Nahvi, Mahmood  

At first this guy seems incredible, you don't have to do all the parts of the lab and the class really does go smoothly. If you take this professor plan on spending some serious time in his office, it is the only way you will be able to do the homework. The final exam is incredibly difficult and there isn't a lot you cna do to prepare for it, good luck with him. He is a very nice professor and he is willing to work with you, but it won't be easy...

This guy doesn't try to explain shit! Im surprised I passed the class. Most of my class spent the period playing online poker b/c he didnt explain the labs and so we just gave up. I dont know if there are better teachers for such an intro class, but this guy aint it!

I totally agree with person below me almost verbatim. He is very very lenient on lab write ups. He does not really present material clearly, and it is pretty difficult to understand what he is saying. His tests and quizzes are usually a sum of what he briefly lectured on in the beginning of class. The grading on the quizzes are very hit and miss. I just got pretty lucky throughout the quarter.

MAHMOOD IS A GENIUS, I bitched and moaned through his classes until at the end, an underclassmen started asking me technical questions and it hit me, I learned a shitload in his class. Just stay with his program, put the time in on your homework and you will be fine and in the end trust me YOU WILL BE SMARTER.

Nahvi was better than what I had expected, especially after having heard such bad things about ee 211. For some reason the class wasn't all that bad. His lectures were good except for the fact that he loves to skip steps. Other than that, classes with him was cool. Quizes and tests were straight forward. But the final was HARD! Allows notes and collects homework. I would definitely take this guy again. Oh and one more thing, his attitude towards students in his office hours are different than in lectures. He seems to be annoyed sometimes, then again it may have just been "one of those days." (coincidentally, just the days that I go in to see him)

Professor Nahvi really seems like he wants students to learn yet his teaching methods are less than stellar. One of the main things that gets on my nerves is the fact that he churns out differential equations like no other in class. Didnt he look at the prerequisites for this class? Math 242 isnt one of them in fact we are supposed to take concurrently for EE 212. Frankly anyone who didnt take Diff Eq. has literally no idea what has been going on since we started RLC circuits and second order equations. Other than that his tests are straight forward though multiple choice EE tests are plain stupid since if you miss a tiny part of a problem you loose literally 25% of your test grade. Finally he does do some areas well and takes his time explaining them. Yet overall its like he over explains easy stuff and doesnt explain hard stuff. If you take him make sure you are taking Diff Eq. because otherwise youll have no idea wtf he is talking about.

Wow. I haven't seen a professor like this yet. All he does in class is examples from his book. My notebook looks like this: Example 20, pg 129 Example 21, pg 130... It was terrible. The homework isn't bad, but it has nothing to do with the midterms or final. I went to his office hours once for help, and after about 10 min, he said he had to close the door so I had to leave. After walking down the hall a bit, I saw his light go off, the door closed, and he never came out... So that wasn't much help. I just hope I can take other professors for my EE classes.

His class was hard, expected us to know things not required for the class like pspice, and differential equations. Gave us projects that were really hard. If you try real hard you can get a B too!

Dr. Nahvi was pretty difficult for EE 211. I did all the required hw, and studied my notes for the exam, and still didn't do well. His final was very difficult.

Mahmood was not a good teacher. His lectures made it hard to understand the material being presented. I think he assumes you already know more than you should. His grading and tests were ridiculous. My first quiz I got a 45 percent on. It turns out that was the average of my class section. This was the trend the entire quarter. His tests were really tough. The tests didn't resemble the homework at all. Homework did not help in this class. The last three weeks of class he gave us twice the workload by assigning two projects and having two quizzes. The projects were PSPICE and he refused to teach any PSPICE in class because he said, "we should already have worked with it". The curve was the only reason why I got a C.

This guy is not a "people" person. He gave me a zero on a quiz to (and I quote) "teach me a lesson". He's like a quiet little happy middle eastern smurf who doesn't like dealing with other people. His tests really demand that you know the concepts in more ways than one (he gave a few graphing questions on tests). I think I preformed well in his class because I understood the concepts. I guess I'd take him again if I had to. I've had worse teachers.

alright so nahvi wasn't awful but he definitely wasn't someone I would recommend. The hw that he assigns is useless for the tests and quizzes. He doesn't give you enough time on any of the tests but he does curve quite a bit to make up for it. the main thing that pissed me off about him was the two projects that he assigned at the end of the quarter. he doesn't help you with PSPICE at all.. all in all, stay away from nahvi if you can

EE211 has been the hardest class I've taken so far at Poly. I think this may be due to the material and not so much the teacher. Nahvi presents the material very mathematically. I had taken calc 4 previously and math 244 concurently, and this helped me a lot in retrospect. The class is very straight-forward for the most part. Starting in op-amps seems out of the blue. AC analysis is basically complex number algebra. The hardest part of the class for me was 1st order equations. He expects you to know everything (find, v, i, i(0+), v(0+), di(0+)/dt, etc) and to be able to graph it. 2nd order equations were the same as first order, with more math 244 applied. I felt I would be happy with a B after taking the final, which was uncharacteristically difficult, but somehow I ended up with a solid A. The two projects at the end are not difficult if you allow enough time for them. I believe he may have them appear as simple to punish those who choose to begin the night before they're due. Overall I would say you will learn a lot by taking Nahvi. He emphasizes taking something away from the class more than just the material.

Sit in the front, hell, sit in his desk because you won't be able to hear a word he says. Nahvi has been teaching for 47ish years, which means he started when he was 93 because the man is 140 years old. He doesn't present stuff very well, his quizzes are easy, his tests are impossible, but he has a nice curve (theres no way I earned a B) and he is a pretty nice guy. If you have to take him, take him, you'll do fine, just do the work. Oh, and don't wait till the night before to start his end of the year project like I did, it takes forever, try to work together or something.

Overall, Nahvi wasn't too bad. His quizzes (especially if he decides to give you pop-quizzes due to poor class attendance) were very similar to the problems and examples in Schaums. The two projects at the end sucked but he said that they counted as a homework grade, so don't spend too much time on them. I honestly thought he was very polite and helpful in office hours. For example, I went to his office knowing full well that there were only 15 minutes left. We crunched through an op-amp problem and he gave me advice on how to look at op-amp circuits. And after the 15 minutes he told me his scheduled office hours were over. No problems there. The quizzes were so-so. If you read the text and schaums you should be fine, even with the pop quizzes. He actually made a mistake on my last quiz (he gave me 35 instead of a 55, I know 55 sounds bad but the average on that quiz was too low for him to even state) and gladly changed it for me. In fact he made a copy of it with the new grade for his records. **A few words of advice: know how to graph functions (you'll see), and know how to find the diff eq for the circuit (don't just memorize it, although he did give partial credit for just the answer)**. I really feel that Nahvi gives a lot of extra credit on circuit problems (if you're stuck in a hole just fall back on KVL/KCL, he'll give you partial). But with complex number operations and phasor stuff, not so much partial credit is given (I think his grader graded the complex number quiz). I was taking MATH244 concurrently with this course and I was glad that Nahvi put the first and second order stuff towards the end of the course. I've heard that some professors teach that part pretty early on and if you have no experience with diff eqs it can be pretty disheartening. His midterm was pretty tough. He let you do any 3 of the 4 problems. They were . . . not really like the homework. All I remember was falling back on the basics and showing a lot of work and I got a 70. The final was horrifying. It was not what I expected at all. The first and second order circuits weren't just straightforward solve the diff eq. You have to find v(0-), v(0+), i(0), i(infinite) etc. and put them into a funky chart for certain values of R and whatnot. I totally bombed it (because there is no way that the majority of the answers was "0") and still got a B in the course. I think it's safe to say he puts a pretty massive curve at the end of the course. Don't stray away from him just because he has an accent. That's weak. Besides, his accent isn't nearly as "tough" as say Mostafa "Cheech" Chinichian or even Tandon for that matter. The only thing I didn't understand was his sand-piper analogy. It was weird . . . "zzzigma!!" (you'll see).

Ok teacher, hard to understand but he knows what he is talking about. office hours not helpful.

Learn to love his office hour. The material he presents is not that hard but unless your get really good at working fast the test and quizzes are going to be a little hard and you might not finish. In all honesty he is a good instructor but it is up to you to master the material, and as I said learn to love his office hour.

The WORST professor I have had at Poly. Bar none. I don't care if he is the only one teaching the class you need this quarter and you're already a year behind because of stupid physics prereqs being impossible to get into, you should wait until next quarter. You should take another professor. This guy is so incompetent and incomprehensible that ALL of your learning will come from the book. Don't expect a single quiz or test to have a class average above 50%. Things He Does Wrong: -Speaks softly with a thick Indian accent. -Scrawls illegible squiggles on the board (his 'u' is indistinguishable from his 'v', which happens to be important when dealing with functions called v(t) and u(t)). -Steps through solutions in the order he remembers the steps, which is not likely to be the order in which they should be performed. -Stands directly in front of what he has just written on the board an proceeds to lecture for ten minutes about something nobody can see (this happens at least once a day). -Administers "quizzes" that are 40 minutes long an 12% of my grade. -Administers tests that he expects "no one will be able to finish". -During lab, leaves the room for half-hour periods. Students with questions can only wait until he returns. -Assigns a month-long project and then waits until the day before it is due to tell us that there is a particular way he wants the circuit constructed and a particular format our report should be in and that we will be graded based on this information. I'm not a poor student, I have (well, had prior to this class) a 3.4 GPA. I suppose I could have done better in his class if I had spent every waking moment reading the two required ee books (big surprise: he co-wrote one of them). This is what the people who are passing his class have done (and by passing, I mean that have a 60% that will curve to an A). I cannot say this strongly enough: DO NOT TAKE NAHVI.

Lectures are boring and difficult to hear. Midterm and final weren't anything like the homework. Had a project in the end that required Pspice which he never explain. Seems to try and make the class more difficult than it's supposed to be. Only positive is the massive curve at the end because most of the class does poorly anyway.

This teacher cannot explain things too well. He makes 50 minutes of class seem like an eternity. I had trouble getting over his accent at first but I soon got used to it. His exams are difficult. The homework didnt really prepare you for them.

Mahmood is a genius. And he prepares you without you knowing it. I struggled to the extremes in 212 because I had no idea what was going on. Yet, all the theories came together in 301 and I applaud him for doing what he did. He didn't spill ALL the beans in 212, otherwise it'll be a 20 week course as opposed to a 10 week course. An A is not hard to earn if you understand his lecture notes. Go to class, take careful notes and go home to redo them. You'll find mistakes that he probably missed, but in doing so, you'll do well on the tests. He is quite aware of the environment because he recycles his tests over and over again *hint-hint*. I see him as an older version of Breitenbach and Braun that'll work you and work you, and when you feel like you're gonna break, he'll work you some more... then when you a lower class person asks you for help... you'll ramble on forever as if you have a PhD in that subject... Lab is straight-forward, and lab final is not on the labs but from knowledge all sophomores should have.

If you enjoy teaching yourself and endless stacks of tricky problems that have no bearing on the test material then take this schmuck by all means. If you want a teacher that will answer questions in office hour or gives a crap if you understand the material take anyone else. Will look you right in the eye when you ask a question and not answer it as if you should not ask any questions that might make your life easier.

I have to agree with the person who said Nahvi is a genius. This poses a problem at times though when he conveys material because he assumes that everybody is also a math genius. He will do things like partial fraction decompostion and long division in his head and therefore jump complete steps on the board when solving problems. His accent also takes some getting used too. On the other hand, he is very happy to answer questions in class. Never walk into his office hour asking "how do I solve this problem?" because he will give you an answer like "Just do KVL." If, however, you struggled with the problem and you show him where you are stuck, he will help you out. In other words don't waste your time asking him questions you could answer yourself by reading class notes or the text. His homework assignments can be tough, but you will learn alot by struggling through them. Also don't worry about failing his class as long as he knows you are making an effort. I know people who received 30's and 40's on all tests and still passed with a "C". He even once said in class that he doesn't think that grades should be a means of punishment but rather a gauge of how well you know the material....

As seen by the previous posts this is a professor that you'll either love or hate. I take the former position, I found Nahvi to be excellant in both lecture, lab, and office hours. His background is rich and very impressive including an MIT PhD. While his accent may pose some difficults his lectures are informative and full of very useful examples. The exams are straight-forward although there may be one or two "suprise" problems, but the curve compensates for this. Dr Nahvi cowrote the Schaum's outline which was the main text for the course. I found it to be more to the point then the secondary textbook by Dorf, although there was one serious error in it that affected me on his midterm. He's best for serious students or ones with an above average aptitude for the subject. Lesser students will find him boring and frustrating and should take another professor. If you do take him note that copies of older exams and homework are in the library reserve room. Also it is best to approach him during office hours only when you have a serious question or problem, he's quite busy sometimes and may appear to brush-you. Yet my experiences with him were always positive, for example he regraded my homework when he saw that the grader may have missed some problems. I look forward to taking him again in the future.

I have respect for this professor. He comes to class determined to get as much teaching in as possible. He is always willing to answer questions in class and office hours. His courses can be difficult though. He skips steps like crazy during the lecture, leaving many people behind trying to figure out how he got there. His midterms are not representative of the homework. STUDY THE OLD TESTS. He will post in the library. These will be very similar to your tests. Don't get too scared if you get a bad grade on a midterm. He will greatly curve the class at the end.

Nahvi is a very different professor. Probably one of his biggest downfalls is that he does not allow enough time on quizzes. Be sure that you are not only able to do the problems but do them quickly also. I guess it doesn't really matter cuz the whole class is curved and everyone is gonna have the same time limit problem. His midterms and final were much better in terms of having enough time but the final was pretty damn hard. One cool thing is that he follows allong pretty closely to the book he wrote (which I recommend you buy even though it's not required). Nahvi (and his book) present the material in easy to understand format; he doesn't give lectures that are useless to attend. Overall Nahvi is a pretty descent professor, definitely not as bad as his reputation.

Professor Nahvi is an extremly prepared, smart, and thorough teacher. He is also EXTREMELY difficult. The class averages on the quizzes and midterms were 58, 28, 60, 50 respectively. He curves the grades at the end in a fair way for students in the middle of the spectrum, but gives very few A's (1 A, 3 or 4 A-'s I think). Many people would ask what the point of his lectures were since they were nothing like the homework that we had to turn in. The fact is he gives more insight and practicality in his lectures than any other professor that I've had. But you must read the book in order to do the homework. Also, read his book, Shuam's Outlines, to see the types of problems that will be on the test. Don't bother studying your homework. The projects are quite difficult, and he isn't very forgiving as a grader, but I feel I left his class knowing more about circuit analysis than any one else in anybody else's section.

Nahvi is a smart guy but has a really hard time communicating his knowledge to students. i found that in both lecture and office hours he was very hard to understand and i ended up having to do most of the learning for this class on my own time. Also his tests seem to cover the most difficult examples that aren't gone over in lecture. He gives out a pspice project thats not too hard but he doesnt teach you pspice, he just tells you to read about it in his book. Overall, hes a smart guy but a crappy teacher.

This guy is an ass. You will become confused with theories that you were already good with. He will start a very important example problem at the end of class and not finish and will not go over again. AVOID THIS ASS.

This is my first ever evaluation and probably my last, I took the class with him in Spring 2003. He is a very hard teacher, and has a big accent. It is hard to understand as what he is trying to get across. Although, he is very intelligent, I do not recommend you to take him in your early EE classes else you will end up hating EE classes like me. He gives out a lot of C's at the end because he makes the final so hard that after the final you are not even sure whether you will pass the class or not. I received my first ever C in his class, which killed my GPA. I have no hard feelings for the guy, but is not definitely the right teacher for sophomores who are suppose to learn a lot from this class. Good Luck !!!!

Nahvi makes everything you learned in previous courses 1000 times more complicated and you will have no idea what is going on. Yes. I hate this guy.

well this class with him was basically mostly based on his book he wrote which is useless btw.. um but hes a really smart guy just not exactly helpful at all towards students. he literally cant tell if students are confused and he will do the most basic examples in class and assign hw problems that are on a completely different magnitude. uh I wouldn't take him if i were u and i could get out of it, but he was the only 228 teacher at the time for me so imad

Okay, he may have written many books on signals and systems, but this guy cannot teach! Very confusing lectures that almost always have little to do with the homework he assigns. I got an okay grade in the class, but I seriously didn't learn anything useful. I am writing this review while currently in the class after 228 and I am quite lost and I am having to relearn (or rather learn for the first time) everything I should have been taught in Nahvi's class. Also, office hours are helpful, but you shouldn't have to go to them every single day after class (which is what I did and still...).

Okay I wrote the review before this one and I would like to take back some of the things I said about this professor not being very helpful. The reason being I ran into him today and he recognized me and we talked about his class and also 328 and the things he said to me made me realize how smart he truly is. Nahvi may have trouble getting students to fully understand what he does in class, but if you actually talk to him and go to his office hours and put in the extra effort to grasp some of the really hard concepts in the course, he is golden and you'll be glad you did it.

The book he wrote... Signal and Systems. Is the worst textbook I've ever read.

I didn't even have Nahvi for 228 but I had to use the book that he wrote. It is such a bad book I felt compelled to give him a terrible polyrating. I am a math minor and have studied all the 228 topics in TWO other classes and this book takes what I already understood and presents in a way that makes sense to no one. LITERALLY ONE OF THE WORST TEXTBOOKS I'VE EVER COME ACROSS IN ALL MY YEARS IN SCHOOL. FUCK THIS GUY.

The man is a genious. He knows the material extremly well and even went on to write his own book for the course because he disliked the required text. His tests are similar to his old exams and are usually striaght forward. His final is extremely hard though. Also you are almost certain to pass his class with a C if you show you did some worked. I don't think he gives out D's and F's unless you show no effort at all. So if you fail both test you can still come out with a C.

This man is probably the worst teacher I have had at Cal Poly. I don't feel that I learned anything at all in his course. You have to struggle to stay awake in his lectures and even though I attended everyone he still didn't make any sense. Don't waste money on the book, he doesn't teach from it. His tests are similar to his graded homework and are pretty wacky. He gets nervous and scared when asked a good question in class or office hours and usually fails to answer it.One day he told us (direct quote),"I am not going to teach you, you have to teach yourselves" (I'm not joking). His class was the most worthless experince of my life, take EE 321 with anyone but Nahvi (unless you are a sadomasachist).

Dr. Nahvi is one of the most intelligent professors that I have taken at Cal Poly. He does give difficult final exams but you can learn alot from him.

Nahvi is a brilliant absent minded professor. He likes math. A lot. Expect his tests to be very hard, and full of "tricks" that only math nerds can spot. Also expect low test averages. If you want a good grade in this class, expect to spend a bit of time working/studying (i.e. anyone who gets a good grade and doesn't work for it should be shot)

very bad professor. Do not take Nahvi. Don't worry about closing the door when leaving his office, your lucky if he doesn't slam the door into you as he pushed you out. This happened to everyone. He does not like to help people. he is too busy writing his stupid books that don't make sense.

Ladies, I just wanted you to know that the females do decisivly better on test than the males. that's because Nahv-dog loves the ladies. Fella's take anybody but Nahvi, his test are insane and it's demoralizing to recieve a 29/100 on a test. You go through life thinking your a failure, then at the end, everybody gets a C in the class (except for the afore mentioned females who all receive A's)

I never had this professor but I feel compelled enough to write a review of required textbook for both EE 228 and EE 328 - Signals and Systems. This book is by far the most convoluted and useless textbooks I have ever used in my life. How could the EE Department still continue to use this textbook? Luckily, my past EE 228 professor pointed us in the direction of other textbooks to use and rarely assigned material out of that book. Snap forward to EE 328, this professor uses all sorts of examples and hw problems from this text and it blows. No clear explanation of topics and jumps from one topic to another without going over the fundamentals building blocks of signals and systems. Also, the Lab Text required for EE 368 is also written by this professor and it is HOT GARBAGE. I'm sure the experiments are great but the Lab text is just as convoluted as the textbook. Given the situation with Covid 19 and the lack of available 1 on 1 lab meetings much less having the ability to work with other students on this lab makes doing virtual lab reports using this text damned near impossible if not, it takes forever to even figure out what is required in each lab report. I'm not ripping on the prof as much as I am ripping on the texts required for signals and systems written by this guy. There are plenty of GREAT faculty in the Cal Poly EE Dept., perhaps they can come up with a less convoluted signals and systems lab text.

Don't take him for LAB. He is not willing to help you. You do everything on your own. If you are stuck...GOOD LUCK! His lab final was horrible. He will tell you what's on the final but he doesn't follow it. Study the stuff that he DIDN'T mention. And also his final was way too long. There is no way you could finish it within 50 minutes. I didn't learn anything from the lab since he never explain anything.

dude... alrite... this guy's got an attitude problem. DONT TAKE this dickhead dude... He's just a fucking dick. He does not help you, he fucking starr at you when u come in late as if he is hella tough. Just starr back at hiim when he does that! I hate this guy, his help during the lab is not even helpful, he just comes around and play with your scopes for a bit and then tell you to figure it out basically. AVOID THIS GUY! i was stuck with him unfortunatly. oh and also, his lab final is ridiculous!!! Lab finals are suppose to be easy and straightforward about the materials, he stratight up test you on the lecture stuff... EVEN MORE THAN THE LECTURE stuff...

Nahvi is an awesome person. Just by being around him you can really tell that he loves EE and will probably never retire. Unfortunately he is fairly old and will sometimes forget what hes talking about, but he is still very effective in office hours and is a very fair grader on lab reports. Also he gives a short lecture before each lab which goes over the basic material. My only complaint is that his tests are very odd. There is no real way to study for the tests and the grading on them seems to be arbitrary. Overall Nahvi is a solid lab instructor.

I took Nahvi for 328 and 368, but I feel that by now people know what to expect in lecture, so I'll focus on the lab. In short: Do NOT take him for lab. As bad as he is in lecture, he's worse in lab. If you need help, he starts doing equations on the board that aren't helpful so you just pretend like you understand so he'll stop. The lab final was rediculous -- without a doubt the hardest lab final I've ever taken. It took the entire 3 hours! In fact, never expect to leave lab early. If you somehow manage to finish early, Nahvi will just tell you to do an additional "optional" part so you stay longer. Write-ups are due at the end of the lab, which is both good and bad, in that he doesn't require much detail in the lab report and you don't have to worry about it outside of lab, but if you're running behind it can be a scramble at the end of class to finish the write-up. Also an excellent quote from Nahvi this quarter: students should spend FIFTY (50) hours per week studying outside of class.

Pretty average EE professor. He has a cool accent that doesn't obscure what he's saying. The lab is rather difficult and once in a while he assigned too much work to complete in a three hour period. He grades VERY leniently, and overall he is quite reasonable. From everything I've heard, he is preferable to Breitenbach for 368 lab.

EE368 is pretty the lab for EE228 and EE328 combined. The labs do not make any sense and if you ask him for help, he will take AN HOUR slowly explaining what you should do and how to do it which was extremely irritating. The lab final was absolutely ridiculous. It\'s split into two parts, one was taking measurements on the oscilloscope and the other part was making a bode plot, deriving a transfer function and drawing a circuit out of your derived transfer function. When he stepped out of the room during the final, everyone looked at each other and had a wtf look. Lab final was almost like, if not exactly, \"Spectral Analysis Using a Digital Oscilloscope\" lab. If you can memorize the data, good for you. If you can\'t, good luck

Missed the first day, went to the second day. Went to the midterm. Went to the Final. Three days of class total. I got a B, easy. This kind of shit gives our school a bad name.