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MacCarley, Arthur

Cumulative GPA: 2.53/4.00 with 19 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 2.42
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 2.37

Electrical Engineering Department, Cal Poly, SLO
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EE 432 Graduate Student Grade Earned: N/A Elective 6:41 pm, Dec 11, 2012 Report Evaluation		The labs were really instructive and helped to clarify many concepts which were still fuzzy from EE-302. The lab manual was very well written, and he wrote a very helpful preliminary guide, which gave some background for the lab. Unfortunately, MacCarley was just ridiculously picky - just unacceptably picky about the lab reports. The most absolutely trivial of errors earned 10% off of the lab report grade. No matter how much time my group invested in the lab reports, we always got badly knocked for something stupid. The Lecture was good - very mathematical, arguably a touch too detailed, but overall good. He talked a lot about practical considerations when implementing control systems, and he never glazed over anything. Also, if anything didn't make sense in lecture, he posted his very detailed lecture notes online for you to review as necessary. The first exam was about right in terms of difficulty, but the material on the final was easily twice as difficult as anything that was touched on in either homework, lecture, or lab. Overall - very good class. Take 432 if you are interested in controls.

EE 432 Senior Grade Earned: A Elective 4:43 pm, Jan 10, 2012 Report Evaluation		MacCarley is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, he does care about his students and the topic of controls. On the other hand, however, his lectures can be very boring as he typically simply followed through his notes (which are all online) for the entire hour. Homework was due every Monday at the start of class, then the rest of the lecture he would go over it, even if no one had any questions about it; this was almost always a waste of time. The homework was typically quite difficult and it was rare to see someone get 100% on one. There was one midterm and one final. These were challenging but fair. At times it may seem like you're not doing well in his class but there was a significant curve at the end to insure a fair distribution of grades. The high score on the first exam was an 80%, and the average was only 17/40 if I recall correctly. The topic itself is somewhat interesting (if you enjoy controls, that is) and the lab helps tie the material together. Although I said his lectures can drag on at times, I DID learn the material well. He definitely gave me better insight into classical control systems. All in all, if you're interested in controls, then his classes are worth taking.

EE 111 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 1:34 am, Mar 3, 2010 Report Evaluation		ee111 is a pointless class, its hard to say weather hes a good teacher or not because you literally do not learn a thing in the class.

EE 111 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 2:07 am, Jan 24, 2010 Report Evaluation		Don\'t be fooled. EE 111 is a pointless class in which you will learn little if anything about electrical engineering. It is more an \"Intro to College\" class with information that most people have already heard multiple times in SOAR, WOW Week, etc, etc. I\'m not the type of student that usually says this, but the homework was useless and boring. Some may say \"the structure of the class shouldn\'t be blamed on the instructor.\" Well, it should be when he created the course and is in a position to change it yet doesn\'t even though by the end of the quarter only about 20% of the people taking the class showed up to the lecture.

EE 111 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 12:54 pm, Dec 14, 2007 Report Evaluation		This was probably the most pointless class of my entire life. I don't even know how I got a B. I should have gotten an A. I think it was because when he collected homework he would have us pass it to the sides and when he returned it he would pass it around the 250 people in the lecture. 3/5 times I didnt even get my essays back which were graded by a TA who probably didnt even know what was going on. Intro to electrical engineering is a dumb class, half the quarter we learned stuff that wasnt even related to engineering.

EE 111 Freshman Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 10:26 am, Dec 14, 2007 Report Evaluation		Well, EE 111 is a fairly useless class to begin with, so i'll try and be fair to MacCarley. He relies heavily on the online blackboard. Be sure to check it every week. (I didn't and thats why I have a C). He posts Hwk assignments without announcing them. His TA graded them very harshly. Most people got 2/3 or 1/3 on the assignments, which are a good portion of your grade. The final was fairly easy.

EE 151 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 1:05 am, Oct 5, 2007 Report Evaluation		This guy was smart. The lab was two or three hours long, he spent the first hour or so going over the theory behind whatever lab we were doing at length. The labs were pretty simple for the most part, and if you needed help you could always just ask him or anyone else around you. By the end of the lab period he would pretty much walk you through the lab if you hadn't finished it. The lab reports were cake also, he graded the first two for my class and the rest he didn't grade on time so he graded in such a hurry at the end of the quarter that the grades were all fantastic because he didn't check anything thoroughly. His final was just a demo of using the stuff we used in lab, like the oscilloscope and the function generator and building a simple circuit. Easy class, nice intro, good teacher.



EE 151 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 11:39 am, Feb 20, 2007 Report Evaluation		He's a lot easier than the other EE151 professors, or so I've heard. Unlike Arakaki, it's not beyond him to cut out half of the lab or so. He was only there for like half of the class meetings so we had subs all the time. Not a hard class with him teaching it so dont sweat it. Oh, his final's a beotch but he must grade it pretty leniently since I still got an A.

EE 151 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 1:05 am, Dec 19, 2006 Report Evaluation		take maccarley .. the lab is very technical but he tries not to make it too bad. his grading is very fair

CPE 336 Graduate Student Grade Earned: C Elective 6:20 pm, Nov 27, 2006 Report Evaluation		It's been a long time since I took CPE 336 (Winter 2002), even though I didn't get a great gade in the class I thought Dr. Maccarley deserved a good word because he's been a wonderful advisor throughout my undergraduate and graduate career. He has high expectations, but he's always willing to answer questions in his office hours and he definitely knows his stuff.

EE 432 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 11:47 am, Aug 9, 2006 Report Evaluation		I will tell you upfront, MacCarley is NOT an easy teacher that will settle for partial knowledge of a subject. He will test your comprehension and make sure that you know the material for a good grade in the class. Many people don't like this approach to teaching but I can tell you for a fact that I learned more from this teacher than I have learned from almost any other teacher. He expects a lot and if you go into his class with this mindset, and work your butt off you will get a good grade. I have had him for 302 and 432 and will be taking a graduate level class from him in the fall. I highly recommend this teacher if you want to become a better engineer

EE 151 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 1:17 am, Dec 16, 2005 Report Evaluation		I had Professor MacCarley for EE 151, which is the lab portion to the first introductory course to Electrical Engineering. He spent the first hour of the lab explaining the experiment, the equipment we will be using, how to use the equipment, etc. The problem was, not all of this lecture time was necessary. I think the key reason he lectured so much is because he was not sure what we were learning in EE 111 (the lecture section of this course, taught by another professor) so he tried to cover a lot more than I think should have been covered. Like the previous evaluator, a lot of the information he presents is very technical. But you should pay attention when he demonstrates how to set up the experiment and how to use the equipment (which isn't the easiest to use). In the lab, he's very helpful. The weekly labs dive right into the material. There is no "getting your feet wet" assignment, the labs assume that you have basic knowledge of circuits. The lab instructions are not always very clear, so asking Professor MacCarley for assistance was almost necessary to complete the assignment. MacCarley helps you in a very efficient manner, first by kind of giving you a hint, but if you're still struggling, he'll pretty much guide you through it. Another good thing about the labs is that if you finish early, you can leave whenever you want. He's a very fair and lenient grader and a nice guy. I learned a fair amount of information in 151, but a lot of the material seemed over my head. But I do not fault the professor for this, as some of my friends who had other professors shared the same views. He also, as the previous evaluator mentioned, skips some sections of the lab that other classes may have to complete. I'd recommend taking MacCarley for EE 151.

EE 151 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 11:37 am, Dec 15, 2005 Report Evaluation		Let me be 100% honest here: this was the very first time this professor was teaching the intro to EE lab (EE151) and he is normally used to teaching upper division/grad students. For an intro class, he made his lectures wayyyyy too technical for our understanding, but the labs themselves were fun. MacCarley is a very lenient and fair grader, and on top of that, he lets us skip certain sections of a lab if he feels like it. Take this class with him for just the "doing" experience, but his lectures will do you no good.



EE 151 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 8:23 am, Dec 14, 2005 Report Evaluation		MacCarley is a really smart guy who thinks that everyone should be as smart as him. Im a second year but I switched to EE and it seemed to me like he was way technical for the first EE lab. The labs were easy and he grades well. Overall not a bad dude

CPE 336 Junior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 4:49 pm, Oct 21, 2005 Report Evaluation		Cal Poly must-not have!

CPE 436 Senior Grade Earned: F Required (Major) 11:37 am, Oct 21, 2005 Report Evaluation		This guy is such a dick, I will never take another class with him again!

CPE 100 Junior Grade Earned: Credit Required (Major) 8:03 pm, Dec 18, 2002 Report Evaluation		CPE 100 is a worthless course. I can somewhat understand confused freshmen coming into this course not knowing fully what a Computer Engineer does, but as a transfer student this was the biggest waste of my time. If you don't want to go to class, get a friend to sign you off.

CPE 336 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 3:13 pm, Jan 31, 2002 Report Evaluation		This guy has a very condescending attitude. He speaks in a very low, soft voice. Several students asked him to speak up, but he just looked at them and kept on speaking softly. Also, if you asked a question and it was minutely wrong, he had a tendency to make you feel stupid. I doubt he did it on purpose, but it happened nonetheless. Let's just say that while Dr. MacCarley may have excelled in academics while in college, he failed miserably at learning people skills. Having said that, the man does know his microcontrollers.

CPE 436 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: C Required (Support) 4:26 pm, Dec 14, 1999 Report Evaluation		MacCarley's biggest problem with teaching is that he blatantly ignores students who are struggling and is very much focused on the more advacnced students. He is great in his office hour; if you have him go to his office hours ( when he shows for them ) and he will breaks things down to your level. But the lecture was always over the class's head aside from like 3 students - it was insulting. His focus is not on classes. I think he does research and he owns his own business: he seems more interested in both of those entities than his class. For the last 3 weeks of our class he was rarely around for questions or lecture -we had sub's. I think if he was more interested in the dynamics of the class, he would be an outstanding teacher. He very much knows the material!

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