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Fernflores, Francisco

Cumulative GPA: 2.67/4.00 with 9 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 2.78
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 2.67

Philosophy Department, Cal Poly, SLO
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PHIL 230 Freshman Grade Earned: N/A General Ed 5:48 pm, Jun 5, 2013 Report Evaluation		Fernflores is boringgggg. The material seems manageable but then the test makes no sense. I would take him CREDIT/NO CREDIT ONLY! otherwise avoid!

PHIL 230 Junior Grade Earned: C General Ed 7:23 pm, Dec 11, 2012 Report Evaluation		First of all, it was very hard for me to stay awake in this class. For some reason a two hour lecture with this guy was not possible for me. The material for this class doesn't seem hard and the way professor fernflores presents it is very easy to understand. He is a cool guy willing to help when you are stuck on certain topics. The midterms weren't extremely hard but they weren't very easy neither. In the large lecture class the test are multiple choice but he words the questions in a way that may confuse you.

PHIL 230 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 3:26 pm, Nov 27, 2012 Report Evaluation		Professor Francisco delivers the material clearly and distinctly. He writes notes in class as he talks about each point, and doesn't use boring power-point slides. Initially I was dreading signing up for this class because of how hard people say it is, although it can indeed get difficult, with the the guidance of Francisco it is an absolute breeze. He is very polite and helpful and holds office hours which I recommend you go if you have any question at all. Just don't expect him to give you the whole lecture again if you missed it. The class consists of 3 exams. Each exam is for a different philosopher, a Plato exam(1/3 of total grade), a Descartes exam(1/3 of total grade), and a Hume exam(1/3 of total grade). None of the exams are cumulative and are all multiple choice. They can get really tricky if you don't understand the material because all the answers sound exactly the same. With him writing all the notes needed to study for exams, you might be tempted to just slack and not pay attention, but I found that taking my own notes (based on what he says and not writes on the notes) helped me master the material. All the the notes he types in class he posts on PolyLearn. This is by far the best GE I have taken at Cal Poly so far and I HIGHLY recommend Francisco. NOTE: The class I took was a lecture with about 120 students thus the exams were multiple choice, however if you take it in summer or a section with less students, I heard there are writing assignments and short answer exams instead of multiple choice, so keep that in mind.

PHIL 230 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 3:21 pm, Dec 14, 2011 Report Evaluation		This teacher is kind of Hypocritical in the fact that he encourages you to critically analyze the questions in his tests, but if you go off about how you DO NOT agree with one of the philosophers, no matter how valid the statement, he will give you a lower grade than if you would have agreed. That being said, he did convey the material in a clear matter....and as long as you agree with him on your essays you'll be fine. If you want an A, either get a tattoo of Descartes on your chest, or make sure you ask a lot of relevant questions, and go to office hrs.

PHIL 230 Junior Grade Earned: A General Ed 9:46 am, Dec 13, 2011 Report Evaluation		Okay I'm going to be very clear with my thought process with this professor throughout the quarter. I am a science major and generally learn things in black and white. This does not fit with philosophy. So, I found the lectures tedious and boring. On the first test, I knew the material and was accurate in my answers, but he nit-picked my wording and I got a 76. I was not pleased. So, on the second test, I really focused on learning the correct wording and writing in very complete sentences, and I got an 88. Third test I got a 99, and on the final I got a 91. On every test he pretty much gave us the questions before hand. They were either off of the reading study questions he gives you or he will email you what the questions will be about. Definitely take good notes during lecture and focus on being able to answer the study questions. Definitely not my favorite class, but Fernflores is a nice guy with good intentions. He won't screw you over. Thought I was going to get a C at the beginning of the quarter, ended up with a 89, and he gave me an A-. So, stick with it and you'll be rewarded.

PHIL 230 Junior Grade Earned: B General Ed 7:19 pm, Oct 27, 2011 Report Evaluation		Awful class. I was actually looking forward to this class since I thought that it would be a class where students can actually think about the outlook on life rather than just living through it. Wrong. All Fernflores does is talk for 2 hours (while rarely stopping to allow questions to be asked), then give you 4 in-class essays to write throughout the quarter(worth 25% each). And the way he grades, he'll give you an A only if you repeat the things he says, even on questions where it asks YOU to critically analyze one of the philosopher's analogy on something. You can't branch out your thought process whatsoever from what he says. This is just like any other math class where you have to memorize the material, then copy from your memory. The class is not insightful at all. Even if a prompt gives you a choice to question Socrates, Descartes, Hume, etc., do NOT do it, because chances are, he won't give a shit about what you think. Just agree with Fernflores' interpretation of those philosophers, put on some seasoning around your words, and you got yourself an A. I just didn't know about this until after the first midterm (hence my overall grade).

PHIL 230 Sophomore Grade Earned: A General Ed 2:47 pm, Aug 24, 2011 Report Evaluation		His tests gave you curve balls sometimes that he didn't cover in class but overall this class is cake if you even mildly pay attention. I went into the second midterm having accidentally overdosed on benadryll, I had mad poison oak, so basically I was high as a kite and I still managed an A on it. Even if you skip a lot of class, read the text and his outlines online you'll still manage a C at worst I'd say.



PHIL 230 Sophomore Grade Earned: B General Ed 7:32 pm, May 21, 2011 Report Evaluation		Fernflores could not teach this class in a more clear way. It is super straight forward and he is really helpful when asking questions. He types the notes in class as he is teaching and then post the notes online. He also recorded his lectures meaning you could miss a class or two and just listen to his voice and read his notes. I personally thought he was a great teacher making a probably very boring subject quite interesting. I only got a B as i did shitty on his first test. I would recommend this guy.

PHIL 321 Junior Grade Earned: A General Ed 9:16 am, Dec 15, 2009 Report Evaluation		Excellent instructor. I was dreading taking a writing intensive philosophy class but professor Fernflores presented the material in a clear, interesting way. He got so into the lectures that it was hard to not get excited about what he was talking about. He is a pretty easy grader too. He doesn\'t seem to care if you are good at proper essay formats and all that; he just cares if you know the material and can present it in a clear way.

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