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Rice, Thomas

Cumulative GPA: 3.44/4.00 with 39 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 3.49
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 3.28

Soil Science Department, Cal Poly, SLO
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SS 121 Freshman Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 6:28 pm, Mar 26, 2013 Report Evaluation		His class was pretty straight forward the entire quarter. study for quizzes and tests but beware his final brought me down a letter grade, B to C. study extra hard for it. Nice guy though, he mention wine a lot.

SS 121 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 11:24 pm, Mar 21, 2013 Report Evaluation		Coolest teacher in soil science ever! I don't know any teacher on campus that gives you "Review" questions and then give you almost the exact same test with about 10 different questions that the review packet. Easiest way to pass soil science! Memorize the questions and your pretty much set!

SS 121 Freshman Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 3:51 pm, May 6, 2012 Report Evaluation		I really liked this class even though its about soils. Rice understands that not everyone is super interested in soil so he makes it possible to do well. There are take home quizzes and the tests are 70% of the practice questions he gives us. He is pretty funny and is always chewing gum

SS 121 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 7:25 am, Mar 3, 2012 Report Evaluation		Rice uses study questions before each exam that helped me do better on the midterms. Without these questions, I probably would get a C/D in this hard course. Take him for lab and lecture, cuz he covers some lab questions in lecture. Overall, made a hard course more interesting with examples from real life.

SS 321 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 6:16 am, Feb 18, 2011 Report Evaluation		Rice gives extra credit for never missing class and it helped to raise my grade one letter. We had a fun trip to Swanton and saw many new soils in the field. Overall, soil morph is an awesome class with lots of soil pit work and real world applications of soils. Take Rice and have fun getting dirty outside!

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 6:08 pm, Sep 23, 2010 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice shared many interesting personal stories that kept this morning class interesting. Soils was told to be one of the hardest class but he did a good job of keeping it informative and current to agriculture and environmental issues. Get his lab and lecture in the same quarter so your lab questions are answered in lecture.

SS 431 Senior Grade Earned: A Elective 11:57 am, Sep 18, 2010 Report Evaluation		This course is awesome! We mapped the soils on vineyards near Santa Margarita and produced a professional report which we presented to the land owner on the last day of class. Then, we did wine tasting from the grapes grown near our soils study site. Overall, an interesting & very practical hands-on course that will help with my future profession in viticulture and soils.



SS 121 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 9:55 am, Jun 11, 2010 Report Evaluation		his lectures were completely pointless, and he ended up furloughing/cancelling a ton of them anyways. all you need to do to pass is memorize the exam questions he gives you before the midterms/finals and you\'ll do fine. those are literally the questions he puts on the tests. there are usually no questions other than those.. maybe a few. very easy course.

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 4:52 pm, Apr 7, 2010 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice lectured on interesting things, such as practical applications of soil science to agriculture and engineering. However, he didn\'t lecture too much on material being covered on the exams. You will have to learn much of the exam material on your own from the textbook and handouts. I liked the course overall and it provided excellent practical information.

SS 121 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 10:35 am, Apr 2, 2010 Report Evaluation		great teacher who kept me semi interested in a field i don\'t really care about. he has been here for 29 years and some say he hasn\'t changed his tests but he doesn\'t need to because they are ridiculously tough. he gives a pretty nice curve though. overall the class had too much info to cover in the ten weeks of the quarter

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: C Required (Support) 3:14 pm, Aug 19, 2009 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice shared many interesting personal anecdotes that helped keep the class interesting at 8:00 a.m. Soils is a hard class but he did a good job of keeping it informative and current to agriculture and environmental land use issues. Be sure to get his lab and lecture together to get your lab questions answered during lecture time.

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 10:36 am, Aug 23, 2008 Report Evaluation		I liked the real world examples that Dr. Rice used...it maintained my interest. It would have been nice for him to spend more time on some topics but there was just so much material and there just wasn't time. I liked the course overall because it sparked my interest in soil which I never thought about before. I find myself driving now and looking at the land to try to figure out what caused it to form...That's somehting I never thought I would find myself doing.

SS 121 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 3:26 pm, Apr 2, 2008 Report Evaluation		He is a good teacher the problem is what is on the slides is tough to translate to the tests he gives you all of the test problems before and you have to get 50 out of three hundred so if you can get the fiftey you are set but he is a very nice guy and i would recomend him!!!



SS 433 Graduate Student Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 7:08 am, Mar 17, 2008 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice presented many real world land use examples related to earth sciences. We had two field trips and many labs relevant to local land use issues. This is a great course for anyone interested in working for an environmental consulting company or public agency.

SS 121 Senior Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 9:16 am, Dec 13, 2007 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is a great lecture instructor, who helps relate soils information to practical world examples. My interest in soil science related to viticulture was definitely increased after taking this course. He gives examples of all the test questions on Blackboard and if you study them, you're guaranteed to get at least a B grade. Take Rice for lecture if you want to learn more about soils and real land use examples. It's good to take him for both lecture and lab since he helps answer the lab calculations and questions during the lecture.

SS 321 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 10:55 pm, Dec 12, 2007 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is much better at teaching lab than lecture. Plan on being bored to tears, or super confused during lectures. However, he does make you draw out the soil layers on the board, which is actually very helpful. His answers to questions can be circular and convoluted , and he tends to grade rather strictly on certain features. Know how to tax soils for the tests! Lab is not bad AT ALL. It's in groups, which makes things so much less stressful as long as you all work hard and make good lab books. Definitely take Rice for this class if you can. Lectures are pretty useless, but you have to make every single one of them in order to get the 5% bonus at the end of the quarter, which you will absolutely want for your grade. He is a very caring person, and although the syllabus will scare you into thinking otherwise, he really is somewhat of a softy. His grading is subjective unfortunately. We turned in the same papers and all got different grades. So watch out for that.

SS 431 Senior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 11:18 pm, Jul 13, 2007 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice taught us how to map soils and use the soils information for some practical work in vineyards and in professional consulting work. This class is awesome and you get to do wine tasting and "Taste the Soil!" Class should be required for all viticulture students.

SS 121 Freshman Grade Earned: C General Ed 9:52 pm, Apr 19, 2007 Report Evaluation		Professor Rice is a very well prepared instructor, i had him for both lab and lecture. He was great for lab, he didn't have us mess around with stuff we didn't need to know. But for lecture he gives you a lot of details and specifics that are not on the test, granted they are interesting and do help you understand the material, but it is not pertinent to the test.

SS 433 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 10:16 am, Apr 6, 2007 Report Evaluation		I learned a lot in this class. I feel that some of the fundamentals should be covered in mroe detail and with some examples to gain a better understanding. The projects made me apply what we learned in class. I think that this course is very practical for environmental scientists and planners. The grading by Dr. Rice could be more lenient on topics that are not entirely clear at first.



SS 121 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 10:08 am, Apr 2, 2007 Report Evaluation		I really think Dr. Rice is a great teacher. I heard that this class is hard and i was nervous about taking it. But he was really helpful in making the class fully understood the subjects that we were going over. The subject matter was not one of my favorites, but it was more interesting than I thought it would be. The lectures and labs from Rice really helped me understand the concepts.

SS 121 Senior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Support) 10:31 am, Mar 8, 2007 Report Evaluation		Best soils prof., for sure. He posts all the study questions for the exams on Blackboard and even answers them in review sessions in lecture. Keeps the lab and lecture materials together, so it's easy to answer the lab exercises. Take Rice and you won't be sorry!

SS 321 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 10:33 am, Feb 27, 2007 Report Evaluation		The field labs and hands-on experience was great! Dr. Rice covered many soils and land use issues with specific examples that he worked on in the past. He did a great job of describing the solutions to these problems & gave us some good advice for future consulting jobs. I recommend this class to anyone interested in environmental consulting work. A+.

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Support) 10:46 am, Feb 26, 2007 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is an awesome professor. I would recommend everyone take him for lecture. He posts test review questions on blackboard that help a lot for studying. i was a bit scared before taking this course becuz so many others told me it was hard. The class is demanding due to all the new materials, but Rice make it enjoyable.

SS 101 Sophomore Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 2:12 pm, Feb 21, 2007 Report Evaluation		The worst professor I have ever had, he is a creepy man, watch out ladies

SS 121 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 4:11 pm, Jun 5, 2006 Report Evaluation		I would have to say Dr. Rice has been the best professor I have had a Cal Poly. Always was willing to help and always had a smile on his face. You could tell he was very interested in the topics he was teaching. The amount of knowledge he has is nothing short of amazing. I have never met someone who nows something about so many things. There is no doubt in my mind that you could ask him any question and he would be able to answer it...whether it be soil science or something off the wall. Highly recommended.



SS 121 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 10:40 am, Apr 4, 2006 Report Evaluation		Dr. T. Rice was very well informed. Obviously he has been involved with soil science in industry and he did do well to parlay his knowledge into the classroom. His lecture and lab material was challenging and his reviews were helpfull before ht exams. He stimulated me to research the subject of soils further. A+

SS 433 Senior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 10:29 pm, Mar 25, 2006 Report Evaluation		The course material is just busy work I really didnt learn much. Even when asking Dr. Rice for help he spoke above me. I even ask another soil science professor to explain some of the course material seeing that Dr. Rice didnt help me any. Dr. Rice is an okay guy but I actually think he may have favorites in class. But hey...your welcome to take the class it's all just busy work you dont learn much.

SS 121 Senior Grade Earned: A General Ed 11:20 am, Mar 15, 2006 Report Evaluation		Wow.. too easy. He hands you the answers to each test and even the final! I'm suprised that many people didn't do very well. But, I guess if you set your heart on hating Soil Science and don't study... then that's what you get. This class was very interesting. I don't know why people dread Soil Science -- you shouldn't if you take this guy. People, just study!

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 6:43 am, Dec 22, 2005 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is a very effective teacher. He used a variety of resources to help attain course info. Study questions on Blackboard were extremely helpful b/c it forced you to read the textbook very closely. Posting the test answers later on BB was helpful instead of wasting time in class like other instructors do. Take him for 121 lecture and lab; you won't be sorry!

SS 321 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 4:58 am, Dec 20, 2005 Report Evaluation		Rice did a great job in this morphology field lab. We learned how to describe soils and get practical knowledge about how to classifiy and describe soils. I really got turned on by soils! He is quite personable and very effective in teaching a complex subject. He cared a lot about the students progress.

SS 121 Sophomore Grade Earned: C Required (Support) 4:44 pm, Jun 20, 2005 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is an awesome professor. I would recommend everyone to take him for lecture. Be sure to take him for lab at the same time since he connects Ss 121 lecture and lab information. Before taking the course I was a bit scared b/c I heard from other students that is was hard. this class is highly demanding, but enjoyable.



SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 11:58 pm, Jun 14, 2005 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice's lectures were done mainly on Powerpoint and he covers the textbook material along with some of his own soils slides. He provided practice exams thru Blackboard and then discusses the answers in a review session before each exam. I was able to learn a lot of new stuff about soils as it relates to ag. and engineering. I liked Dr. Rice as a soils lecturer and recommend that you have him for lab too.

SS 121 Senior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 2:17 pm, Jun 11, 2005 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is a great lab instructor. The field trips were very informative and helped me understand the material. His quizzes are fairer than most other professors and cover the previous lab info. I liked his reference to practical matters as it relates to soils concepts. Take Dr. Rice for lab if you can get into his section.

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 10:48 am, May 25, 2005 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice tries to help the students understand the material by providing sample test questions on Blackboard. The questions are hard, but you can find the answers in the textbook reading. He is a fair grader, but you have to study to earn a grade higher than C. Overall, I enjoyed his lecture course.

SS 121 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: A Elective 9:56 pm, Feb 17, 2005 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is the most boring, obnoxious human being on the face of the earth. His "lectures" involved speaking about all the diagrams, tables, graphs, etc in the chapters, which he put into a powerpoint presentation. He does provide sample exams before the midterms, but refuses to answer questions on what the answers are to those exams. He says the exams will be on certain chapters, but the sample/practice exam will have questions from other chapters, or from material not yet learned. Those questions will be fair game on the test, so if he says the test is on Chapters 1 and 2, but you see a question relating to chapter 9, you better read chapter 9 too. The only way you can pass the exams and this class is by reading the textbook. Beware of Dr. Rice because he TALKS more than anyone I have ever met.

SS 121 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 1:53 pm, Jan 27, 2003 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice was well informed on all subject matter related to this course. He was able to relate many topics to personal & everyday experiences keeping myself interested and engaged. His availability outside of class is superb & he would stay until the end of lab helping you with nay questions so you could complete the lab. I think it's a great course with lots of fun stuff to learn. Dr. Rice was a great SS 121 lab instructor.

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 5:16 pm, Jan 9, 2003 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is an excellent lab instructor who explained all the procedures before lab and went over the quizzes after they were completed. If you want to do well on the lab quizzes, study the objectives at the beginning of each lab. Overall, he is one of the best instructors I've taken at Cal Poly.



SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 10:51 am, Jan 6, 2003 Report Evaluation		Rice clearly knows his subject but cannot teach worth a shit. He is more of a PR man than a professor. He loves to toot his horn about the projects he has done all over the country (see his webpage). Sure it's impressive, but if he is so good at all that why isn't he out there mapping soil in Utah and not being the shit-ass prof that he is. My advice: Avoid this asshole at all costs!!!

SS 121 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 3:51 pm, Apr 4, 2002 Report Evaluation		Dr. Rice is one of those teachers that you have an advantage if you are a female. He likes to get up close and personal with the female students. Therefore, I chose to go to my lecture instructor for help. His quizzes are hard but they can be passed with an A. Just read the prelab from the week before several times. He is a good teacher and he knows his stuff. I recommend him..

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