Bell, Thomas  

This was his first quarter, so I am sure he will improve over time. In general, he is unorganized and very ambiguous in his lectures, assignments, and especially any type of write up. The only problem people had in this class were what he meant by his project/quiz/test questions. They made absolutely no sense. Luckily he used a lot of Mealy's material, which did make sense, and got us through the course.

This guy doesn't know the material. He's impatient with students and sometimes he even ridicules them. His quizzes tests are inconsistent and hard to study for; they vary wildly in difficulty and content. He was unhelpful during office hours. The final was an absolute joke, the last question was so off base that the exam turned into a *group* project more or less, with clusters of students trying to figure out what it was even trying to ask. I came into the final with an A and somehow got a B in the course, probably because of his ridiculous final. I dislike this professor quite a lot. He only avoids a total F because he tried to be creative with the class project he asssigned.

The only reason I passed the course was because every once and awhile he would mention Mealy had some handouts that covered what he would be "lecturing" on. Lecture seemed to consist of random examples, no real main topic or idea was ever given. All tests were far far too long, average class score on many quizs and assignments were below 50%. Overall, seemed to be a half hearted attempt at running a class. Hopefully this was a learning quarter for him, and hopefully he did. I don't think I learned anything concrete, I got an A in the laboratory so I understand the concepts but a C in the class (and not through lack of effort).

horrible. can't teach, can't test, and can't grade either. the only reason he almost has a 1 for his polyrating is because some people don't have the heart to give him all 0's

I believe that Bell is getting better at teaching this material because I've heard horror stories from people taking him before me, but I did not find him that bad. The first half of the class was pretty easy - a lot of review from 129, and I felt that he taught it fairly well. But the second half of the course, which was all of the new material, was taught in a quite mundane manner. Most of the lecture days, he just showed slides after slides of material that was pretty hard to follow. Luckily, he posts Bryan Mealy's lecture notes on Blackboard, so things were cleared up there. If you have to take Bell - it's not all that bad. Just read Mealy's notes, and do the problems of interest that are all posted online. Most (but not all) of his quizzes and tests were pretty fair and he can tend to be a harsh grader at times. Lastly, the final was super hard! Good luck if you have to take him!

This guy cannot teach. All he does is misinterpret Mealy's notes. In addition, this fool can't even do TRUTH tables yet he's supposed to be teaching upper division VHDL. What a dippy. I love you. Amen. Take Mealy. Please.

Although Bell taught the class, I felt like I learned more from Mealy than Bell. Mealy's lecture notes were a lot more understandable than Bell's. He never seemed confident with his work and would compare your work to the books or in lab, ask a TA to help you instead. I think the TA helped more than he did, too.

Just don't take this guy, especially if your an EE. He seems to know a lot about the material but he really has no idea how to teach it. Avoid this guy at all costs. Cal Poly is supposed to have a great CPE Dept but this guy sure does not contribute to that "greatness". Just crash another prof's class. You'll be doing yourself a favor.

Bell's eccentric testing method will leave you confused throughout the entire quarter. Half the time it's reasonable, but at other times it is very questionable. Your entire grade is based on three quizzes (5% each), two midterms (25% each), and a final (35%). No homework or assignments are collected. Before each quiz or test, Bell will give the class a good idea on what kind of questions are going to be on the test so you will know what to study. However, the hints he gives you will not be sample questions or anything specific like that. Instead it will be general statements like, "Sequence Detectors, timing diagrams, and PicoBlaze will be on the quiz." During lecture, makes sure you copy down everything he writes on the board because most of his test questions will look similar to the examples in class. The POI (Points of Interest) that he posts on blackboard are good study references so do all of those at home. However, Bell will always put one or two questions on the tests that you have never even seen before. Of course, these questions are going to be worth the most points on the test. Thus, you and your entire class will be constantly getting up to ask the professor what the question is asking, but eventually you will just give up and scribble some random answer and pray for as much partial credit as possible. Due to these types of questions, the class average is going to be in the low 60's, and when he curves the class at the end you had before hope that you are above average. Remember that your entire grade is based solely on tests so there is no grade buffer from assignments or homeworks that you can fall back on. The grade that you receive at the end probably won't reflect how much you've actually learned in the course because you'll be studying hard in constant fear of failing the class, but that's how things are going to be if you decide to take him. It's not impossible. Just remember that he can't fail everybody in the class. tl;dr 1) Study a lot out of class 2) Ace the easy stuff on his tests 3) Don't worry too much about the hard questions on his tests -- you're NOT going to figure it out through some stroke of genius-ness or dumb luck 4) Stay above the curve... do this by referring to steps 1-2 5) Pass and never look back

Bell was an ok professor. He was very helpful during office hours. During lab you usually had to goto him with your questions; he usually won't check on your group's progess. Sometimes it is hard to figure his explainations out. Often you have to think for a few seconds about what he told you before you can figure the meaning out. For the lab be sure to study hard for the lab final as it is worth 35% of your lab grade. You can do all the labs on your own before lab which is highly suggested as they are sometimes hard. For lecture study the notes on BB and the uncollected homework assignments. Not having homework required hurts your final grade and knowledge of the subject.

O dear god this was the worst teacher i have ever had. The quizzes looked nothing like homework. He doesn't seem to know the material very well at all. He FORGOT WHEN OUT FINAL WAS. HE DIDN'T SHOW UP TILL WE CALLED HIM FROM THE ROOM. HE WAS AN HOUR LATE AND NEITHER GAVE US EXTRA TIME OR REDUCED THE NUMBER OF QUESTIONS. There is no reason you should take him at all. You can wait a quarter because the material in the class is really interesting but Bell is just so bad.

Thank goodness we had a lab TA who knew what he was doing, because obviously Bell didn't know what he was doing! He *NEVER* answered any questions we had or helped us on any of our problems... Once, we waved him over and all he did was say "Hmmm...", then leave!!! He is NOT encouraging to his students... When our program wasn't working because of a hardware fluke, he told us it was our junky code...but when we moved to another station, sure enough it worked! He wouldn't believe us when we told him it worked and showed him... HE had to test it himself!!! He's also rude and arrogant. Also, his lab final asks about a bunch of acronyms no one really pays attention to... Shouldn't he test us on important things like how to program in VHDL or assembly, which is what the whole lab is supposed to be about?!!! Thankfully, I got an A in his class only because by chance I happened to glance over the acronyms before the final and managed to remember what they stood for... Lame professor.

Professor Bell was a really nice guy, he just didn't have a clue as to what was going on. Everytime we had a problem, either he just called the TA over to see if anything was wrong, or he got out his answer key and started comparing each line of code to see if ours matched up. My partner and I didn't get the labs working for most of the quarter, we just typed up a random report and took off.

Bell has probably gotten used to doing all of these labs for a few quarters now, so I feel like he has improved from the evaluations before this. My partner and I rarely had to ask for help because we met outside of lab time and worked on the labs ahead of time. We only fixed kinks out during lab time. Of those times we asked for help, he was able to answer most of them. There were nine labs to do, all of which were made up by Mealy, and one lab final that was pretty hard and counted for 35% of your grade. He was not too picky about lab writeups, and had a grader score them for him each week, so it depends on how picky the grader was, but not him. The labs were pretty easy, so having a better professor (Mealy) for it will not matter as much.

Bell was an alright instructor for the lab, since he could help out with a lot of the problems and even helped students finish the labs the next day. However, he left the grading to a student grader that took off points for many things. Sometimes, Bell would say we would not need one thing, but the grader would take off points for not having it. My lab partner and I were able to complete 7 out of the ten labs early, but could never get a decent grade on the lab reports. It would be better if Bell graded the lab reports himself

I'm the mentioned "TA" from the lab of this class. Bell....tried. He tells me he's putting in a grade change, because the C+ I received was due to his losing one of my assignments. If you end up stuck in his class (instead of (Bryan) Mealy, who is awesome), make sure to print out all of Bryan's lecture notes. Categorize them in a binder, and know the folder well enough to use them on the tests. It is my personal opinion Bell would like to be a good professor. However, to achieve that end, he must realize that "the good ol' days" of engineering are long since past. In the end, Bell grades low, on material he can't teach, doesn't know, and likely wishes would go away.

I'm not sure why Bell has such a bad polyrating currently...may it's because of the labs he's taught. For lecture however, I greatly appreciated his instruction. Classes were clear, not too hard to follow, and well organized. Bell explained things clearly and answered all of my questions. His tests did take a while to complete but they were not too hard and he even let us rework some of the problems on one of the more challenging exams for extra credit. The final class project was a lot of fun and very interesting. So, in my book Bell deserves a good rating for his lecture class. I would definitely take another lecture class from him.

I had Bell for cpe 329. He did not teach the material very well, but it honestly isnt his fault. This isnt his area of expertise. He was almost forced to teach it because no one else would. He would go to the other lectures and rehash what they said at our lectures, and did the best he could. He was open andflexible so I have to give him some credit. He has tons of industry experience, but does lack somewhat in the academic setting. Overall I would say take him if you have to, or if you dont really want to learn the material, otherwise take someone else. Last thing our final was a common final with all the other sections and Bell didnt write the test, so be prepared for that...

you won't learn much in lecture, but the labs force you to learn the material. the tests are really hard to study for, and his questions are pretty abstract, so be prepared to get a bad grade on the midterm and final. he curves like crazy though, so chances are you'll pass the class. in lecture he just goes over the power point slides - it's one of those classes.

he sure does like his women, wet!!