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Birdsong, Charles

Cumulative GPA: 2.22/4.00 with 36 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 2.36
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 1.86

Mechanical Engineering Department, Cal Poly, SLO
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ME 422 Senior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 5:38 pm, Apr 9, 2013 Report Evaluation		Average professor. Tests were fair, the final was hard. I got 4 A's this quarter and then a C in Controls so don't underestimate this class like I did. The lab takes a lot of time. I spend more time working on lab reports than studying for the tests and doing home work.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 8:35 am, Aug 2, 2011 Report Evaluation		Dynamics is a super hard class to begin with so when you think you are getting a good teacher because of the Polyratings and you actually get a terrible one, that doesn't help. Birdsong gave SO much work. We had to watch online examples, take online quizzes, read the book, do homework, take in class quizzes and do a project! The project was lame because he switched our groups after we had started working together so we had to work with totally different people that he assigned. We had 5 quizzes and he dropped the lowest one. I went in to office hours a few times but whenever i would ask a question he would just say to think about it and not point me in any direction to answer my question. He just seemed kind of cocky in office hours and in class just assumed that everyone knew what he was talking about already. In class he would click through the powerpoint slides super fast and not give too deep of an explanation for any of the concepts. He would give an introduction and then have us try to solve the problems on the worksheets we were supposed to print out. I did not feel prepared for the final AT ALL but thankfully there was a very good curve which fortunately helped me pass the class. I would not recommend Birdsong for Dynamics but it looks like none of the other people teaching are any better. Rossman is one teacher that doesn't do projects so that would help you out with the time commitment immensely.

ME 212 Senior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 12:48 pm, Jun 29, 2011 Report Evaluation		Birdsong uses an "active" learning strategy for his class. This means he expects you to have read the book when you show up to class and will have you solving problems for the majority of class time instead of him lecturing. It's different but I honestly thought I did well with that style of teaching. In general, his class did better than the other teacher's classes on the common final. He does expect a lot of work. I think that's the nature of ME212. Homework due every class, biweekly quizzes, and a project that spanned the whole quarter. As long as you stay on top of the workload it's totally doable.

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 5:46 pm, Apr 8, 2011 Report Evaluation		I really liked Birdsong. For most of the quarter. I felt like he kinda dropped the ball part way through and stopped being as thorough and great at explaining things & seemed to loose a bit of his patience. Other people say he's sort of rude one on one. Overall, I learned a lot in his class and was glad that he kept bringing in visuals and had interesting assignments for us. He's not helpful in OH if you go in and try and get him to give you all the answers. People complain about that a lot and I think they're being babies. Every time I went in for help (which was fairly often), he was extremely helpful because I came in with very specific questions. I didn't hand him 10 pages of code and go "what's wrong?" If you go in and say "I think something's wrong with this part of the code because a, b, c... but I'm not sure... Do you have any suggestions?" He'll actually LOOK at your code and try and help you out. If you have conceptual questions and want to check your methods he's a little less helpful, he tries to lead you through it without just telling you and giving it away, which can be frustrating if you're super lost. His tests were fair, there's just not a whole lot of time to sit there and humm and errr about what to do. I suggest taking him if you want to learn a lot. I also suggest study groups and taking the class with friends. It helps a lot. We also spent looots of time on labs etc.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 3:10 am, Mar 16, 2011 Report Evaluation		Dynamics is a hard course. Birdsong reused all of Professor Self's work, which was actually really helpful. The way he designed the class was that homework is due at each lecture and before going to lecture, you're required to take an online reading quiz as part of the homework, look over the lecture slides (recordings on PowerPoint that Prof. Self had made to show his students how to do problems), determine the givens and finds of a handout that usually had 2 in class problems that you would solve during class, and of course read the book for section to be covered that class. Each week Birdsong assigned a project for you and your group to do and although it's not necessarily hard, it does require a lot of time input. What's nice about them is that you use dynamics in real life situations. It's true that sometimes in class he doesn't have time to finish the in-class problems from his handouts and he just writes the formulas to use and the answer you should get. He's not an intimidating professor so I frequently came to office hours for help. He gives surveys during the course to see how his students are doing in the class. He actually decided to make the online quizzes optional since his students didn't like them, and he made the group projects due every two weeks rather than every week when his students voted that the projects seem pointless. I'm glad I took Birdsong because the final ended up being a lot easier than what people hyped it up to be. For classes like dynamics with a common final, I think you should take the professor that prepares you the most and Birdsong did a good job of that.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: N/A Required (Support) 6:30 pm, Mar 5, 2011 Report Evaluation		Birdsong has to be one of the worst teachers at Cal Poly! His quizzes are like nothing you have seen in class or homework! He almost never finishes a single example in class or if he does it's only because he skipped explaining it, especially the hard parts. His lectures never prepare you for the homework, which takes a long time and is due every class period. He spends the majority of his time in lecture explaining what he's going to cover and showing pointless Youtube clips. DO NOT TAKE BIRDSONG!! ...unless you enjoy teaching yourself!

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 9:15 pm, Apr 14, 2010 Report Evaluation		I\'m 3 weeks into the quarter, and I hate this man. He doesn\'t even attempt to explain MatLab. Fuck you, Charles Birdsong.



ME 422 Senior Grade Earned: F Required (Major) 7:20 pm, Jan 8, 2010 Report Evaluation		Professor Birdsong did not give students the tools to learn the necessary material for this course. His lecture covered the basics and he expects his students to spend inordinate amounts of time outside of class learning the material on their own. Normally I would be fine with this method, but he doesn\'t use the same methods that are in the book so there are no chances to see extra examples unless you want to learn a different method. BUT, if you do that and take your homework to his office hours he will say \"that is not the method I went over in class. You should consult your notes.\" Very frustrating. Do not take this class with this professor unless you are willing to make it your #1 priority and spend 20 hours a week outside of class doing the labs and homework.

ME 422 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 10:56 pm, May 21, 2009 Report Evaluation		Birdsong was a great prof, definitely did a good job covering all the material. Controls is a pretty abstract course, and many times it seems too in depth to be at all meaningful, but birdsong did a great job of talking about the practical side of everything. Wiley Plus really sucks for homework, it can turn a half hour assignment into 3 hrs, but it feels great when you finally get around 5/10!!! (i wish i was joking). Take this guy, i'm not sure why some people don't like him, i think they just don't like the subject and would rather be doing HVAC (boring). and going to his office hours a couple times deff made me appreciate him a little more. His long hair really bugged me (down to the shoulders) but he finally chopped it. anyways, birdsong did a good job of teaching controls and i would definitely like to take a graduate level controls class by him someday. controls is the future for all mechanical systems so try to get the most out of this class!

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 11:13 pm, Mar 17, 2009 Report Evaluation		I gotta say, Birdsong does a great job at teaching dynamics during the lecture. I felt I learned a lot, and he really wants us to get involved. Sure, it's a ridiculously hard subject and he expects a lot of us, but he does his best to convey the subject matter. Now that aside, the lab part of the class is just ridiculous. The labs take way too long, and he doesn't teach us much. Aside from a brief mess of code scribbled on the board, there's not much help. He definitely is helpful in office hours, but a bit condescending. Overall I'd say if you're willing to do the work, you'll definitely learn a lot from him.

ME 236 Senior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 10:57 am, Mar 2, 2009 Report Evaluation		This guy genuinely doesn't care if his students do well or not. He likes making Matlab assignments that take a ridiculous amount of time to do. Dynamics is hard enough for there to be a final Matlab project continue to the end of the quarter. Take someone else unless you like turning in a bunch of homework and lab projects that take forever.

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 7:20 pm, Feb 9, 2009 Report Evaluation		Birdsong is a decent dynamics professor, but a horrible Matlab professor.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: N/A Required (Support) 12:07 am, Mar 26, 2008 Report Evaluation		Charles Birdsong was very organized when it came to lecturing dynamics. He was definitely better than my statics professor (Ramesh Shah). His lecture notes were very helpful and the quizzes and final were very similar to homework. He grades based on 5 x 10% quizzes, 15% homework, 35% final. As you probably know, you have to put A LOT of time into this class. I recommend taking him for dynamics.



ME 422 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 11:53 pm, Jul 14, 2007 Report Evaluation		Controls is not for me. Birdsong makes the class way more involved than it should be and throws excessive, boring, and difficult work at the students. I don't think he understood at all how much time and effort the students had to waste on his class. I'm glad it's over and am disappointed that I spent so much time on a topic I have no interest in.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: C Required (Support) 12:09 am, Mar 29, 2007 Report Evaluation		Birdsong was a pretty good dynamics prof. He grades pretty hard the first couple quizes (sig figs), but after that it's not as bad. Dynamics is hard no matter what. Do the homework and you'll be fine. I'd recommend Birdsong.

ME 326 Senior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 1:00 pm, Mar 30, 2006 Report Evaluation		Birdsong is not a very good professor. He does not give many examples, and the ones he does are VERY incomplete. His exams do not accurately represent what is covered through the class. For example, in this class 3D kinematics is the main topic. During the exam in which that topic was covered, it only made up 25% of the test with two random topics that were not covered substantially taking up 50% of that exam. Don't take him.

ME 422 Senior Grade Earned: A Elective 9:04 am, Sep 27, 2005 Report Evaluation		controls isn't that hard and i thougth birdsong did a descent job teaching it. i found his lectures to be structured and easy to follow. just do all the homework (1-3 hours per class) and pay attention in class. and if you really want to do well in the class you can read the book for once because it's actually intelligible. the labs are long and can be difficult if you don't know what you're doing, which was most people. but its not like you have to get every part of every lab right to get full or most of the credit. As long as you can explain what went wrong intelligently, or even just bs because i don't think he reads half of the labs. just make them look long and neat and he will probably brush through most of it.

ME 422 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 3:10 pm, Aug 31, 2005 Report Evaluation		I'm warning you, do NOT take this professor because he tends to make the topic harder than it really is!! He confuses the hell out of every student. There's too much hw , which he does not prepare you for! The exams are too difficult and beyond the scope of the class and his lectures. He is a bad teacher because he can not teach. He is helpful in office hours and is willing to answer all your questions, but the line to see him is very long b/c so many students need help since he confuses w/ his bad lectures. This class takes up all of your time. I wish I had a different teacher! Matlab is tough, he is not helpful with the labs either. they are long and tedious.

ME 422 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 2:40 pm, Jun 25, 2005 Report Evaluation		Ya know, when it comes down to it, Chuck isn't all that bad, and controls isn't all that hard. Yah, I got a C+, but thats just because I didn't study very hard for the final like I should have. I've heard from plenty of people that he's not very helpful in office hours, but I never went myself so who knows. Just keep up with the homework, go to class and pay attention, and you'll do fine.



ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 3:10 pm, Mar 17, 2005 Report Evaluation		Birdsong is alright. He doesn't do that many examples, but he grades pretty easily (lots of partial credit). My biggest beef with him, is that he doesn't post his homework solutions. He's not the best, but he's not the worst either.

ME 422 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 11:23 pm, Jun 18, 2004 Report Evaluation		Birdsong is an awful teacher. He can not lecture without his notes right in front of him. He has shut the door on myself and numerous others when trying to ask "quick" questions when he is in his office at an unscheduled office hour. He is the worst teacher i have had in the time i spent at Cal Poly. Get somebody else if you want to learn

ME 326 Senior Grade Earned: F Required (Major) 4:29 pm, Apr 14, 2004 Report Evaluation		This teacher sucks. Birdsong is not able to explain anything and does not give any clear instructions for the Matlab Lab. By the way. Do never tell him how much you hate this program or you gonna fail(it is 20% of the final grade). The homework is way too much I think, but the midterms and final are not too difficult, not too easy. I would never ever take him again. I am foreign exchange student and he never helped me with my problems, not in class, not in his office hour. I guess there are better teacher you should take.

ME 326 Senior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 5:58 pm, Dec 22, 2003 Report Evaluation		Birdsong's lectures are pretty clear, and I feel his tests are relatively fair, but the lab portion blows. It is worth 20% of your grade, and you end up spending hours and hours outside of class. The LEAST he could do is explain exactly what he wants and give the students some idea of how to do it. But he does not. Often, he will "clear up" some of the requirements less than a week before the assignment is due, meaning that if you tried to be a good student and do the work ahead of time, you might have to re-do it. This happened to me on the first sim, and I got screwed; I was well above average on the midterms, final, and homework, but I still received a C+ due to poor lab scores. I hear Klisch is pretty tough for this class, too, and chances are you will have either him or Birdsong here, so there's no real way around it. From what I've hear I would recommend Birdsong over Klisch (his labs seem easier, but the tests sound much tougher), but prepare to bend over for the lab portion of the class, and whatever you do, DON'T TRY TO DO IT EARLY!

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 11:52 am, Dec 17, 2003 Report Evaluation		There are a few problems with this course that I feel are worth mentioning on polyratings. For those of you who don't know, you will be taking a MATLAB portion to the course in which you have to simulate problems using the computer(usually 2 reports per quarter). This part of the course was horribly taught and horribly organized. You get one hour per week to work on the simulations with the instructor which is about enough time to get lost. Count on visiting office hours for the simulation quite a bit and use the class' knowledge to learn MATLAB simulations. I really think they need to make MATLAB a three hour lab- but that's just me. Birdsong is actually pretty damn good for lectures. I felt like they were both entertaining and also informative. Sometimes they get a little slow- but overall they were very good lectures. Birdsong's tests are also pretty reasonable. He dishes out partial credit if you know what your doing. Sometimes he didn't know the answer to a question in lecture - but he took the time the next day to relook it. He does lecture straight from notes and is a little less spontaneous than other professors. The final was really well written and did a good job of testing us on intermediate dynamics. The homework grader isn't bad either- you get half the credit for just attempting the problems. This is my second time having hime(first for 212) and I really think he will come around to be an even better professor in the future.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 5:55 pm, Jul 22, 2003 Report Evaluation		Professor Birdsong is hands down probably the best teacher you could take for dynamics. He is extremely organized and gives plenty of examples so that homework isn't impossible. As others have mentioned, his tests are extremely fair and he's more than generous when awarding points. I got a B in Statics and was therefore terrified about taking this class. However, because he's always able and willing to answer questions, I really didn't have too hard a time in this class. Bottom line is that I would highly recommend to anyone to take Birdsong for dynamics.



ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 7:16 pm, Jun 25, 2003 Report Evaluation		Birdsong was a pretty decent instructor. I'd say the hardest part about this course is the common final exam. It is MUCH harder than the statics final exam. The average in our class was about 53%. Don't expect to pass the class if you have a mid range C or lower going into the final. I had an 86% going into the final. I got a 70% on the final and I ended up with a B in the class. I had a raw score(without the final being curved) of about 80%- so he didn't curve the final a great deal. Birdsong had 5 quizzes(each worth 10%), homework(20%) and the final(30%). He was very good with partial credit. If you knew what you were doing conceptually on problems, you got almost full credit. The homework grader wasn't a bitch either- I got perfects on all but one assignment. His lectures are a bit dry(derivations and such) but the problems he does in class help quite a bit. I think he was a decent instructor and I'd be willing to take him again.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 2:13 pm, Jun 24, 2003 Report Evaluation		Birdsong knows what he is talking about but lacks the experience to convey the information. The class grading was fair, as mentioned below, and he was GREAT with partial credit. I also felt that I understood the material quite well (if you don't then try harder). Homework was due once a week and while it was tough, it was also fair and not excessive. Understand the homework and you should do fine on the quizzes, or at least get a ton of partial credit. The final was difficult, as can be expected for a dynamics common final, and my class average was a 53%. He curved in the end though, because people definitely did better than they thought they would. He will tell you that he won't curve but he will; no worries. As for office hours, he plans on moving down here soon and will be more accessible. I only went once but from what I hear he is ok in office hours. He will improve with experience and someday will be a very good professor. I would recommend him.

ME 212 Junior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 2:44 pm, Jun 22, 2003 Report Evaluation		I'm not sure if this is the same Birdsong that I took from looking at the other evals because I thought he was one of the best ME teachers I've taken. He gives 5 quizzes throughout the quarter worth a total 50% of your grade. Homework is graded fairly easily and worth 2 quizes (20%) and the remaining 30% is for the final. Overall, I couldn't ask for a better grading system. His quizzes were not easy but definitely do-able. The final was very tough but that's not to be put on Birdsong since its a common final. I am highly impressed that this was only his second quarter here. I hope Poly keeps him around and I would highly recommend taking him.

ME 212 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 1:40 pm, May 20, 2003 Report Evaluation		Well lets start with how dry his personallity is!! It's like taking to some one who thinks they know everything and just gives you a complicated answer which makes no sense to confuse you even more. First of all he lives in SAN JOSE, nuff said he's crazy. So since he lives in san jose and teaches twice a week... he must have 2 days in which hes spends alot of time in his office .. Wrong.. He only has about 3 hours combined over the 2 days.. and if you have class during his office hours.. well, thats your fault. On the first day he said that there were no midterms only quizzes every other week, sounds great right.. well these quizzes are just called quizzes however they are just an excuse for a midterm everyother week, since they are 100 points and they take an hour. I would not recomend him if you want and good understanding of dynamics.

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 9:27 am, Apr 14, 2003 Report Evaluation		Dr. Birdsong has a rather dry personality so he can be hard to talk to in office hours. He assigns a decent amount of homework that is relevant to the course. His tests are fair and very reasonable if you have been paying attention to example problems in class and doing your homework. The labs for the class were definitely the worst part, very time consuming and confusing. If you work with other students you should be able to figure them out though, and apparently the computer program you use will be useful in future ME classes. Overall, Birdsong's class was decent, not too exciting, but decent.

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 11:44 pm, Apr 10, 2003 Report Evaluation		This is not any easy class any way you look at it. Professor Birdsong did an okay job of teaching it for his first quarter teaching. Be aware, the tests are long, he will definately not help you do the homework, he expects you to know Matlab in and out. I wish less emphasis was placed on the computer program and instead more was placed on intermediate dynamics. Professor Birdsong never strayed from his notes and tended to lecture to the chalkboard at times. He is a smart person and I am sure with a little more experience he can become a better lecturer.



ME 326 Senior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 7:46 pm, Apr 10, 2003 Report Evaluation		This was the worst teacher I have had here at Cal Poly. He expects you to be a computer programming expert upon entering the class, which means you'll have to learn the Simulink program in Matlab on your own. But don't worry that will only take about 50 hours total throughout the quarter. I thought he had a large ego, because he always smiled when I went to his office hours to ask him questions about the homwork problems. Furthermore, he never wanted to tell me the answer to the problems, eventhough I had spent a lot of time working on them before coming to his office hours. I would definitely agree with the previous two negative comments about Birdsong (I have no idea what the others were talking about-they probably sit in front of their computers all night playing dungeons and dragons over the internet). My main problem with his teaching was that he overemphasized Simulink instead of teaching the fundamentals of Dynamics. If you enjoy sitting in front of a computer all day, and want to avoid learning Dynamics, then I would recommend Birdsong. If not, then definitely get a different professor. By the way, this is the first review I have made of a professor in my four years here, and I am not a slacker as seen by the grade I earned.

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 5:36 pm, Apr 10, 2003 Report Evaluation		Birdsong did a good job getting the information across. It seemed he left the students hanging when it came to the simulation assignments though. Maybe a better Matlab book would have helped. He didn't give enough example problems to support the equations and lecture also either, so you'll have to use the book more than you would like. But he still did a great job of conveying all the information and responds to questions in detail. I would suggest him for intermediate dynamics.

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 9:07 am, Apr 10, 2003 Report Evaluation		Dr. Birdsong made it very clear that teaching was not his first priority. He was virtually no help in office hours and would often make no attempt to even explain the problems. I managed to do quite well in the class but I had to put in way more work than I felt was nessicary. Overall, I was turned off by his bad attitued that seemed to make it very clear that his students were not as important as his side projects.

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 9:47 pm, Apr 8, 2003 Report Evaluation		Prof. Birdsong took a very difficult course and made it real. There was a load of work to do for the course, but to tell you the truth, I learned more in this course than in five other courses I've taken recently. The coolest (and hardest) part of the course was that we actually simulated real problems. It's about time we start applying all this knowledge we've worked so hard to learn over the last 10 years!

ME 326 Senior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 1:46 pm, Feb 21, 2003 Report Evaluation		This is Dr. Birdsong's first quarter, so were all trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but its not really helping. He is not very clear on material and makes littel effort to help clarify difficulties. He is almost completely useless in office hours, if you can ever get in to see him past the huge lines. The lab portion should take you about 12 hours each, and there are four parts. Also, the first midterm could not be completed in the time alloted, the average was farily low, but no word on a curve yet.

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