Walsh, Daniel  

Materials Engineering

2.71/4.00

56 evaluations


ENGR 110


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Aug 2001
Dr. Walsh combines fun with learning to give his students a reason to show up to class and learn the basics of engineering science. I would recommend him to anyone.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Mar 2000
This class basically introduces you to General Engineering and is difficult not to get an A in. He is a reasonable teacher, and the best part of this class is the benefit of meeting your advisor if you're a GENE major. He is a great resource, so learn to take advantage of the great many powers he has. When you're planning classes, go see him first.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Jan 2001
This guy rules! He's makes his class funny, interesting and almost guarantees an A if you do the homework assignments which really wasn't difficult or tedious. He's a great resource for Engineering students.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Apr 2001
This is an intro course, so its not that hard if you show up and pay attention. Perhaps the hardest assignment is a project relating to engineering. Good guy who likes Dilbert, and a helpful advisor.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Feb 2002
Walsh is a generally nice, easy-going guy... I didn't get a lot out of this class, but he did a good job out of making the material fairly interesting. I would recommend him on the basis of his personality and teaching style.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Mar 2002
This is the easiest class you will ever take at Poly. You do virtually no work and everyone receives am "A" or a "B". He curves so that the lowest grade is a "B". This class was awesome for my GPA. A 3 unit intro class, are you kidding me? Take this class even if it's just to boost your GPA.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Jan 2004
Wow, what can I say about Walsh. Well this class was quite different from other courses I have taken here. His sense of humor is, um, unusual, and the manner that he presents the materials follows suit. We went over some fairly interesting stuff, but still many people complained that the class was boring and lots of people fell asleep. Personally, I thought the class was interesting. There is almost no homework and there are no tests, not even a final exam. Be warned though that on occaission he takes attendance in the form of a one easy question quiz. If you were to average the amount of work I did for this class, it would be less than two hours per week, maybe even one hour per week. I would say don't worry if you must take this class for General Engineering. If you are a non-GENE major, and need a technical elective, take this class if you aren't interested in learning a lot and shudder at math and science. But if you do wish to learn a lot, I wouldn't reccomend this class.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Jan 2004
Dr. Walsh is a great guy. It's a shame that our class was so quiet since he loves to involve the class. He starts off class periods with comics and is really laid back. If you can't get an A in this class, you shouldn't have gotten into Cal Poly. It is a good class to learn a little about the history of engineering as well as a few things you probably didn't know about Cal Poly.


Freshman
B
Required (Major)
Jan 2004
I wish I had learned more about the actually hands-on aspect of engineering, instead of the disciplines and all that. I didn't learn much about anything. This guy is pretty funny. You'll enjoy this class if you like Dilbert and The Far Side. It changed my mind about engineering..the other students in my class didn't laugh at any of his lame jokes that were truly funny. This evaluation doesn't matter anyway, if you're in general engineering, you have to take it. good luck.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
May 2004
This class is a joke, you have to take it as a GENE and you have to have Walsh, so there's no way around it. He's a funny guy that likes to joke around. The only downfall, the final was surprisingly in depth. Just go to class and do the weekly homework and you'll do fine.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Dec 2004
this class has very little to do with actual engineering. i think everyone was a little disapointed at are first engineering course in general engineering to be mostly about study skills and crap that you should already know if you got into cal poly. it wasnt until maybe the last three weeks of class did we actually talk about engineering and her guest speakers from other engineering disiplines. with that being said, walsh is a pimp, and you better repect him. he shows dilbert cartoons every class and jokes around and isnt afraid to make fun of losers in other engineering fields or things like "liberal arts." unfortunatly a lot of his jokes were too intelligent for a lot of the students. he can lull you to sleep, aspecially when he is talking about something like "writing a good academic paper." the class is extreamly easy. one assignment a week that was basically doing things like writing a one page paper on why you chose cal poly. if you cant get an A in this class, you dont deserve to go to cal poly, be in engineering, or be going to college at all because you must be one lazy idiot. it hurts me when i hear people talking about how they dont like walsh's class behind his back, he like the greatest guy ever and its an easy class, what else could you want? i would highly recommend him for any class your taking. one word of advice, try (as hard as it might seem) to take notes every lecture. his final and one midterm caught everyone off gaurd as being pretty hard and very comprehensive.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Jan 2005
Dr. Walsh is a fun teacher and is humorous in class. ENGR 110 is an easy class by all means. The material consists of listening to lectures, doing a few easy homework assignments about once a week, and 3 or 4 projects that, for the most part, can be put of until the last minute. He grades pretty easily. The questions on exams are straight from key points in lectures, but most questions can be BSed. If you attend class 95% of the time, do all the homework, and pay attention, you should be guaranteed an A, at least for ENGR 110. Overall, Dr. Walsh is a great guy and makes the classroom fun.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Feb 2005
ENGR 110 is a pretty easy class. Dr. Walsh lectures on slides that he ends up posting on Blackboard, so you don't need to take notes on his lectures. You should still go to class though because he explains the slides pretty well and has guest speakers (professors from a few of the different engineering disciplines - whose lectures you will be tested on). He can get kind of boring sometimes, but he tried to make the lecture interesting by slipping in Dilbert or other comics. There's basically a weekly assignment and a couple of projects, but they're not too hard. For not feeling like you're learning much or doing a whole lot in that class, the one midterm and final are rather in depth. They're not that bad if you study the material and it's possible to BS your way through a few of the answers if you're not entirely sure on them.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Jan 2006
You'll be bored out of your mind in ENGR 110. But it's a piece of cake class, tons of extra credit, and very easy assignments. The real difficulty is to listen to his rambling lectures that don't really go anywhere. But the times when I woke up, I did learn some interesting information.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Feb 2007
Easy class, pretty pointless. I'd say 10% of his jokes are funny, he really tries hard though. Read his overheads before his two tests and you will be fine.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Feb 2007
I loved having Prof. Walsh. Especially for the engr 110 class, because he could have made it so much more difficult but he didn't. Our final was seriously five questions and her told us the week beforehand that it would only take us 30 mins. Took most of the class 15. He would come into class everyday and have a joke to tell, or a story he wanted to share, and always tried to connect what we were doing to some Dilbert comic. You do some homework, but nothing that requires much time. Some of the stuff was helpful -- he had a person from the engineering advising center come in, and then someone from the resources office come in and gave a presentation on resume writing, which was very helpful. Also, we did a group final project at the end. It was the easist group project I have done here -- he assigned the groups a month before it was actually due, and I ended up meeting with my group for 30 mins and only once and we just split up the work. Very easy. I wish I could take Prof. Walsh for another class.


Freshman
A
Required (Major)
Apr 2007
There is no reason why you shouldn't get an A in this class. It is ridiculously easy. Do the assignments, study for about 2 hours for the midterm and final and you should be fine. This is probably the easiest class in engineering there is. He tries a little too hard to be funny. Sometimes he is funny someitmes he isn't but he is a great guy.


Sophomore
A
Required (Major)
Apr 2007
He is such a graet professor. He makes the class easy by explaining exactly what is going to be on the midterm and final. Unlike most professors he isn't at all cryptic about what he expects. The class is ridiculously easy.


Sophomore
A
Required (Major)
Feb 2008
This class was one of the easiest I've taken at Poly. Walsh rocks! However, he is no longer in the BMED dept. anymore. :( I'll miss you WALSH!!

ENGR 111


Freshman
B
Required (Support)
Jan 2006
what you do in lecture has nothing to do with what is on the tests. he is a great guy, but only uses off the wall comments as test questions. im still trying to figure out what this class had to do with engineering. only good thing is that he is really easy on grading.

MATE 210


Sophomore
N/A
Required (Support)
Feb 2012
Walsh is such a good professor to have for MATE 210. He gives out a couple of homework assignments, and gives quizzes every other week. The material is really boring to go over and he makes it all super confusing. But he is the easiest grader and loves giving partial credit. My friends in other MATE210 classes have to study for their midterms and projects and homework and crazy stuff their professors give them...While Walsh spends the first 10 minutes of each lecture going over Dilbert comics. Seriously take Walsh if it's for a boring class like MATE210. You will be so happy you did it.


Junior
B
Required (Support)
Mar 2013
Dan Walsh is the man. He truly is. He is very energetic and brings lots of life to his lectures. However, the subject material is incredibly over your head and can lose your attention within the first 30 minutes. I tried my hardest to take notes and pay attention, but Walsh moved at such a quick pace that I had a hard time keeping up with him. Once I lost him, I quickly dozed off and soon the lecture was in a foreign language for me. For us, we had weekly homework due and a weekly quiz every Thursday. The quizzes were impossible! I failed about half of them, and thought for sure I was doing poorly in the class. Your class grade is 50% quizzes and 50% homework. You will get 100% on the homework portion, but definitely struggle with the quizzes. My final grade in the class was a C-, which was curved up to a B+. I'm pretty sure not a single person got lower then a B, so if you wanna take a class that guarantees a good grade, take it with Walsh. Just be prepared to be stressed out during the quarter. I know I was.


Sophomore
B
Required (Support)
Jun 2015
This class will stress you out so much. However, he grades on a curve, so try your best! He loves to give you partial credit on homework even if you openly admit you don't understand how to answer the question. Go to every class because he gives out in-class assignments that equate to 10% of your grade. Quizzes (basically midterms) are taken online, so open note, but so rely too heavily on it because the material on the Quiz is supposed to be surprise material. For the curve, i got a 69% (ayeee) which ended up a B in the class.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Jun 2015
The homework is really hard and the powerpoint slides that he gives doesn't really help. The online tests are way too long to do by yourself -hint-. Dr. Walsh doesn't require a book for the class; but you'll need as much resources as you can to do the homework.


Sophomore
B
Required (Support)
Mar 2016
Do not take. The man is too smart to teach anyone but doctorate students of MATE. He assumes that class knows everything he does. Home work is impossible, quizzes are also impossible. You will get an okay grade but will learn nothing. Avoid.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Mar 2016
If you want to do well in this class, talk to someone who has already taken him.

ENGL 213


Freshman
B
Required (Support)
Mar 2013
Joke of a class. Starts class with an hour of jokes, in which you are confused when he actually starts class. The material they teach is very confusing and not taught in an efficient way. Just wait to be confused for two hours every week. This class it taught by switching off professors with Griffin. You have a quiz every week, in which everyone just pulls out their phones to answer anyways. There is a huge curve at the end, and it's easy to get an A if you take every quiz and go to lectures. They lost one of my quizzes and after a total of 7 emails being sent from me, I had no response and was just stuck with getting a grade with a score that was missing. One of the worst classes I have ever taken.

ENGR 213


Sophomore
B
Required (Support)
Dec 2001
Dr. Walsh coordinated the worst class I have ever taken. ENGR 213 is a group of weekly, unrelated lectures by various professors in the Engineering department. The aim is to appeal to everybody, but for us CSC majors, who aren't "real" engineers, the class is worthless. The class was supposed to be graded based on weekly quizzes, but one professor screwed up the reading, and we got a midterm-sized quiz the next week. Then another professor assigned a project instead of a quiz (surprise! should've stayed for the whole lecture!). However, the curve is huge. I was expecting 65%, based on returned tests and got a B. Go figure.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Jun 2002
OK, while I never met the man throughout the entire course, if you're an engr or csc student - this course is highly recommended. It is so easy, you won't even believe it. While it was horribly organizied at times, and having such diverse topics and diverse boring profs can be tough, the grades are very curved and at times it can be interesting. More importantly though - you get through with your life science D1 GE and if your CSC it's a support course. And, it has to beat the heck out of a traditional bio class with labs! There are 9 guest lecturers, one has you do a project, the rest had quizzes. You can't miss a class though, there are no make-ups and if you do the best you can possibly get is a B. The class is graded on how well you do on a quiz in regards to your classmates, so you can do poorly on some and still get an A - as long as everyone else did more worse than you! Anyway, this was the easiest course I've had at Poly so far, and it was one I was dreading...


Sophomore
B
Required (Support)
Jan 2003
This class is NOT taught by Dean Walsh. You get a different prof every week that teaches you about their department in Engineering. No test, No homework, no Final. Just one quiz every week on the lecture from the previous week. Since the professors are only there for one week they usually end up dicking you over on the quizzes, but don't worry. There's a mad curve at the end. I think I literally failed 2/10 quizzes and still pulled out of there with a B.


Freshman
C
Required (Support)
Jan 2005
This class is set up pretty weirdly. Walsh is only one of the teachers in this half of the class that rotate every two weeks. I hate to write this review in his name, because he was probably the best of them. The problem with this class is that it is organized horribly. It's set up by some lady who I hate so much, I forgot her name. You'd figure that with 5 teachers all talking about a wide range of topics, she could at least sit through more than two of the classes. Nope. She did, however, write the final, which made for a very interesting experience since half of what she put on it was not covered by the guys that actually taught it to us. Plus, the teacher for the last 2 weeks was horrible. He managed to be repetetive, boring, condescending, and yet also completely impossible to understand. On the plus side, the other half of this class (BIO 213) is good.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Mar 2005
OK. So, Walsh is listed as the professor for ENGR 213, but you will never see him until the last week of class for an hour. During that hour, he seemed very knowledgeable, etc., but that is not the point. He doesn't even coordinate this class, and aside from his 1-hour lecture, doesn't seem to be involved in the class in any way shape or form. The class is just outright terrible. Professor Gould-Wells is the real person in charge of the course, and she finds some terrible professors and some good ones to baby-sit the class for a couple of weeks at a time (look up Gould-Wells polyrating, and all professors associated with ENGR 213 for that matter). Unfortunately, you have no other option out of ENGR 213 if you're an engineer; you're just stuck with it.


Senior
N/A
Required (Major)
Dec 2005
Professor Walsh is an OK professor. On the positive side: He loves the subject, his lectures aren't boring, and his quizzes are reasonable if you study what he asks. However, on the negative side: He has a tendency to assign rather difficult, mathematically intensive homeworks. This is really annoying, since I have other conceptually difficult classes *related to my major* that I'm trying to understand. As a side note, this class in general is a waste of time. It's not Dr. Walsh's fault, but it's a fact.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Jan 2006
Walsh has a very good sense of humor. He started every class with a joke. Some of the material was difficult to understand, but he is pretty generous when it comes to grades.


Senior
A
Required (Support)
Feb 2006
This is the worst class I've taken my entire time at poly. Seriously. It is a piece of shit and a waste of time. The BIO half was good, I was actually interested in it and Ritter owned the shit out of that class with his awesomeness. But the ENGR part... everytime I went to class I wanted to kill myself and everyone around me. Walsh is an idiot. He just talks and talks about whatever the fuck he wants, then he gives quizzes every class period that barely relate to what he talked about. He'll have a ton of slides to go through, but will never show you even half of them because hes too busy pulling shit out of his ass and talking about god fucking knows what. The homework assignments are retarded and irrelevant, one of them even had Diff Eq problems... WTF. I'm pretty sure Linear Analysis isn't a prereq for this class... yep, it isnt. I have no clue how I got an A in this class, but I fucking deserved it just for showing up every fucking class period and dealing with his shit. Biznatch.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Mar 2006
Absolutely pointless class. Each class starts off with a quiz based on the lecture from the week before. Half the class leaves after the quiz. Then Dr. Walsh rambles for about a half hour until the midway break when half of all the students left will leave. Basically, the lectures are just Dr. Walsh's ramblings about the subject matter. The textbook is freakin huge and the reading assignments are really long but nobody ever does them. We all just answer the homework questions assigned which are usually somewhat easy but never really have anything to do with what we learn in class. I guess the only reason we have this class is to get people interested in bioengineering but judging by the fact that 75% of the class was gone by the halfway point in each lecture, I don't think it really worked. Good news though: really wicked curve and an optional final.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Mar 2006
This is the most pointless class you will likely take. But it's also pretty easy and curved heavily, so getting at least a B isn't hard at all. He has a quiz at the beginning of every class on what was covered the week before, and there is homework every week. The rest of the class consists of a giant powerpoint presenation which he goes through and talks about, and which can be found on Blackboard. The homework is from the textbook and has nothing to do with what is covered in class. Usually it involves finding answers in the text, which is difficult since about a third of the time, the answers aren't there. There isn't really anything to take notes on, so basically, you take a quiz, turn in homework, and spend the rest of the two hours looking at a powerpoint and listening to Walsh speak. A boring, but easy class.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Jun 2006
Pretty boring class, but Walsh would do his best to liven it up with comics and jokes and what not. The lectures were fairly unorganized, or so it seemed. This class is pretty darn useless unless you are a Biomed engineer, and even then you would probably find this class a riot. It is easy to get an A however. There is homework dur every week, that it pretty simple and only takes 30 minutes to do. Weekly quizzes are worth as much as the homework and cover the previous lecture material, and they are very easy. Lecture notes are posted online, so you really don't even have to stay in class. There are no midterms, and the final was optional, as it was only worth 10% of the final grade. This class also had three different professors that switched off every couple of weeks, but Walsh was the main one. So any professor you sign up for, you will probably be seeing all of them anyways.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Jun 2006
Dr. Walsh is a great teacher. He has an awesome sense of humor, makes long lectures enjoyable, and presents material in a way that makes class fun. I definitely recommend that you take this class, because Dr. Walsh is a great guy who makes this class entertaining and fun.


Junior
A
Required (Support)
Dec 2006
Walsh is a great guy who knows a lot and has a lot of connections. He gets off topic a lot but he's worth it and he makes sure the class is interesting and easy to get a good grade in.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Aug 2011
Class was completely pointless, but he kinda knows it so he does his best to keep it relevant, interesting and what not. class is a super easy A, walsh is a pretty cool guy


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Mar 2012
Walsh is one of my favorite professors ever. Period. Even though I have a different major than materials engineering, I still enjoyed all his lectures and felt that I learned more under his sarcastic and humorous style than from the usual lecture professor. I would recommend this professor to any major for any of his courses.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Mar 2012
Walsh is a boss. He is kind of unorganized when it comes to his slides and he almost always goes off topic. He is a funny guy and seems to love teaching, even though he barely does that. He makes jokes and gets on the classes good side but when he comes to material he is boring as hell. However, this class is stupid easy. There are quizzes every week for the material from the week before. Our grader was stupid easy so if you put something close to the answer down you basically got full points. Theres an assignment every week that is usually very easy. Those two things make up your whole grade pretty much as the final is worth 10% and is optional. Class is easy just put some work into it. Fuck the bio part though.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Jun 2012
Lectures were pretty interesting. Walsh peppers in jokes in the lecture to keep the crowd awake, which I personally thought at most times, were pretty good. There are weekly quizzes based on last week's lecture; several questions got me stumped (did we ever learn that last week?? kind of q?'s) but if you give some effort, you should still get it. (Based on grader lenience) There are essay/short answer assignments too, NBD. He also curves the class GENEROUSLY, unlike the BIO portion which, unfortunately, did not.


Sophomore
N/A
Required (Support)
Dec 2012
PERSONALITY: This old man still has quite a bit of life in him. He's all for smiles and jokes and humor and sarcasm. Unlike the bio complement to this class, Walsh's class was rather enjoyable to go to. LECTURES: However, there is a problem. Some people learn a lot from his easy going, humor filled, theatrical style, and i envy those people. i just can't. My notebook for his class is practically empty. i just can't take notes and listen to his stories and jokes at the same time. That being said however, the theatricalness of it all made it easy to remember, which sort of compensates. Quizzes weren't too hard and there are no tests. only quizzes, and an optional final which counts as 1.5 quizzes. The grade scale is slanted in favor of the student. Getting at least a B is almost a fact of life for this class. FINAL THOUGHTS: Walsh is one of those professors who you think could've retired long ago, but just does it for the love of doing so. That's the kind of professor you want. Despite having a nearly empty notebook, i get the feeling that the stuff i remembered from class will stick much longer than some other classes' material.


Sophomore
A
Required (Support)
Feb 2013
Kind of funny, terribly boring, ridiculously easy, but....no...just no.


Freshman
A
Required (Support)
Mar 2013
He's kinda funny, but most of the time he tries too hard. He's a much harder grader than Griffin, and kind of a dick too. The class this year was split up into half of the lectures taught by Walsh, half taught by Griffin. I literally did not learn anything when Walsh was lecturing. Take someone else if you can. What a waste of a class and garbage teacher


Sophomore
A
General Ed
Mar 2013
If you can, don't take Walsh for this class. The class was split between Griffin and Walsh the quarter I took it and I dreaded the lectures that were taught by Walsh. They were incredibly boring and a waste of time. He spends the first 40 minutes of class telling bad jokes and then whatever he teaches doesn't even end up on the homework. Griffin was boring as well but he told you exactly what would be on the quizzes if you stayed. Avoid if possible.

BIO 310


Senior
C
Required (Major)
Aug 2006
Okay class.

BMED 420


Junior
B
Required (Major)
Jun 2017
Have fun not learning anything useful and getting graded on some weird curve. What a joke, wish I could have my tuition money back. Make sure you take this with Cardinal because Walsh is too damn smart and makes this class so confusing and not fun

MATE 440


Junior
A
Required (Support)
Oct 2012
Take Dr. Walsh if you can!!!! He is one of the best professors at Cal Poly.

BMED 530


Graduate Student
N/A
Required (Major)
Feb 2019
This guy is really nice, but a horrible professor. If you try to pay attention, you will be completely confused within 15 minutes. If you ask questions he doesn't understand why you don't understand. Looking around the class, maybe one person is paying attention because everyone knows that trying to learn the content is futile. He has approximately 100 slides per lecture, each loaded from top to bottom with material and words. He may have once been a great professor, but he should have retired 10 or 20 years ago.


Graduate Student
A
Required (Major)
Feb 2019
Walsh is, unfortunately, a literal shit professor. He's such a sweet old man, but I sit in his class and look around and maybe out of 40 people three are paying attention. The rest know it is futile to sit there and focus for two hours. He literally told us, "don't get C sickness", as in nobody will get below a B. This is the type of class that is a complete waste of time to take as a grad student. I am looking for classes I can apply to my career, not easy units that everyone passes and nobody learns anything from.


Graduate Student
A
Required (Major)
Mar 2019
This guys has two quotes in the bottom corners of his slides. One of them reads "Make America Smart Again". The other has a typo.


Graduate Student
A
Required (Major)
Mar 2019
Dr. Walsh is really something else. I've never seen anyone ramble on about stuff that no one knows anything about for so long. Not a single person in this class knows what is going on and nobody has learned a SIGNLE thing from this class. Really could have been a useful lecture if it was taught by a professor that knew how to teach and was up to date on their material. Don't get me wrong, Walsh is probably top 10 smartest professors at Cal Poly and he has done some cool research. He knows so much, if only he could actually teach... But he can't even get his ISO documents up to date (it's 10993 not 10933 dude).


Graduate Student
B
Required (Major)
Mar 2019
Here's the best way to get through this course: - Use the two hours of lecture as study time - Don't pay any attention to what he says - Scrape through the 4 homework assignments - Study a couple of hours before the two 300 point "quizzes" - Definitely still not know anything going into the quiz - Have him give you half credit on every problem regardless of what you know - Pass the class with a B