Tanaka, Tsunefumi  

Tanaka was a great teacher. He was helpful during office hours and gives you sample tests, study sheets, and solutions for the midterms. His tests are mostly based off of what's in lecture. He assigns homework, but doesn't collect it. I recommend doing the homework, because he also gives weekly quizzes which are easy if you did the homework. His grading policy is well-rounded between quizzes, assignments, and tests. He also curves the grade.

Little difficult to understand what he says, but after you get through that, it's not too bad. He gave us weekly quizez that proved to be difficult at time. The midterms/final were/was on the hard side. To get an "A", you really need to know your stuff. I didn't do much more than 10 hours studying total and I pulled off a "B". But then again, I attended every class and it paid off.

Dr. Tanaka was a great teacher. He is this cute asian guy with a strong accent, but he is still fairly easy to understand. The class consisted of weekly quizzes and 2 midterms and a final. His lectures are very clear and easy to follow - he writes everything out on the board for you and his handwriting is perfect. He also shows these funny pics of him at observatories. The quizzes are fairly easy, but get harder as the quarter goes on it seems. However, he drops the lowest quiz score! The midterms require a lot of studying. The final was also a lot of stuyding, but it is definately doable. He is very helpful in office hours and will answer any questions during class - even if they are completely stupid or unanswerable and are really just wasting class time. My only plea to you as students is don't play solitare during class and then ask stupid questions like 20 times per class and also don't play stump the teacher with questions that no one could answer also 20 times a class period!!!!!

t-tanka... about what you would expect from the name although the math is easy. quizes on friday and picnics on Sun. if you can read you will do fine and take basic notes. Dont ding or dance while he is presending material and laugh at the fat kid in the front row with a laptop compter

professor tanaka is a weird teacher. he has a really thick accent, but he writes everything on the board to make it a little easier. he seems to be a nice person, but i would suggest you find another professor.

Prof. Tanaka knows his material very well, but I feel he has a hard time explaining the material in terms other than in a scientific manner. He tries to make the class more interesting by doing mini experiments during lecture which is fun. Make sure to write down everything he writes on the board and write your homeworks in details because he grades somewhat hard on them. I reccomend this professor, but if science isn't your subject, then try to find another professor. He is always willing to help you during office hours.

Dr. Tanaka has been the best professor I've had. At first the speed with which he taught was annoyingly slow, but then I realized that the pace translated into a lecture that was extremely clear and straightforward. He also does a lot of cool demos and is seemingly always available and helpful during office hours. Plus, you've got to love the accent. Who wouldn't love a professor that occasionally misspells basic English words on the board and doesn't notice it?

He is a really nice guy, but I had trouble understanding him with his accent. I didn't think the class was too difficult although i did terrible in it. I didn't find him very helpful when I came to his office hours and felt just as stupid coming out of his office as i did going in. Overall I would recomend another professor if there is one better available.

This was a very different teaching style than I was used to. Notes are very neat and relevant to test and book material. Homework is graded easier now than it was in the past. Sample tests are a twist on real test questions. Usually there are two or three versions of an applicable question... if you know how to do the problem forward, know how to do it backward, know related problems, etc. Accent isn't bad. Helpful in office hours. I thought the material was cool. A lot less work, for me, than physics 121 with prof. Walkup. G'luck.

I hated this guy. His accent was a little much to handle and it got in the way of understanding the material. I can in to the class not knowing much about physics and I left the same way. I studied for hours and still only got a C. If you have a pretty good understanding of basic physics take this guy it will be and easy class fot you. But if you struggled with it in high school you are not going to learn a thing from this man. The highlinght of this class is that he offered extra credit quizes when more than half the class didn't show up, and that homework was worth 25% of you grade which is a really nice thing. For most people the test were not to hard, they resembled the concepts on the practice tests for the most part. And lab is 20% of your grade which was also really nice for me. But this guy is not a good teacher but it is an easy class if you know what you are doing.

you won't learn jack shit in this class. oh btw, he cant teach either.

Tanaka is a nice guy. He came on a little strong in the beginning and everyone ended up with F's, but then he adjusted it to set the curve nicely. He was always friendly at office hours. I've known teacher with worse accents. His class was incredibly boring and nearly pointless to me. Though, if you miss them, you may miss an extra credit quiz. His grader was horrible. He marked you off for everything & anything on your homework. If you don't get the right answer and present it with work neatly, then you won't get it right. It's frustrating to fail every homework assignment. He's still learning how to teach, I think. But, his curve was set to a low B. He didn't try to fail anyone. If you do the homework right & the sample test, which are almost an exact copy of the test, you'll do fine.

This guy gets a bad rap because of his Japanese accent. Really, if you can get used to it and understand him, the class is great. He writes neatly and is very organized. Every week he has a cool little "demo" to demonstrate a concept in class. As long as you remember your math (vectors and stuff) and pay attention, you'll learn the material and get a good grade. The post below talking about homework must be pretty biased; I got good grades on the assignments. Anyway, if you have to take physics, this guy's just as good, if not better, than the next.

Tanaka was a great lab teacher. He would explain the labs prior to starting them. He sometimes had interesting demonstrations that applied to the labs. He could always answer your questions clearly and to the point. And every lab he would give back the previous lab writeup, never late. Everyone in the class had to write your own write-up, which I liked because then slackers couldn't get a free ride. He does have an accent, which was a problem at first, but you get used to it. He is also very approable.

This guy was great. He presented the lab material in a straight-foward manor that was really easy to understand. At times, I learned more from the lab than I did the lecture (with another prof). If I could, I'd take him for 133 Lab and lecture and all the other physics classes I have to take. HIGHLY recomended.

Pretty good professor. Good lectures. Homework can be long and kind of tough near the end of the quarter, but other than that it wasn't a big deal. His midterms and the final are almost exact duplicates of the sample midterms and final he puts up on the class website, so definitely go over those a few times.

Prof. Tanaka is one of the best professors I've ever had. I didn't have him for the lab, but in lecture he was awesome. He explained the stuff very clearly, and he always had some demos to show examples of what he was talking about. His tests were not easy, but very fair and straightforward. In office (or the learning center, rather), he was even better. If you had a problem with the homework, he would explain the problem to you in detail. I've taken physics classes before, and I've always done OK, but this is the first time I actually feel I *understood* everything. Definitely take him if you can. A+

Ok, I don't know whats wrong with the person that gave this guy an A+ at the end of their rating but he is far from that... He has his good points and his bad points... A few good points is that homework and lab make up for 45% of your grade and the final isn't cumulative...a few bad points is that his tests are pretty hard and he has a weird way of curving everything at the end, so your grade is really up in the air till the end, and he really wasnt sure how to handle or shift the scale. Physics 133 in it self is a hard class and i think he tried his best to make it enjoyable, but it just didnt happen. It was very hard to pay attention in lecture and with his constant mistakes and thick accent it made it even harder to want to pay attention. I would only reccomend this teacher if you know your not good at physics and you need a prof. that u can slide by with a C. This prof. is your best chance for that... But other than that i wouldnt want him again

Tanaka was a very average professor, not bad, not great. He is a very nice guy, but his lectures were extremely boring and the examples he did in class were too simple. His homework grader SUCKS and takes massive points off for anything and everything! Also, his tests are very difficult. He gives a practice test a week beforehand which is not all that helpful since the test is MUCH HARDER and MUCH LONGER. The final was a bit more reasonable though.

I am really glad that I took PHYS 133 with Tanaka. I had Bensky for 131 and 132, and while he was a cooler(more demos and more jokes) teacher than Tanaka, he didn't present the material nearly as well. Dr. Tanaka is a great teacher and does an example of everything you need to know. He has a few demos which are interesting, but not really relevant. He has the grader grade everything on the homework you turn in, so find the place online that has all of the answers scanned. Having the right answers for all the homework really helped me get my B+. There were no quizzes, except for one extra credit only quiz he gave on a day when not many people showed up for lecture. His tests are challenging, but they are entirely fair, and he goes the extra mile by giving you a study guide with very similar questions on it well before the actual test. This guy honestly lives in his office. If he isn't teaching a class, you can pretty much always stop by and talk to him, and he is more than happy to help you with the homework or anything else. Very nice compared to some professors. Finally, if you take him for lab, expect it to be pretty easily graded, but you WILL BE THERE ALL 3 HOURS. Even for the very last lab where he made us a worksheet it still took 2+ hours. Great teacher.

Tanaka is a pretty decent guy if you can ever get used to his accent. He's dificult to understand and his grader is a nazi who must go through 10 red pens per assignment. Make sure you do the homework and do it well because it is graded harshly (understatement) and is 25% of your grade. He also makes the lab worth 20% so its a nice boost. All in all he's a decent teacher if you put time into the course and do what you're supposed to. This class is HARD, but its probably gonna be just as hard with any teacher. Its just that the material isn't the easiest stuff in the world. So suck it up and get ready.

Since you're the one that got the C, I think the question is what's wrong with YOU. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but let me warn you, if you thought Tanaka was only average, you haven't seem some of the REALLY below average professors this school has to offer, and which you'll probably run into sooner rather than later. Likewise, if you think this class was hard, you obviously haven't been at Poly very long. Nor will you, I think, be staying very much longer. It doesn't get much easier than this, but it will certainly get harder.

Prof. Tanaka was great in lab! He would outline the experiment before everyone starts and usually he only does about 3/4 of what the lab manual says. Also, he walks around during the lab and helps out any students. Lastly, at the end of lab he stays around to help out with homework problems. I didn't have him for lecture but he was an awesome lab Professor.

Professor Tanaka was definately a good professor. His teaching style is good because he always brings in examples of different things he goes over. That made the class much more interesting. PHYS 133 is difficult because you really can't picture anything that you are doing, so his little demo's helped a lot (however about half the time they didn't work). His exams are hard though, so study up.

This guy was amazing. He was really nice and understanding, and really helpful during office hours. He presented his material as clear as it gets. Tests were fair. He normally gives out an old midterm from previous years before his midterm. Do them! If you can do those problems, then you will do wonders on the actual test because the problems are of relatively similar style and you get an idea of what your up against. I thought that he was a really good teacher to take, and I would take him again if I got the chance.