Harris, Jim  

I got only one thing to say about this professor,He sucks. He can't present material in a fashion where you can understand. Avoid him at all cost

If you get the chance, stay away from him! 112 is usually only offered with one professor though so if you do get him, then try your best to follow him in lecture. He does a poor job of explaining the material in class and he honestly has the most boring voice I've ever heard. With this being said, try your best to do the homework and understand the material. His tests really aren't extremely difficult, but he does such a poor job of explaining the material that by the time you understand the material it's too late. My advice would be to try to understand how he does the example problems in class and study those along with some example problems from the book. PS for the first midterm he actually had questions about the stupid shit he went over in the first lecture about the 7 SI units and stuff so memorize those if he goes over it.

I didn't like harris at all. He has akward ways of making tests VERY difficult like decimating your grade for honestly miniscule errors (missing a single unit, in once case, cost a student 5 points, that's half a letter grade for leaving units off.) You also are not able to use calculators on tests. ANY calculators. Despite the fact that the math is *usually* easy, it still makes for some needlessly akward algebraic mistakes. And he loves to kill grades for algebraic mistakes. My reccomendation would to be to avoid harris, his class isn't hard because he makes it difficult or chalenges you, his class is hard because he makes it dumb.

Dr. Harris is an excellent teacher, and he is always more than willing to help his students with any difficulties. He makes himself very available with office hours, and even holds office hours during finals week and the weekend before finals. He is very understanding and fair in his grading, and though his tests can be a bit tough, he rewards improvement. Excellent teacher overall.

This guy spend over half of every class reviewing pointless examples. The 15 minutes of class that he covered new stuff was equally useless, as he would go over the simplest examples, or just do the same example he did the day before. His tests were fair, but graded rediculously, he said before every test "Remember, I'll be grading heavily for algebra mistakes" with a big grin. He loves to nitpick your grade down about 20% with insignifigant errors.

This guy is really nice. Unfortunatly, he totally sucks. He couldn't explain the difference between a capacitor and a pile of shit. In fact, his energy and enthusiasm were deceiving enough that I ended up taking him this quarter again(Doh!!). It took me a week into cpe 219 to completely realize that I wasn't learning anything from his lectures and that I had made a grave mistake. He reviews endlessly and never explains what he is doing or where he is going. He just starts writing stuff down on the board. I taught myself everything in 211 as did all my friends who had him also. The only thing that helped me was the homework solutions that he posts in the library. Other than grading off heavily for minor mistakes and not being able to explain, his tests are average and so is his grading. If you are damn good at teaching yourself, then you shouldn't have much to worry about. He is further evidence to my roommate's theory that the reason Poly turns out such good EE's is that students have to teach themselves through the degree.

Dr. Harris is a great teacher and he is very helpful in office hours. He is also one of the nicest profs at Poly. If you don't understand the material after he covers it then maybe you should rethink your major. His tests are fair. Regarding the nitpicking for algebra, the algebra is not that hard and you should be able to deal with it. I highly recommend taking Harris.

Nice guy. He wants you to actually understand where all the different formulas come from. If you memorize and get it wrong, no partial credit, even if you don't know and try to figure it out, it is hard to get partial credit also. take perks lol

Harris is a great guy. He truely wants to have his students do well, however he cannot realize this. His lectures are 30 minutes of review, 15 minutes of him trying to figure out whats wrong with his explaination, and 5 minutes of new material. Every day you get bombarded with the same lecture as the last class. If you are a self learner, you will do fine. In fact, even if you aren't, you will become one. The text is horrible in this class, so if you go to class and pay attention (without getting angry at the lecturer) you will pull a decent grade. Plus, Harris's grade policy is if you get a C on the final you will get at least a C in the class. That's nice if you bomb the first tests.

Professor Harris often comes to class unprepared to speak about the material for the day; he often makes mistakes that get corrected by students during the class. Honestly, my friends and I started just coming to class to get an idea of what was discussed, and then we'd learn it on our own. His grading policies are terrible; if you ever get a C on any of his midterms, expect a C in the class, no matter what grade you get on the final. His one redeeming quality is he is able to explain stuff pretty well in office hours; if you're having trouble, his office hours will help, but his classes are useless.

He is stupid. He is dumb. Your only hope of salvaging a grade from him is in the book. And if the book isnt very clear, your SOL. Asking him questions is useless, because he just says "we'll get to that" or "it'll become clear after the test". He doesnt teach you, he just confuses you. My condolences to those who must take his class, he makes me ashamed to be a Cal Poly student.

This quarter, the only professors teaching 229 were Harris and Sandige.. I already knew I was going to be in a shithole, so I took it with Harris since it seemed like he was better on polyratings (and it fit my schedule). You don't really learn anything in lecture.. at all. Everything's done by the CPE 229/269 reader (new to Winter 2007, so there were lots of technical and grammatical errors) - the reader itself is pretty clear and thorough at explaining everything. You learn everything in this class by homeworks and labs. The two midterms were open reader - having access to that reference made the midterms ten times easier. Grading on midterms is basically all (of a problem) or nothing, but it's not like it's hard when you don't have the reader out.. But expect to get bored in his lecture. I found myself reading the chapter (lol) on Mondays, doing homework on Wednesdays, and something random (possibly listening?) on Fridays. In lab, he doesn't really help you at all. If you ask him a question, he'll only give you the obvious answer, and half the time he doesn't know what he's talking about (or doesn't understand your question), and answers you with bullshit 10 times longer than the actual answer itself (if he even answers your question.) He is a huge fad of "engineering ethics" and following every detailed lab instruction and schematic. The homework and labs were rather easy, coming straight out of the reader and requiring little to no thought. Take Harris if you want for 229/269, he may be a bad professor, but you can still easily learn everything on your own, and still get a good grade. CPE 229 doesn't really present any new material as I thought it would, it only really expanded on basic 129 concepts into building a Very Basic Computer 1. The stuff is easy to understand, since the concepts aren't new. Harris just kinda sucked.

His lectures are incredibly boring. He will very slowly go over every tiny little detail about the lab we will be doing, and nothing else. All of the theory questions on midterms are right out of the homework. Everything in lecture is like an audiobook version of the reader, except harder to understand. In lab he will make you wait 45 minutes to be checked out while he treats lab time like an office hour with students that aren't even in the class. The only meaningful help I got in lab was from the TA.

Ok, honestly... worst teacher I have had for a major class. Incredibly boring, goes over Wakerly's Axioms literally every other day(and they are on every test, so easy points at least). If you ask him a question in lab, he will simply start rambling about basic logic because he has absolutely no idea what he is doing. Once I had a problem in a lab that me and my partner spent literally hours trying to figure out. Harris kept telling us our logic was wrong... After what seemed like forever we realized all we had forgotten to do was initialize a variable. Harris of course would never look at our code at all, he just insisted our logic was flawed... my logic was right the whole time. All in all though extremely easy class except I was cocky on the second midterm, didnt study and failed, got A's on everything else. And also, everyone I spoke with got a full grade lower than they were expecting.

By far one of the worst teachers i've had. If he wasn't the head of the CPE department I would have complained about him on just the second week. I was in a CPE class that was full in all other sections, so I guess they pulled him out and made him teach a new section. We had literally 10 people in the class, and yet he still could not find the time to understand what the hell we were asking him. On the very first day students were correcting him and answering each other's questions. All of the material he taught wasn't his own, so when we had complaints about a test or a homework assignment he would always say "I just graded it according to the rubric i was given" and would absolve himself of all fault. I guess you can take him if you know your stuff, but if you have questions, dont bother asking this guy, he'll just get you more confused, or read what is already in front of your eyes. On the plus side though, I guess he threw a huge curve, his tests are open note, and the lab is easy.

This man is worthless as a teacher. Cal Poly is known for teachers being able to work with students. Whenever any question is asked that isn't from the book, this man points to his slides and answers "This is how we're going to do it." If there is a question that he doesn't know how to answer, he'll point at his slides and say "this is how we're going to do it. If a student is having a problem, he won't help, he'll just tell them that they should fix their problem.

HARRIS IS A SHITTY PROFESSOR. HE IS TOTALLY UNABLE TO TEACH THE CLASS, BECAUSE HE COMES TO CLASS UNPREPARED. ***... ...*** DON'T BOTHER GOING TO HIS OFFICE HOURS, BECAUSE HE SITS AND STARES AT YOU THE WHOLE TIME. I MEAN, THE REASON WHY PEOPLE GO TO OFFICE HOURS IS TO GET HELP B/C THEY DONT UNDERSTAND THE SUBJECT. HARRIS DOESNT REALIZE THIS AND EXPECTS YOU TO KNOW HOW TO DO. THE WHOLE FUCKING REASON WHY YOU GO TO OFFICE HOURS IS B/C YOU DONT KNOW HOW TO DO A PROBLEM. BOTTOM LINE, HARRIS GRADES SHITTY, ****.

This professor is an idiot. Unprepared, unfair grader, and ******* a ******* overall. Don't take him unless you want a hell quarter.

Okay, 241 is a lab class. Meaning the prof should at least know how the fucking lab equipment works. Harris might be a better teacher in a programming based class, but he's no EE: he cant even figure out a fucking multimeter. Every other week he had to run down the hall and grab a real EE prof to figure out what the hell was going on. This is all aside from the fact that he is a bumbling idiot in lecture. His grading on lab reports is nothing short of embarrassing, and is so unfair that the entire class would be LAUGHING upon receiving their graded papers; thats how ridiculous his policies are. Ive heard good things about him in 219, but Im not sure why Poly hired him to run an EE lab. He is totally incompetant, and I would rank him in the same league with Prof. Roland [Poly's worst teacher]...

Harris is a good teacher. He is sometimes boring in lecture, but he prepares you for exams by giving you review sheets. These sheets have everything you need to know on them. It is not uncommon for him to take off a lot of points for algebraic mistakes. No matter how poorly you do throughout the quarter, you can redeem yourself on the final. I had a C going into the 301 final, aced the final, and got a solid A in the class. If you're getting an F, he will give you a C in the class if you get a C on the final. Take Harris if you want to learn the material AND do well.

When I read Dr. Harris' Polyratings evaluations before taking him, I anticipated the worst. I'm happy to say that he's one of the best EE professors I have had. His lectures are methodical, well-planned, and very easy to follow, he doesn't try to trick you on his tests, and he's very helpful in his office hours. I would highly recommend him to anyone.

I find it sad if Harris is one of the best professors in the EE department. He would be a good teacher if somebody would organize him a little. He writes very sloppy on the board and even starts writing over what he already wrote instead of erasing it. Some days I had no clue what he was talking about. He often showed homework notes on overheads that only the students in the first row could see. He also gave Matlab assignments with little or no instruction on how to use Matlab. I feel more help should have been provided for them. Otherwise he's a easy guy to talk to and get along with and I did come away with a much better understanding of systems and Bode plots.

Dr. Harris is a GREAT professor, one of the best for EE. Its very clear that Dr. Harris is always trying to be a better teacher, which is a lot more than you can say for most professors. Dr. Harris also spends a lot of time lecturing on fundamentals, which ends up being very helpful when subject matter gets more and more difficult. His tests are always good measures of a students understanding, and you wont find anything unexpected or out of the blue. Finally, Dr. Harris tries to tie together many different concepts and ideas to give a more complete understanding of material, rather than teaching them all independantly. I would highly recommend Dr. Harris to anyone.

I am currently taking this class and I think he is doing a good job getting the material across. A lot of people hate this class and blame it on him. More likely, it's the fact that you need to know ALL the calculus that you've learned for this class and that makes the class very difficult. Plus, Prof Harris invited the whole class to his house at the beginning of the quarter for dinner. I'm not sure why he gets bad ratings. If he's teaching a class you need, don't put it off just because of these ratings. Ask around first.

I can't believe all of these assholes calling Dr Harris this and that, bitching "He won't let me use my claculator, he wants units, he makes me do algebra". Grow the fuck up you losers you are supposed to be enginners, you think your boss is gonna wait for you to run to your desk and get your calculator to do math you are SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW TO DO. Dr. Harris is a fine professor and teaches some of the most dry boring classes the department has to offer. This class was very boring but having a stripper giving the lecture wouldn't have made it any better. His tests are tough but fair and if you have put in the work you will do fine. If you can't do calculus go the fuck home and climb back in your diaper, this is ENGINEERING not BUTTON PUNCHING!!!!

I completely disagree with the first evaluation. He is not disorganized or unprepared. He is good when lecturing materials. His tests are fair. I often ask him questions during lab and during his office hour, and he is always happy to answer my questions.

This course is the course this man was meant to teach. His lectures are organized well and he is easy to understand. He was very generous in letting students enroll in class even-though there was not enough official spaces. If you ask him a question he will fully answer it, but be prepared to spend a while with him as he is very long winded. I am truely suprised that he taught this class so well because when he taught EE 319 I thought he was terrible.

First off, Dr. Harris often comes to the lecture class disorganized and unprepared. The man is a complete moron. Don't ask him any questions about electrical engineering. He'll bore you with his CPE jargon. In midterms, Harris doesn't give much if any partial credit if you don't get the problem completely right. And don't ask him for any points back because he'll yell at you and say that he was fair with his grading.

When I took CPE 319 it was just starting using a new version of VHDL. Jim threw us into it feet first without explaining how it works. After the third coding assignment in the third week, he finally explained to us how the language worked. I've never been taught a computer language like that before and it didn't work very well. I thing the whole approach to teaching this class was wrong. As such I wasn't very impresed with Jim Harris. (He was a stickler for code syntax on a hand written test. Don't forget your semi-colons, they could cost you to drop a grade on your midterms.)

Dr. Harris is the most confusing lecturer on Earth... almost. He comes to class and laughs at his own jokes and talks more about his CPE knowledge than his EE stuff we should be learning. As said before in other ratings, don't waste your time trying to do test problems you think you might not know. Just do the ones that you know you can get 100%.. because to Dr. Harris, partial credit does not exist. If the problem or 1 step was done wrong, it's totally wrong to him. He does not bargain with grades or credit. What is written in red at the top of the page is what stands. I worked harder in this class than any other class (taking 5 EE classes in 1 quarter) and this is the only one I did bad in. I would avoid Harris if possible. If not, your in for a hell of a quarter.

Dr. Harris is a bad symbol for CalPoly's EE dept. Though he is very smart and has much field knowledge, this does not equate to a good professor all the time. Dr. harris should stick with CPE, not EE!.... and he should not be so two faced to people. It helps when professors actually show up for their office hour. He is too busy being on the committee and I am sure this is why CP keeps him around.

At first glance, i thought he was an ok guy. but as the quarter progressed, he just turned into a jerk. he would routinely assign homework on material he hadnt covered. he even had the homework due long before he covered the topic. When questions are asked...he'll tell you to refer to the book, which he also mentioned is usually frought with errors. This guy doesnt seem to get the fact that he's supposed to teach us the material, we're not supposed to just know it. Christ, if i knew it already i wouldnt have taken his class.

I don't even know how to start... Everyone in class is stuck. He can't present the materials a normal human being can understand. He presented a very minimal amount of materials (almost to none) and expected us to figure out the rest on our own. He really should retire by now.

Harris is a smart guy... but he cannot help you understand the material or labs if his life depended on it. The both times I've taken him with lab, the only way I overcame a problem was with the help of a TA who understood the difficulty in the task (such as which register flags to use). Harris would simply reflect your question back at you and leave you scratching you head trying to figure out what just happened. He is also difficult to argue for points on lab reports. Our lab section did not get our labs back until after the 3rd (out of 5) lab was finished, so we received low marks for over half the labs without knowing we didn't do the lab report format correctly. On the plus side, he's a good advisor for non-technical subjects.

"essentially"..."if you will"...get used to hearing these Harris favorites. Straightforward and all-encompassing teacher on the material... right out of the book.

Extremely helpful during office hours, great at gauging whether individual students are understanding the material during those times. Lecture tended to be too confusing and his emphasis on derivations would sometimes frustrate me. He requires that you remember things you've studied in all of your prerequisite classes and he doesn't allow calculators or notes during tests. He pays close attention to individual student's progress. I got a D on the first midterm, and high B on the second, and an A on the final and I got an A in the course. He is friendly and will help you even during non office hours. Because we had a Monday midterm he created a Sunday office hour, what a guy!

Harris is a very nice and approachable guy. However his class was a bit hard to get used to because of what he expects out of you and the closeness and emphasis he places on details. To succeed in his class, you must look at his old exams from previous quarters for this class and know it by heart, and pay extreme attention to that material when he lectures it in class. He is an absolute sticker for labeling your answers with correct units. Homework is worth 15% in his class, so find someone with the solutions. He doesn't allow any notes or calculators on his test, because I would say about 30% of each test is on memorizing constants with their units, the general forms of equations with units (sometimes simple derivations), and other random things that no one will ever remember once you finish this class because you can just look it up. Everything is memorization, and especially looking at old tests and understanding how to do his homework problems. There really aren't any surprises after that if you study it all, but there is A LOT to memorize, but relatively simple. Good lecturer, not bad in office hours (but he will embarass you and make you feel awkward because he doesn't answer your questions directly, he makes you figure it out on your own even if it takes you 1 hour of starting at him), and workload is manageable.

He's a smart guy and a great teacher, only he doesnt teach on the material that you acutally want to learn. for 335, most of the tests is memorization, even though he says hes changes the tests, he wont. i came out of htat class learning nothing, just reciting alot of bs

Great professor. My only complaint is that he posts old midterms and homeworks, so stupid people can memorize rather than learn.. He's an above average CPE/EE professor.. Just like the other great professors at Poly -- Braun, Breitenbach, etc -- he is criticized for being "too hard." That's ridiculous. Get some ambition..

This teacher is horrible for lab. I've honestly never had a lab this bad and will never take this teacher again. He is unreasonable, doesn't communicate well, takes off points for the most ridiculous reasons, and just doesn't understand good grading techniques. He isn't down to earth and has gotten into fights with students. I would never recommend him for lab.

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harris is a easy B and a little work to get an A. Part of his test are memorization which he posts online. His test questions are much simpler than the homework he assigns. He does present material well and in a very understandable way.

well what can i say I didn't put the time in and didnt understand the stuff. . .so i was close to failing, end of the quarter i bust my ass and understand the stuff. . . he has a policy that if you get a C on the final you get minumum of a C in the class and thats just what I did. . .. actually a really nice guy. . .study old exams and go in for help, where he is very helpful