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Rating for Daniel Biezad
Aerospace Engineering Department at Cal Poly, SLO

AERO 320
Junior
Grade Earned: A
Required (Major)
11:06 am, Mar 26, 2009

If you're an AERO, you have no choice but to take this guy. He may be retiring soon though, because I've heard rumors about Meheil teaching controls next year. Either way, you're just as fucked. This class will blow you out of the water. The material will make literally no sense. My friends and I would look at each other in lecture and just go 'what the fuck is this guy talking about?' Biezad lectures at a level that is too advanced for a fundamentals class. I know he has to teach us the material, but there has to be a better way. He just shits a bunch of senseless garbage on the whiteboard and conversely, we just shit it on some paper and stick it in a binder. There is very little understanding of the material while you're in class. Usually it takes a couple weeks before you understand what you were given two weeks ago. The labs will be incredibly hard to complete on your own - you need you work in your group, and you need to utilize office hours. That's all there is to say about that. The tests are arguably one of the worst parts of this course. Biezad's tests are impossibly long for the 50 minutes we are allotted. He does allow open book and open notes, so that's kind of nice. The book doesn't help for shit, so don't spend your time rifling through it on the test. In fact, just don't even bring it. Use your class notes. The few pluses about this class: Biezad has a very generous curve. He recognizes who works hard in his class, so if you're routinely appearing in his office hours, or if he sees you in the flight sim lab pounding your head on a desk because you don't know how to do a lab, he'll remember you. It's a good thing. The curve for 320 is huge. Biezad grades on statistics and averages, so beat the average and you're golden. You may still fail a test, but if everyone failed worse than you, then you'll still get a good grade. I had a 72 after the final this quarter, and got an A- out of him. As you can see, the course material is so nonsensical and off-the-wall that someone with what is typically considered mediocre understanding pulls an A. The last plus is that Biezad has a good sense of humor. He's pretty funny, and he had the class crack up quite a few times during the quarter. He understands that controls is difficult. My partner and I were in lab one evening and he came in to see what we were up to. We remarked that we were utterly clueless about the material and we thought we failed the midterm. His response was 'I've been doing this for 30 years, and I STILL don't understand controls'. If you're taking this class next quarter I wish you luck. He doesn't fail very many people, but if you go into 420 with poor understanding, then you will fail 420. With all that said, I wish you good luck, virgin aero student. You won't be a virgin by the end of this course if ya know what I mean. ;)

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