Chris Pollett - San Jose State University

Professor: Chris Pollett

Department: Computer Science

College: San Jose State University

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: CS157A
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Weekly quizzes (Mondays) and in class activities (Wednesdays). A really solid professor. His exams are doable. His homeworks do take a while but stress important points. Overall, I liked him.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: CS157B
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

50% of your grade is hw, which is great, but it will also take a serious amount of time to complete them and they will not be easy. Post lectures online. There will be quizzes every week which you must be present for. You will need at least 55% to pass, but going into the final the students class average was about.... you guessed it 55%

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: CS156
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Dr. Pollett is by far one of the best professors at SJSU. His lectures are heavy but if you put in the time you can do very well. He gives out extra credit points very often, so come to class. All lectures are recorded and all slides are posted online so there are no excuses for not passing the class.

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: CS267
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

As a professor one of the best at San Jose State, but the slides could use an update, they make lectures boring. Sometimes the lectures are just too much to take in and the examples are very simple compared to the actual problem. But you can always clear these things as he is approachable and will help you in his office hours.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: CS174
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

He is one of the best professor at SJSU CS department. His assignments are good. You will get to learn a lot. He is extremely helpful. Course syllabus is good. Course assignments were in PHP. I heard that next semester he is introducing some Node JS stuff as well. If you want to learn server side web programming, then go for it.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: CS174
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Gives lectures slides online and video recording of lectures, but his lectures are boring bc he likes to give unnecessary details about some concepts. For hw, he expects you to have understood the new languages (PHP, HTML, CSS, MySQL) within a short timeframe and write complex programs with them. Hw instructions are poorly formatted & worded.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: CS255
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Very knowledgeable professor. Quiz every week.

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: CS156
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Dr. Pollett is tremendous and by far the best professor I have had at SJSU. The class is challenging but if you work and study hard, you should be fine. He is friendly, approachable, and willing to help you with the harder concepts during office hours. I recommend Dr. Pollett and this class to everyone who wants to learn artificial intelligence.

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: CS156
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

There's a ton of material in AI, and it's all weird, wild, and new, but Pollett does EVERYTHING to make the class doable. 55% is a C-. Quizzes are EZ (just review the lecture slides, which are ALWAYS available). Drops ur lowest HW and 3 quiz scores. Gives xtensions on HW. HW is in Python, so this is a python class 2. Gives extra credit. Good prof.

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: 146
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Dr. Pollet clearly knows his stuff, but he assumes that you have a strong background in programming and will constantly spew technical terms (and ummuh) in his lectures. The assignments and exams are very difficult, though it's offset by very generous curves and extra credit. Go to his office hours because he's quite a nice and helpful person.

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: CS267
• Grade Received: A-
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

He is really smart, and class topic is interesting. However, he doesn't really know HOW to teach topic. Grading is fair, but exam is hard

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: SE146
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Hard class. Hes reasonable. very low MT score(4/20), gave us half pts back, did all the Hw(6/10 difficulty). Got only half the quiz points and +5 bonus for rand stuff. Walked into the final passing (55/100 = c-). Final was easier then MT. Grading system is strait forward knew my score and what i had to do to pass (whole class is out of 100 pts)

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: CS146
• Grade Received: B
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

He limits his office hours a lot since he uses that time to write his slides. He then proceeds to take class time to fix his typos in PHP. Stumbles over reading his slides the whole time without much input when a question is asked. Class average on the one and only midterm was a 20% but he was nice enough to allow redos to earn points back :).

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: CS146
• Grade Received: C-
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Not good. It's been 9 years since he's taught the class. His grading is inconsistent, you won't know what you did wrong because he'll grade differently even if it's the same work twice. Avoid at all cost.

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: CS174
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Very hard class! Especially the homework.

Rating # 16

Overview:

• Course: CS154
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

His lectures are unclear and unexplained, he grades like its a pass fail class, Grades everything this way: 100%, 50%, or 0%, 55% is a C-, more than half of the class is currently failing. He is a teacher that never took a teaching class. The subject is hard to begin with, but the way he teaches it compounds the difficulty. STAY AWAY AT ALL COST!

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: CS267
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Overall a good learning experience, he is straight forward, humble, full of enthusiasm, knowledgeable and crystal clear grading policy.

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: CS185C
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

The material was very interesting and he was good at explaining it. However, instead of being an Android/iOS/HTML5 course he really should have chosen one subject. Tests you on what you can memorize from an extremely broad range of problems across all three languages, which is ridiculously daunting. Took this class for enrichment; wish I hadn't.

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: CS286
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

One of the good professors at SJSU CS dept. All his courses are worth every penny. Very helpful and has very good knowledge of subjects he handles. Very humble, non-biased , Creative and fun loving person.

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: CS185C
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Best teacher ever at SJSU CS or Engineering. About the only other decent one is Mark Stamp. Actually explains things well and doesn't leave you wondering what you are supposed to be learning or doing.