Siembieda, Bill  

Those of us majoring in city and regional planning are so fortunate to have Bill Siembieda as our fearless leader. When I first showed up to 215, I must admit I was bewildered by the class of 50... The room was so crowded that i had to sit up front. But thanks to Dr. Siembieda's instructional integrity I was later assured that there would always be a good 30-40 open seats on any non-test day. Perhaps it is because he bases tests not on lectures but rather on the 15+ scattered readings he leaves in the reserve room. Perhaps its the fact that he manages to repeat a simplistic statement over and over and over and over and over and over (too repetitive for you?... it certainly was for us)and over and over again. But what do you expect from what can easily be called an impromptu lecture. Thank god for the slightly less boring guest speakers. Oh!... and that one test... the midterm... that was based on those readings i didnt do... i got a 95%. I never knew that restating the questions as answers could yield such high results. And then theres stormin' norman, Siembieda's faithful lapdog/TA. methinks he's gradgeated and so you wont hafta deal with his anal grading policy, "citations must be perfect or you lose 10 points end of story." Without Norm, Siembieda woulda been screwed, seeing as he did NOTHING for this class... no grading, no preparation, no nothing. CRP majors... do ANYTHING you can to avoid taking any class with Bill (although inevitably, you must). You don't know boring until you've heard 2 hours of him reitirating that Monterey Park has a high percentage of Chinese people. Keep up hope... perhaps one day we will get a competent department chair.

Siembieda is a nice guy, but he just really isn't a good teacher. I learned absolutely nothing from this class, even though the class had the potential to be really fun and interesting (Planning For/With Multiple Publics). He is also an extremely boring lecturer, and all of my notes are nothing but drawings, which I did to avoid falling asleep. He obviously did not care about this class because everything was unorganized and unprepared. We had to do three literature reviews (all were a waste of time), two tests (not that hard), one group project (analyze a sub-public and write a report about them and their mediating institution), and write one paper about a seminar we had to attend (really easy). I've heard that Doyle also teaches this class, so I would suggest getting him rather than Siembieda. Good luck.

Well, I'll say that Bill is one of the most confused and scattered people I've ever met. How he functions as the department head is beyond me, as he is often completely unaware of his surroundings or the concerns of the students in the department. I won't say he's a bad person though. I think he would care if he had any idea what was going on. Hopefully we'll get a competent department head sometime in the near future. Unfortunately, I don't think Dr. Toker would ever accept the position.

i have never learned less in a class than in crp 215, what a waste of time. he expects his students to read upwards of 30 pages a night, yeah right, and doesn't even discuss the readings half the time in class. In fact, i'm not sure what he discusses in class, he is so completely scatter-brained that i don't see how you are ever expected to learn anything from him (not that i did). he gives no feedback on grades, and it's all completely arbitrary in a scale of 1-10 so you never have any clue on how you're doing in the class. he has useless guest speakers come in all the time so he doesn't have to go to class, and didn't even proctor his own final! if you want an easy C for USCP credit and don't want to learn a thing, take bill.

Siembieda is just about the worst teacher I have ever had. Wow. It was so bad. Avoide him at any cost. His lectures are boring and pointless, his test was actually pretty hard, and he was so less than helpful when you asked him a question that you actually came out more confused than had you just kept your mouth shut. If he tells you you don't need a calculator for the test, it's a lie so you better bring one Good luck if you get this guy as a teacher

It's hard to find someone more out of touch with what's going on. Siembieda seems like he knows a lot about finance and feasibility, yet is hardly able to convey any of that information coherently. Instead of giving you a clear, simple answer, he'll ramble for 10 minutes complete with an anecdote from when he worked in the field, or when he bought his first house. I feel bad that CRP majors don't have any other options. Is Siembieda really the best instructor this department has for such a vital class?

Where oh where do I begin? Let me just say Siembieda is woefully unfit to be teaching college students let alone kindergarteners. Lectures were composed of incoherent, exhausted ramblings and his grading style, if you could call it that, was all over the place. Didn't update grades on PolyLearn, ever. Gave out final grades at random. Bill is in imminent need of replacement.

Siembieda knows a lot, he just has hard time expressing it. Be nice people.

Even after graduating 3 plus years ago, he is still the "butt" of countless jokes at the annual Alumni Reunion at APA conferences, not to mention countless hours of fun among your fellow alumni who work alongside of you. BANG UP JOB SIR!! WAY TO SAIL THE SHIP!!!

He is the worse teacher to ever grace the cal poly campus. He has no idea what he is talking about and has endless rambles with no relevant information to anything on earth.