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Funston-Timms, Benjamin

Cumulative GPA: 3.74/4.00 with 27 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 3.67
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 3.67

Social Sciences Department, Cal Poly, SLO
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GEOG 150 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 11:44 pm, Apr 17, 2013 Report Evaluation		I had professor Timms for a four hour lecture on Fridays, and it wasn't absolutely dreadful! Geography is kinda all over the board, so there will probably be some lectures that are more enjoyable to you than others, but overall Timms' throws in a lot of cool stories and pictures to make the information more interesting. Also, it may sound weird, but he has a great lecturing voice. Its just easy to listen to during a lecture, and he loves what he is talking about so it makes it a pretty pleasant class overall.

SOC 150 Junior Grade Earned: C General Ed 3:29 am, Mar 25, 2013 Report Evaluation		He's a great teacher, but my humble recommendation is to avoid his 4 hour lecture.... its a little much. He's 90% lecture based with the rest being random definitions from the book. If you have a short attention span, don't even bother with the 4 hour class. Its rough.

GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: A General Ed 7:29 pm, Apr 2, 2012 Report Evaluation		Timms is great. Lectures are not as boring as i thought they'd be. His grading is fair. Class is based on 2 midterms and final. Everything is straight from lecture, with a few questions from the book, and a little memorizing maps. I do recommend.

GEOG 150 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 9:37 am, Apr 2, 2012 Report Evaluation		This guy is so cool, really kind, go into office hours because he'll help you out. Highly recommended

GEOG 150 Sophomore Grade Earned: B General Ed 3:38 pm, Mar 13, 2012 Report Evaluation		Timms is a great teacher. Geography can be a boring subject but he keeps it interesting and makes it bearable to go to class. He gives you a study guide for each test that clearly outlines what you should study so getting decent grades on the tests is not hard. I would definitely recommend taking him

GEOG 150 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 11:25 am, Mar 13, 2012 Report Evaluation		If you pass up the opportunity to take this guy, youre blowing it. i have zero interest in geography but this class was super interesting and relatively easy. your grade is compromised of 3 2 midterms 30% and a 40% final, but he takes a lot of questions off the first two midterms for the final. easy grader, gives out EC opportunities and is a great, knowledgable and understanding teacher. He lived in Jamaica for a little too and always refers to his travels and has super cool, interesting stories that interlude his lectures. TAKE HIM

GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: A General Ed 9:07 pm, Dec 20, 2011 Report Evaluation		This class is pretty straight forward. If you pay attention in class and do the study guide you can get a solid B in the class. If you put in the time and read you can get an easy A. He grades pretty easy on the essay questions and the final has alot of questions from the midterms. Timms is a great guy too. He is pretty young and interacts with the students well. He rounded my 89 up to an A, so no complaints there.



GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: B General Ed 7:51 pm, Mar 3, 2011 Report Evaluation		I loved professor Timms!! He does a great job of making the class interesting and applicable. He clearly loves teaching and is well educated and experienced. He started off the first day of class blasting Bob Marley. He gives you study guides for the exams and they're not too bad. Keep up on the reading and it will be easy. He's a down to earth, understanding, and knowledgable professor. I would definitely take another class by him.

GEOG 150 Junior Grade Earned: A General Ed 1:15 pm, Feb 3, 2011 Report Evaluation		Dr. Timms is hella sick. I could not think of a better person to knock out a GE that you're not that interested in with. Clearly knowledgeable, very helpful, intelligent. Dr. Timms is one of those few, few professors that you learn so much from with such little work. I have learned more in this class than all my other classes this quarter and put in the least amount of work. Grade is just 1 fair midterm and a final. Mostly multiple choice, one essay that he grades easy, so don't fret too much about the essay. Cultural Geography isn't that interesting to me, but Timms made it easy and super quick to learn. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

GEOG 150 Sophomore Grade Earned: A General Ed 7:18 am, Nov 29, 2010 Report Evaluation		Timms is the man. My favorite class taken at Poly so far. I completely recommended taking him. Two midterms and a final, multiple choice. All the material is straight forward and presented in power points and the reading.

GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 2:26 am, May 19, 2010 Report Evaluation		By far my favorite teacher for my freshman year. He knew the material very well and knew how to teach it. He was able to spice up the lectures and make them interesting. He used Google Earth a lot to show students where current events were occurring. I definitely enjoyed this class. And there were 2 midterms and a final which were pretty fair-game. I definitely recommend this class.

GEOG 250 Sophomore Grade Earned: A General Ed 4:12 pm, Apr 21, 2010 Report Evaluation		Professor Timms was a great instructor. His test were fair if you actually read the material and take notes in class. His experiences that he brings in to the course are very interesting. He makes the topic interesting and did a good job.

GEOG 150 Senior Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 1:15 am, Mar 17, 2010 Report Evaluation		Awesome guy! He\'s very down to earth. Always responds to e-mails quickly. The lectures are interesting and actually fun to listen to. We got to watch a bunch of movies. A++ would take again



GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 10:29 pm, Mar 1, 2010 Report Evaluation		He\'s funny and a fair-grading professor. His class was always interesting and the tests were definitely doable. There\'s 2 midterms and a final, and that\'s pretty much it. If you do the readings and go to class, you should get a good grade because the material makes sense and he makes it even easier to understand. Also, he adds cool tidbits just for shits and giggles about Jamaica and his Peace Porps adventures, which are usually tight. Take this class!

GEOG 150 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 2:50 pm, Feb 1, 2010 Report Evaluation		Timms is awesome! Not only is the content presented fascinating but also the professor himself - Timms really enjoys cultural geography and can relate to his students as he\'s younger than the average teacher. Professor Timms has travelled to many interesting places and sometimes shows the class some of his work and pictures. Fortunately, this class is pretty laid back - there\'s not much homework at all and if there is it\'s either for studying for one of the multiple choice tests, reading the book (I didn\'t even buy the book but that\'s probably not the best choice to make), or writing, say, a single page essay for an extra credit opportunity - and that\'s pretty much it! There were a few worthwhile \"video\" days where we\'d watch entire 40 minute documentaries - those are the type of lectures I\'m sure many of us like! If you want an easy class with little if any homework, yet at the same time highly interesting lectures - take Timms! I had him in the morning and it was always a pleasant class to help me wake up!

GEOG 370 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 5:19 pm, Jun 8, 2009 Report Evaluation		Class is interesting. I learned a lot. Make sure you do the reading. I always did the readings, but sometimes still did not get an A on the reading quizes. Two tests, three papers, and 4 quizes. Great class. Dr. Timms is a good professor.

GEOG 328 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 7:49 pm, Apr 28, 2009 Report Evaluation		This class was awesome, I was nervous about a technical class like remote sensing but Dr. Timms made it MUCH easier to understand and fun. I actually like remote sensing now, and might even try to get a job doing it. Seriously cool class.

GEOG 150 Senior Grade Earned: B General Ed 11:54 am, Apr 22, 2009 Report Evaluation		What a top notch/down to earth person and professor. He was very thorough and it really helps if you ask questions, if you're still not 'getting it'. Very accessible (office hours and arranging appts.), compared to other profs in this Dept. Class was fun and really made me open my eyes to the world. Thank you Prof. Timms!

GEOG 150 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 9:21 am, Apr 9, 2009 Report Evaluation		This class and Dr. Timms were great, I learned a lot about the world and challenged some of my own views in the process! The tests are a bit hard, and you should read the text. Lecture notes are on blackboard before class and help alot. Overall a great class, I'd recommend this class and Dr. Timms.



GEOG 150 Senior Grade Earned: A General Ed 11:17 am, Mar 19, 2009 Report Evaluation		Timms was pretty good. Yes, he read directly from his PowerPoints. Then again, the majority of his midterm multiple choice questions were on the slides. He also hints at one or two of the "essay" (and I use the word "essay" very lightly) questions in class by saying "That would make a pretty solid question on the test". If you show up, pay attention, and attempt to read the book (looking for key terms and ideas outlined on his MT and Final review sheets) you'll do well. How well? Let's put it this way. He has two MTs and the final is the same format as the MTs (~60 multiple choice and 2 out of 3 essays). To do well on the essays, you need to breeze over the chapters--they're long, but that's not his fault. The multiple choice is pretty easy if you read over the notes and at least gloss over the chapters. In fact, he used the same question (regarding why Denmark makes a great example of a nation state) on both midterms (and the final . . . although he replaced "Denmark" with "France"). The final was easy too. He tells you that it's 50/50 from the previous MTs and new material. That's a professional way of saying "50% of the MC questions on the final will be taken verbatim (or damn near verbatim) from the previous MTs. This is why he strongly advises you to study during the review day. He changed two things for the recycled questions: the order in which they appear and the correct "letter" (i.e. on MT the right answer was "c", whereas the final has the correct answer as "a"). That's it. He even puts a few obviously incorrect answers on the tests. For example, when he asked what a "footloose industry" is, one option was "A movie where Kevin Bacon dances a lot" and another was "A movie where the soundtrack was written by Kenny Loggins". So, in a way, he tries his best to inject humor into the class. If I had to recommend a course to take concurrently with this, it would be HIST 207 with Wilson. A few of the topics (especially regarding land distribution and demographic transitions) came up in both classes. Of course, the topics don't match up perfectly, and there are only a few cases where this happens . . . but when it did happen, it was pretty cool. Timms is legit.

GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: C General Ed 4:57 pm, Mar 17, 2009 Report Evaluation		Timms is terrible! I am not a C student and i got a C in this class. He reads directly off powerpoint and doesn't go into any detail. you dont even really have to go to class because he puts the lectures on blackboard. dont bother going to office hours he doesn't help and expect to see stuff on tests you have never seen before.... if you like getting tested on stuff you've never seen then take this class. otherwise take SOC 110 for the GE its way better.

GEOG 308 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 9:40 pm, May 31, 2008 Report Evaluation		Dr. Timms is a really great guy and professor. He is new to teaching so he still has some things to work on, but I felt that he was very professional, organized, and interesting to learn from. He has a lot of field experience and has some fun stories from his travels and time in the Peace Corps. There was some hw assigned, kind of busy work, but it was really easy and a good way to rack up points in his class. He shows videos that are relevant to the topic of his powerpoints that i thought relayed the information really well.

GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: B General Ed 3:18 pm, Mar 20, 2008 Report Evaluation		go to class and take notes or print them out online. tests cover most the material so studying is required. book will help so i would buy it. some of the questions on tests are not in notes or our too speciific for notes so know the book as well. he's a really nice guy, easy to talk to. highly reccomend this as a GE b/c it's easy and not stressful

SOC 370 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 11:14 am, Feb 13, 2008 Report Evaluation		Great professor, superior knowledge on the subject, made classes interesting and I learned alot.

GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 2:28 pm, Jun 1, 2007 Report Evaluation		I really really enjoyed the Cultural Geography class I took with Timms. He's great! Pretty much everything you will need to know is from the lecture notes. I printed them out everyday on blackboard and brought them to class. The book isn't really needed. I didn't read at all...only used the book for a reference sometimes. He also gives you a study guide to use for each test, which is great. 2 midterms, 1 final, about 45 multiple choice and 4 or 5 short answer very interesting! He was in the peace corp for a while in Jamaica. Interesting stories! This class was one of the main reasons i switched from business to social science...



GEOG 150 Freshman Grade Earned: B General Ed 7:12 pm, May 15, 2006 Report Evaluation		The professor has first hand knowledge about the material presented in this class, so he knows what he's talking about. Plus he uses alot of videos to present info in class. Overall one of the best professors I have ever had outside of my department.

GEOG 300 Senior Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 1:51 pm, Dec 20, 2005 Report Evaluation		Timms is a horrible professor. You ask him a question and he does not know the answer. He doesn't have full comprehension of the topic that he is teaching. The work load was overly demanding for an Upper Division GE/elective. He does not recognize student difficulties and should not be allowed to teach this course until he takes it himself.

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