Tucker, John  

he's a great guy, and the class is easy, but i didn't learn half the stuff i was supposed to learn in the class. he's willing to help people out in office hours - but i never needed to show up because the class wasn't very challenging. i'd reccomend taking another teacher and learning a lot more.

His tests and quizes are long but if you have practiced and done your homework they are cake. Will help you out in any way in his office hour and he is great for fair grading in lab. Anyone who thought he was unfair obviously didn't put much effort into it.

Tucker is a good teacher to take if you're very self-motivated. If not, he'll bore you to death and ruin any interest in the subject matter you might have. Before I took his class, I was very interested in learning more about circuit design. He killed that. He could put a room full of ADHD children to sleep. In lecture, he tends to ask vague, unanswerable questions (e.g., he'll point to a binary number and say "What is this?", and there are a million different possible answers). His tests always cover the material presented in class, but never in the form you learned it in. He has an easy, 10-point quiz once a week, and his exams will have 6-8 problems with multiple parts for every problem. He knows the material, but will put you to sleep trying to explain it.

This guy's lectures are pretty good, and I found that I could stay focused throughout class, which doesn't happen much. However, he has a major problem understanding and answering questions. I student will ask a question about 2's compliments and he'll give the definition of an adder as the answer (that's an exaggeration). One of the reasons for this is he seems like he doesn't even listen to the question. After the first three words of the question are asked he tries starting to answer and the person asking the question is stuck trying to talk over Tucker's wrong answer. I did find his lectures informative, though, especially since I didn't like reading the book. I sort of agree with the person who said his tests are too long. I was able to finish both midterms, but just barely. It seems to me that it would be better if he designed the tests to take less than 50 minutes, rather than cutting it so close. After I read that evaluation, I tried looking at the clock during the next quiz. Tucker said something like, "Ok, take a few minutes to finish up," and after about 30 seconds he asked for the tests to be collected.

This guy is a good lecturer, but he has a HUGE problem, which is the reason I would advise anyone thinking of taking his class to definitely NOT take it. Find another teacher. He has no sense of time, whatsoever. This was a one hour class, three times a week, and the midterms should have been taken with a minimum of one and half, preferably two hours. I was able to pull a B on the first one, but I only finished parts of five of the seven questions on the second midterm, and if I had bothered to actually finish each problem I came to, I probably wouldn't have got past question 3. The worst part was that all the questions were easy, and I knew how to do them. They were just way too time consuming. If you want a quick example of this shit go into his class on a Friday, when he gives a "ten minute" quiz. It's luck if it goes over 5 minutes. Try watching the clock after he says "One minute left." Within 20-25 seconds he will insist all quizes be turned in. This shit really pisses me off. Sorry if I went on too long.

In 316, a course that's entirely lab based, Tucker couldn't have done much more. There was little to no lecture material to cover, but he tried to go over the most important concepts repetitively enough to sink in. His tests were fair and were all open-book/notes (This is due to the technical nature of the course). He's a nice guy and isn't afraid to admit when he doesn't know something--he lets you know when you have to figure it out. The 336 lab was so succeptable to errors that few professors could do more than he did. As another commentor said, he does stick to certain 'words of advice' that seem repetitive and mindless... but he does spend an exceptional amount of time trying to help individual groups. Even if he wasn't able to analyze and solve a wiring problem in a circuit (the wiring gets excessive) he always tried and gave as much leeway on project deadlines as possible. On a side note, the lab for the course is exceptional: AC, net access, free printing, almost always open and unoccupied. But be warned... if you take 316 MW 4-7, plan on staying late because stuff can easily go wrong.

This guy must have taken a lot of hard drugs in his day, cause he doesn't seem to know what is going on. He is really disorganized and can't present material very well. In the lab portion of the class he couldn't help us. He tried, but was only able to ask us the very same questions we had already asked ourselves. In other words, he can waste your time. The class had 5 labs to finish, but because of his incompetence, the entire class had to be squeezed into the last 5 weeks of the quarter since he didn't know what was going wrong with the benches for a long time. He is more like a TA who has a key to the room than a helpful professor. On the plus side, he is pretty chill.

I waited a couple of quarters to take cpe 316 because of the bad reviews I read about prof Tucker. But, it turned out not bad at all, and I actually regretted putting cpe 316 off for couple of quarters. CPE 316 is a lab oriented course. It is unfortunate that CalPoly is changing it for the new catalog. It was THE kind of class that we CPEs need! In lab, we were able to experiment with and identify both software and hardware problems. It's the best lab I've ever had. I learned so much from it. Tucker had one midterm and a final as far as I remembered, all MC, open everything. He goes over all questions afterwards and makes sure his questions are fair. If not, we get our points back. We had 4 labs and one final project. The labs take up a lot of time. My group spent at least four or five hours in lab in addition to the assigned 3-hr lab weekly, towards the end of the quarter. Tucker is NOT as UNhelpful as others might say. My group had major hardware problems with our board. Tucker was very willing to help us and guide us to find out what the problem was. He can't give us the solution because no one has any idea what the problem is. He will go and talk to the technicians and get us the parts we need. On the day the lab is due, Tucker will come around and ask you to show the project to him. He will ask you a lot of questions about the code, the schematics, and the results from the logic analyzer. You might feel that he's giving you a hard time sometimes, but he doesn't make you feel like you're stupid. He'll explain everything to you and make sure that everyone understands the purpose of the lab. Lab reports are easy. Tucker was mainly looking for conclusions, code, memory map, and schematics. As long as you have the lab working, you will most likely get a perfect on your lab. Tucker is a very nice guy. During finals week, he was willing to let students in the lab on weekends to finish our labs. We also get one extension for the quarter. I highly recommend this guy for lab. As of lecture, I have to admit that he is not that clear at times. He knows his stuff, but sometimes he makes mistakes on the board. The good thing about Tucker is that he admits to his mistakes and corrects it. This may be confusing to some students, but if you talk to him individually, he is very helpful. Plus, you don't really learn from lecture in this class anyway. It's all lab. Tucker sometimes doesn't even bother lecturing and gives us more time to finish our projects.

The previous evaluation was very accurate and a good description of Tucker's class. One thing that the previous evaluation forgot to mention is that the tests are multiple choice! So even if you don't know anything, you can still get lucky and get a decent grade. And he grades very very fairly. The other evaluations saying that he sucked is not really true, maybe he wasnt very good a few years ago or something but he seemed pretty cool now.

Professor Tucker was very helpful as he can be. The class can be frustating because there are millions kinds of mistake that you could have done to the board or your software (yeah.. mostly the board and the wires!). You might spent hours hours hours...and hours of trying to make things work or might just get it right at the first shot.But, Prof. Tucker really did go over the material real slow (there are not so much material to cover anyway) and it is not his fault if your program or board isn't working. His suggestion of what might went wrong is always going to be the same and this might sound crazy and not so helpful at the time. But, after I was done with this class, I realized there are nothing really he can suggest beside those things that he kept repeating if you found problem. He did prepare you to be independent and not babying you with all the answers everytime. Overall, you should take this class not only because Prof. Tucker is a good instructor for it, but also no one else is better than Tucker for this class.

Professor Tucker is very understanding, and helpful in his lecture and especially lab. CPE 316 is a really easy, relaxing class. But, if one encounters hardware issues, it could be come really stressful. You have 5 Projects. 2 quizes (1 didn't count) and 1 multiple choice 45 questions midterm. Final was 30 Multiple Choice questions + 1 Assembly Programming problem. I personally had alot of fun and would love to take a another class with him again. Too bad he's not teaching 316 anymore this year.

I agree with the previous review. There were a few hardware and software challenges in this class, but it was fun and interesting. Prof.Tucker is a very friendly and helpful. I did learn a lot in this class - much more than I learned in CPE 315. His exams are sometimes confusing, but I think he curves them. I believe Motorola 68HC12 is a more appropriate processor for this class than Blackfin that some other instructor uses for this class.

Tucker is pretty worthless, but the way he teaches 316 is far superior to the way other professors do. This is an entirely lab based course. You build a microprocessor based computer; wire wrapping the components together and writing the software in assembly for it to run. This course does take a lot of time, but it is exactly the type of course we CPEs should enjoy. Expect to put in plenty of time in open labs when you take this class. The course if awesome, but Tucker is pretty worthless. His lecture is pretty pointless. He teaches what you need to know to get the job done, but it really is a learn by doing course. You will have to struggle through it. Towards the end of the quarter, Tucker's lecture was so pointless I stopped listening and just worked though it. If you put in the time and finish your final project, you will do fine. Tucker possibly writes the worst multiple choice questions I have ever read. The tests aren't that important to your grade, so it works out to be a pretty easy class if you have the time to dedicate to it. Tucker does baby his students, but he just teaches a better class than the other professors. This is a frustrating, time intensive course, but it is awesome. It is worth dealing with Tucker to take this flavor or 316.

Tucker is a horrible teacher. During the course of his lectures, he often confuses himself on the material he is presenting. How are we, the students, supposed to learn anything if the instructor can't even get it right in his own head? His tests are way too broad. He gives you an hour-and-a-half test and expects you to finish it in 50 minutes. This guy is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and I highly recommend that you take Dr. Lytle for this class.

If you are someone who doesn't have the benifit of friends hooking you up with previous midterms or just other people to study with, I would not recommend taking Tucker for any class. He seems like a nice guy- but he is not organized, this makes it really hard to follow his lectures. Tests are too long for 50 minutes. If he says he will put class notes in the library, so students do not have to spend time writing them during lecture- do not listen- he put 3 weeks worth of notes in the library three days before the midterm. Basically you cannot rely on his instruction in class or support during office hours. If you take his class make sure you have peer support.

Tucker is very unprofessional. He is not consistent in teaching material in class or lab. He is very unapproachable. He needs to work on recognizing student diffulties in class lecture and lab - everyone has a different learning style and difficulties. This idea seems to be completely incomprehesive to him- he projects the attitude that if you didn't understand his unorganized lecture than you're an idiot and wasting his time asking questions.

Tucker is the absolute worst professor I have ever had. He seems nice at first but his general attitude towards students that struggle with course material or lecture is negative. For example, I went to his office hours to ask some specific questions about lecture. Instead of attempting to answer my questions, he made a comment about me not yet completing the homework (which was not due for another week). He basically told me to leave. After successfully completing the homework my questions were still not answered... The rest of the quarter followed with similar experiences.

aight... ill break it down for ya! here is what you need to know about tucker in a nutshell. he's one of the nicest profs that i have had but it seems as if his mind is not with you in class/lab. i remember that whenever we had a problem with our out of date piece-o-crap 8051 board he would give us one of four responses. keep in mind that he always responded with one of theses 4 "pieces of wisdom" thoughout an entire quarter. 1. "its either a hardware problem or a software problem. eleminate one." 2. "didja use breakpoints? if you reach the breakpoint with no error, then obviously the error is after the breakpoint." 3. "maybe it's your boad, get someone elses board and try your code on it, if the same thing happens then you know its not your boad." 4. "did you initialize everything properly, and check your wiring?" the true fun comes into play when you try and predict which one of his answers he is going to use next. nice guy, soft grader, but lab is entirely on your shoulders. i would recommend him just for the comidic value!

From what I can gather, it was Tucker's first time teaching the 346 lab when I took the class (S04). He seemed very unprepared and most of the time didn't do what he asked us to do -- read the lab beforehand! He didn't understand what the lab questions were asking (neither did we) so we never got marked down for a wrong answer in lab. Instead, he graded almost entirely on the aesthetic features of our report, especially the graphs. No one ever got 10/10, but those who came closest must have spent most of their time marking up the graphs. Without ever asking us for it, he expected all sorts of information on the graph: tangent lines, critical points, intersection points, slopes and inverse slopes, etc. For the last few labs he was much better prepared so in the future he might not be so bad as a lab instructor. But if you want one piece of advice for dealing with Tucker in lab, it's LABEL YOUR GRAPHS, then LABEL SOME MORE. And when your hand hurts from all the graph-labelling, you'd better put some ice on it and get ready to LABEL YOUR GRAPHS again.

Tucker's lab was interesting. He gave a short lecture at the beginning of each lab which helped with the lab projects a lot, especially when the 306 lecture fell behind. Most of the grade comes from the lab reports, so as long as you write clearly and include all you data with full annotations, you should do pretty well. I fell behind on the pre-labs but that didn't seems to affect my grade much. He does give a lab final, but it's not very hard if you've done all the labs and understand the main concepts.

I don't care that I received an A - Tucker is one of the worst professor's at CalPoly. Maybe some students find his "tips" during lab comidic. I don't - if you're struggling by yourself on a lab with no other lab partners - he still does not provide support or help. Only take him if you can get the labs from someone else for guidance.

I took CPE-439 with Tucker, and he pretty much taught the old CPE-316 material, which was cool with me and everyone who stuck around b/c we learned a hell of a lot. He lectures a bit, but most of the time is spent working on the labs, and he's there for questions. This class is the most real world like in that if you have a problem there is no one to go run crying to for help. Yes the prof knows the parts well, but that still doesn't make him a pro at finding your mistakes. Stop whining, and go debug it your self. How do you think it'll be like once you have a job? Overall this class is a LOT of work... all lab work, and well worth it. You will have a far greater understanding of microprocessors and interfacing them with memory and other devices after the class. This should be a required class for CPEs again as this is exactly what we should be working with. Overall great class, and Tucker is an awesome guy... one of my favorite Profs by far.

Professor Tucker was one of the coolest CPE/EE teacher I've ever had here at school. (the class is called "computer system design and implementation") on the first day of school starts he scares the shit out of you telling you what you're going to do but it isn't that bad at all. The class is extremely chill and there is no real homework. There is only 1 midterm a few random quizzes and a final, oh yeah and 5 labs which are pretty much everything. Quizzes are written and midterm and final was mostly scantron. I think he grades mostly from effort because I got C's in all the quizzes and the midterm, and got an average of 9 out of 10 on the labs. I don't know if it was because of our class size but he got to know everyone(but i don't know if he ever learned our names) and whenever someone needed help he did as much as he could sometimes staying until 11pm(class was from 4-7) trying to them. He really really cares about everyone in the class. I learned a lot from this class, I took this after cpe/ee 329 and that class made so much more sense after I took this class. If you like computers and digital stuff take 482 with Tucker if you can, even if you spend forever in lab and feel like crap at the end of the day, when you actually finish the lab you feel accomplished. Too bad you gotta rip apart youre board and give it back to him at the end of the quarter.