Kolkailah, Faysal  

This guy holds major grudges against students. Don't piss him off because he'll remember that for quarters to come and you have to take him for at least three classes. If he decides he doesn't like your class, everyone is screwed. He'll make the tests so hard that no one can pass.

Same as above. For chrissake DON"T piss him off! you have to take two more classes with him. So regardless of whether he's a good teacher or not, make sure your class doesn't make him mad. He'll fail the entire class.

This guy likes to talk a lot. It feels like he wastes a lot of time in class, because he strays from the material so much. He needs to learn how to teach.

Dr. K is a tough teacher, but he explains everything he is looking for on a test. His teaching style is different, he teaches you to think rather than repeat information, which is what college should be about. Any one who thinks he is a bad teacher lacks the critical thinking skills that is crucial for engineering.

Ahh good ol' dr.K. so far, i had about 4 classes with him, all the way up to 500 level. One thing is certain, you will have many classes with him. dont make him hate you. you can fail all his tests and still be on his good side. translates to, go to his office hours and listen. (Note: don't ask him questions he doesnt want to answer!). Pray you dont have a dick in ur class that will piss him off. so far, the grades can range from average class grade of D or average grade of B+, ranging on how pissed off he is. also, buy the book he recommends. very helpful. his notes are what they are, just notes, if you want more theory/examples/steps buy the book.

It has been long since I graduated and I am in the industry. Kolkailah came across as not a very likable person when I was in his class, and most students did not like him. We felt he made the course very difficult and there were a lot of derivations and he used to go very deep in the subject material. Now that I am in the industry and when I talk to my friends we have realized how important this class was and how well he was teaching the material, he focused on concepts and always gave a good explanation. We hated him because we thought he was hard while the truth is he was forcing us to think. Kolkailah taught well, we just did not want to see it that way. I have realized that polyratings has a negative side which is we form a negative opinion on some professor because of his ratings and we just start hating that prof without any reason because we get prejudiced. When I talk to my peers in the industry we all see that he was a very good prof.

All I have to say is be prepared to be raped mentally. Extremely challenging course.

Teaches courses all courses at a graduate level, which means you won't entirely understand anything. He is brilliant though, and a very nice guy. Unfortunatly the subject level inevitably turns the tests into a test of memorization.

He's a really good lecturer. Sometimes a little slow but he tries to make sure everyone follows the lectures. The midterms this quarter weren't that bad, but the final was killer. Just make sure you start early with the studying and doing the homework so that you can ask him questions during office hours.

He's always willing to answer questions and spend a lot of time making sure everyone understands the concepts, which was very nice. The bad part was, he also spent lots of time talking about totally unrelated things. It's a two hour lecture, but you'll generally get an hour and a half of actual teaching, maybe. Study hard for the exams and definitely don't wait until the end of the quarter to do the homework.

study the homework and his notes (not the notes from class, the notes you buy at the bookstore). everyone says hes mean.... i think hes not, hes seems to be doing his best to explain the stuff and make sure everyone understands everything. his test are rough, but nothing unexpected. if you know the stuff, you'll beat the average, and thats all you need to do. only real problem i see is that he spends waaaaay to much time on beginning a subject to make sure everyone understands it. thats fine, but by the time the lecture is over, he hasnt really done anything. so he keeps you till 5 or 10 after rushing through the meat of an explanation and i usually had no idea how to do what he was talking about. thats what the ta is for, i guess?

He's an interesting professor, though I wouldn't say that's necessarily a positive thing in his case. Be forewarned, AERO 331 says it's "Aerospace Structural Analysis," but the real title for the class is "Aerospace Structural Theory." Dr. K. wants you to be able to derive EVERYTHING. I can see where knowing where some of the equations come from can be beneficial, but this is beyond tedious. His tests are just an exercise in your ability to regurgitate his derivations, or to re-derive things yourself. Occasionally he'll actually decide to include an "analysis" question in with his theory tests. It's just plain hard and he seems to not want people to succeed (let alone finish his tests period). It takes quite a bit to get used to his writing. I'm not sure what he's trying to do, but most of his letters and words look nothing like what they're supposed to be, which makes things difficult later on when you try to decipher the notes to do the incredibly tedious, mind-numbing homework. Oh, and by the way, you have to do his work for him. He expects his students to go out on their own, find their OWN textbooks (he doesn't even let the bookstore know which one he uses, so you can't find it there), and do loads of extra problems and studying from a half-dozen external sources on your own time. Unfortunately, like pretty much every professor in the AERO department, this guy is impossible to avoid. There's really no advice to give. If you ignore all your classes and don't have a job and don't have a life and neglect sleep all quarter, you MIGHT have enough time for this class.

I have two words for anyone about to take structures for the very first time with Dr. K. Good...Luck!

Hello???? Do you guys understand??? Aij = Aji. This guy is hilarious yet so lazy to the point where he just uses his 25 years old notes to write on the board. And when he doesn't know how to explain something, he just writes it really quickly on the board so you can't think of what he's writing. Then the two hour is done and you can't ask him questions of what he did. His tests are always bullshit because he expects you to memorize a long derivation taught by his TA instead of him in a study session. But life is hard, you got no choice except to deal with it if you're an aero.

if you make him mad, he will eliminate you!

fascist, nothing more to say

Gave the whole class INCOMPLETES because of his delusions of a 30 person cheating scandal

He likes to rip on people not going to office hours...Honestly, when you don\'t receive any grades back during the quarter, students have no idea how they are doing and obviously aren\'t going to attend office hours... Also, the whole cheating thing would have been avoided if Dr. K had even bothered to show up and supervise the midterms, instead of leaving an inattentive grad student to sit at the front of the class for two hours during the exam. I mean come on, Dr. K. already admitted he only has to come to campus on Monday and Wednesday, two whole whopping days out of the week, how hard would it be for him to supervise during one of those days, especially for a MIDTERM. Totally ridiculous, Dr. K is lazy and misguided, and he treats his class as if he is still teaching in the middle east, with 25 year old type-written notes and a cranky know-it-all attitude.

Oh Dr. K. What can I say... Dr. K has the best job ever. Everyone is scared of him so they don\'t go to office hours to bug him, Nobody talks in class because he will make fun of you, and no one dares to question him or his teaching methods because he will make you look like a total ignorant asshole. I think he has a calendar set on his phone that tells him where to go everyday and when he gets there, he asks what we did yesterday(no matter if we even had class yesterday) and if there are any questions about what we did yesterday. At the end of class he says, have a nice weekend, even if it\'s tuesday and we meet thursdays... The tests are pretty much impossibly hard now that it is open notes, and average is probably going to be around 30. Don\'t worry, we are all competing against eachother. Third place gets a B+ and second place gets an A-, unless you have over a 93%, but you would be cheating if you got that. Even Dr. K \"wouldn\'t do that well on his own test\". Yep, that\'s Dr. K. Destroying my gpa one class at a time...

Honesty K. is a little of a jerk. No disrespect or anything, but he despises American/Americanized kids so have fun with that. He is actually the best professor I have ever had here at Poly, he knows is material, hardly if never makes a mistake, and makes his two hour lecture actually bearable and entertaining (went to every lecture). But dont let this charade fool you. Homework is work 0% of your grade, but for every homework you dont do its minus 10% to your overall grade, so everyone essentially does it. Start it early, and do it in a group, it will take a while but its not that bad. His test is straight up old school, the average will be right around 30 to 40 %. To all you little bastards who think your smart, or defend him, you'll be right around there. Even though no one says, he curves to a D for the class, it is a true bell curve. So essentially B- work is a D in this class. I was happy when I saw a C, when I took it last year(held of taking 431 for this year, big mistake). Last year 2010-2011 he gave out 4 C's between both classes, two B's and only one A, that was because whoever got the A scored 20 points above everyone else on everything. The rest and majority were D's and D-'s which is what a majority of all of you will get, and F's for everyone else. Essentially this class is the great equalizer, to all you douche's who copy and think your the cream of the crop, this class is oldschool, you have to put in a lot of work, which means essentially ignoring all your other classes to get a C. He told our class in all his years of teaching this class which is something like 25 years plus, only two people have ever received A's in both 331 and 431 I hear both of those guys now go to M.I.T.. Overall K. is a really good professor, and a genuine nice guy. But he has a chip on his shoulder for whatever reason, so if your worried about your GPA take a GE so you can cancel these classes out. Thats all folks.

Great professor and lecturer.

I understand from some older AEROs that Dr. K might have been a good professor at some point in his career. Now I think he just doesnt give a shit. He is a terrible teacher who rambles about nothing in front of the class, I learned more from his TA who is a 5th year aero now in a couple of hours than I learned from Dr. K in a whole quarter. He needs to retire because he clearly cant teach right now. You will learn nothing from him

Dr. K has an interesting teaching style, very much so different than the rest of the Aero professors. He has had a lot of bad rep, but I actually really enjoyed his class. My best advice to survive structures is to get together with other Aeros (DAILY) to do homework problems and what not. I actually learned a lot in both classes (331,431) so take this class with an open mind and be ready to put in some work! *DO ALL THE HW PROBLEMS EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE NOT GRADED

Dr. K is probably one of the worst professors I have had at cal poly. Day one he tells us that he doesn't answer any classes because he doesn't want to waste class time. However he then continues by talking about life and doctors and all of these dumb analogies to try and explain things we already learned in CE 204/207. This is because he doesn't seem to think we were adequately prepared by the CE department for his structures class. So the first 6 weeks are CE 204/207 review that everyone knows already and he seems to be wasting time with that. Then when week 7 hits he shifts into maximum overdrive and teaches us what he should have been teaching us in the first 7 weeks. He crams as much in the last 30 min as he can while talking about stupid analogies for the first 1.5 hours of class. He makes no sense and is all over the place. And when you do dare ask a question he makes you feel dumb and has a style of interrogative teaching. He gets angry and seems mad all the time when we do not respond to his absurd hypothetical situations and the incessant need for affirmation from the class, such as him saying: "hello?". "yes or no". "you follow?" no I do not follow. And when I go to do the homework, I don't know what I am doing and the TAs during the office hours are more helpful at explaining things than Dr. K ever was. He is sexist and rude and his teaching is 30 years in the past. He has not adequately prepared me for learning structures.

THE PERSON BELOW ME IS TOTALLY LYING. DR K IS A WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING.

Dr. K is the least effective teacher I have ever had at Cal Poly. There are so many shortcomings in the way he teaches but as you read the other peoples comments they will become apparent. My biggest problem with Dr. K is the fact that you are really taking 3 classes, Lecture, Homework, and Tests. The first class is the lecture, where you go over material in the most incoherent and non linear way imaginable. The second class is the homework which has seemingly nothing to do with the material covered in class. The third class is the test, and though some of the problems are exact copies of those on the homework, the ones that aren't are either impossible to finish in time or are asking about something unbelievably abstract or something that he mentioned one time in class. In order to complete the homework or get more than a 50 percent on the tests you are essentially "forced" to attend a review session held on the weekend. In my opinion this is not an effective way to teach. You cannot teach the students one thing and expect them to understand another. Unfortunately he is the only one who teaches this class an is unavoidable to have a teacher.

He may know what he's talking about pretty well, but he's probably the worst professor I've had at Cal Poly, strictly speaking. He doesn't seem to understand Cal Poly's ideology, that what sets Cal Poly apart from other colleges is its proficiency in preparing its students for the real world. Giving them real life applications, hands on experience, interactive professors, stuff like that. He lacks any trace of that. He shows up late to class every day, goes through derivations for 1.5 hours, then leaves the rest of the work to his TA's. During his lectures, he'll ask the entire class if they're following every 10 - 20 seconds, and get upset if people don't verbally respond every single time. He'll also get upset if people don't ask questions, even though the reason people don't is because of how condescending he is if you ever say something wrong. The only possible way to do well on the tests is to watch the TA's do the homework problems for you at the review session and memorize how to do them so you can vomit them back out on the test. He won't use PolyLearn and can't use technology, everything about his teaching seems like he thinks it's still 1960.

Dr. K wastes lecture time on topics unrelated to the material while being combative towards students. The tests are punitively difficult and are geared towards generating a bell curve rather than assessing learning objectives. The TA's seem to have taken inspiration from the guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment. Have fun.

Dr. K is stuck 30 years in the past on how to teach a college engineering course. Cal Poly is learning by doing, but Dr. K hasn't ever been in industry so he has no idea how to apply all the material he knows. The class is just derivations on top of derivations. This is what happens when your professor goes straight from getting his Phd to teaching, he has no idea what the real engineering world is about. What does this pertain to the class? Well since he doesn't know how to apply material, his class is just a giant game of learning how to memorize material and regurgitate it. No critical thinking, no projects, just tests. This course and professor are an embarrassment to Cal Poly Aerospace Engineering and do not give students the tools they need to excel in structures in industry.

I honestly felt that Dr. K was a really good professor. He reaaally knows his stuff and in my personal opinion I think that all this bad rep about him is a case of people taking his teaching manner waaay too personally. He's a strict/traditional teacher and is very firm, but it's because he actually cares. Office hours are very helpful, he'll even give you some extra insight in the material for better understanding, or even get you ahead by showing you hints of what material is to come. If something doesn't click in lecture he's more than happy to go through it with you in person. His exams were fair considering that he gave lots of hints in class and some of it was almost all HW problems entirely. The final I thought was relatively fair as well. Like the midterms, good portion was HW or stuff we went over in class. The last two challenge problems were a bit tough but not absolutely impossible. Class is curved anyway. People have a problem with his style but honestly there are aero profs in the department that have even more teaching issues than Dr. K. People just like the other profs because they're "nicer". Let down your ego and don't take his style personally and just listen to him. He's here to help us.

Well you are stuck with Dr. K, so have fun wasting your time in his class. To be honest this class is not that hard, if Dr. K says something more than once (literally anything, even minor stuff) it will be on the midterm. Just do the homework problems till you know it by heart and you will get a good grade... It is that simple.

He just cannot teach.

Faysal is a brilliant guy unfortunately students at Poly suck at math and physics, I am certainly in the minority when I say that I enjoyed Faysal's approach to teaching, he goes to the core of each topic.

It's sad that such a brilliant man has such a bad reputation, students come to his class prejudiced and are not willing to give him a chance, they all just want to hate him, I didn't mind him at all, he was excellent and very helpful in office hours.

During this entire quarter all I could think about was how this professor reminded me of that small little dog that runs through the back of scene 23 in The Incredibles by Pixar. Seriously, if you look it up you will only be able to see it...

Dr K has his head in the clouds when addressing students needs. Sometimes he seems as nice as can be, but on a bad day, stand aside. Never before have I heard a teacher say "SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR" (umm, that means in THIS class). He tests very hard, which isn't the best when that's most of your grade (thankfully this class has a lab to help balance it out). He routinely says what's going to be on the test, and then fails to include it. Unlike the course description, this class is pretty much 9 weeks of structures with a week of composites.

The person below who thinks Dr. K is a good professor is SMOKING CRACK. There is no way to please this guy. I've taken 4 courses from Dr. K, and I haven't learned a usefull thing in any one of them. Isn't it strange that no Cal Poly Aero grads get hired in the field of structures? I've heard members of industry say that they specifically hire structures people from OTHER schools of Dr. K. The problem here is that Dr. K is the most tenured AERO professor. Several students have tried to get rid of him by going to the Dean, but it's no use. All it does is infuriate Dr. K and screw your whole class. For all you underclassmen, you must hope and pray to Allah that he retires soon.

First off... If you are reading this, then you are most likely nodding your head in agreement of the other reviews. They are dead on. This man will be the cause of 90% of the headaches in your academic life while in Aero. This class is all about memorization of derivations and esoteric theory. Learn by doing, huh? You wish. Not in the Egypt/American world he lives in. (Note order of countries.) Don't spend three hours a night studying the deeper meaning of it all. Drink a beer and spend an hour memorizing derivations. I am a broken shadow of a man after Dr. K classes. Good luck.

Don't let the poor reviews fool you. Dr. Kolkailah is fair. He simply demands respect. If you study and pay attention, you will pass his classes. -adakcalb

What can I say? Dr. K is a really nice guy.... If you're not taking 330 or 430. Depending on his mood he can be a very fair and balanced professor. But if one a-hole screws up, the entire class is screwed... so to speak. For me, I found stuctures and composites completely uniteresting and a chore to analyze, so it was really hard to get motivated about the material. That's why it was a nice change of pace to have a lab to directly accompany to class to give you a "hands on" feel. Unfortunately, that is no longer a part of the curriculum. So it's all based on his lectures... ouch. I guess in general the real clash between him and his students is a matter of culture. He's from Egypt and you're from the corrupt US. In the end it is this which really makes it hard to get through the class. Expect a speech or two from time to time. God help you if the US goes to war with Iraq...

I liked Kolkailah as a professor. He is a very good teacher, and I particularly wanted to say that after reading that ridiculously incoherent petition letter posted on Cal Poly reddit. The letter is incoherent and in very poor English (probably written by someone on academic probation), if I received such a poorly written letter, I would not take it seriously too, so kudos to the department for ignoring that petition. Also, some of my class mates are so stupid when it comes to math that I wonder how they even got in, I feel sorry for Dr. Kolkailah for having to deal with such morons on a daily basis. If you want the department to take your letter seriously please write it again, in its present form it's horrible.

Dr. K is the subject of countless horror stories. We experienced none of these, I know not why. As far as I'm concerned, he taught a solid class, I learned a lot, and he was an entertaining teacher through the structures series. That's not to say it's easy, but if you do a grip of homework and study hard, it's not too bad. I used to hate structures in general, and now it is somewhat interesting, and I think it's thanks to him. Know your derivations, geometry, and loading. Ha-ha-ha (evil laugh).

Can be funny. Very confrontational. Like everyone else says: don't piss him off. Don't ask questions in class unless you are sure that it is a very good and easily answered question. Do the homework. Memorize the proofs, all the proof, and you'll do fine.

Take this as a review of 331 and 431 with Dr. K. First of all, this class isn't like CE 204/205, no mindless plugging and chugging, its all concepts. As for Dr. K, he's unique. He'll spend 30 minutes on a story then keep you 10 minutes late. He uses his original notes from 1950 or so (make SURE you buy them at aida's) and always asks "does that make sense?" This is a trap, do not ask him questions, as the other reviews say. His accent isn't too bad, after the first quarter or so you won't even notice it. Anything done in class can pop up on exam, even if it seems like a cavaet. Three pointers for doing well: 1.) do the homework, or at least try all of it 2.) understand all the CONCEPTS, not the math 3.) once you get stuck on the exam (and you will get stuck) write out some sentences at what you would want to do. Good luck.

Dr. K is a talented lecture, a fair teacher and an incredibly good person. He's a good man. He's fair, respectful, and generally kind and easy to get along with. He talks himself up as intimidating and an asshole, but he's a nice guy with a good heart. His class is difficult, but he's truly gifted at explaining things. You'll understand every step in his derivations - he'll make sure of that. My only suggestion would be that he do more example problems. His tests can be hard, but are mostly problems from in class and from the HW. totally doable. His grader fucking sucks nuts though. He's totally inconsistent. But, talk to Dr. K, and you're tests will be corrected fairly. Dr. K will take off 2 or 3 points for math or integration errors in a problem worth 30 pts, but he'll ream you if you miss the core concepts. This is fair - we're here to learn structures, not integration by parts or taylor series. Overall, a great teacher and a great man. I loved his stories and his sense of humor.

I have no clue where some of these comments came from. Most of you know darn well how much Dr. K is willing to screw a whole class over because he's pissed off at you. The fact is, don't worry about learning the material, just worry about passing the class and getting above the average. His office hours are a waste of time. I enjoyed structures until I took the 331/431 classes. As far as being prepared for the midterms, the homework and notes aren't too much help anyways. Have fun!

all the aeros know dr. k. its what you expect. dont get him pissed. he says it doesnt matter how hard he makes the tests cuz we're all competing against each other. if nobody gets any points, then its not much of a competition. no matter what, you lose.

Whoever says he is a got lecturer has no idea what they are talking about. I got an A-, but it was all because of the TAs and their examples. Dr. K is rude, does not understand what people are asking him, nor what his students dont understand. Asking him a question WILL just get u more confused, guarantee!

he teaches you very basic topics, then puts the most advanced problems from his 50 year old out of print textbooks on the exams

I could seriously rail on this old Egyptian fart for hours but I\'ll be succinct for the benefit of you future aeros taking this class: TERRIBLE. You guys who will be taking structures this coming year and beyond (2011 and on) are going to be in for some ridiculous shit. Because of the absolute retards in my 331 section who thought it would be a great idea to cheat on the second midterm, all of Dr. K\'s tests are now open notes. Translation: bring your lube. Seriously, I don\'t know how I\'ve managed to keep my head above water this long...all I have left is the 431 final. I wish you kids the best of luck with this guy. You will need it and so much more.

As a response to the last posting, you obviously don't know Dr K very well. First off, for homework, you should do it regardless of how much it's worth. Doing it will greatly increase your test scores. How do you expect to do well without doing the homework? The averages on his tests are not in the 30s, this year the avg on the midterm was a 50%. I have no idea where you got your numbers from, but there were more than 2 B's. In 331 there was only 1 A, and his grade was about 8% higher than the next, not 20%. Yes Dr K grades hard and the average is around a D+, but there are several other professors in the AERO dept who hand out A's like they're candy (Biezad, Mehiel, etc...) so it all evens out. In the last 2 years, 2 people have gotten A's in both. One goes to GA tech and the other is one of your TAs this year. Dr K says that every year to scare people. Don't post bullshit like this. Get your facts straight before posting. Dr K is a good guy and he cares, he just wants students to put in time and effort to his class. Go to office hours and do the homework.

Dr. K is one of my favorite professors. His classes are challenging, but you learn a ton. His tests kicked my butt, but I came out of both his classes a better student, and more precisely, a better engineer.

This is really an evaluation of Dr. For 431 and 331 because they are essentially one big class. This is an INSANELY important topic for engineers to understand and is covered in such a poor, out of date way by a completely useless professor, that at first i honestly thought it was a sick practical joke. There is no learning here, only regurgitations of derivations done in class (usually with multiple errors ) and rote memorization of problems done but not exlained in class. You cannot win. The questions are contrived and unrelated to the material, though usually from homework. When you have a question with an equation he wrote on the board, a hilarious spongebob-tries-to-help-patrick-find-the-lid-of-the-jar scenario. Dont get mad at your TAs, they are saving your ass. They may seem confused and not helpful(because its a vicious cycle, they had dr. K also) but without them, you CANNOT pass.

Pretty much the same as everyone says; he sucks and your final grade is only partially based on how hard you work...

Terrible professor. One of the worst I've ever had if not the worst. Makes his TAs do everything from grading the tests to writing the tests to teaching the class. You're better off going to the "optional" Sunday TA review sessions prior to the tests and skipping all of the lectures than vice versa. Except, having been taught by Dr K, the TAs can't really explain anything. That's not their fault at all, it's an indictment of K's awful ability to teach. This means that to 'succeed' in this class, you just have to memorize literally everything the TAs write on the board. Don't bother understanding (you won't), just memorize and recognize patterns. Because most of the test will be random things pulled from that study session. Dr K can't really teach. He wastes huge amounts of time in class, then puts things on the final that were never even reached in lecture (most of the final was like that). The homework is an exercise in copying TA solutions that both you and the TAs don't understand. Everything must be word-for-word what he would say. One day he asked us what Factor-of-Safety was, told everyone who answered they were wrong even when they weren't (because they didn't say exactly what he would have said), then wrote his definition on the board. When it came around on the test, you had to write word for word his answer of you got it wrong. Test grading is absolutely ridiculous. Multiple times I've completely gotten questions or derivations wrong but remembered the correct answer from a review session and wrote it down at the end, getting full credit. For 'conceptual' questions, you need to regurgitate the exact words of either Dr K or the TAs. If you try to put even a shred of independent thought into your answer and don't include the buzzwords, you get it wrong. One graded test question in 331 (essentially the same class as 431) was "What is life?". Because of things like this I highly doubt that many people who failed this class actually deserved to fail, considering they likely understand the material similarly to the rest of us (that is, very little). The tests reward brute-force memorization and as such your grade has a decent component of randomness to it (one question on the final could only be answered if you attended a certain TAs office hours during finals week, or talked to someone who had, as it had never been done in lecture or the review session). Dr K tells us in 331 that he uses many different textbooks and never tells us which one he is using at any given time, making it very difficult to self-learn the material. For reference, you'll want Shigley for the yielding section and Megson for the final exam (those are the only two I found out). That'll be your only chance of actually understanding most of this material. Not that it'll help you too much, since if you solve a problem differently than the TAs or Dr K did you have a moderate chance of losing lots of points. Enjoy CE204/207 because that is the last time you will learn and understand anything new about structural engineering. I just wasted two quarters worth of this class memorizing garbage that I've already forgotten less than 2 weeks after the final. If we had even a slightly competent professor this course would be on-par with the difficult of 204 and 207 and you'd actually learn a lot. But no, we have Dr K, the worst professor in the Aerospace department, and you have to take this class to get an Aero degree, with no alternatives. I legitimately recommend skipping most of the lectures. You won't miss much useful content and you'll hate yourself less. Just absolutely go the TA review sessions, or at least get the notes from someone, or you have a decent chance of failing the tests by a large margin. In short, Dr K has made me find a whole new appreciation for the professors I used to think were terrible, because they weren't *this* bad.

Dr. K is a nice guy. However, this class was the worst experience I have had at Cal Poly. First and foremost, the lab instructor Dr. Elghandour is a great guy and tought the lab section well. Now to Dr. K for the lecture portion - where do I start? -This guy is lazy, and shows up late to class 80% of the time. He will then keep you there after the bell. -He uses notes that seem to be over 20years old, horribly confusing, and messy. He then simply transfers them to the whiteboard. That is what the lectures consisted of. -He handed us a homework assignment the first day and never said anything else until the 9th-10th when he said that we had 15 more problems due. Let it be known, 1 problem can take you a day. These problems were imbedded in his shitstorm of notes and he expected us to magically know we were supposed to do them. Garbage ! -His final was take home which was nice. If it wern't, everyone would have for sure failed. The only reason the class passed was because we all worked on it together and copied one another. The TA didn't seem to mind. -Bottom line, if you want to learn composites, take it with another instructor if possible, or take the ME version, which I hear is much better. To most of the Aero kids, this shouldn't be a surprise. But for others like myself, people outside of the aero department (Civil, ME). Stay away!