Peterson, Zachary  

Network security is the most useful section of CPE 123. Zach is better suited for upper div classes because of his big fancy words and fast pace that assumes you know whats up but I liked his class. Find a kid who knows what theyre doing for the labs and stay until the end of class because thats when Zach drops cheat code knowledge on the kids still there. Plus he dresses dapper as hell.

Peterson teaches the security section of CPE 123. Overall, it was a relatively easy and fun class to get acquainted with computer science/engineering. There's very few homework assignments and pretty much all the labs are fun and can be finished in class if you have the slightest clue as to what you're doing. The midterm and final are the only two tests in the class and both are very easy to pass. You probably didn't have a choice if you got Peterson, but he's a good professor and an easy A in 123.

Great professor to have for your freshman year. Super understanding and easy to talk to. I took his CPE 123 Security class and it was not only fun, but super informative and I was able to really focus on learning the material without having to worry about my grade. I would highly recommend this class to any incoming freshman who are blocked in or have to take this class. Also I crashed his class, and he was very understanding and accommodating.

Zachary NJ Peterson is by far the best professor that anyone could possibly ask for.

For any 123 class, the purpose of it should be to incite within the students a sense of wonder and inspiration about computer science that will keep them motivated through the hard times ahead. For Peterson's section, he did just that. I understand that many freshman who take this will be blocked into his Security section, he did a fantastic job at everything. While there was little programming involved in the class, we did learn a small amount of python; however, the majority of the course consisted of learning security related ideas and principles that will later be applied programming wise in higher level classes.

Incredibly knowledgeable, incredibly funny, and incredibly helpful. Please take him as he got me a job!

Peterson is great for an upper division class. But teaching the first intro class for freshman, oh heck no. He lectures as if we know the concepts already and uses terms people don't even know. If you have experience in coding, I don't think the class will be that bad, however, if you're a first year with no coding experience like me, you'll struggle a lot in the beginning. BUT make sure you ask upperclass men for help because they most likely will be able to show you what to do. I sometimes ask Peterson for help but he doesn't really help and for some reason I feel dumb when I am trying to ask him for help so I stopped. I resorted to others for help and it managed to get me through. If you're willing to go through this, I would still recommend him as a teacher and a class because cybersecurity is useful and he doesn't really care about grades for freshman because it's our first quarter. So if you at least TRY and do the labs and go to lectures, then don't worry about your grade, because it's not determined by the actual things you submit, just effort!

This class was a rocky start for someone who has never coded before. The theoretical material was really interesting and easy to understand, and the lectures were engaging and funny, but I struggled a lot with the actual coding projects. He taught conceptual ideas and then told us to go code with very little instruction on how to write code. In 101 they actually teach you how to code. It wasn't a terrible intro class, it might be challenging and overwhelming if you've never written any code.

Super chill and the class was really interesting.

Good teacher personally, but lectures were very unclear. It may have been due to the large class size, but the lectures were a pain to go to because I often didn't learn much from them. Many things contributed to why I think the lectures were poor: 1) Large class size meant it was easier to space out 2) His writing on the board was very hard to understand (used a lot of symbols and abbreviations -- it took some time to figure out what they meant and then by the time you do, you're way behind in the lecture) 3) Lectures felt too fast and had a lot of advanced jargon that sometimes you could not really understand. The labs however, were very well done. I learned the most of the class from those labs and the lectures that related themselves to the labs (because once you do the labs and he talks about topics relating to it in lecture I was able to understand them). There was also a pretty huge curve in this class (~11%) because the labs and midterm/final are reasonably difficult. The labs are above average CSC-level labs that really just require a ton of reading and understanding. The implementation is not that bad, but there are a ton of mistakes you can do which can make it time-consuming. Midterm and final require some thinking for some of the questions. Many questions are straight from lecture/quizzes, but required me to think about how to solve it. Quizzes were easy and common sense.

Prof. Peterson is a really cool guy and a great professor. For this class, Cryptography, he really knows the material on a difficult to understand subject. I went into the class knowing nothing about crypto and came out more interested in security than ever thanks to Prof. Peterson. The class is hard as the material is difficult and this was the first quarter this class has been taught. For a curriculum that is still developing on a very new and relevant subject in computing, Peterson did a great job making the material understandable enough for me to understand what was going on. I would definitely recommend this class and Prof. Peterson, but be prepared for somewhat of a challenge and having to take time to understand the material.

I literally love Peterson, I think its really hard for anybody not to fall in love with Peterson, his wits combined with acute knowledge is any student's dream. On the flip side, I did wish he did more visuals as I'm more of a visual learner than by hearing words, but that is particular to me. Should also mention, Peterson is extremely critical of every single security mechanism there is, the only nice thing I've heard him say of any of then were, "it works for the most part". However on Security itself, its not for the mortals, to surmise, if you don't like to count prime numbers between 1 to 500 when you're bored, don't get into security, but definitely take Peterson for any course you can, you will definitely become a better scientist even if its like eating shards of glass and staring into the abyss. Reference will be understood if you take 456 with ZNJP.

Dr. Peterson is the future of CSC/CPE teaching here at Cal Poly. He is a great teacher and knows how to convey material to his students. This intro to security class was interesting and fun as Dr.Peterson has designed some great labs that show you how certain aspects of security are done in the real world. The class was a high level overview of computer security, meaning we touched on many topics from cryptography to web security. Dr. Peterson made the class fun with his sense of humor and his lectures that involved current events that were happening in the tech industry at that time. If you get the chance to take Dr. Peterson, I say do it and you won't regret it.

I took ZNJP's Cryptography class and it rocked! I even decided it was worth it to take it MW 8-10 pm and I still loved the class. Peterson is nice, funny, interesting and great at presenting the material. Labs were super cool, and involved hacking fake cal poly portals, and always ended with a rewarding GIF. You can do a final project instead of a final exam which is a grade saver because his tests are HARD. Labs are difficult but you can work with a partner, and I managed to complete all of them... the midterm i did poorly on but still pulled an A in the class. Its a must take!