Polyratings.com: Murray, William

Home Professor Search Professor List Evaluate a Professor About Us Contact Us

Murray, William

Cumulative GPA: 3.21/4.00 with 19 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 3.11
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 3.16

Mechanical Engineering Department, Cal Poly, SLO
Full Statistical Analysis
Evaluate This Professor

ME 506 Graduate Student Grade Earned: A Elective 5:52 pm, May 10, 2011 Report Evaluation		This prof is solid. He is a great guy to talk with and has a gnarly Texas accent. He lectures super fast which can be annoying but manageable. He expects you not to be a dumbass which most people are when they complain about teachers being hard for ME212 (Dynamics). ME 506 is a really boring but easy class and he makes it tolerable.

ME 305 Senior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 8:00 pm, Apr 10, 2011 Report Evaluation		Before you read on, beware that this class will require about 30 hours in the lab per week. I am not exaggerating. Murray was a teacher who connected well to his students. He understood that we were putting lots of time into his class, and I think that commanded some of his respect. At first, mechatronics is exceedingly hard to grasp--terms seem to get tossed around in the first few weeks without really being explained concretely. Thankfully, things become a lot more clear in the lab. It took me until about the fourth week in lab to truly become comfortable compiling code and using the debugger, and from then on, the class was a huge time commitment, but not "difficult," perse. Don't believe that 305 will be like robotics. It's purely programming in assembly, which is extremely nitty-gritty--a very low-level language. Over the quarter, we programmed a system that flashed two pairs of LEDs at speeds defined by a keypad/LCD screen interface, a function generator, and a proportional-plus-integral motor controller. If this sounds like your cup of tea, take the class. If it doesn't, you will probably suffer for ten weeks. Whichever type of person you are, you can expect Murray to be a friend and a valuable resource throughout the quarter. He won't answer your questions directly, but he'll always send you the right direction. You will learn an amazing amount. So the bottom line is this class is a HUGE time commitment, but also extremely rewarding. Are you up for the challenge?

ME 305 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Support) 10:17 pm, Dec 2, 2010 Report Evaluation		Dr. Murray knows his stuff. Lecture is complete and he is very receptive to questions - he\'s not afraid to step through any sort of question. Lab is where this class is. Prepare to live in the lab! But Dr. Murray is, frankly, cool in lab. He is willing to spend a ton of time helping you through the labs and making sure you understand the material. I spent a lot of time on the weekends working on the lab and he has been there too grading, but also helping when necessary. Overall, Dr. Murray is a great professor - one of the best in ME. Very dedicated and generally cool with the students. He keeps the atmosphere casual and likes to joke around. Mechatronics ruins your life though, just be prepared. Only take this class if you want to take ME405 and further. The time you spend isn\'t wasted though, you\'ll learn a ton. Just consider your workload. And if you choose to take this class, prepare for a lot of coffee and a lot of time in prison...i mean room 116.

ME 506 Graduate Student Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 1:51 pm, Jul 21, 2010 Report Evaluation		He goes over the material quickly. Excellent office hours. Stay on top of the homework. The hardest part of this class is the dbag TA (t>0).

ME 212 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 1:09 pm, Feb 20, 2010 Report Evaluation		I took this professor for dynamics. He is really good at lecturing and does an excellent job in preparing you for the common final. He gives six 30 minute final exam caliber quizzes throught the quarter each woth 10% of the overall grade and best of all no midterms. The quizzes really help you set a pace for the final where you are given 5 problems for 2.5 hours. You do need to spend at least 5 hours per week working on homework and if you have questions definitely go to office hours, he is really helpful.

ME 305 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 5:53 pm, Apr 27, 2009 Report Evaluation		Murray is one of the best professors here, he knows his stuff and spends a long time figuring out how to best lecture on it so that you learn it quickly. His office hours are also very helpful, he can usually understand exactly why you are having a problem and can explain very clearly how to fix it.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 10:38 pm, Mar 28, 2007 Report Evaluation		This guy is an excellent professor. He was enthusiastic about teaching dynamics, gave very clear lecturers with lots of helpful tips, and was always very helpful at office hours. His grading was kind of different in that there were 6 quizes, HW, and then the fianl, no big midterms. He gave 30 minutes for each quize, but they were final level questions. His main focus was mainly to prepare students for the fianl. The HW wasn't worth many points, but success in the class definitely depended on doing all of it. Dynamics was a class were all of the new material builds on the old stuff, so you definitely don't wan't to fall behind. All in all, Murray was an excellent teacher and I would definitely recomend taking him.



ME 212 Senior Grade Earned: D Required (Support) 3:35 pm, Mar 26, 2007 Report Evaluation		Murray takes time getting used to. He tells you straight up that dynamics is a difficult course and is. The first lectures are uninteresting because he just derives and doesnt go over examples. but after all the coordinate frames, you realize that it actually helped. he likes to joke around how the quizzes were easy (but they obviously werent) and the quizzes actually helped for the final. his office hours are mostly "what would you do?" kindof this and you end up doing it yourself. overall he can help you alot.

ME 212 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 5:55 pm, Sep 27, 2006 Report Evaluation		Dr. Murray is definitely one of the better ME professors. He cares about his students and goes out of his way to help you succeed. He does lots of examples and gives you a very good idea of what to expect when it comes time for the common final. He is a fair and sometimes easy grader, if he sees that you understand the concepts and made a good effort to solve the problem in your quizzes you will get the majority of the points. Lots of homework, but it's worth doing.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: D Required (Support) 8:13 am, Aug 15, 2006 Report Evaluation		One of the absolute worst teachers I've ever had in my entire life. He completely lacks any ability to teach at all, whatsoever. In all of my other classes, I get low A's or high B's, but in this one, I just did horrible, but I'm definitely not a bad student. His quizzes are absolutely absurd. In class, he'll give only the most basic single equation/example, and then on his quizzes come up with something harder than any problem he's assigned, and when no one gets it, he stares at the class like they're a bunch of lazy idiots. This is no exaggeration. He wasted entire lecture periods berating us for how stupid we are. Excuse me, but when you give a quiz to nearly a hundred students one time and one person out of all of them gets the right answer, or sometimes even none, I believe that shows a serious problem with the professor. Only take Murray if you intend on taking ME 212 a second time.

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 9:07 am, Jul 13, 2006 Report Evaluation		Ok, first thing for any dynamics class... DO NOT USE THE SOLUTIONS. It seems impossible without them but if you use them you are just killing your grade/understanding of the material. This is a really important class especially if you are an ME so definitely put in the time. The class has 6 "mini-quizes" that are basically ridiculous. There were two easy ones where the class average was good (23ish/30) and rest had averages of like 16/30. Murray does a pretty good job of making the lecture clear, but never does he give you enough information to even have a prayer of doing the homework. That is why you need to decide early on whether you are going to be a office hour user or a solutions manual user, its just too hard to do it on your own. You only learn the material by doing the homework (which is due every day and takes at least 3 hours an assignment). He gives extra dynamics clinics and there are always 4-5 people at his office. He really is kinda of useless a lot of the time in office hours, he expects you to know exactly what is going on because it is so easy for him. Most of the help I got was from other students waiting outside his office with me. Overall, the class sucks and I worked harder for a C than any A I've gotten, but Murray will help you learn the material if you put in the time.

ME 212 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 11:58 am, Mar 28, 2004 Report Evaluation		Great Professor. I enjoyed going to his lectures, easy to follow and yet challenging. He emphasises understanding the concepts and setting up the problems rather than just "crunching" it til you get an answer. He offers "dynamics clinics" which are very helpful 2hs workshops. It was a fun class. Quizzes are challenging, though dont stress too much about its grading, since it is drastically curved... I thought I wasn't passing the class and ended up with a B. Id certainly take this instructor again. :)

ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 7:08 pm, Mar 24, 2004 Report Evaluation		It's a tought class. No one's arguing that. Given, that, I'd say Murray did about as good of a job as anyone could do. There's a lot of equations, and not a lot of time, and it got frustrating when he wouldn't do any examples. But he did more at the end. I actually like the 6 quizzes and no midterms. They're tough, but it kept me studying constantly. just realize that you need to study a lot, and that it's a tough class, and you shouldn't do too bad. Murray wasn't bad at all. And it's about damn time a teacher ragged on the girls more than the guys. It makes me all fuzzy feeling inside...



ME 212 Sophomore Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 11:41 am, Mar 24, 2004 Report Evaluation		Murray really is a good prof. He really knows his stuff and is always willing to help during office hours, however he is very tough. His "mini quizes" are HARD. He really expects you to know the material inside and out after doing the homework, but he dose give a lot of help. He also had 2 hour study sessions outside of class to help before the quizes and final. He is hard, but good.

ME 212 Junior Grade Earned: C Required (Support) 3:11 pm, Feb 19, 2004 Report Evaluation		Good guy. 50% of grade is based on 6 "mini-quizes" 35% on the final and 15 % on homework. quizes are tough but not that bad.

ME 405 5th Year Senior Grade Earned: A Elective 2:54 am, Apr 23, 2003 Report Evaluation		Dr Murray is a good guy. He can be cocky at times, and condescending, which makes his classes challenging if you're the least bit behind. He's not the best at teaching the material, but he knows his stuff, so if you make a healthy effort and do the reading before class, and learn stuff from the lab assistants, you'll do ok. The course is fast paced, and the lab is pretty independent. He doesn't hold your hand through the labs, which is good. You'll need all the independence you can get so you'll spend less time in the lab scratching your head in the wee hours of the a.m. for the last two weeks. I'd pick him over Y.C. YC is easier, but you don't learn crap, and it'd be a waste of your time because you won't learn much.

ME 326 Junior Grade Earned: B Required (Major) 12:47 pm, Jun 26, 2002 Report Evaluation		This guy really knows his Dynamics and in my opinion communicates his knowledge of Dynamics very well to his students. He would always bring in a physical example or show us with his hands to help us understand a concept. Being the type of person that has to see it to understand it this really helped me understand the concept. I would have had an A had he not stumped me on a few problems on the final. He does get a little worked up at times and can get a bit short when students ask lots of questions but you can always tell that he really wants his students to learn. Hwk is due twice a week on Tuesday and Fridays, giving you your weekend and the load is not bad AT ALL for being a 300 level class. I almost did more hwk in 212. You also do a few Matlab simualations. He was pretty helpful for getting them working correctly. Beware though, most of your points come from a nice report so don't think that just because your simulation runs you'll get lots of credit. You'll need lots of graph, appendices, descriptions, etc. ME 326 is a difficult class. If Murray is teaching it, I'd highly recommend taking him. You'll definitely learn the material well.

ME 326 Senior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 6:50 pm, Jun 19, 2002 Report Evaluation		Dr Murray expects you to put forth the effort to learn the material. If you show him that you are making an effort, he will go out of his way to help you. If he can sense that you are trying to slide by, he can be kinda tuff to deal with. The midterms were not hard, but they are difficult to do in 50 minutes. If you show improvement throughout the quarter, he will reward you with a non-linear adjustment of your grade.

ME 422 Senior Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 12:17 am, Jun 17, 2002 Report Evaluation		Bill Murray is perhaps the smartest ME teacher at the school. That said, I've got some mixed feeling about the man. He definately has some room to grow as a professor and is not good for every class he teaches. I have had Dr. Murray for several courses: 1) ME 326 Intermediate Dynamics - Murray did an excellent job in this class. Actually seemed to be prepared (most of the time he seems like he throws something together in the half hour right before class.) He loves the subject and was very good in office hours. This is a fun class and Dr. Murray has quite alot of experience with mechanism design. 2) ME 405 Mechatronics - Murray knows his mech stuff too. He practically has a BS in EE. He did a pretty good job for this class. Not as good as 326. He seemed quite poorly prepared for everything. I would take him over Y.C. though. Excellent course. You learn quite a bit. (Note to the mech people out there: take ME 405 and THEN take EE/CPE 336. good combo. don't bother with the light weight IME class unless you are looking for an easy A) 3) ME 422 Mechanical Control Systems - Horrible. Do not take Murray for controls unless you like teaching yourself. He sucked. He rehashed the reading to us, complete with overheads from the book. Instructor provided no additional insight beyond what the book provided. Tests were fair but were time crunchers. I would take Dr. Owen for this course if you have the choice. However, don't avoid Murray. If you put in the effort you can hack it. A few other things you should know about Murray... Don't ask him stupid questions. If you ask him stupid questions (or sometimes any questions in class) he will be very condescending and will make you feel stupid. Take the time to actually do the reading BEFORE class and if you are having difficulty with the homework, make sure you have actually read and put in some effort before office hours. Otherwise, expect to get blown off. When he is lecturing, you sometimes feel like he would rather be somewhere else and he quite often delivers his lectures with a condescending tone. Regardless, the man knows alot, has alot to offer, and has alot to learn about teaching but is fairly decent.

	Home Go Back Professor List Professor Search