Jones, Preston  

NEVER TAKE A CLASS FROM THIS PROFESSOR. He is absolutely without a doubt the WORST. Half of the class is spent by him stumbling over his words and the sample problems he is trying to show, so it is rare that he will ever show more than 1 way of doing a certain type of problem, so you are never able to learn anything. In class, you can't even follow along with what he is doing because the whole time you are trying to figure out what he is saying - most of it is absolute excessive bulls**t and nonsense that helps his students in no way at all.

Just please save yourself the time. Personally, have never taken Physics and have taught myself more from the crazy textbook than Jones has all quarter. He doesn't care about his students, talks to himself, and does look like Rango. Please please please don't.

You can tell Dr. Jones knows his stuff but he has trouble conveying it to his students. If you read the book and really try on the Mastering Physics questions you will better understand his lectures. Be sure you solve the problems EXACTLY how he tells you to or your will loose points. He seemed terrible at first but as the quarter went on I figured out his way of teaching and he isn't the absolute worst teacher out there. But he is far from the best. It is possible to pass this class but if you are going on in the series i recommend a different teacher.

Reviews on here are pretty accurate, wish I hadn't given him the benefit of the doubt. Avoid at all costs unless you already have experience with the subject. Extremely unorganized, does not convey information well, and a general mess. How did he get hired to teach here?

"And i'll reread the problem"

He is such a sweet, funny, cute man...however he has a lot of difficulty presenting the material in a clear manner where students can comprehend it. His tests are very fair, as they are simply on problems worked in class or from the homework, but the problem is that it's basically impossible to learn in class. You can tell he is very intelligent and knows his physics, he just has a lot of trouble translating all that he knows into a usable form for students. I had to completely teach myself everything. He seems like a great guy though, and I enjoyed his personality a lot as he was always very excited and passionate about physics. Yes he has trouble teaching and I wouldn't recommend the course, but I think a lot of the reviews on here are far too harsh. You can tell he is always really trying and even trys to keep the class engaged by doing little experiments during class. He also has a ton of office hours and is eager to help students if they come and ask for it. It's harder to succeed in this environment but by no means impossible, and as the quarter goes on I did understand his methods a bit more and what he was trying to convey, although it still wasn't very helpful. He just tends to make problems a lot more complicated than they need to be.

Stumbles around himself all class every class. Makes it extremely hard to learn. I taught myself this entire course a d earned a b on my own. Little to no help from this teacher. He is unfit for teaching this class

Oh boy. Where to start. First day of class I thought to myself, "Sweet, he seems like a funny guy who knows his stuff and this won't be so bad." Week 2 all of that went out the window and I have been struggling every single day ever since. Professor Jones is just as unhelpful in office hours as he is in class, and quite frankly reading stuff out of a physics book hoping to get a handle on the ideas just does not cut it for me. When students brought up what we were struggling with in class, like say a specific homework problem, he wouldn't actually help us start to solve it he would tell us to just figure it out, and then put that exact problem on the next midterm or test. I can't respect a teacher who does not respect me or his other students, and clearly the low attendance by week 3 should say something about his abilities. Do yourself a favor and just steer clear, although if you're not a physics major or in the upper level courses you're pretty much SOL anyway as the department provides little to no support. If you are taking him because you have no choice and are not up for teaching yourself all of the material, GET A TUTOR FIRST WEEK. Seriously. I wish I had.

Jones knows his physics, but he does not teach it well. His class consists of weekly homework on MasteringPhysics, which is the worst program ever, quizzes almost weekly, two midterms, and a final. His tests consist of multiple choice, which are worth so many points that if you miss one, you are down a letter grade on the tests, and short answer/ solving a problem. Be prepared to teach yourself the material, but to also present it exactly the way he wants it. He is not helpful in office hours and he has OCD about the chalkboard. I do not recommend this teacher, find someone else!

This teacher is new and I'm not sure if he has had a teaching career at all before this. He would constantly stumble over himself in lecture, was extremely unprepared, and gave no guidance at all in lab time. Literally. He would just give you the lab handout and say ready go. By week 4 I had checked out of this class, paid no attention in lab and did not attend lecture. I taught myself this course and I was a better teacher to myself than he could ever be to me. Terrible professor.

Preston Jones is the worst professor I have ever had, and probably the worst teacher i've ever had in my life. He constantly stumbles over himself and fails to teach anything in any lecture whatsoever. Me, and virtually 75% of the class stopped attending lecture about halfway through the quarter. If you're down to teach yourself the entire class out of the book, feel free to take P Jones, if not, I suggest avoiding him at all costs

Probably the worst professor I've ever had. Ever. He's a good guy with good intentions, but the classroom is just not where he belongs. I envision this man, wearing his Hawaiian shirts, finding himself in the middle of a desert, devoid of knowledge of how to survive in such an environment. Over some time, he meets friends, becomes an old west badass, and saves the town from a water hogging suburb a few clicks south of his location where a tyrannical tortoise named John is secretly suppling the housing development with this old west town's water sources. He then goes down in history as the guy who saved the town. (Using no physics knowledge whatsoever). TLDR, this prof looks like Rango (not bad, just amusing) and sucks at teaching physics.

If taking timed Mastering Physics "quizzes" and exams that offer no partial credit, Mastering Physics homework that counts for 35% of your overall grade, and never having your questions answered sounds like a fun time, then Rango (Professor Jones) may be right for you. When asked a question, he will do his best to give you an answer with as little useful information as possible. This goes for syllabus, lab and general housekeeping questions. A consistent 12-13 students in attendance at a 48+ piece lecture is never a good sign. Worst professor I've ever had, and a huge dick as well (is one, not has one). Avoid at all costs.

Never had a professor worse in my life, don't take his class (or take it and hate yourself for it)

I feel SOOO bad for the poor souls who had him for lecture. Fortunately, I only had him for lab but let me tell you, this guy is just NOT meant to be a teacher. The lab consists of you him just coming in and saying "ready set go" and pretty much zero guidance to help you with anything along the way. The worst part about is that his graders constantly made mistakes on grading the quizzes and when presenting to him that your answer was valid he would refuse to regrade it. DO NOT TAKE. DO NOT TAKE. DO NOT TAKE. DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.DO NOT TAKE.

I would say I am a software engineering major who loves to learn through lecture. I have a ~3.6 GPA and I understand that teachers might not be able to teach you everything during their class. However, I do not understand how "Dr" Preston Jones is a teacher at Cal Poly. As mean and emotionally brutal this post may be, I do not believe Jones is worthy of teaching people physics whatsoever. The usual structure of class is like this: we sit down, he spends 5 minutes trying to get everyone to pay attention (which I actually pity him because people don't give him any respect - partially because if they do give him respect they will feel like they are wasting 50 minutes of their life), he talks about "administrative work like when tests are going to happen and when homework is due, and then he goes into lecture. What happens for the next 30-40 minutes is possibly the most confusing thing of all time. He does not preview or say what he is going over. He simply starts writing equations, without any context. After he is done writing equations, without explaining clearly or effectively where they come from or how they are applicable, he says "Let's do a homework problem." He goes over the homework using the physics method 1.given 2. find 3. basic relation 4. symbolic solution 5. numerical solution . Honestly, the method is great, but he provides very limited knowledge about which equations to use or even where they are (THEY ARENT ON THE EQUATION SHEET he gives you). I once asked him what section of the book I could study for a midterm and he said "hmm...good question.." and then he did not respond. Generally, he is a good guy, but unfortunately, he is incompetent (scratch that) - he is INCAPABLE of teaching. He is UNCLEAR, NOT HELPFUL, and DOES NOT UNDERSTAND STUDENTS. If you know physics and you are here just for credits, then take him because his inability to even show experiments in class will have you laughing. But if you are like me and plan on learning in your college experience, trust me from the bottom of my heart, DO NOT TAKE HIM.

When I first saw that Jones was my teacher I read his polyratings. They were awful. At the time he had a .27, but I was optimistic thinking people were just being cynics. Oh how wrong I was. Jones does not have the capacity to teach a physics class. The only way to understand what he is talking about is to already have a PhD in physics, and then you might be able to follow along. His midterms are awful. They consist of multiple choice that are worth 10% of you grade each. He assigns online homework using a new system called webassign. This is the only good thing about his class. With this system you can easily get 100% on the homework by teaching yourself the material. The most frustrating thing about his class is that the equation sheet is missing at least 75% of the equations needed to solve problems he assigns. The other 25% percent are equations that require you to derive

BOYCOTT!!!