want to have fun and learn.

I loved Dr. Mastako! She has weekly quizzes that come straight from reading the book (about 10-15 pages of reading a week), but they weren\'t difficult. There are also occasional homework problems, which are pretty self-explanatory. As far as tests go, there\'s one for each unit (three total) which are non-cumulative. The test problems are pretty straightforward (just study the homework), and you\'re given all the equations and charts you need. Sometimes time is a little tight in the hour, but the tests all end up curved. I am pretty passionate about transportation, but even for other disciplines of CE who just need to take the class, Mastako is very good at explaining the material and reasonable about the amount that can be covered in an introductory class.

Mastako is great. She provides lecture slides which you print out before class. She assigns a lot of homework but it is very simple and easy and never took more than around 30 minutes to complete. Her tests are difficult but she curves them so that everyone ends up doing fairly well. Overall, good class and would take her again.

Mastako's class is easy to succeed in. There are 2 midterms and a final, and the final is not cumulative. All of these exams are pretty easy if you do your assigned homework. She is also very reasonable and will usually give you a few points back on homework assignments or exams if you go to her and plea your case. Overall really liked her, even considering taking 421 with her next year.

Hard grader and unfair

Dr. Mastako is awesome. She is great answering questions in lecture and in office hours. You can tell that she wants her students to understand the material and enjoy it. She gives fair tests and grades fairly as well. As long as you review the provided readings and videos outside of lecture she is a great professor.

Awesome lady, but this class is kind of a mess and her book (which she wrote) REALLY should not be used to teach a 300 level engineering course. It is definitely not up to par with this university's standards and I gained almost nothing from it.

This professor is not very bright which means her tests ARE EASY! And since she doesn't except a lot from herself, she doesn't except a lot from her students. IF YOU WANT AN EASY TRANSPO, TAKE HER! IF YOU WANT TO LEARN TRANSPO, TAKE RAHIM IF POSSIBLE!

Reason why i decided to NOT become a transportation engineer...nuff said

She is nice and seems interested in what she does, but thats all she really has going for her. <br> She assigns work but never really tells you what she wants on it or how to do an assignment. We would be given a general idea on how to work on an assignment, but then when you ask her about anything specific she will always avoid the question. That's really the worst part about taking a class with Mastako. <br> She always left lab early even when people were still working and asking questions. <br> She is very unorganized. She ended up not being able to cover all the material the department requires, we never looked at pavement design. On the one exam we had to take, she misprinted half of the papers. She brought people in to teach her how to use programs she was supposed to "teach" us during lab. <br> Overall she is ok, but I would pick another professor over her if I had the choice.

She will use big words to confuse you or sound above you. Her assignments are vague to the point that you ask her for clarification on every point. On a good note, everyone gets a C or above.

Midterm are very long and it is difficult to finish it. However, she gives opportunity to rise our grade with a take home final. Just need to work harder.

She's nice, and she knows her stuff. However in my opinion, that's where the good ends. She's a very bad lecturer. She doesn't appear to prep for the class much at all - lectures generally consist of her flipping through the book and pointing out parts she finds interesting. (Pet peeve - she requires us to bring the textbook to class everyday. I don't understand how professors don't get that we have other classes, and don't have room for all those books...) My biggest complaint is her absolute lack of clarity on assignments. Generally she just mentions something about "for your homework I'll have you research this or that..." and that's it. No idea what she wants, length of response, any response at all..? Annoying. Anyway, traffic engineering is stupid easy, you'll do fine if you take it, but Dr. Mastako, please work on your lecture/organizational skills...

The good thing about Dr. Mastako is that she is very interested in the material she presents to the class and wants the class to be just as interested. Unfortunately, she is extremely disorganized and doesn't even realize it. She comes up with assignments on the fly without giving a due date or clarifying exactly what she wants. The lab assignments are super involved and also unclear. If you don't like transportation you'll have even more trouble with the class. She is very flexible and loves what she does but I wouldn't recommend the class unless you plan on going into the field of transportation.

Very nice. Willing to work with the students on difficulties. Does assign a lot of work, but isn't strict on the deadlines or the grading. One of the better instructors in the CE department.

Dr. Mastako is one of the most dedicated, knowledgeable lecturers in the department! She expects a lot out of her students in terms of quality and quantity of work, but also listens to her students and scales back assignments if the workload gets too heavy, which I really respect. Overall, I get the impression that this class is not often offered, so the content probably changes dramatically from year to year. This particular year though, the class was co-taught by Dr. Mastako and Professor Gerfen (Computer Science Department), with Mastako doing 80% of the teaching. This still provided us with some computer/data transmission background, which is important to know from an engineering standpoint. Lecture topics included a broad range, from run of the mill treatments (VSL, CMS, lane control) to transportation security to purchasing products. I thought it was very inclusive and covered an appropriately broad range of topics. We had two guest speakers come in, one from Caltrans and one vendor from Advanced Traffic Products, and got to go on two field trips: to the Caltrans Traffic Management Center in SLO, and to an intersection for a counting exercise. Each person was also assigned a case study to research, write an individual paper on, and then give a presentation to the class. The final project was a CONOPS (concept of operations), which is a document describing the needs, contributions, and benefits of various stakeholders, and how the system will operate from each user's perspective. This was actually the focal point of the entire class, with the systems engineering approach being taught for the first half of the class, and applied for the second. This class was certainly a lot of work, but I can say I came out of it with a LOT of exposure to the current state of ITS, and with a nicely written CONOPS document to showcase. This class has changed a lot from the "good old days" where Cal Poly had video image processing equipment, car detection technologies, etc. to play around with, but given current resources this is just a new method of learning the same material...and ITS is constantly evolving, so this class should as well. I highly recommend Dr. Mastako for any of her classes, including this one!

Terrific professor, knows her subject and articulates her knowledge clearly and easily. Makes transportation study an intuitive, approachable discipline. Highly recommended. Be warned, the exams are very difficult and require lots of preparation. Students may feel that transportation is so intuitive that studying for the exams will take a backseat--over half the class fails her exams. Review the lectures/readings on a daily basis. Pay close attention to formulas (what they actually mean, in laymen’s terms) graphs and tables, these often have important summary information, but you will feel compelled to overlook them simply because they are diagrammatic. Easily one of the best professors on campus.

Trump 2016 -> Kanye 2020 -> Vermen Supreme 2024 -> ??? -> Profit