Sakellariou, Nicholas  

Professor Sakellariou is one of the most motivated and well-prepared professors I have ever taken. This was his first quarter teaching at Cal Poly, and he is already definitely, without a doubt, one of the better professors I've had at Cal Poly! It truly was an honor to take his class. He is young, full of energy, and makes 300 enjoyable. The guy commutes 3 times a week from San Francisco to teach here. How's that for some dedication. The class readings and articles presented are cool. They are new, and on recent issues that we as students probably use everyday. We discussed issues about yik yak, instagram, e-waste and today's technology planned obsolescence issues, etc. He even gets some of his friends from big corporations like Google, to skype in live and give us real world examples of what you might deal with ethically when you get to industry. If you have a chance to take his class TAKE IT. He is awesome!

I had the pleasure of taking CPE 300 with Sakellariou during his first quarter at Cal Poly. He took a course I was dreading on taking and transformed it something that interested me and had me excited about the class. For the projects, he encourages you to tie your subject in with something that actually interests you, and makes a huge effort to make his lectures relevant and entertaining. He is an incredibly passionate professor and cares deeply for his students. Professor Sak was willing to work with the class to ensure that we were interested, content, and learning; and he offers encouraging feedback on your papers. Would completely recommend to any CS majors.

Sakellariou was an awesome lecturer. He is structured and his powerpoints are clean and well designed. There were definitely times where I needed to have him clarify questions or topics, but he was always happy to do so. He would randomly call on students to participate in order to promote class discussion so be prepared by doing the reading he assigns. He is a fair grader, I think he genuinely wants everyone to do well in the course so if you participate and do at least some of the readings (for discussion) you'll do fine.

Amazing.

This class changed my entire mentality on what it means to be a computer scientist. Professor Sakellariou is the greatest professor I've had at Cal Poly. He changed my perspective on the computer industry, and made me critically think about the decisions I make when developing software. He's engaging, motivated, and all around a great person. Come to class prepared, and you will get a lot out of it. 10/10 would recommend.

My first born's middle name will be Sakellariou. Engage in gladiator combat if necessary to take this course with him.

This is the class that I didn't have much expectation. However, professor Sakellariou made this class very interesting. He is a passionate, energetic lecturer. Highly recommend

Professor Sakellariou is a great teacher! He really engages the class and requires discussion. There are no tests, midterms, or finals, but there are homework and essay assignments. The assignments are long and hard, but the home work is easy. The class has a lot of readings, some on articles from the 90's and others that are current. Overall, Nicholas cares about his students and the class. I recommend taking his class!

This is the only PolyRatings I've ever written but Nicholas deserves it. This has been one of the most interesting classes I've ever taken and Nicholas was an amazing professor. A all around. Thank you for teaching me ethics.

Sakellariou is BY FAR the most passionate professor in the CS department. Highly recommended.

didn't love the course since i really just don't like writing, but this professor was objectively excellent.

Sakellariou is one baller ass mf!! He is easily one of the smartest people I have ever met, and he leads the class on incredibly interesting and engaging discussions about relevant current topics in the world while relating them back to the content of the course. Great guy, great professor.

At the time of writing this, Professor Sakellariou has a perfect 4.0 on PolyRatings. I have never seen this as a third year, and all I can say is that it is well earned. Nicholas is one of the most passionate professors I have had at Poly. This alone is a really good quality, but what's better is that he's a genuinely smart individual who is very good at presenting really important subject matters to the class while relating it back to the course material. He leads very impassioned and engaging discussions, which generally tie into the assigned reading. I guess to sum everything up, I think Nicholas is super dank... and I think you will too.

God, Sakellariou is such an incredible professor. His class is unlike any other class I've taken at Cal Poly and it's such an incredible breath of fresh air. Every other class teaches you how to code and create projects, but this class challenges you if you even should do those things and the risks associated with them. Every week tackles a different topic, such as the ethics of self-driving cars, data exploitation by internet firms, the mass production of computer hardware and the negatives of that, and each lecture is chill and interesting. Other than occasional homework where you have to write 2-4 paragraphs, there's only three graded assignments through the quarter, a 2 page essay and two 4 page essays, which are all largely up to you about what you write about. There's a lot of reading assigned each day, but I honestly read next to nothing (and the rest of the class did too based on many people often not knowing how to answer his questions about the reading) but he didn't really care all that much. You learn an incredible amount, it will change how you see yourself as a computer scientist, the class is honestly incredibly chill with almost no stress, it's super easy to get a good grade, and Sakellariou genuinely cares about these issues and his enthusiasm makes the class fun and interesting. I cannot recommend this class enough.