Nelson, Lawrence  

I found that Nelson had only a minamal understanding of statics. Often he would get confused while presenting new material and doing examples. Usually he could get to the end of the problem, but when asked how to do it a different way he was baffled. Be prepared to learn almost entirely from the book as average test scores were around the D+ to C- range.

Nelson is an excellent professor. The quarter started rough, he would walk into class and just start lecturing without much personality. Once the quarter got going, the old guy really opened up to us. He cracks dynamics jokes left and right, ones which only true engineers will get. The class was at 7:00am, but he never failed to be "giddy" in the morning and excited to be teaching. For a dynamics class he assigns just the right amount of HW, enough such that you will understand it. The tests are straight foward, but nothing like the common final. Nelson was very fair and even though the final ripped the class apart, he gave grades on performance, not just pure percentages.

Here's my thoughts on Nelson. I took ME 212, and felt that he was consistent with preparedness. However he doesn't explain the material. Basically he hands out a photo copy of the book. I already paid 100$ I don't need a photo copy. What I wish he was better at is explaing the material. Dynamics has a bad reputation at this school, so don't be surprised if it turns out to be your hardest class here. Finally, the common final sucks really bad. I've heard from other quarter students that it was easy, this quarter sucked. I think the Me dept. finds it entertaining to screw students and ask questions as if we are dynamic specialists working for NASA, not first quarter I just learned this stuff for the first time students.

Nelson was alright. Locascio is a superior professor, but you won't pass the class. Nelson doesn't explain things at all near Locascio, but his tests are doable and he does give partial credit.

This was your average professor. He just came in and lectured and that was that. He does give out a lot of copies from the book, which a worthless.

Well, he won't teach you a thing. Everyday, his lecture consists of saying, "any questions from the reading?" Ok, so take him if you feel like teaching yourself, because i heard he is the easiest grader, but if you want a good teacher, stay away. Also, whenever I'd ask a question, he wouldn't answer it, as though he didn't understand how I was confused.

Nelson is a nice guy, but not very good teacher. Apparently some people understand him, I didn't. Have fun teaching yourself the material, unless you can stay awake in class.

Nelson tries to be nice, tries to have a sense of humor, but fails horribly. He teaches dynamics in way that would be appropriate for a review course for older students but in no way helpful to new students to the subject. He makes tons of assumptions and takes many shortcuts in his work and rarely finishes a problem. When he grades your paper, you will likely get a zero on it and not know why unless you take it to his office hours. His office hours are horrible, if you don't know how to do a problem at all he will basically say "Go Away." So he will help you if you know how to do it, but not if you don't. And when he does help, he will write some chicken scratch and then tell you to go away. He blames the class for the bad grades and when the class makes suggestions on how to improve the class he takes offense and gets irritated. This depressed old man should be fired.

Wow the review below me must have come from one of the kids who didn't do their homework, who made up half the class. Yes, that's right, half the class did not turn their homework in, then whined when they averages 10.5/30 on the test. Switch to business you lazy retards. When I went to office hour, Nelson always caught where I was stuck. Yes they are right, he won't just hand you the answer or tell you where you went wrong. He wants you to get it on your own (like you have to do on exams), but he'll point out major mistakes, and if you ask his SPECIFICALLY if step in your problem is wrong, he'll correct you. Walking in the first time and saying I'm stuck, and havnding him my homework got me nowhere. So I used my brain to reason another approach. Walk in, tell him what you've done and confirm each step with him. If your making a bad assumption of a fundamental error, he'll tell you. If its a math error, you'll pick it out yourself. In office hour, I was one of three people I saw there consistently. The other two got decent grades as did I. Nelson is an older guy who REALLY knows his shit. Becuase dynamics is a hard class, and nelson only gets an hour a day, his lectures are brisk since people always have lengthy homework questions (coughGOTOOFFICEHOURcough.) He specifically said at the beggining and throughout the quarter that you have to read the book before coming to class, else you just now understand him. He was right, but no one did this. Must be the professor's fault. Nelson is kinda dull but he really knows the problems and how best to do them. His lecure is often the persentation of equations and then he sets up 2-4 problems. Unlike locascio, Nelson shows you the easiest way to do them, rather than the hardest. People claim locascio is the best lecturer but all he lectures on is how to take 3 hrs to solve an easy problem by using useless and difficult methods. (I sat in on a few of his and couldn't imagine how he expected students to do them that way - I still can't) Dynamics is a hard class, and working hard without real talent won't get you far, nor will pure talent. It takes a mixture of both and few students like to use both at the same time. They expect to slack off and expect the curve to save them. News: a curve is a gift. A curve is forgiveness for screwing up something you COULD have done, but didn't. If you think its a right, take locascio and find out its not. Bottom line, if you are a good engineer, have talent, and will put in the work, you'll get a good grade. DON'T enter class and think you don't have to do the work because its going to be easy since you don't have locascio. Nelson is just as hard, if not harder - he just curves so not everyone fails. He's an awesome prof and a guy who loves teaching and takes joy in helping you out. I'de recommend him anytime.

Nelson is the worst teacher I have ever had, hands down. Let me give you an example, on our 2nd midterm the average across both of his sections was a 10/30 (33%) with a high of 19. Not one person got the first question right. After going over the test with us he asked us to tell him why we thought everyone did so poorly and then he sat there and shot down all of our criticisms of his teaching and whatnot and then blamed all of us (60 or so students) for doing so bad and then DIDN'T CURVE THE TEST, meaning the majority of the class completly failed setting all of us for an F in the class. Granted I could have studied more for the class but I wasn't learning anything in the first place so I would've basically had to teach the entire course to myself at home, which isn't what I'm paying $1,300 a quarter for. A typical day in the class would start with him handing out between 5 and 7 sheets of paper to us, 3 of which were "special problems" and the rest were photocopies of stuff right out of the book. He would then talk about the homework from the night before (some of which took over 3 hours to do), and usually never finish the problem. Then he would put up overheads of the photocopies he gave us and basicaly read them line for line and then do one or two examples (rarely finishing them). That's it, notice there was never any sort of teaching or attempt to show us how to apply the material in the book. I had no idea how to identify a problem and know which method to use to solve the problem. I wasted 10 weeks on this guy, I would not recommend you do the same. Dynamics is a tough class, at least take it with someone who teaches it to you.

This class was horrible. Nelson is a nice guy but he can't teach. His teaching method was to spend the first 15 to 20 mins on the hw the previous night because no one got it. The next few mins involve him putting up overheads that are exact copies of the diagrams and formulas in the book and him basically reading the captions that go with those diagrams word for word. The rest of class, about 10 mins or so, was him "doing" example problems. He would work them out half way and pull some random facts out of no where to say, oh this means this so you can assume this to make the problem easier. When you would question him on where he got that from, he would give you the blank stare of a deer caught in your headlights wondering why you didn't already know that random fact. I also went to office hours and rarely found them any help. On several occasions I asked where I went wrong on a problem and he spent the next few mins deriving an equation to a certain point and saying you can finish it off from there. Problem was, that had he looked at my paper, he would have seen that I took a diff approach to get to that same point, and he wouldn't tell me how to get beyond that. The only redeeming point of office hours were the 4 or 5 students always outside his office trying to figure out the hw. Between us, we could usually figure out the hw, and I use usually lightly. If you can read a book and fully understand the material with no outside help, this proffesor is for you becuase his tests weren't that hard had you know what you were doing and he does give some partial credit.

Nelson is one of the most helpful teachers i have had at cal poly. The key to getting a good grade in his dynamics class is to attend his office hours. During class, with only 55 min., he dose not have enough time to explain the material extensively, so most students just do what they can with what he says in class. IF you go to office hours regularly you are guaranteed a good grade. (be prepared to do a lot of studying for dynamics with ANY teacher)

Fine teacher, but a little dry in the presentation. I wouldnt suggest having her at 8:00 in the morning, might be difficult staying awake.

I liked Larry for ME 401 (stress analysis). The Homework load was heavy, and the lab projects were time-consuming, but he knows the material and enjoyed teaching it. We had two midterms and a final, all were open notes, book and returned homework. People still failed though, because ME 401 is hard, and if you didn't understand the problem, no amount of homework would help. He's helpful in office hours and after class. He doesn't have a great handle on what students can do (he told us a story of an impossible assignment he accidentally gave an ME 328 class one time), but he's got a good curve (and I can vouch when he says that 70% is a B for him) One peeve: he starts example problems with 5 minutes left in class and then uses that time pressure to get answers out of you. I'd take him again for sure.