Schwartz, Pete  

Although Pete is a great guy and cool to talk to and stuff, if you want to do well in physics, do not take him as a professor, it's as simple as that. You will never be prepared for midterms or the final unless you understand the complete theory behind everything he lectures on, which you cannot get from the book, doing homework, or even office hours. Now if you want to talk about your career and where you are headed after college, as long as it is not straight into a job, he's great to have a nice chat with in office hours.

Pete Schwartz is a Prick! The guy can't teach you anything and grades you like you have a phd in physics. I got a very unfair grade for the amount of work and office hours i put in. Fuck this guy.

Pete was a horrible teacher. I didn't like his class or the way he approached Studio Physics. He didn't lecture at all, and you were expected to learn all the material through the book...which is almost impossible. I didn't like his class, and wouldn't recommend him to anyone! Run...take the class another quarter if he's the only one left!!!

A condescending self-centered, self-serving, patronizing jerk. He is knowledgeable about the material but the problem is that he thinks that he is too smart. And he treats you as if you were a total idiot. Yes, he knows more Physics than you but if he were as smart as he thinks he is, he would be teaching at a UC instead. The bottom line, once you are able to endure his personality you will get answers to your questions. And the exams are tough and comprehensive.

Alright, Pete is a really great guy. He cares about his students, but as a student who had never taken physics before, a combined 121/141 class did not benefit me. The flipped classroom work load was extremely difficult to manage with my other classes and took up the majority of my time. I didn't see the point of way he introduced concepts but near the end of the quarter I finally understood the relevence of it all. If you aren't suceeding in his class, I urge you to go to his office hours. He really tries to understand where his students are coming from and will work with you.

Pete appears to be a really nice and energetic guy, but in reality is a horribly awful teacher. And "Teacher" really isn't even the right word to use, as he doesn't even teach. He basically lets us teach ourselves the subject, which really sucks when half the class has never taken Physics before. He spends half the 50 minute class period walking out of the classroom to "get a drink of water", letting the rest of us talk amongst ourselves about how confused we are about just what the hell is going on. Having never taken Physics before, I am 6 weeks in and still possess little to no understanding of what is actually happening in the class - there is zero structure to the course and my friends say its absurd that we're learning about rotations and statics in week 5. Pete thinks he's the shit with this "innovative, new" teaching style of his, but fails to realize that it only works for, I'd say, less than 10% of us students. To make matters worse, he refuses to answer your questions and on the rare occasion he does, he'll go off on some tangent and blow through a whole new concept assuming we know what he's talking about. In terms of personality, he seems like a funny, exciting guy during the first 2 weeks. But trust me it gets REALLY old and FAST. There was one time where I didn't go to his class because A) I know I'm better off just watching the videos because his lectures in class will just make me more lost, and B) I would rather shoot myself in the head than listen to him bang on the desk to get our attention, ask us a question followed by ONE TWO THREE, or excuse himself for another drink of water. I honestly wouldn't mind failing this class so I can take it again with another instructor so I can actually learn shit. Pete, I hope you feel good about yourself about this new teaching style you think is so helpful - and maybe one day you'll realize how many students you've screwed over in the process.

Most unorganized, inconsistent, and unhelpful professor I've had so far at Poly. The guy barely teaches the class and when he does "teach" everyone just becomes more confused. He presents the subject material extremely poorly and doesn't seem to realize that his students struggle in his class. Stay far far far away from Pete, you'll regret it if you take 121 with him.

Do not take this class with Pete if you have never taken Physics before. I'm sure students that took Physics in high school thought this class was a piece of cake, but for me (someone who has never taken physics), this class was extremely difficult. Pete spends way too much time on unimportant material and tests you on subjects that you never went over. If you ask him a question in office hours, he yells at you so its pretty much impossible to find help in that class with him. You can teach yourself a majority of the material if you dedicate your life to it but if you have never taken any physics before, take it with another professor. He went to MIT so he assumes we are all on his level which we aren't. Good luck lol

Pete as a teacher and his class were both the most unique I've ever experienced. I know the flipped classroom didn't work for a lot of people but it actually kept me very engaged in class and helped me understand concepts I don't think I would have otherwise. He was disorganized and scatterbrained a lot but I actually really enjoyed his class everyday and if you actually put time and effort into doing some practice problems or occasionally going to office hours you can definitely do well in the class. He teaches mostly through video lectures and in class time is spent doing practice problems or demonstrations that are really entertaining and helpful to understanding material. I'd say give him a chance for sure.

Oh Pete, where do I begin. He is a super nice guy, however, he is only willing to help you sometimes. If the answer to your question can be found in the text or one of his videos then he will blatantly ignore your question- which can get extremely frustrating. Though he can be odd and irritating at times, his lenient grading makes up for his obvious vices. God knows how I managed a B in both his PHYS 121 and 122. Out of all my teachers throughout the entire year I think he is the only one who genuinely cared about his students' issues and wanted to be your friend. I don't know how much that really matters, but I thought I would give hime credit where credit is due.

As an instructor, I peruse Polyratings quite regularly. It is, I suppose, a little shameful that I am posting here (especially since I have to lie in order to fill all of the text fields). After all, the design of Polyratings requires that posts be genuine so that the numerical evaluation retains its worth. Overall, I think Polyratings is a good idea. However, enough is enough. I know Pete about as well as anyone on campus, and I can guarantee that many of the comments expressed in this forum are far from the truth. The dispicable descriptions of him that have been expressed in this forum are completely unfair -- so unfair that I think I must weigh in with my own comments. Is Pete racist, as one poster suggested? Hell no! In fact, I find the notion of a racist Pete Schwartz absolutely bizarre. This allegation was made only because the poster knows that such a tag is most likely to hurt the instructor professionally as well as emotionally. And such personal statements are habitually expressed in Polyratings by bitter students willing to say anything in order to harm an instructor's reputation. And it is disgusting. PETE CARES A GREAT DEAL ABOUT THE FUTURE ACADEMIC SUCCESS OF HIS STUDENTS. I know this because we share this characteristic and we discuss it at length. Yes, Pete teaches a particularly rigorous brand of introductory physics. But I think most students NEED such an approach, whether they like it or not. Cal Poly needs its share of "easy" teachers, and "hard" teachers. Pete probably falls in the latter category. In fact, Pete is a hard teacher because he does, in fact, care about the skills his students acquire during the quarter. I know some of the students posting in this forum cannot understand this notion, but it is the truth. Many of the personal comments made in this forum are from students bitter about their final grade. But in physics, putting X amount of work into the coursework does not entitle anyone to a particular grade. You either learn the material, or you fail to learn the material. If the students in this forum had demonstrated their proficiency on exams, they would have received a good grade. And I am confident of that. Keep in mind that I am not rebuffing all of the comments made in Polyratings. Pete is still developing his teaching style, and so he may need to improve certain aspects of his technique. Maybe he needs to work on his approach to helping students during office hours. Maybe his exams could use improvement in their ability to assess student proficiency. But Pete really wants to be a great teacher, so over time these problems will gradually diminish. So, as a student reading Polyratings, should you take him for a class? Well, are you willing to pour in a great deal of effort to learn? Do you understand that proficiency is not measured in hours, but rather skill? Are you willing to rely on your own resourcefulness to find solutions to sophisticated physical systems? Are you willing to understand the importance of scholarship, even at the possible expense of an A grade? If your answer to these questions is "yes," then Pete may be the perfect teacher for you. Now I am not going to sign my name to this post. The reason is simple: Those students who disagree with me will counter-attack by flooding my Polyratings with their own brand of lies. Anyone willing to say that a man like Pete Schwartz is racist is certainly willing to say they took my course when they did not. And they will certainly have no trouble concocting all sorts of vicious statements about my personal interactions with them, even when they don't know me from Adam. And that sort of defeats the purpose of Polyratings, does it not?

Pete Schwartz is hot.

I am currently enrolled In Dr. Schwartz's Phys 131 class, and happened to come across his Poly Rating. I was offended by the comments that fellow student's have made in regard to this man. To say that he is "Racist, sexist, and Arrogant," says more about who wrote that than it does Pete. I have not even completed the course yet, and regardless of the grade I recieve in his class, which will probably not be an A, I am impressed with his teaching ability, and his ability to relate to the students. So what if he expects a little more out of his students than other teachers do. Isn't that what you are paying for? To get the best education your money can buy? He doesn't expect you to just be able to solve the problems, he expects you to LEARN the material. If i'm not mistaken, that is why we are going to school here, is it not? As for the students who write in to "Bash" proffessors in this column, grow up, quit your whining, and try putting a little time and effort into your classes.

Schwartz is a really great professor. He actually cares about the subject he is teaching. It is sad, but I can't say that about many professors. He brings in toys all of the time that help demonstrate they physics concepts. He is very easy going and understanding if you forget homework or whatever. That stuff about being racist is a bunch of crap and, quite frankly, the person that posted it is way out of line. It really stinks to see a professor that has his heart in teaching getting ripped by a bunch of slackers. I guess they haven

This guy is a dick! He totally makes you feel like you dont know anything, his online homework gives you insane headaches, and he goes way too fast while mumbling and scribbling on the board. RUN LIKE THE WIND FROM PETE SCHWARTZ!!!

Now I am here to set some things straight about this guy. I don't know what he did in the past in his lectures (he admittedly said last quarter that his teaching style had changed) but I can't think of a better class I've had yet at POLY. So the low-down. Pete is the most entertaining lecturer I've ever had. His lectures are clear and what you learn in class will stick with you, such as when you go home the problems you have to do for HW will be very recognizable and generally quite easy. He has 3 midterms if I am correct, all of which are curved to some strange degree (you'll understand if you have the class). True, the mastering physics problems he assigned were often a bitch, but you'll get through it. The only complaint I will have is that the Final was insanely difficult. Yet alas, do not fear. I had a low B coming into the final, bombed the final, but somehow still ended up with a low B as my grade. (Maybe another strange curve) So overall, to me, great lectures, fair and understandable midterms, crappy final. Eh, I'd take him over anyone.

Reading his reviews are pretty entertaining. That being said take each with a grain of salt as those who ripped on him obviously didn't receive the grade they would have liked and have turned to personal attacks to get even. Yes his teaching philosophy is different (video lectures at home, peer discussion and examples in class), but if you're willing to buy in and work with your classmates this is buy far a better learning method than the standard lecture and homework design. I never looked at the homework, but went to office hours and met with my classmates out of class and earned an A. Bottom line if you want to spend hours memorizing equations take someone else, but if you want to spend hours actually learning physics Schwartz is your man.

Profesor Schwartz is so excited about teaching physics that most of the time he fails to realize that most of the class can't follow his lectures. Its not because the material is difficult, its that he has the idea that we only need to know the philosophy of the physics, not any of the formulas. This makes it extemely difficult to do the homework. No one in the class has any idea how they are doing, the average on our midterm was 59%, no word on a curve yet. This teacher is of no help during office hours. Multiple times I have gone only to be told to think about a problem more. Only after practically beging, was i given a hint. I would higly recomend to aviod this professor at all costs. I have NEVER seen a class with such contempt for a teacher.

After reading the above rating, its obvious that the student is an engineer. Physics is all about concepts and ways of thinking, and I congratulate Pete on teaching this method. I have felt challenged in his class even though the material is really easy. Sure, we could have just memorized formulas, but that wouldn't have taught us why the things we study happen. He assigns homework every day and collects it the next, his midterms have been very qualitative, and he is open to chat about most anything if you can get him at a time he's not busy. As for him brushing off students who have questions: I have talked to him about this and it just turns out that he would rather us exhaust our resources and THEN go to him rather than depend on him for everything. He is very good in lab as well since I have him for that too. He walks around the class and gives hints here and there when we get stuck, but doesn't give anything away. This is how Cal Poly should be: its about getting your hands dirty and discovering things on your own rather than being told them and if you don't like that then transfer schools

whoever wrote the evaluation above mine is crazy. schwartz never takes time to explain what he writes on the board. its like he's just trying to get through as many chapters as he can and he doesnt care if his students understand. he has never once reviewed and he is giving a midterm on the last class before finals. he is off the wall about physics but it seems like he doesnt know how to teach students. he will cover a whole chapter in class then expect us to be able to take a midterm on the material in the next class period. avoid this teacher.

I would recomend avoiding Prof. Schwartz at all costs. He likes to teach to himself and could care less that the class cant follow him. Yesterday, he tried to expalain a problem on the board throught his "visualize physics" method. After about 15 minuites of confusing the class, he gave up because he couldn't follow what he was talking aobut. It took a student about 30 seconds to solve the problem with the formula from the book. He ask the class if we understand, we shake our heads and say no, then he says great and moves on. He also is giving a midterm on the last day of class, when we told him that wasn't cool, he said he thought we wanted a test that day. Class is like that all the time, I consider myself very good at physics, and this is the worst class I've ever had in anything science realated.

Pete Schartz is really into physics and I think he wants his students to really be into physics. That's great, but my major really doesn't require that much physics, so my goal this quarter was to just breeze through and get a C. Surprisingly enough, I feel as though I have learned more in this class than I did in 131 Studio. His concept of understanding physics, not just memorizing the formulas, forces you to think and visualize the problem. Class is a bit hectic at times and rushed, but I truely believe I came away with a better understanding and appreciation of physics. Plus he said he was buying us all pizza after the final!

i have mixed feelings about this guy but i like him, i might not pass the class but he trys very hard to explain the stuff. i have learned a lot about physics b/c i pretty much read and went over everything never knowing what was going to be on a test. he made us look at every problem very carfully and had us try to visualize everything. my grade that i think i might get will not reflect what i feel i know. Schwartz is a genius and i think he should be working for the CIA or planning some mass destruction weapon. i think the reason why most students dislikes the guy is that our grades suffer and he doesnt use formulas, we are not all passionate about physics and we just want to learn what we need for future classes which are basically how to use the formulas. the way he wanted us to think was an extreme challenge for me but was good cuz now i look at things and see why they happen. he should be teaching upper division phyics coarses for physics majors cuz they might feel the same way about physics as he does. i kinda feel i spent too much time studing for this stuff which i will never use again and that to me was wasted time. his class frustrated me a lot through the year cuz he went soo fast his notes are very confusing, whatever i studied it didn't seem like it helped me on the test. bottomline if you have the option of not taking him, take it. but if you do take him you might like him. he does assign quite a bit of hw but it wasnt a massive load.

First off I must say that alot of the other students in my class really held a distaste for Mr. Schwartz. That's putting it nicely. Personally, I have nothing against him, but some days in class it seemed like you could cut the tension with a knife. I think he could feel this, and I think it may have affected his lecture. Personally, I didn't understand many of his lectures very well. I don't think his teaching style and my learning style meshed. I think maybe it was this way for others as well. This, coupled with the absolutely horrible book prescribed for this course, created a very difficult learning environment for me. Prof. Schwartz does expect you to know the material. Not necessarily in intricate detail, but he wants you to dot every i and cross every t when answering test questions. I don't neccessarily disagree with this, in fact I think far too many students slide through courses like this without truly understanding the majority of the material. I feel like I left this course with a basic understanding of the concepts presented, which may be reflected in my grade, I don't know yet. Stay tuned for horror/gratitude stories of his grading philosophy. And Mr. Schwartz, if your reading this, PLEASE petition your board or whatever you need to do to get a better text for this course!! Half-a-page explanations for new (to me) concepts isn't enough!!!

professor schwartz isn't a bad guy or necesarrily a bad teacher. his labs really suck because for every lab you are in there for ALL THREE HOURS, period. no ifs, ands, or buts. i learned everything for physics 132 from my physics book. he's not a very good teacher, but i think it's because it was his first quarter at cal poly. however, i understood the homework he gave and he bought us all pizza for the final. he's not a bad guy. i just didn't learn anything from him.

Well, I hope some of you are still reading at this time. From the above evaluations I can see why you would just do another search for the other professors teaching 132. I would like to throw in my two cents. First off, I agree that Pete is very excited about teaching physics. The reason that he doesn't realize that no one can follow his lectures is that no one says anything...really no one ever spoke up in my class. His homework policy is awesome, it focuses on concepts not answers. HW is worth 5 points and it is collected everyday (which gets the stuff to sink in as well as keeping you coming to class). He randomly selects one problem from the assignment and grades it. He then gives one point for an illustration, one for setting up the problem, one for working out the problem, one for carrying the units all the way through the problem, and one for the right answer. So the arguement that because "Pete only focuses on concepts, making it extremely difficult to do homework" doesn't hold up. His curving policy can be frustrating but I think it works. He let's you know what the average was on the test, but he doesn't tell you the curve. I asked him why, and he told me he wants us to be curious about what we learned and if we understand the mistakes we made, and not what are grade was. Basically the average is equated with a "C". So if the average was 59% and you got 62%, you will receive around a "B-/C+". I don't know how helpful he is outside of class because I never had to go, his lectures were more than enough help, plus there is the book, and at the beginning of every class we would go over the homework. As far as testing, all of his exams are as much quantitative as qualitative (much like the homework) you earn points in the same way (a correct answer is not worth as much as an illustration and units)he also gives out a formula sheet for the tests. There are three midterms and a final, if your grade on the final is higher than your lowest midterm, it replaces that score. I had him for lab, and I got out early more times than I stayed to full three hours. Pete's class is awesome, the people above (who didn't like the class) wanted to put in no effort and just wanted to have a formula thrown at them (which they still got...the formula sheet). It is not a hard class, if you pay attention and go to class everyday you'll do fine. I never had to study for a midterm. Pete is lots of fun and very entertaining. I am taking him again for 133. So, pay no heed to those above.

Pete Schwartz is a okay professor, but he's a awful person to be around. He's extremely arrogant and thinks that just because he's got a PhD in physics that he owns the world. He's very condescending and belittles you when you go to his office hours. It's unfortunate because I think he could be a talented professor if he pulled his head out of his ass. His biggest flaw is his insecurity of being outside of the physics realm.

Pete was a great professor for me. We had a lot of chat about the class and stuff totally unrelated in his office. In case any of you want to know, he loves bio-mechanics and a technology called "nano-lithography" where you write really small with proteins and molecules. So, I would bet he knows quite a bit of biology as well as physics. Overall, I would say that most students at cal poly will have difficulty taking his class, but that is not necessarily a bad thing or even the professors fault. If you are prepared to study a little bit on your own (which shouldn't be a hard thing for you to do) then you will do great in his class. If you have a learning style, you can use it in this class. I have never seen him tell a student that they cannot learn the way they want to. He always tried to accomodate me and my strange styles of learning from the plain old plug and chug to zen and visualization of physics

oh my goodness. schwartz is horrible!!!! if you want to fail physics this is the guy for you. he is a smart guy but he can't teach for shit. he talks the whole class in circles and then he doesn't clarify anything if you ask him. office hours are a joke. you ask him a question and his response is "well, why do you think about that and tell me how you do that?" what's the point of office hours if you don't have your answers answered? so if you want to feel like an idiot and like killing yourself after every class this is the guy for you.

Prof. Schwartz does not belong in Cal Poly. His ideals and philosophy of teaching are too good, too high and too much for the average Cal Poly student. This teacher will make you work your ass off, never provide you with answers to your questions (only with more questions to pin point your thinking) and make you spend twice as much time (at least) on your Physics HW then any other teacher. But, IF YOU ARE NOT THE AVERAGE CAL POLY STUDENT, listen up. Prof. Schwartz method of teaching makes you think and solve problems in a totally different way then any other teacher. You will learn to attack problems from an understanding, logical point of view, and not from looking the equation up in the book without having any understanding of what is really happening. If you like a teacher that stimulates the mind, a teacher who REALLY teaches, then take his class. Another difference about Prof. Schwartz is that he cares about how effective his teaching is. He doesnt come to Poly to earn his poor salary and leave, he comes to make its students better, and he will change himself, if he thinks that it will have a positive influenece on the students. As a matter of fact, he reads all of our reviews on Polyratings and pays deep attention to them (Hello Pete!) just so he can see on what he can improve. On the other side, it is really hard to follow him in class, even if you want to learn, since he goes SUPER FAST. I have noticed that this effects my note taking badly, and with a professor like him, who doesnt base his questions at all on the book but on discussions in class (his tests have more written then calculated answers, or close to that), this can be really harmful. So if you dont want to bust your ass, especially on an engineering physics course, stay away from Prof. Schwartz. But if you want to expand your mind, learn how to think, and get a chance to see America's only way of saving itself from its poor education and millions of untrained minds, take Pete. You wont regret it.

Fuck all of you who seem to think that Pete Schwartz is a good teacher. First of all, there should not be a physics professor teaching ENGINEERING PHYSICS. The name of the cours is GENERAL PHYSICS FOR THE ENGINEERING DISCIPLINE. I don't give a rats ass about concepts, which was what this man cared about. And even after dancing around the whole derivation of some formula, more than half the class did not know how to use it. I don't care why something is, but what it is and how to use it. That is why I am an engineer. And because this bastard does not teach what is required, nor how to teach what is required, i will have to retake this course. Here's the bottom line. He can't explain his own derivations, he moves too fast for anyone to pick up on his concepts, and his tests are unbelievable. Don't take this class.

I think Schwartz is a good teacher. I had him for lab and lecture, and I think I learned alot. He DOES make sure that you do all the work in lab, but that way you learn it better. In lecture, he presented the material well and was helpful in answering questions in both class and in office hours. His grading is very fair too. I got 45% on my first two midterms and still walked away with a B. If you dont mind doing some work, I recommend him.

Pete is one of the best instructors I have ever had. He is enthusiastic about physics and he gets excited about his nutty demonstrations. He knows his stuff but this means he expects you to know it also. This makes his tests really hard because he expects you to apply the concepts you learn to something he never mentioned. He is very demanding but if you are eager to learn he'll teach you everything you need to know and more.

I'm not one to speak out badly about someone, but i feel obligated in this case. I'm telling everyone i know not to take him at all costs. I had him for lecture and lab in the spring last year as a freshman. I didn't miss one lecture or lab and i paid SERIOUS attention. I did great in 131, and i like math...I REALLY wanted to understand the material. I went to an average or 3 hrs of office hrs a week, but it just didn't work. I got a B because of the curve...i had a 60% or less on every test. His office hrs are held in a huge room and there are so many people there it's almost pointless. I overheard him loudly voicing his frustrations about my stupidity to another student across the room during office hrs. after I had asked him questions that he simply could not figure out how to explain to me. To his credit, he did try to get to know his students and encoporate our interests in the class, but even that seemed to fail. I don't mean to be harsh, but I was MISERABLE...DON'T TAKE HIM. The stuff everyone says about his intelligence is totally true. He could very well be a genius, but he's a nightmare of a teacher and I'd avoid him at any cost if i were you.

As brilliant as Pete might be in the world of Physics research, he just does not have any talent in the teaching field. His lectures were hard to follow, and his quizes and tests were much more difficult than thy should have been. Perhaps this is due to Pete's overzealousness...maybe even arrogance...either way, Pete takes his class too far, without sufficiently covering the basics. Instead of thoroughly teaching and explaining the general ideas, Pete immediately rushes to derivations and complicated applications. Despite this, I thought Pete was interesting to talk to outside of class...and quite funny as well.

Schwartz is a man who talks excessively. If you take his lab classes, plan on staying in for the whole 3 hours because he doesn't let you out early. And if a lab ends early, he assigns another lab. So don't get your hopes up.

Pete is pretty good at explaining things. But do not take the class unless u want to know why everything happens. He does not like numbers, just the theory behind it. And his tests, quizzes and finals are very very hard. And he admits it. The class average will usually be around 50%. So be prepared. I would not recommend.

This is a good professor. Very weird and does things his own way, but you'll learn a lot. This is definitely a class where homework HELPS! Office hours are pretty good, usually more for a study session with other students, but he will help when needed. His tests are pretty fair, long enough to make it so your grade doesn't ride on one problem, but not so long you want to shoot yourself. When I took him we had the tests in the evenings, outside of our scheduled class time. That is my biggest complaint about him. He shouldn't expect us to come back for a test when we're not even supposed to be in class. I don't know that doing that is even ALLOWED. Other than that, he is over all, better than some of the other professors I've had at Poly. He still has a drive about being a teacher which I haven't seen much of, so that is good and he's helpful in office hours.

Schwartz was terriable. I have no idea how anyone could stand him. The class was awfull.

I had Pete for lab and the first couple of labs felt like hell. But after those first labs I realized that Pete is a great lab instructor to have. That is , if you are an engineer or physics major which I am neither. He does not keep students in for the full three hours, usually about 2 to 2-1/2 hours. He does squeeze in stuff to do if the labe is short. There were a couple of labs that could be done in 30 mins but it took like 2 hours because at the beginning of lab, Pete hands out a worksheet to do that will help in understanding the lab you will be doing, then he talks about the theory behind the lab. He reads everyone's conclusions and will criticize them and will make you write it over if it's not good enough. If you want to take a lab where you have the instructor tell you what to do on the lab and expect to get out early all the time then don't take Pete. But if you want to be challenged and if you are an engineer or science major than I highly recommend Pete. Again, this is regarding lab, I didn't have him for lecture.

OMG!!! SCHWARTZ IS AMAZING!!! so apparently he changed his teaching style recently....whatever... he ROCKS NOW!!!! he's very energetic about physics and it really comes accross in his teachings. If you have a question, he not only knows what you're talking about...he knows exactly what the answer is. HE'S A GENIOUS!!!!! his class is a lot of work and he throws a lot of information at you in the short class periods. But it's definitely manageable!!! he uses blackboard like a heiroine addict uses needles. It's AWESOME!!!! he set's it up so you can correspond with your classmates and post questions and answers to homework problems. He's also very quick at answering any problems you might have and have posted. he really tries to prepare you for his tests (lots of practice midterms) Mastering Physics is the devil...but we all know this. Schwartz is an awesome teacher and he curved our MP grades. I had like a 60% on the MP hw and B's on the midterms. his tests were VERY fair. He didn't throw any curveballs at us on the final. If you study your midterms, hand in homeworks (don't worry...they're not that tough), and practice midterms, there's no reason you shouldn't do well.

I thought Schwartz was a great professor! Yes his lectures were fast paced but he told us to tell him if he needed to slow down, and he really tried. He went through a lot of information in each lecture, a good page front and back for me. Yes there was a lot of mastering physics, but I really liked it actually. If you're the type who does well on homework but sucks at doing tests, take Schwartz. The homework really helped to boost my grade. I did average on the first mideterm, pretty poorly on the second, but ended up with a B!. If you really want to learn a lot take him. He's also extremely helpful in office hours. I don't think many people went, but I would really recommend you go. The few times I went it really really helped me! Especially since I'm the type that is still a little intimidated to ask questions in class. He's awesome and really understanding! I would take him again if I had to take another physics class.

Pete is a really smart and great professor. He really likes what he teaches and it is shown on all the lectures. But, this makes his class really hard. His tests were really really hard and his homework was impossible without going to office hours.

Took this guy for both the lecture and the lab. The lecture, he basically confused everyone with his lecture which was disorganized and not very helpful for his quizzes and test. He assigns mastering physics which everyone has to ask for help from each other since his lecture does not even help with the hw. He's midterms are are okay if you can study by yourself and from the book, but beware, if you ask him a question, he will rephrase the question and ask you it. This method does not even help students but further confuses them. Then his lab, be basically tells you that he wants you to do certain things and find certain results but does not give any instructions on how to do the lab what so ever. So basically you be spending about the first hour and a half being confused on what to do and the rest of the time is spent trying to frantically finishing the lab.

I had Pete Schwartz for the lab section of physics 133, and I must say that he needs to calm down. He is very enthusiastic about what is going on in the lab, but that gets to be annoying at times. Although young, he looks like he could turn out to be one of those professors who assume that you know everything he does. But that is strangely balanced by the amounts of errors he makes while trying to explain the subject. I'm sure that he knows what he's talking about, his problem is that he can't effectively get his point across

Dr. Schwartz is an entertaining lecturer, and he is able to explain isolated concepts very well. He'll be a great physics professor someday. Unfortunately, he still hasn't quite mastered lecture organization. There is no linearity to his lectures - everything is very haphazard. He doesn't make good use of the chlakboard, cluttering it with random scribbles and half-written equations. I long ago stopped taking notes from his lecture and relied on the textbook instead. Unfortunately, the equations he uses on his exams are not at all similar to the formulas in the text.

I see everybodies point...the guy is a nutball about his field...true. The guy knows the stuff so well that he expects you to keep up and you can't...true. His tests require more intuition and creativity than knowledge of the equations...true. The point is that that's what physics really is! Maybe he should save it for more upper division classes, but students shouldn't be looking for an easy way out. He curves his test with a fatty curve, and once he sees that you're trying to understand a problem or a concept more than you are trying to get the right answer, he is more than sympathetic with you. I think that Dr. Schwartz is an amazing lecturer, and though he has a way to go as far as understanding students needs, he is getting there, and will soon be a fantastic Physics teacher.

Pete is an excellent teacher. However, if you don't make an effort to learn, you will fail the class. I studied every day for this class. Physics 133 is a difficult class as it is. The two midterms were average. He makes them out of many points and just takes off points when you do things wrong so its easy to not do anything right on a problem and get 7/15. The final was really difficult and not doing exeptional on it lost my A. you have 1 or 2 quizzes per week, but htey aren't too difficult and sometimes he lets you work in groups. Go to office hours if you don't understand something. He is very helpful. If you fall behind you are screwed. He got us pizza after teh midterms and the final which was cool. Don't be afraid to make suggestions for him to be a better teacher, he is very open and wants students to learn.

First of all, I like to understand WHY things are going on, not just to be givin an equation and some numbers to plug in. If you like to just be given equations and numbers, look else where. But, if you want to really understand physics, how physics works, and why things happen the way they do, Schwartz is perfect. Phys 133 is a hard class, Pete is a good teacher, if you study and do homework and ask questions, you will pass. I fall asleep everyday in every class but Pete's. He is very entertaining and teaches you how to derive the equations on your own. If you really want to learn, pay attention, and take this teacher.

If you really love Physics, or are a Physics major, take Schwartz. If you are just taking physics because you have to, avoid him at all costs. He really knows what he's talking about, but he's much too excited about it. He seems to think all his students are as good at physics as he is, and almost never finishes what he is talking about. He also messes up every equation he writes on the board, and his answers never agree with the ones in the book.

PETE SCHWARTZ IS THE DEVIL! I swear, this man's purpose in life is to make his students feel like the scum of the earth! He needs to stop concentrating on his own emormous ego, and pay attention to the needs of his students! I highly recommend taking another instructor unless you enjoy being publicly humiliated!

He goes through material way too quickly. He'll stop to answer someone's question, but he'll answer as vaguely as possible in hopes the student's mind will finally click. If not, he'll just continue, since answering questions seems to be a waste of his time. Office hours aren't particularly helpful, and neither are his review sessions. His quizzes and midterms are extremely difficult, and the average is usually around 50-60%, but he curves. THe homework load isn't particularly bad, and will actually help the grade. In the end, nice guy, bad teacher.

Here are some words that come to mind when I reflect on my experience with Schwartz in his 3 hours labs. Racist, Sexist, and Arrogant. What does these values have to do with physics...NOTHING. He failed as an educator and as a human being. He made unprofessional comments and always was Condescending to his students. If you want to feel like anything less than a human being then by all means take his class. Also, you won't learn anything. Everything I learned in that class was all my doing. I basically paid him so that I can teach myself. Overall, avoid him at all cost unless you agree with being Racist, Sexist, and Arrogant.

Schwartz enjoys the numerous toys that abound in the department to demonstrate the laws of physics and hopes to excite curiousity in his students. If you want to understand how physics works, he will explain the concepts to you. You will do more than problem solving, and you will be challenged. He is deeply concerned with how his students do in the class and how they feel in the class, so he reads student evaluations carefully. He also reads poly ratings - eventhough it seems that anyone can write in without their student status being checked. This doesn't mean polyratings is bad, people often feel better after publically expressing themselves. Sincerely Pete Schwartz

Can not convey subject matter to students whatsoever.

Schwartz knows physics like no other. He gets way into what he's teaching, which is cool because you stay awake, but bad because he becomes intimidating and will really get on you if you don't understand something. I had him for lab and I think I learned more from him than from my lecturer. In lab you will stay for the full three hours no matter what. So don't even consider getting out early. So I guess I wouldn't recomend him unless your some physics freak.

Scwartz is the man. Contrary to what everyone else says i liked him alot. Even though its hard for him to convey the material, only because he is so smart, he always makes and effort to do so. No doubt you have to work in his class to get a good grade but the knowledge i gained by taking him as my teacher was better than it would be from any other teacher. If u have the chance to take him do so its physics its gonna be hard any way you go.

If you are a physics major and you plan on going to grad school you would probably like this guy. the thing is, its not only physics majors that are required to take this class. if you are an engineer, math major, or whatever else that isnt physics, his class is really hard and time consuming. its not worth all the trouble to learn stuff you might not even use again.

Here's Pete's layout: hw on the internet twice a week (15 probs each), extra hard take-home hw once a week, 2 midterms, one final, three-hour labs every week, and a whole lot of office hours to attend. He replaces your lowest midterm grade with grade on your final if it is higher. This guy is hard. I spent 6 days a week on this class, going to office hours probly 3 times a week (when you go to OH, expect to be there the entire time, no matter how many questions you have). Pete is really cool from the getgo, but his fault is that he wants everyone to know everything (just like him) about physics. Trust me, I have learned stuff in this class that I will remember for the rest of my life, but I had to push through a lot of stress to pass this class. Pete cares about his students and puts in a lot of time to help them out. Is it possible though, for a professor to care too much? Finally, if you've ever felt like you have been wasting your money on useless classes and lame teachers, take Pete Schwartz, he'll make it worth every penny.

I really enjoyed this Pete's class although it was a lot of work. He is a very entertaining teacher and explains things so that everyone can understand. But the trick to get through is form study groups because he gives tons of homework and the tests are very conceptual. An average test question is like 'explain how a radio works' and all he wants is for you to use the correct physics vocabulary we learn in class.

He's a cool guy in class BUT, he did ADMITTED that his mid class quizes, which he gave out right after he teaches it, are designed to mess you up. GOSH, his tests are extremly hard. For the final, it's the first time I actually and littlerally had a migrane from a test.

Professor Schwartz is one of the hardest teachers you can take. I won't lie, his class was fucking brutal. But I can also say without a doubt he is one of the best teachers I've had at Poly. He's up there with David Ring and Brian Mealy, who both have high 3's for their poly ratings (I've had both of them for classes and I can attest to their awesomeness). Schwartz I thought was an outstanding lecturer. His explanations were always extremely clear, he was always very energetic, and he had alot of demonstrations so it was as entertaining as a physics class could be. I think what most students had a problem with was that it seems like Schwartz has trouble relating to students' inability to understand. I personally thought he did an outstanding job of conveying information, but when I didn't understand something it would seem like he'd get flustered or frustrated. It's kinda understandable, he went to MIT for undergrad and Princeton for grad school, so hes pretty fucking smart... I think its difficult for him to understand why some people just don't get stuff. He can also be somewhat intimidating since he does get frustrated sometimes, and he will definitely get on you if you don't understand something that he think you should know. But he makes up for it by being extremely helpful in office hours. If you don't understanding something he WILL work with you in whatever capacity he can to help you. I think he generally cares about the students and just wants to help them understand the subject material. If you want to actually LEARN the material well, then take Schwartz class and prepare to work your balls off (if you want a good grade). The homework never ends and it will probably ruin your social life. But if you're an EE or CPE I think its worth it because EVERYTHING you learn is based on this class. If you just want to breeze through this class and pass, find a different teacher, because this guy is not for you.

DO NOT TAKE HIM FOR LAB. 1) He WILL keep you in for the FULL 3 hours. 2) He WILL make you do the experiements line by line, word by word, in those lab books. 3) If for some reason, he will totally enjoy criticizing your work in lab. All in all, I didn't enjoy having him as a lab teacher especially the toture he had to put us students through. If you don't believe me, be my guest and have him.

Okay, I had this guy for lab. He's the type of guy that you can totally hang with like a backyard BBQ or surfing. Howevever, when it comes to having him as a teacher--he's E-V-I-L. He has never let us out early and he'll always squeeze in those first few minutes with "stuff" to do. Don't ever expect to leave early and make sure you listen to his instructions--word by word.

He is somewhat a good teacher. He does TRY to present the materials, however he expect way too much of us. He teach way FASTER than other teachers (at least 3X as fast.) If you thinking about to take him, I would try to get other teacher first before taking him.

first of all, TRY TO GET ANOTHER PROFESSOR. yes it might say on other comments here on polyratings that his method of teaching has changed... i don't know if it's for the better. he goes WAY to fast over material. he tries to slow down, but because he is very excited about this particular subject, he tends to make up for the 10 seconds of silence by talking faster for the next minute. i felt that some of the derivations in class was a waste of time. by the time we're done with the derivations, it was time to go... therefore we barely had ANY examples to base our homework questions, or mastering physics questions off of. sometimes we'd have mastering physics questions on things he hadn't lectured on which he would go over the next class period. he expects us to know a lot of the material though he doesn't lecture on it. office hours are ok, but his tone of voice can sometimes be belittling. Pete, if you're reading this, we know you understand the material and we know that you're a genius. It's just a little hard for you to convey the material to students like me, who have never seen the material before. You will have NO SOCIAL LIFE between the mp's due EVERY CLASS PERIOD and a written homework assignment due every monday. i remember having test corrections, wrtitten and mp homework due once, so be warned. the only good thing about this class were his test corrections. it counted for 25% of the test grade. and here's a big tipper... don't study your own material for tests, study his practice exams... most of the questions are almost identical. overall, a good guy with a lot of interest in physics, but a bad teacher... just can't convey the material. sorry pete.

Fast, detailed oriented, but willing to get you though it. He says he won

First off, he's very energetic on the subject of physics, and he obviously enjoys teaching it. Because of this, he seems a little intense, a lot more so than the other physics profs I've had. He really wants the students to learn and he wants to teach them as much as he can. This makes the class fast-paced, so missing any days can be bad. There's a lot of work in the class, since he assigned three Mastering Physics homeworks a week plus a worksheet that should be done in groups. His tests are difficult, but he posts old ones on Blackboard, which makes studying a lot easier than it otherwise would be. I had him for lab also, and though he never assigns lab reports, he keeps the class the entire three hours every single week. If you really don't want to stay the full time, then don't take him for lab, but I do recommend him for lecture. He tries to make the class interesting, and keep the students interested, so if you like physics, he's definitly the one to take. If, on the other hand, you really don't care about it and just want an easy A, then take someone else.

Pete Schwatz is a horrible teacher...end of story. He knows physics...hes a nice person...but a horrible teacher. He's smart...so what..that means nothing if he cant convey it to other people. Which he can't. I learned nothing in class because he derives every formula, so i hope you love your textbook, because its the only thing that got me through....ya the TEXTBOOK got me through...- Not to mention he assigns mastering physics 3 times a week with about 6 problems per assignment, plus a 4 or so hour GROUP HW assignment. If i could re-do it...even if i got a B the next time around i would take a better teacher.

Don't take Pete unless you love physics and can teach yourself from the book. His lectures are very boring a pointless, he doesn't know how to explain physics and just expects you to learn it. If it was just that it wouldn't be so bad, except he assigns way to much hw. MP due before every lecture, plus a group hw every week that is almost impossible and takes hours to do. For lab he makes you stay all three hours...not matter what. I took the time to write this so you don't have to go through the same pain I did - stay away from Pete Schwartz!

Pete is the best physics professor I've had. He goes over the material quickly and passionately, never wasting a second of class. The MP due before every class isn't too difficult, but I'd recommend working on the written homework in groups even if he doesn't ask you to because it is not easy. The usefulness of the old midterms and finals he posted for studying cannot be overstated. Schwartz covers the material rigorously, and I feel I got more out of phys-133 than I would have with an easier teacher. I no reservations in recommending Pete Schwartz to anyone interested in what he is teaching. Highly recommended.

I had him for only the lab section of 133, and he is easily the most frustrating man I have ever met. He asks students for feedback and then proceeds to do the opposite of what they need. First of all, his labs were complete bs. He didn't read our lab reports, he only looked at our notebooks to see how much we wrote. He must be stupid or something because he cannot recognize that people with smaller handwriting and people with larger handwriting will fill up different amounts of a page. Therefore, if you scribble big words, you'll get an A on labs, and if you neatly fit everything into a page, he'll say it's not enough. That being said, when this man talks, it has nothing to do with the lab. He comes up with useless hypothetical scenarios that probably could never exist and asks his students "what would happen if..". He then leaves the room because he's hella weird. All we wanted to do was learn how to solve problems, but he talked and talked about useless shit. He also thinks hes better than everyone and smarter than everyone, so he disregards students' opinions. I came to class to learn, but I left more confused than before. He shouldn't be a professor, he should be in rehab.

Pete is someone who shouldn't be teaching an intro class. It's like he already expects you to know this stuff all because we're "engineers." Every week he would assign some lame ass problem set which takes about 1-3hrs depending on how confusing his instructions are and besides that you have Mastering Physics every freakin day which wastes a good amount of your time. His lectures are pretty much him theorizing shit like "What if we did this, or what if we did that..." Pay attention to his examples he does on the board because most likely he will put those on the midterm/ final. All in all, don't take this guy if you value a social life.

Pete is an extremely cool teacher. I barely knew anything about physics entering the course and i did fine. The mastering physics is not that hard (it shouldnt even be a basis for rating him since most teachers make you do it, even at other universities). The weekly problem sets were fairly difficult but they were graded rather generously and they provided real life applications for the material we learned. The post below me says he expected you to know the material beforehand. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Anything he went over in class was in the textbook reading for the night before. I would skim over the section for maybe 10 minutes before class and I would know exactly what he was talking about.

this teacher was by far not my fav. teacher....he tried making us learn physics on excel...it took me more time just trying to figure out what he wanted and getting the excel hw done than actually worrying about learning the material...my advce would be if you can avoid it dont take him. He is very passionate about physics....overall he is a good person but a bad teacher....He doesnt give a lot of notes and he tends to scribble a lot. I would not recomend him to anyone.

Schwartz is a perfect example of the teacher who tries very hard to teach the material to the students, but is just not that good at it. His lectures are hard to follow, but most of the information you need to know is there. Be sure to take good notes though, and ask questions the second you don't understand something, as he has a bad tendency to talk himself in circles and treat everyone like they're five ("Repeat after me class, Acceleration"). But he's willing to do pretty much anything (including spinning himself around about 3 feet off the floor) to try to teach the material. A good strategy I found is to read the next section before you come to class, as having a background knowledge of the concept being taught really helps.

I did not enjoy this class. Professor Schwartz tends to give you easy examples in class and punish you with difficult homework problems. That being said the tests were somewhere in the middle a good mix of easy to moderately difficult. The class often missed problems in all different areas not just on a single "trick" problem that got everyone in class. Mastering physics is a pain but you get used to it. I often found myself spending at least 2-5 hours outside of class doing the assigned work for this class daily. All this being said I am a very difficult person to motivate to do outside work beyond all that is assigned. Pete countered this by assigning massive amounts of work. I did not get an A in this class because I was striving for it I obtained it by attempting not to fail. I find it often that teachers tend to not assign enough work for you to master the skills learned in class but Schwartz makes sure you have enough work. If you can trudge through the workload you will know physics by the time you get out and you will have earned your grade. Basically you do 70% of the work and know 70% of the material you will get a C. Your going to hate the class but you will come out smarter and that is what we're all here to do.

So smart that he can\'t relate to the average student. Some will love him, most will hate him. The class is absolutely ridiculous as a introduction course. Quizzes everyday, homework is harder than any other I\'ve seen and takes hours and hours to simply grasp onto. Midterms and Final are simply wow. Sure he curves, but the class isn\'t worth it. Too hard to focus on Physics with Schwartz and other classes. Having only this class during a quarter would still make you struggle. Do not take him if you don\'t want to work on homework/study 2 hours each night for the class.

I\'m mixed on the guy....Loved the class lectures sometimes...hated them other times. Thing is, if you put effort in the class, he will reward you. I\'m not gonna lie he is ridiculously hard. However, I found it interesting...but he does give you hard homework problems and a REALLY hard homework problem for the weekend. There were quizzes everyday but they can only help. I worked hard and got a B+ but half the time i didnt know what i was doing. so if i could do it you can too. just work hard, go to the Learning center and his extra class and you should be fine.

I don\'t know why the heck everyone is bagging on Pete. He is a good professor who assigns problems that make you think and really understand the material. I\'ll admit the written homework could be frustrating at times, but he was very generous about partial credit and he would make a great effort to explain what was going on. The midterms weren\'t too bad and the final was a piece of cake. Mastering physics sucked for the first week or two, but it gets better. He\'s a super nice guy and was very helpful in the extra study sessions, definitely knows his stuff. Physics is a hard subject and takes many hours of blood, sweat and tears to master and Pete is a great professor help you along the way.

Pete is an interesting guy. It\'s obvious that he really, really enjoys physics, but sometimes he has trouble passing that knowledge and understanding on. He\'s one of the few teachers I\'ve had that has actually listened and responded to the student reviews at the end of each quarter. The quarter before us said he used too much Excel and Powerpoint, so he changed the way he taught to use those two programs very, very minimally. Few teachers would change their entire teaching style to help the students out. Basically, he curves the average to a C+. When I took him, the scores on the midterms were about a 60% without the curve, so as long as you can keep up with the homework you\'re fine.

Pete\'s cool once you get to understand him. At first his lectures seem really hard to follow. I had a 66% the day before the final, studied my arse off, aced it, and wound up with a 87% in the end. The curve helps A LOT, however, don\'t rely on it too much. All in all, Pete\'s very smart and his brilliance will rub off on you in the end. So if you actually want to learn something physics, take pete\'s class and stay on top of the HW.

Pete is an excellent professor whose lectures are far from boring. Many people hate him and complain because of the large workload and excessive homework. I must agree that the homework was a bit overkill at times; however, for the most part the work you put into it (and into Mastering Physics) replaced the time you would spend reading a textbook for other classes. Pete focuses on the concepts of the class and avoids the textbook except as a reference until you get to angular motion, etc. in the last few weeks of the quarter. I would highly recommend Pete as a professor if you\'re not scared of a lot of work to actually understand the material as opposed to just getting through physics unprepared for future, much more difficult courses. Basically, he\'s a goofy hippie with a ton of energy and if you can get used to mastering physics (an online homework program designed to give you feedback and help guide you in solving problems) and very animated, real life examples in class, you\'ll do fine. **Also he is extremely helpful during office hours if you feel like you are struggling with a concept! Make use of friends and group work as well as his office!

Schwartz was a pretty decent professor. I mean, he was severely disorganized when I took the class, and he assigned homework every night in addition to weekly homework written assignments and reading. It was extremely time consuming and tedious. Mostly, I learned things on my own, and didn\'t really get much out of the class. I learned some, but mostly it was because I had to figure out the homework, and not because he actually taught it to me. He was really nice about letting us retake a midterm that everyone failed, though.

Im in 141 right now and I took AP physics in high school. I thought my teacher was bad in high school, now I know I was wrong. Pete is horrible. He lectures on the basic concepts such as F=ma for a week then all of a sudden 110 point homework assignments and midterms test you on concepts he hardly even touched on. It is rediculous, and he will admit to testin you on material he didn't teach you, he says it pushes you to learn it yourself. Learn myself? I'm a freshman, that's horrible. To top it off he brags how hes been around long enough so he can teach however he wants and doesn't have any risk of being fired. He is absolutely horrible, do not take him unless you can fully teach yourself physics.

If you don't care about learning anything, but want a good grade, you shouldn't take Pete. In fact, you probably shouldn't be in college. The benefits of knowledge far outweigh those of high GPA's and paychecks. I have seen Pete express his sincere desire to inspire students in the pursuit of knowledge, but students are so hung up on the grades they get that they cry and throw fits like little babies that don't get what they want. In truth, Pete may not have the best teaching style, but if you try and make friends with him and show him that you are genuinely interested in the subject, he will be glad to help you understand the concepts and will be very excited to do so. He totally understands a student's frustration, but if you come at him with anger and "give me the answer" type demands, he will shy away, won't make you feel very welcome at his office, and won't be very helpful. He's funny as hell, lectures are never boring, and he's very intelligent and compassionate. The workload is manageable, and I really like the way that he grades with respect to the concepts you learn rather than searching for the right numbers.

Very bad teacher. If you absolutely LOVE mastering physics (this is homework on your computer) then you should take this class. Expect 1-3 hours of online homework PER NIGHT and written homework combined with online homework over the weekend. The workload is tremendous! For whoever says that learning the concepts is more important than grades, you are correct. BUT, that is not at all how this class is run. Pete will tell you that he doesnt want you to worry about grades but you will have no time to understand the concepts because all you will be doing for this class is TONS AND TONS OF MASTERING PHYSICS! The only reason anyone shows up to class is to take his daily quizes. He is totally UNAPPROACHABLE! He is a passionate man that loves physics but a VERY BAD TEACHER. My advice to anyone that wants to take his class is to SUCK UP as much as possible. That seems to work well.

The only reason to go to the lectures is to take the quizzes which are every day. I say that because his lectures, although entertaining, will not help with the 2 hours of MP hw he assigns every day, including the weekends. and the written hw is due every mon. If i saw this guy at a cocktail party, which he refers to constantly, I would punch him in the face. Dont ask him questions, he will not answer them. the LC is the place to be, here you will find the help you need. he says the book is good to read. yeah no kidding how else should we learn this shit? he really wanted to skip handing out the evaluations at the end of the year, understandable bc if he didnt have tenure cal poly would no doubt fire his ass.

I came into this class having never taken physics before. I expected to learn a lot. I LEARNED ALMOST NOTHING. I had to try to learn physics on my own, but the book isn't very helpful either. The only reason people are in his class everyday is because he has quizzes which count for your grade. After the first couple of weeks he let us work on them with a partner. The homework load is terrible, and he expected us to do masteringphysics every night, even though we didn't learn anything in class at all. Worst of all he has 1 masteringphysics assignment per week due on Sunday morning. Doesn't answer questions at all; he'll just say "Come talk to me after class". Passionate about the subject, but an absolute terrible teacher. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!

Caution. Do not take. He seems like a nice guy but he can't teach physics at all. Assigns countless hours of homework per night on masteringphysics on topics he can't teach. Everyone comes to his class everyday only because he has quizzes every day. On his syllabus it says "The class is curved to be a “C+” centered class, consistent with the physics department". In his grade book I had a pretty high B AFTER the final. Ended up with a C+. Enough said. AVOID, AVOID, AVOID.

The Professor's teaching methods are completely flawed. He continues to practices teaching methods that he insists are working when their is concrete evidence to the contrary. The Professor gave a midterm in which every single student failed the midterm. The Professor's response to this clear demonstration of a lack of effective teaching was not of shock as this had happened to him the year before. "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Albert Einstein. The Professor's hubris knows no bounds as he continually insists on defending his ineffectual long lectures. Whenever a student will raise concern on grades or even what is a preferred answer the professor will respond in hyperbole pontificating that he does not care about grades whatsoever. This is unfair to students, who are paying this man's salary to not care on his students succeeding in classes when it is the teacher's responsiblity to help the teacher's grasp the concepts. It was unfounded pride at her works that led to Arachne's curse to become the spider. The Professor's lectures lack any plan whatsoever, the Professor will go on irrelevant tangents that are unrelated to work he assigns students. The Professor makes frequent and irritating references to cocktail parties. The Professor's yuppie exterior hides a wicked interior in which he acts hostile to students asking for more time to go into detail with the abstract concepts he claims to be teaching. The Professor is not performing his job well in any way shape or form. His students fail his test and classes and yet he boasts of his teaching methods to every teacher he meets.

So, I come into this class having taken AP mechanics last year in hs, so i cant say any of he material was new, however he did a decent job bringing up material to refresh my memory. LECTURES: As far as the lectures go, they aren't really structured as he expects you to do the homework and see a few videos the night before, and come to class with a rough idea of what to expect, and to ask him questions, which is what he uses to base lectures on (hence, not very structured lectures). the depth of any given lecture may range from a few centimeters to a good half a km if you get what i mean. it's not consistent. it mostly depends on whether people are getting it or not. a lot of class time is spent doing group quizzes with the idea that people can learn more effectively when they share ideas. This works well if one or more of the group members understands the material reasonably well but fails when nobody understands it. PERSONALITY: he definitely radiates enthusiasm about physics and doesn't hesitate to bring out demonstration props or stand on the front counter while lecturing. definitely not a boring style. He also makes it a point to have students guess what will happen before using any of the physics props, as he believes "the rock that you trip over is the one you remember most". This is a plus, since it is true that being proven wrong is a good way to learn what is right. FINAL THOUGHTS: if anything, one thing you'll learn is: when in doubt, think of the extreme case, and see if that can point you in the right direction.

Schwartz tries his best to help students. Unfortunately, his execution lacks. If you study for the midterms and finals, you can do fairly well. Make sure to study his problem sets because there were a few problems in there that he put onto his midterms. It helps to have a background in physics to make the class easier. For those who are brand new, this class could be difficult. As the year progressed, his teaching quality increased but it wasn't enough for me. Make sure not to skip class because he will give pop quizzes. Overall, I recommend another teacher.

Pete is a nice guy and he's pretty funny too but he is not the best teacher. His lectures are very confusing and the only way to learn the material is through online videos he posts. His teaching style is to confuse students because he believes they will learn better if they overcome this confusion, but physics is already confusing enough as it is. I didn't learn much and only got an A because of my knowledge from taking physics last year. The midterms are pretty hard but the homework gives you plenty of points to boost your grade. Not too hard to get an A

schwartz is by far the most interesting and awesome teacher i've ever had. first thing to note is that his method is waaay different than regular teachers. he does everything his own way and i advise you that if you want a good grade in his class, do it his way. however, since he does do things his own way, sometimes concepts get lost in translation, but the thing about schwartz is that every single week he would ask for feedback on his teaching methods and if the majority of the class didn't get it, he'd try a different way (usually following student suggestions). schwartz absolutely loves physics and loves teaching it and you can tell almost immediately.

Do not choose this teacher or beware of frustration and stress. Prof. Schwartz's way of teaching is telling his students to figure it out themselves. Rather than teaching us the different concepts of Physics, he gives us homework and expects us to figure out how to do them either by the book or by "googling it" online. He admits the book can teach it better than he can. I realize he is trying a new way of teaching, but I did not come to Cal Poly to be told to learn things on my own, I came here to be taught by knowledgeable proffessors who care about my education.

Expects students to learn all of the material on their own and then come together for group work during class, which would be excellent except for the fact that many people in the class have never taken any kind of physics class before. He assumes previous exposure to many of the equations and processes needed to be successful. You can do well in this class, but you literally have to teach yourself the subject and he will not help to clarify much for you.

Nice enough guy, awful teacher. He may know his stuff but he does not know how to convey it to the class. I have had teachers in the past that do not teach BUT at least they followed a textbook so that I could teach it to myself. Neither Pete's lectures or homework assignments or tests follow the textbook so, unfortunately, teaching myself has been very difficult and inefficient. I could possibly see how his "teaching" method might work for kids that had advanced physics in highschool but this is supposed to be an INTRO physics class. I spend hours poring through the textbook to try to figure out which physics principles apply to his homework assignments. I have joined a study session but spending time with classmates that are equally confused is not necessarily helpful. He's not teaching, I'm not learning and I would highly recommend dropping this class or trying to get in with a different teacher.

First off, Pete is a really nice guy and funny person. IF he was a great teacher, he would be one of the best I had. However, the issue is, he is a horrible teacher. He told our section that he doesn't teach, wrote us in emails that he wouldn't teach us subject matter and that we should learn it. Lectures were non-existent, if you learn anything its from your classmates (whom at the same time are trying to learn from you, so its a big mess). Workload can be A LOT with class problem sets (which contain absurdly hard questions sometimes). There is also mastering physics, which is supposed to be how you learn, but all the work on there is optional so its easily not to do. Simply stated, avoid Pete as a teacher, chill with him on weekends.

Pete uses the flip the classroom technique where you learn the material outside of class and work on it in groups in the class. It really worked for me but might not cater to different learning styles.

Pete seemed to be using the class as a laboratory for alternative (untested) teaching methods. I have been in classes where this worked, but considering the complexity of the topics at hand and the difficulty of learning them (basically on our own) was not really conducive to doing well with the material. I got the most help from a student led study session. Pete is a nice guy but he needs to teach this class more linearly he throws al the material at the class at once and expects everyone to just get it without any kind of structured learning or iterative building of skills. I would strongly encourage people not to take this class.

I'm gonna preference this by saying that I did take AP Physics in high school, so I may not have needed as much hand holding as someone completely new to physics. That being said, I don't think Pete was as bad as some of these people are making him out to be. His online lectures were comprehensive - if you didn't understand something from them, you could go back and watch them, you could go in to his office hours, or you could even ask him a question in class. A lot of people seem to think "Well they aren't mandatory so I'll just leave them on in the background" and that's why they think Pete doesn't teach. In addition to the videos, towards the end of the quarter he realized that the class would benefit from further explanation on some topics, and he would do a small 10 minute lecture. Other times, he would have a sweet experiment set up in front of the class. This is what, to me, a physics class should be. It's one of the few things you can actually DO IN REAL LIFE and get an easily observable result that is the same as you should get on paper. I also really liked the collaborative feel of the classroom. It may have been just because I liked the people I sat around though. His problem sets were sometimes very hard, but in the end I learned a lot from them and they really cemented the topics of the class for me. Overall, I'd definitely recommend Pete. He doesn't do lectures the traditional way (a bunch of equations you learn how to use in specific cases) nor does he hand you an answer. He'll teach you a way of thinking, of how to approach problems, which is much more useful in the long run, I think.

Pete uses a flipped classroom, where he teaches using online videos and doesn't teach in the classroom. This technique really didn't work for me, because his videos were often all over the place, and would only demonstrate one type of problem when we were being assigned all different types. We would be assigned the problem sets weekly, with problems we hadn't seen before and weren't taught, making it take hours to complete them. Often times I felt like attending class was a waste of time, because he wouldn't teach at all and just told us to work together on the problem set. However, we already got together in groups to work on them outside the classroom so the class itself was almost pointless outside of when we had quizzes and tests. Also, when you asked him a question, he would often answer with a question, making you even more confused on the problem. I'm going to be honest, and I feel like students taught me the majority of what I know rather than Pete. Without them, I probably would have failed the class. I would recommend you taking another teacher if you like the teach in-class style, but if you do end up having him, prepare for a lot of confusion and lack of teaching to follow.

Pete is a great man but not a very good teacher. He doesn't lecture AT ALL and makes you watch online lectures (which are extremely hard to follow). So if you're not that kind of student then you're pretty much screwed. Seek out help from workshops, peers, tutors, khan academy, and pretty much anything. He won't answer your questions and he will make you feel like an idiot. He tries to help, but he fails. The midterms are easy if you know what's going on. The final isn't too bad but very long. Don't feel bad if you don't understand the problem sets. No one does.

Pete does a reverse classroom thing. you learn everything at home with videos he posts that you have to watch for credit, and in class you just work on homework and he walks around and "helps". basically, he is vague and doesn't really answer questions. when he rarely lectures in class, he'll say, "look guys! I'm lecturing!" because he NEVER does. he gives a pretty heavy homework load of difficult problems he makes up himself due weekly. use other people in the class to learn the material. class averages on quizzes and tests are always low. if you can grasp his style, the class will be easy for you. but few people can do that. if you go to office hours, he's pretty helpful, but often gets distracted and talks about bikes or something. he's a really nice and really cool guy, and I went to his office just to say hey and I talk to him when I see him. I just hate his teaching style. it doesn't work for me. you need to have a fairly strong background in physics to do well in this class. cool professor, bad class. would not recommend

You can't access Pete as a teacher because he simply isn't one. What he gets away with under the guise of teaching is his attempt to corrupt the youth and push his moral agenda. Rather than take a non-biased approach to teaching Pete dives head first into his political and social agenda and forces the class to change their views or learn nothing. His "teaching style" of "Flipping the classroom" is in fact an institution of his social/political agenda in which the “subjects” (as he so lovingly called us) are nothing more to him than facilitates though which he may spread his idealism. He has even gone so far as to create an institution in this university (“sustain”) through which he collects followers making him nothing short of a cult leader. I’d like to think that he is the essence of all evil in this world because I respect him. In truth he might be incredibly stupid but I’d like to think he’s smart enough to realize what he is doing, he may also not be able to see through the veil of narcissism that he shrouds himself in, but again I would genuinely like to think that he is somewhat sentient and self aware and realizes what he does. Pete is everything wrong with the world weather he realizes it or not and I take it upon myself as you should yourself to strive to create a world where people like him are looked down upon and not held in esteem. In a world with Pete's radically “sustainable” idealism on the downtrend perhaps society can progress without caving in on itself. Maybe one day we will reach the stars, and look back at our sun, a glimmer in the night sky, and say we are here spreading life across the universe not because we where afraid of being sustainable but because we where motivated by life's prime directive, to create more life. And as humanity spreads throughout the stars and life flourishes Pete is forgotten and his efforts seemingly meaningless in all of this. However do not forget if not for Pete we would have no one to prove wrong. So go, go and create the means for more life and remember in Pete’s failure may we find our success. Anyway this guys awful, if you end up in a room with him scream loudly and leave immediately, worked for me I got and A.

i recommend him. Although he explains concepts much more complex than he needs to, test corrections count as 25% of your grade on tests and his study guides are very similar to the actual exam. He has very time consuming homework with awkward wording, but they are quality questions. A very fair grader.

Pete is an absolutely amazing professor and person. He genuinely wants his students to succeed- and is always willing to help his students. He always goes above and beyond for his students, which including inviting his entire class for ThanksGiving, if they were unable to go home for break. A lot of people dislike Pete's "flipped classroom" teaching style, but I can honestly say that although it might be hard to adjust to first, at the end of the quarter-it truly works to your benefit. I would highly suggest taking Pete. He's honestly the teacher who has made the biggest difference in my life at Cal Poly.

Pete's polyratings are low and his teaching style is different so you wont have trouble getting into/crashing his class. Don't be deterred by this. Pete is my favorite teacher so far. His grading is more than fair and I thought his class was easy. I learned a ton and have a great base knowledge of physics. If you embrace the flipped class and dive into it, you will LOVE this class and you can tell that Pete really cares about his students. Doesn't collect homework or take attendance. His tests are more than fair so you should be able to get an easy B

Worst teacher ever. Always required students to watch a bunch of videos as homework, but never gave any lectures in class. Even when students had questions, he'd only ask us to discuss with each other. And everyone is still confused after one hour of class. Taking his physics class is really a waste of money and time. If you can avoid him as much as possible!!!

I took honors physics at a difficult private high school and got an A in the class. Physics makes sense to me and was really easy... UNTIL I TOOK THIS CLASS! I have never been more confused about the material in a class than when I leave one of Pete's "lectures". I say "lectures" because there is no lecturing or even teaching at all in class. We watch tons of bad videos every night that don't teach you the material at all and then when we come into class he expects you to suddenly understand physics as well as he does. His "flip teaching" style does not work at all and I hated it. And then when we have tons of questions and everyone is confused on the videos and we come into class not knowing how to do any of the homework problems, he says "ask your classmates for help" and then he plays with bouncy balls and stuff in class. Going to class will make you more confused, watching his videos wont teach you anything, and the midterms are then super difficult. And if you think you can just use the equations and get it right, think again. Pete makes every question on his tests so that you cannot use a formula for them, he wants you to read the problem, understand the physics and create your own formula, which is incredibly difficult for a beginners class, especially one in which you are essentially taught nothing beforehand. This class is terrible, you WILL NOT learn physics (in fact there is a 50% chance you will have to retake physics with another teacher where you do learn physics) you WILL get bad grades ( considering that each midterm is 25% of your grade and the final is 50% (how much does that suck) and there is nothing to bring your grade up, all the assignments he gives can only hurt your grade (if you do well it does nothing for you. If you do poorly, he takes half a letter grade off your final grade, a terrible teaching style) You will leave this class having wasted your time, money, and effort. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND that anyone take this class. But if you get blocked into it, hey at least he is a nice guy...

I'd be surprised if you find another lecturer who is worse than him at Cal Poly.

I'm Pete Schwartz. My official student evaluations for the past 12 years are online here: sharedcurriculum.wikispaces.com/Schwartz+Student+Evaluations+2016 My grade distributions are here: sharedcurriculum.wikispaces.com/Summary+of+Grades+Assigned%2C+Schwartz+2016 My teaching statement is here: sharedcurriculum.wikispaces.com/Teaching+Philosophy+and+Approach%2C+Schwartz+2016 My resume is here: sharedcurriculum.wikispaces.com/Schwartz+Resume+2016 My personal website is here: physics.calpoly.edu/node/94 You have access to my classes here: sharedcurriculum.wikispaces.com, which provides you with all the resources of the class including all the exams and solutions - except the final exams. I understand that students want to find out about their instructors. I don't think Polyratings is very helpful here, but what is someone to do if you have no other resources? So there you go. I've complied this information as part of my application for promotion in the coming year. So, it is comprehensive and correct - at least to the best of my knowledge it's all correct. Thanks, Pete

Having browsed these ratings, I'm really shocked by how scathing some of them are. Sure, the class wasn't easy. He uses a flipped classroom, which is pretty different from traditional teaching methods, and probably not for everyone. But he is super up front about this; he straight up told us the first couple days of class that if we don't like his style, we should just try to find another section, because he understands that people learn differently. Beyond that, He's super nice, really showed genuine concern for us as a class and as individual students, and imo, made things pretty fun. Make sure you watch all the videos, and don't be afraid to rewatch them. If you see something that doesn't make sense, just bring it up in class. Pete is super easy to talk to.

Let me give you an honest opinion on Pete and this class because I feel like most of these reviews are based off a bad experience from poor grades. Pete is incredibly passionate about physics and it definitely shows in the videos he makes and his overall delivery in class. However, I did not feel like I adequately learned mechanics because of the style of this class. He definitely has a bias against traditional textbook learning, and instead wants you to "identify lenses" to solve problems. While I do think it's important to understand underlying concepts instead of simply plugging numbers into formulas, it feels very subjective when it comes to grading. And taking a look at the Physics textbook, the one written by a Cal Poly professor, it's full of important information and presents concepts clearly if not better than how Pete does, so I don't really understand why we never used it. I also admire the flipped classroom setting, but not in a lecture with 70+ students where he wants us to figure stuff out on our own, often times not going over it himself formally to teach us. Otherwise, this class shouldn't be too bad if you watch the videos posted and understand how to communicate the physics clearly

Pete is a very passionate guy. However, his flipped classroom teaching method is VERY hard to adjust to. He hardly lectures at all in class, and you have to watch videos everyday outside of class as a part of this flipped classroom. I highly recommend switching teachers if you can if you've never taken physics before, as it is very difficult to adjust to his teaching method. Pete isn't a horrible professor, his teaching method is just very flawed right now.

Possibly the worst teacher I have encountered in my entire life. Even though he is a nice guy, his "teaching" style is close to non-existent. Relying on sub-par videos and classmates to get you through the class is his objective, but for someone who is new to a rapid paced quarterly system, physics will be hard especially with this teacher... Do yourself a favor and never take him and spread the word to everyone to never take him.. They should replace this teacher with someone more suitable for the task

I absolutely loved Pete! The flipped classroom where you watch the lectures at home and work on problems in class was difficult to adjust to at first but I learned to love it. It was helpful to be able to rewatch the lectures when I was confused on a topic. As a professor Pete presented the material clearly and was eager to help students. I loved him because I feel like I learned way more physics than my roommate who had a different professor because Pete had finished teaching everything and more a week before the final, whereas my roommate's professor hadn't covered all of the required material by the end of the quarter. I highly recommend taking Pete!

Pete is a great guy, he is personable and keeps the class interesting with his very quirky nature. He will assign nightly videos and weekly homework, but if you keep up with your work and start the homework early, it is all doable. He teaches Physics differently than many professors with a Lens approach. After taking physics in high school and not understanding it in the least bit, I left this class with a very good understanding of Physics and an interest in the class. Pete's class is fun and he will probably do something that is Snapchat worthy at least once a week. His office hours are very helpful and he loves to see students there, especially if you bring friends from the class. If you are having trouble with a concept, be persistent in class or office hours until you understand. He may answer your question with a question, but it is only to help you, you will understand the topic eventually. He gives two midterms and a final, those being the only grades in the gradebook, The midterms are pretty fair as long as you do your homework weekly, correct the questions you miss and talk through concepts you had trouble with and do the practice midterms. The final was a little difficult but it did not drop my grade. I got an A- on the first midterm, a B+ on the second and a B+ in the class. I would definitely recommend Pete to anyone looking for a fun class that will teach you a lot. Pete is hilarious and even made his own textbook, he is very smart guy, if you put in the work, you will get a grade to prove it. TAKE PETE!!!

He's not that bad of a professor. If you don't like math then take him! He cares way more about whether you understand what's happening then if you can do the math. It was pretty easy A, and I had never taken physics before at any level and I did well in the class.

great professor, he explained everything after asking every student to think through which is very good. take him would be fantastic

Pete is very passionate about his students and physics, but his passion does not translate into teaching abilities. Sadly, as caring of a professor as he is, he is not the best at explaining. I am a first year and have never taken physics and other students who have seem to do fine in his class. I did not. It seems as if he expects you to have all this prior knowledge and intuition which sadly I lacked. I really thought I'd enjoy the flipped classroom or that it would be more helpful than a traditional lecture, but the opposite is true. It is a lot more work and I still do not understand. His textbook also lacks sustenance. It strips away to the core, but as a person with no other knowledge of physics it would be useful to have a more reliable text to go by. I think people can definitely succeed if they sacrifice a lot of time which I did not have and especially if they have taken physics before. If you have never taken physics or forgot it, please reconsider for your own sake

Initially was nervous about taking this class because at the time I was blocked in he had a rating of 1.71/4.00. Showed up to class the first day and the setting of the classroom made me want to stick with it. I crashed two other physics classes and got into one because his style of teaching appealed to me. He uses a flipped classroom method and it gets us through required material in a much more timely manner. Something that's difficult about this class is it is hard to compare notes with other phys 141 students because they learn the material at a different pace and with a different method. If you're looking for a class that will give you a good conceptual understanding of what's going on and lets you learn at your own pace this is probably the class for you. The grading is definitely very test-heavy and I wish the homework counted as part of your grade. As of this quarter this is how our grade was distributed: 2 bs projects = 10%, 2 midterms = 50%, and the final = 40% of the final grade. Also if you watch less than 90% of all the lecture videos before class your final grade will drop a bit. Another common complaint that people have with him is that he never actually answers your question he just asks you a question back so you can get to your own answer. Some people really like this aspect of his flipped teaching style and others get annoyed by it (I am a part of the latter group lol). Overall, Pete's a cool guy, he does his best to work in the students' best interests, and his flipped-classroom lecture videos are usually not too hard to follow (sometimes they're even pretty amusing). Hope this helps!

Really nice guy but I wish i'd had more of a textbook approach to physics. His whole "lenses" approach to learning physics is interesting but makes me nervous about how I'm gonna apply this to my next class since he doesn't give us equation sheets or anything to work with. Also his tests are weighted too much. The 2 midterms make up 50% of the grade and the final is 40% of the grade and I had no clue what to study before going into the final. Very stressful. Wish tests were weighted less and homework assignments had more weight. I really like him as a physics teacher. I find him really interesting to listen to and I will miss his class for sure but I was constantly worried about what my final grade in the class would be. If you are looking for strong conceptual knowledge then take this class and dedicate a few hours a week to taking notes, doing his problem sets, and watching his lecture videos and I'm sure you'll do fine. If you're looking for an easy A and don't really care about the subject matter, this is probably not the class for you.

Schwartz teaches his introductory physics class in a "flipped classroom." This means we watch videos of lectures before class and then we have class "discussions." By discussions, he means we talk about problems in class with fellow students. Once we become stumped on a problem we would naturally ask Schwartz for assistance. He proceeds to tell us to talk to another group while he goes to "grab a drink of water" for the 7th time during the class. His concept of teaching involves giving us problems that he will never solve so we can "think about them." Schwartz is undoubtedly qualified for this position and he cares passionately about teaching. However, his class is awful and I would not have passed it if I didn't take Physics in high school. Avoid this man at all costs.

Terrible. Can't teach for shit at all

At first I was excited for the flipped classroom, but it did not work for me. We have to learn entirely from his videos which aren't that good and reading the textbook. I didn't have enough motivation to learn it on my own. I did pretty well on midterms by just doing a bunch of the past midterms that he posts online. Class time is spent with him talking about problems and us discussing them in groups but no one understands what's going on and he doesn't explain it so we are just left confused after every class. He wants us to learn from each other but we aren't smart enough to teach each other. Pete is very smart and a nice guy but his class is not good.

He sucks. He doesn't even really teach and his textbook he wrote I think has too little information. His videos are somewhat helpful, but the class was really a waste of time, and half the class is spent with him having students shout out answers and him getting drinks of water. I barely learned anything. Would not recommend if this is your first time ever taking physics (like me), although if you took it in high school maybe you would succeed more than I did.

Pete is genuinely a good person who is super passionate about physics; he was always energetic even at 9 am in the morning when half the class was half asleep. His class is solely based on two midterms, two projects, and the final. There is homework but it isn't graded, so whether you do it or not is up to you. He'll give feedback on the homework you submit and return it to you. We also took quizzes every week but those had no impact on our grades, they were just to see our understanding so far. One part that was kind of annoying was that we had to watch videos to learn to material before class. You don't get points for watching videos but you get points deducted from your overall grade if you don't watch them. Class time was mainly used to clarify points in the videos that people didn't understand, but it was mainly through talking to people around you. Pete always went "that's a good question, think about that while I get a drink of water" then he would leave the classroom. This happened several times a class period so sometimes we were just sitting there confused. I genuinely think he's a good person but his teaching method doesn't work for everyone. I personally didn't like the class and dreaded going just because I didn't find it helpful.

I got all the questions right on one of his midterms, but only got a B+ on the exam.

I haven't had this guy as a professor. I did 'research' with him and worked with, you know, the 'real' Pete Schwartz. My experience with Pete was, in a word, bad. I can't really go into details but suffice it to say physics and politics don't mix. Like everyone else has said, this guy is an absolute genius, but as a teacher and person, he's lacking. Examples: 1. I asked him why an alternating current emitted light and requested that he use no math to explain this and he replied he would. When he began explaning, he used math...not just a little here and there but almost all math...it was horrible. He asked me midway through if I understood and I shook my head and said not really, but he continued chuggin along and I got zilch from the discussion. (I then asked my adviser (Van Wyngaarden) the same question and in like 7 seconds he explained it). 2. One day we got into a debate about the death penalty and it was pretty normal and healthy until the end...he pretty much told me that I should think about it more and read about it and that I was young and some other stuff. The key thing was that I was young...15 minutes later or so he apologized for not respecting my opinion because of my age...I was volunteering my time for him and he attacked me because of my age...It gets lots better too but that's all for now. My recommendation...drop out of CalPoly before taking this guy.

I was very scared when i signed up, all those very negative comments. But rly, i think students write them because THEY HAVE FAILED IN LIFE, and should go work at tacobell. The comments are absurd! Not the best lecturer ive had, but he loved the material. His class is not esay at all, but if you keep up with the reading its a walk in the park. He is a great man, very entertaining during lecture. Fun guy to hang arround with in his office hours, VERY COOL guy.

Tough class.. tough to hell. Pete is a very cool guy, and is really into the material. He wasn't exactly a great teacher though. Most of the time in class (once you get into quantum mechanics, of course) you'll be wondering what the hell is going on. Keep up with the reading, do and fully understand the homework as you go on, study with others, visit him in his office.. he really wants you to succeed. Exams were pretty tough. He gives you practice exams to study off of, although those don't really help that much. He lets you redo your test after you get it back, averaging out the grade (2/3 weight on the actual test, 1/3 on the redo.) If you're willing to put in the massive effort to work in this class, it's pretty rewarding.. otherwise it's really tough to go along. He's really energetic and cool with his students, so take him if you want to really want to understand 211. If you want to just get the requirement out of the way, you might want to choose another professor.

Man... prof Schwartz is such a nice guy, but his class is hard to follow sometimes (more like usualy), and I doubt he gives out many A's. He really should be easier on students (considering how scaterbrained the material is presented). I think profs often forget that we usualy have 3 OTHER classes as well... Schwartz is one of them

Alright, I\'m taking 211 with Schwartz now. I\'ll try and give the most honest review for him that I can for those of you signing up for Winter 2011. Also, hopefully he will read this and try to take what\'s being said about him into consideration for next quarter\'s classes. First of all, there is absolutely no doubt the man wants you to learn physics. This is true of any physicist. The words \"plug and chug\" haunt them at night. He wants you to know that you understand what you\'re doing on his tests/homework. However, he cares so much that you understand that he loses sight of what he’s doing (that and he’s pretty disorganized). He tries too hard to prevent students from doing anything remotely related to the “plug and chug” method that it severely cripples what he’s able to teach. He derives things from day one, and is going so fast, he wont stop to answer your questions. If you ask anything he feels is unimportant, even if the answer would help you and other understand, he will either tell you it’s unimportant, to talk to him later, or something that will probably make you feel like an idiot so that you’ll stop asking questions. He is so concentrated on moving on with the lecture so that he can get through his planned material, but he is blind to the fact that it becomes pointless after he loses the class. His lecture is like an automatic loss of 4 hours a week to the void. He assigns a LOT of work. Like… hours worth. This work wouldn’t be that bad if you actually understood the lecture. But nobody does. The only reason I go is because he gives quizzes everyday on the reading and he complains when people don’t show up. So if you want him not to hate you, you need to go. Also, be sure never to ask him about grades. Like I said, he wants you to know the material. But again, this is where he catches himself in a loop. Nobody knows what he wants us to know, so nobody does well on the tests, regardless of how well we understand the material. But he sees this as us not understanding the material, so he gives us more work. Which still has nothing to do with his tests. So when you fail a test and you think he graded something wrong, ask him how to do the problem correctly for you, then ask him why what you did was wrong. But be sure not to ask why you got points off. The second the man hears the words “points” or “grade”, it’s like a trigger to anger. It’s kind of like saying the word “walk” around your dog, and he gets all excited. Except it’s bad. A previous review said that he’s comparable to Brian Mealy. If you ask me, that’s sort of an insult to Dr. Mealy. There’s no question that it’s easy to draw a parallel between their genius. But while both professors want their students to actually understand the material, Brian is genuinely dedicated to help his students understanding. Brian will explain things more than once, he will work through your problems understanding, and try to tailor his explanations to the situation. Pete says it once. If you didn’t understand he’ll pawn off the question. He’ll tell you to ask somebody else because he doesn’t have time for you. A final conclusion. Pete tries to be a nice guy and a good professor but he really needs to take a step out of his world and look at what’s actually happening. If you are at his level of genius, you’ll be okay. But if you need to study for any of your other classes, I recommend proceeding with caution with Pete…

None

CalPoly is lucky to have Pete Schwartz. It is rare to find a professor that puts as much effort into learning from his students as he does teaching them. In the few years that he has been teaching here, he has improved and fine tuned his teaching style 100 fold, so as to better educate YOU. From the first day in his class, it is clear that he has true passion for his work, and not solely because of the material, but because of the students. If you take a course from him, you may be challenged to work harder than with another professor, but you will enjoy doing it and will get more out of the course than you ever thought you could.

Pete is a nice guy who loves physics. His teaching methods though, are not fantastic. His lectures are all over the place sometimes and he moves through the material quickly. He assigned lots of reading, homework, and a final project. He was not very helpful in office hours, and in my opinion not super approachable in general.

Professor Schwartz seems like a nice guy who is really into saving energy. But don't be fooled! His lectures were all over the place and he was incredibly hard to follow during every lecture. He almost always came across a slide that he did not recognize/know the meaning of in his presentations. He also assigned weekly homework problems that 1) took forever and 2) had problems on it that he hadn't covered in class. After grading them, he'd give them back without corrections/explanations in class for how to do the problems right (problems that would come back to us on the midterm) even though most of the class missed them too. If you go to him for help and ask for clarification on something that HE finds simple, he will laugh in your face. Schwartz hasn't taught us anything over the past 10 weeks. He is the worst professor at Cal Poly. DO NOT TAKE HIM!!! If you have to, make sure you get the optional book!

This was a terrible class. If you do not already know all the material, do not take this class. Schwartz gave weekly homework assignments that took hours and still never made any sense. He was not approachable for help. I did not learn anything from this class, except that I now despise anything dealing with energy conservation.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS NO MATTER WHAT!!!! I am in the 7th week and I am thinking of dropping it because it is so ridiculous. He thinks everyone is a physics or chemistry genius and neither of those are my major. Nothing but calculations and pointless graphs that you have no idea what they are about. And don\'t even ask him to try and explain the content or a question, cause he can\'t. It is clear he is very smart, but he doesn\'t know how to teach. I am not saying this to rip on him cause I failed, cause I\'m not and I havent even finished the course yet, but he just sucks at teaching!!! He takes interesting material and makes it complicated and difficult to grasp. HOMEWORK.... dont even get me started. No one EVER knows how to do it or what they are doing. We all just stumble my way through. DID I MENTION QUIZZES EVERYDAY??? OH YEAH. BTW.

BIG BIG mistake, if you are not a physics major do not take this class. Im a business major taking this for my GE area F requirement, i thought the class would be about energy policy and informational stuff but everything was calculations. To make matters worse he expects everyone in the class to know and have memorized very obscure physics conversions and amounts. If you dont understand he is not very good at helping and even became angry and gave up helping me with a problem on the first day of class because i didnt understand alot of "basics" that he though i should have known. In short i do not take this class unless you are very very very good at physics and math and looking for a great way to ruin your day and quarter. Worst teacher and class ive had at poly yet!

The last 3 entries say it all. By the way, the person way below who talks about students that "FAILED IN LIFE" and "SHOULD WORK AT TACO BELL" was undoubtably P. Schwartz himself.

WORST TEACHER EVER. THIS CLASS IS A FREAKIN GE AND HE TEACHES IT AS IF IT IS A SUPPORT CLASS. He doesn\'t realize that a GE is full of many different students with different majors, years, backgrounds, whatever. He expects everyone to be a physics major, to remember every formula from past physics and chemistry classes, and to know every statistic he puts out. I took physics for engineers (the whole series) that those classes were easier because the teacher actually explains their stuff. This guy doesn\'t. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. I only took it cause I thought the first day he was entertaining and interesting. DON\'T BE FOOLED. LEAVE. WAIT A QUARTER. THIS CLASS IS NOT WORTH IT. I wish that I dropped this class, even if it means that my next quarter would be a lot of work to catch up. SERIOUSLY. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS.

Pete is the man. MIT trained and he practices what he preaches. He knows more about some of the subjects I'm in studying in Business than some of my professors. He's passionate about his stuff, and that passion will certainly rub off on you. I believe this class should be required for all Cal Poly students; it is truly a reality check and gives its students a global perspective of their daily actions. Pete, please write a book, I will buy it. And thanks for putting your videos on youtube; I expect to refer back to them throughout my life.

Avoid him like the plague please!

Pete"s awesome.

Pete is an incredibly smart and fascinating man. I have had him for three classes and consider him one of my favorite professors. Go into the class expecting less structure and more collaboration. Learn together with Pete and you will have a good experience.

Pete really knows his stuff. This class is about sustainability and energy and he does a good job giving a nice overview of everything and making sure you understand the concepts. There are some calculations that are pretty confusing but he makes sure to tell you that its only for a better understanding of how different things work and really the calcs aren't that important anyway. They are only a small part of the class overall. This class is also a flipped classroom which means you'll be watching his lectures on video before getting to class. They're not very long and usually pretty good at portraying the material. In class you'll have class discussions and do some experiments and get a better understanding of the subject. It really is a fun class and I've met more people in this class than any other GE. I would recommend taking this class with Pete.

I was skeptical at the beginning, but I would really recommend this class (I am an architecture major taking this for an area F). I am not sure if its because Pete has been changing his approach to teaching or if its the subject material, but I would disagree with these other ratings. Here are my opinions on aspects of the class, and you should decide whether this interests you: The Format: A flipped classroom means there are almost no lectures because you learn the material at home before the class (in Pete's case, about two 10 minutes videos of himself teaching before each class). There is a problem set due about every week (mostly calculation problems, which he "grades" but gives no points for its helpful to do to see if you can). The class time is spent clarifying concepts, taking about opinions, approaches and solutions and doing all kinds of hands on activities. They are a few projects throughout the quarter, which I had mixed feelings about, but they turned out to be reasonable to do. Some students expressed dissatisfaction with this style of teaching. If it sounds horrible to you, maybe don't take the class. But if you are the type of person who falls asleep in lectures, or would learn better from a short lecture you can pause and reply, or maybe likes to discuss in small groups, this is a great format. I personally think this approach feels more natural, like the way you would teach small children science with toys and stories, so they really care. The Material: There are definitely calculations about energy (lots of converting units) and a lot of technical information. Sometimes that overwhelmed me a little but I think you have to accept that you are being exposed to details you will probably forget, but there a concepts and knowledge about how things work that you never will. I had no idea how engines worked, or how the right amount of electricity was created every day for our homes. I was glad to have someone show me how to calculate that biofuels takes more energy than its worth to produce. The midterm was very fair and based in concepts (I have not taken the final yet). I think it is a great class to extract knowledge that applies to a huge number of professions. It was definitely good for an architecture student. If you are interested in the technical details of "sustainability" this class is all about that. Pete: I have never watched someone try so hard to evaluate his own life and be the best he can be. It is interesting to watch him struggle with his own goals and see what he has accomplished. He likes to talk about his lifestyle, but also works to be openminded about other peoples. I described him as an "engineer hippie" and I think that is fun for a professor in this kind of class because he merges ideals and physics, society and technology. He really cares about educating students more anything else about the class. Stop caring about every detail and try to absorb what you can and you will learn lots.

It's only week 2 so I'll give a little update on him at the end of the quarter but for now basically it's super overwhelming and he doesn't seem to care much about students personal lives. I tried going to office hours to go over some concepts and he did not explain them well and made me feel really stupid for not knowing them. I actually left office hours without asking all my questions because I started to feel really stupid and felt bad. Reading these other polyratings looks rough. He assigns a shit ton of homework that is really hard and he doesnt give you any tools to solve the problems besides his online videos which are a difficult resource to access. I would much rather a more structured class so that I can continue to have a life outside PSC 320.

He sucks.

UNIV 391 – course was not listed. Although I give Pete such a low rating for presenting material and ability to recognize student difficulties, he is an amazing professor and this was by far an amazing class to take. Pete does not have a tight structure for this class, especially since it is so new. I had a hard time at first adjusting to his structure of the class, but as long as you give a shit about the class and actually try, you will get an A. He is an amazing professor and person all around. He will challenge you to think about your life and what you're doing with it. He sincerely cares about students and their education, hell, he invited our entire class to his family's Thanksgiving. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND taking this course. Just be aware that it is low-structured and he will not tell you exactly what he wants.

Pete is a very passionate and knowledgable teacher and this is a great class if you are an upper class engineering student. If you are in engineering you will get so much out of this class and probably enjoy it. However, do not take this class for a GE!!! I felt so behind the entire year as I did not understand most of what was going on in the class. I also often felt put down because I did not understand all of the engineering terms and what not. The class structure is extremely disordered, which some people enjoyed, but if you are looking for a structured, normal GE this is not for you. However, most of the students receive A's so if you have to take the class just try your best and you will probably get an A.