Smith, Dale  

I\'m very sorry to state, but Dr.Smith was one of the worst lecturers I\'ve ever encountered. His train of thought is disorganized, and he mumbles a lot, sometimes to himself, and quite a few times he merely read off the powerpoint slides with no elaborations. Many students would just up and leave during his lecture, or as soon as they saw that he was lecturing that day, they would turn around without even taking a seat (the lecture was shared with Dr. Pettey). One of the weirdest things was, a few times while he was lecturing people said that he was drunk.. which would actually make sense, seeing as he made even less sense and kept losing his train of thought. I would definitely not recommend him as a teacher.

Dr. Smith is by far the worst professor/teacher I have ever encountered in my entire life. He has no clue what is going on in life. He is a very nice man but extremely incompetant when it comes to teaching. I have attended every class and study for hours before each test and received D's on the first two midterms. There is absolutely no way to pass this class with an A. Over 75% of this class has a D. His tests make absolutely no sense and his TA does most of the work for him. He is disorganized, his poly learn does not make any sense when it comes to what power points are up, and his tests should not even be considered tests. He puts one word for the question and expects you to answer it. If you have to take this class I STRONGLY recommend waiting quarters and even years for another professor to teach the class. He needs to retire.

DALE SMITH IS A HORRIBLE PROFESSOR! There is something wrong with his brain and that's the nicest thing I have to say about him. His lecture slides were from other professors or from a textbook that isn't even the textbook for his course. He says NOTHING in lecture. He simply states words and moves on. He acts like he's drunk. His TA is scandalous and helps people cheat. The whole class is ridiculous. The tests are also terrible, they are hard only because the questions don't make sense. I hated the class and dreaded going everyday.

I really have no idea why people dislike this professor so much. He is just a chill ol'man goin about his life. Very friendly and helps a lot of you ask him for help. Read notes/powerpoints before class to get a heads up so it can help understanding what he lectures about.

He doesn't teach very well and his tests aren't written well, but the class isn't too hard if you study and read the book. He tests are on what he says he will test on. It's not ideal, but definitely doable. It really is fine if you need to take the class.

so here's the deal...in this lecture class he is incredibly boring, but i guess its difficult to make parasites fun. there are about 5 quizzes (that are not too bad, but you should still go over the notes), 2 midterms (that are mc and defintion), and 1 final (all mc). the other points come from your "charts" which are your notes written all over again and 3 1-2 page papers. the charts and papers help your grade a lot!! i think everyone gets full credit on them. he's a nice guy, just kinda old and bum de bum about it.

I'd had Dr. Smith before in 223 so I knew what to expect...He is a very intelligent man and knows his stuff. He's very excited about parasites so he tends to go fast, but he is very clear in what he expects you to know for the exams. 3 midterms plus a final (not cumulative!) and lots of fluff points with his charts (rewritten notes) and critiques (short reports.) If you need clarification, ask him! He's superfriendly and knows everyone by their name. he wants you to learn about the worms, the ticks, the flies...so ask questions! Guaranteed to make ya chuckle once or twice during lecture! I'd take him again...

He is the worst teacher I have ever had! Reading the other ratings I must have had a totally different teacher or something. He has no idea what he is talking about, his lectures are boring and he lectures while he reads the powerpoint for what feels like the first time. His powerpoints are unorganized and confusing. How did this man ever get a phd? He can't even write or talk in complete sentences. His test are just as bad if not worse than lecture they are so confusing and make no sense. When you ask him a question he has no idea how to answer it and just repeats the same thing over again going in a circle. He is completely disrespectful of any student that dares to ask a question and treats them as though they are stupid even though he is the stupid one! Why is he even still teaching? He should be fired! This class could have been so interesting and useful instead it was a waste of time! Good luck for anyone that is forced to take him.

Dr. Smith is a very well meaning man. However, he has no enthusiasm for Parasitiolgy. His lectures consist of showing overhead transparencies of his published lecture notes and to occasional outdated video or slide show. His assignments consisted of charts and critiques. Charts were polished lecture notes. For me, this was essentially retyping the beforementioned lecture notes, an utter waste of my time! The critiques were the review of a published book article, popular press article, internet source, and scholarly journal article pertaining to a single parasite from the unit most recently covered. There is no lab attached to this class; there should be!!! The one lab procedure we did was a fecal float. He is not timely in his return of graded papers, tests, and quizzes. This professor should do one of three things; one, retire; two, take a sabbatical; or three, pick up the pace. This is not the kind of professor that I would recommend to anyone, nor is he the type of professor that Cal Poly needs.

Dr. Smith is pretty cool if you can suffer through his lectures. I really enjoy the way he grades. As long as you put effort in to the class you should do well. P.S. he usually curves it in the end. :o)

Doc is a great guy. His lectures are exactly out of the lecture notes. They are pretty easy to follow. There are 3 exams, 3 charts and 3 critiques due. The charts and critiques really help out your grade. you just have to turn them in and you recieve full credit. i got C's on the first 2 exams and i got out of the class with an A-. Doc is really good about going over an exam with you or for going over any questions in general. Hes a really smart guy give him a chance:)

Dr. Smith is an extremely kind man, who is more than willing to go out of his way to help his students. While, yes, the videos in parasitology were out of date and his notebook could use some revision (especially the part of containing information about EPM), he does strive personally to remain up to date in the field of veterinary medicine. He also accomplishes the difficult task of keeping the study of parasitology simple but never the less it remains college-level work. Parasitology class is not for everyone and while it was extremely interesting to me, it most likely would not be entertaining to someone who doesn't have any practical experience with it. However, I do recommend Dr. Smith as a teacher. His sincere liking of his students and his encouragement is something that is hard to find in any department at any college. And trust me, you don't want Dr. Smith to go any faster through the material. It's nice to have at least one class at Cal Poly that you don't feel like everything is being crammed down your throat a million miles an hour.

Smith is a trip, he knows so much, which makes it hard for him to focus without going off on tangents every five minutes. But he is pretty laid back, no hw for lecture and very little for lab.

Dr. Smith is funny, and kind of quirky, but he is hard to understand because he often doesn't finish his thoughts, or he just tells you to look it up if you don't understand. The lab final is VERY hard, so make sure you go to all of the labs and spend the entire time there! If you don't go to labs you will most likely fail the final, unless you are already a veterinarian. Ask questions as much as possible, because unless you drag the info out of him, he will not give it to you.

Dr. Smith was a very nice man who tried to get along well with his students. The lab itself is no very hard and that is a good thing since Dr. Smith kind of left the teaching up to the TA's and other helpers. Don't worry about getting a bad grade in here because it is all memorization and very easy to BS if you have to.

Dr. Smith is a very educated person. He learned everything he was supposed to in vet school and never forgot it. He does have to put up with a lot of crap: whiny students, run-down facilities, and attitudes from other professors in his department. The vet clinic is probably the worst building in the entire California State University System---yet he puts up with it. Doc Smith truly is a caring person who really does like students. There are a lot of dumb girls from LA and the Bay Area that are in animal science that are only interested in small animals----Doc Smith still puts up with them even though he is more into production medicine. I will admit he is unique and kind of.....how else do you say it besides CRAZY??? But, who isn't? Anyone is crazy after going through the whole preveterinary and veterinary curriculums. Many students seems to like Dr. Noland better than Dr. Smith, but I think a lot of it is that they just want to kiss her ass because she sometimes sits on the UC Davis admissions board. Doc Smith is a great prof for VS 310 because he lets you do a lot of hands-on stuff....He is great. It is true that he does not spoon feed you material like every other professor in animal science, but it is better that way. Overall, I think everyone should give Doc a chance and if they have the opportunity they should talk to him outside of class, he has some really awesome stories.

I took Dr. Smith for both lecture and lab and found him to be less than informative as a teacher. He is a vet and does know animals but relies on material Dr. Nolan prepared for the class when she taught it. As a result, the labs, in particular, are hard to understand. The 6 lecture quizzes (one is dropped) are based on a lot of text reading (2 textbooks with a lot of extra material not included on tests), chapter objectives, and in class powerpoints (exactly the same as the lecture manual). The emphasis is on the powerpoints and chapter objectives. The lecture quizes and tests (2 midterms and a non-comprehensive final) are relatively easy. The lab, however, is a harder. There are only 2 lab quizzes and only 7 lab related worksheets to hand in. However, there is an extensive lab practical (100pts), a 60pt presentation on some aspect of an organ system, 30pt medical terminology quiz, and an overlay project on an animal of your choice (draw skeletal, muscular, and organ structures). The points breakdown: 3 tests (100pts each), 5 lecture quizzes (20pts each), 100pts from lab grade

So basically the first day with Dr. Smith you feel like you are going to die of boredom because his lectures are fairly monotonous. Even though he talks slow, and pauses at weird times, and goes off on a million tangents, when it comes down to it, Dr. Smith KNOWS his stuff. If you ask an obscure vet related question during class, he'll know the answer. As far as lab is concerned...I'd say you're going to be completely oblivious as to what is going on for the first couple weeks. The syllabus says what you will be covering, but he is really unclear on that first day about how the class will be run and what exactly you're going to be tested on. I'd suggest talking to the TA if you want a straight answer on what to do. He'll start lecturing during lab and pull up multiple powerpoints- you could probably leave at this point or get up and start doing the lab (which might be hard because it's never really too clear exactly what you are supposed to be doing), but it would be good to listen to what he's saying because a lot of his test material comes from those powerpoints. Diagrams help a lot. There is quite a bit of labeling involved in this class.

Dr.Smith is by far the worst teacher i ever had. i had him for lecture and lab. Lecture was easy but he only used Dr. Noland's power points and everything was extremely unorganized. The lab was riduculous. We did absolutley nothing for three hours. He would not help if you had questions and was very rude and said hurtful things. The lab final consisted of every single thing we never learned. He gave us dead pigs and said disect them with no direction once so ever. This class would have been so fun if we actualy did the lab activities Dr. Noland prepared.

Dr Smith is past his prime. He mumbles incoherently for the majority of the class, then all of a sudden will have a moment of insight and blurt out something way more complicated than the class can understand. He stole the slides from Dr. Noland and it looks/sounds like he doesn't understand them. You'll come up on a diagram and he'll study it in silence for a few minutes, purse his lips, and ask "hmmm... what have we here" and take suggestions from the class all the while there is a bolded title at the top clearly stating what the diagram is supposed to represent. He doesn't grade, he has his TA's do it. So you have to have the correct book definition answer. It's hard to say how hard the grading on the lab/lecture is because it depends on the TA for that quarter. He gives quizzes, the book is sometimes helpful for explaining something he didn't in class, but mostly it's stuff you should've learned in high school biology. Lecture is really boring, he prints out the slides and calls it a coursebook. Most of the pictures on the slides are too dark to be useful. Pay attention in lab because the lab final will kick your butt.

Dr. Smith is an intelligent man but is completely incompetent at teaching. I\'m sure he once loved it, but he has totally lost all interest in actually helping his students to learn. His lectures were dry and all of the powerpoints were from Dr. Noland, so many times he didn\'t even know what was next on the slides. The lab was a joke-we didn\'t do a single lab activity. I went into this class thinking it would be a cool lab with a bunch of dissections and work with live animals and such and we did NOTHING-this is not an exaggeration. The lab practical final was the worst thing of my life-it was completely based on what we WOULD HAVE learned IF we had done the lab activities. DO NOT take Dr. Smith-seriously wait until he retires because it has to be soon. Even though I got an A in this class, I do not feel prepared for any of the animal science classes that ASCI 229 is a pre-req for.

This class was terrific. You go on rounds and learn a lot. If you've taken Doc once and didn't really care for him, give him another try in one of the other classes (not VS223). He's hilarious and easy to get along with. He's a fountain of knowledge, you just have to know how to get it out of him.

Doc Smith is a brilliant man who didn't forget a thing he learned in vet school. He's lecture notes followed his slides clearly and we're easy to follow. I learned so much from him and he's very willing to help his students learn and achieve their goals. People aren't giving him enough credit,if you want to learn you'll succeed in his class. He gives 6 quizzes (drops the lowest) and 2 exams along with a couple papers. He's super chill and more than happy to help you during office hours.

This dude needs to retire. He's a nice guy but damn he's a horrible teacher.

Doc is a really great person, he just is not the best lecturer. It's kind of hard to stay focused, but if you pay attention, you'll notice the jokes he pops in here and there, and he's hilarious. There were two papers in this class, which were fun to do, and if you just do them and turn them in on time you get full credit. The quizzes and tests are hard because most of us didn't know the info that well, but since all of us did bad, we all got good grades. I'm way stoked on my grade. Just show up for lecture, and take notes, and you should do ok.

Doc is a great person if you get to know him outside of lecture. The only thing that saves your grade is the geust video lectures and complete handouts for them. Questions come straight out of the text and handouts. The quizzes are easy and you can argue for more points on several questions. The midterms on the other hand are some what have obscure references to the text and lectures making the questions hard. Often the questions come from sections we never disccused in class. The papers are easy and if you do it and turn it in some time you get full credit.

Dr. Smith is a great person!! He will pretty much do anything to help his students! I don't think is the best professor but as long as you go to class, you will do well in this class.

Dr. Smith is one of the kindest teachers at Cal Poly. All of his classes are an easy A if you just show up to the lab activities and lectures. He will tell you exactly what to know for the quizzes and tests in lecture and even provides study guides (not that you need it, he takes questions directly off power points). He is disorganized, yes, but you learn your diseases really well in his classes and you go on lots of fun field trips. Dr. Smith wrote me an incredible letter of recommendation for vet school and did all of the PPI evaluations I needed for vet school as well. He is incredibly nice and just wants his students to succeed.

Dr. Smith may have a good amount of book knowledge but he is incapable of teaching a lab. We were given the assignment to prepare for a castration lab by gathering all the necessary supplies and monitoring equipment. He had no idea what horse was being castrated or where anything is in the vet clinic. He also didn't know how to do the procedures/use some of the equipment! Thank the lord Dr. Noland was present otherwise, the horse would have been medicated improperly and ventilated improperly. His inability to help the students led to Dr. Noland getting frustrated because no one knew what they were doing... You can easily get an "A" in the class but you will learn nothing by "doing".