Bellardo, John  

Bellardo's CSC101 Class is TOUGH, DO NOT take it unless you are willing to devote a good portion of free time to finishing labs and programs. His grading scripts are automated and 100% pass or fail, everyday late you loose 33.3% so submitting a day ahead of time is strongly suggested. Some of his grading policies were beyond harsh, but after consulting with him he agreed to adapt them to better suit students. This is the kind of class if you do not put forth the effort you will FAIL. But if you go in for extra help, email him with problems, HE WILL do his best to help you out. +++ :)! Average grades for midterms are 50/100 or an F, but the class is heavily curved at the end of the quarter, if you fail both midterms but do well with programs/labs/hw you can have a very good chance of passing the class. Lab exams are a bit tough, but not impossable and origional course req. was to pass 2/3. But seeing most of his class has not fulfilled this req by the 2nd exam, he offered a fourth. All in all Bellardo is willing to adapt to suit students needs, and provide extra assistance if you need it. But you have to take the initiative and talk to him about it. And be willing to spend alot more time than you intended to get programs just right. If you are able to pass his 101, other CSC/CPE classes will come with ease.

This guy is retarded. Fails as a teacher. He expects you to know everything as he assigns programming homework that covers stuff that was not covered in lecture or is against what the book states is practical. For example: He asks you to use a SWITCH statement to process a richter scale input (DOUBLE type value) and compare it to a set of decimal ranges ranging from 0 to 10. Obviously, a SWITCH statement is not appropriate for this as the input is not an INTEGER type value as required by the SWITCH statement... In addition, it would mean a large number of cases to adequately evaluate the numerous amount of decimal numbers within the 0 to 10 range if one were to multiply the input by 100. ...Overall, this guy is a joke. PhD or not -- He\'s new to teaching and obviously does not know how to teach, most especially considering how this class taken was a novice-rank class.

I am not a big fan of this guy. In general he made no effort to give feedback or instructions for labs and programs. His lectures were not very useful for the problems the class was having as a whole and placed ZERO emphasis on actual labs and homework. I felt overwhelmed by the amount of work i had to do and the time it took. I feel that i learned the material somewhat but found it very difficult to get the programs exactly the way he wanted. If you are completely new to programming like i was be ready to put in alot of extra effort and time. in the end i do not recomend the proffesor.

While the class was easy, the process of learning to create iOS apps from scratch was absolutely painful, especially from a background with no coding or development experience at all. His lectures in the beginning were absolutely horrendous and useless, resembling an Apple fangirl excursion, but it is 123, after all, and excusable. In the end, there was just a 10 page paper and a midterm/final. He provided us with a study guide that helped with half of the final, and the rest was simple enough Objective-C coding. The paper was just on the app we made in groups of 6, so no issue at all. Professor Bellardo is extremely accompanying to office hours, though, so take advantage when you need help - it is worth it, especially in the beginning.

Professor Bellardo is a really nice person if you ask him for help. I think he recognizes that most freshman don't have little to any programming experience especially in Swift. His lectures are really boring, and most of the class goes on their computer and just surfs the web. Even though his lectures are pointless, if you ask him for help one on one, he helps you significantly and thats how you learn in the class. It was a really easy A, and it helps if you have some programming experience like I did.

I took this class last Fall. Overall, Bellardo does a great job showing you how to work in an IDE (in this case Xcode), use APIs with Xcode, and test software. While Bellardo does a good job giving you an overview of steps involved in iOS development, we learn only a small amount of syntax for Swift. This can make labs and the project a bit of a struggle and involves A LOT of trial and error (you will learn to hate the error message "SIGABRT")! There are many times during your group app project that are just beyond your knowledge and you will need to have Bellardo implement it for you (or you'll need to mimic from some obscure online tutorial). While I wish I knew more about what I was doing, it gave me good exposure to app development in general. It's a good class if you are interested in software development (duh!), integration of APIs (like maps, in-app browsers, clocks, etc.), type declaration, navigation/UI, database management (using Firebase) and the tree structures of these databases. Also, while owning a Mac is not required for the class, I'd only recommend taking this class if you own one. Having a Mac with Xcode is a bit more convenient for projects than using the Macs in the CSL.

Well, the good news is that this class is incredibly easy... the bad news is that you could learn the same material in less time by watching online videos on the topic (literally). He never actually lectures, he just publishes long videos online and describes concepts for 30 mins that could take 5 mins. He does help out if you get stuck in lab, though, so I guess he's okay

His lectures didn\'t help at all with the labs. Also he expects you to read and understand about a chapter and then test you on it then teach it to you. It should be the other way around. He also laughed at me for asking him a question that he thought was so obvious. Teachers shouldn\'t do that. In my opinion I feel I have learned nothing from him or his lectures. The most help you will find if you have him as a teacher is to go seek help from the tutoring center.

Bellardo is a professor with good intentions, available at office hours who provides adequately interesting labs. All his classes go like this You buy a book Quiz and test questions are taken from the book (irrelevant to any kind of programming aptitude or intelligence). These questions are mainly vocabulary it's kinda like spanish but for X language. I personally do not enjoy his classes just because the quiz and test questions tend to be ridiculously stupid (e.g. what is ACRYONYM and why is it important? versus how do you do X). However his classes can be very easy if you study from the book.

Professor Bellardo can drive any student insane! He doesn't teach very well and the material he presents can over your head. I suggest not taking John Bellardo as a professor in Algorithms.

Professor Bellardo has been teaching at Cal Poly for less than two years and has a lot to learn about setting up a course. His projects can be very challenging for novice, even intermediate, programmers. His philosophy about grading is very subjective and although his exams rarely have toppers, he grades based on a curve. If you take one of his exams, make sure to attempt every question and write as little as possible for theory based questions. He doesn't mind if you write broken sentences as long as you cover all the points. The practical questions weigh more; hence try to spend an even amount of time on all those questions. He is very helpful during office hours. Make sure you ask him the right questions as he is somewhat Staley-like when answering questions. My experience was rough but I don't completely attribute that to his teaching abilities. I did learn a lot from the course nevertheless.

Dr. Bellardo has a reputation for being tough. There is a lot of work for this class, including reading, reading questions, quizzes, labs, and programs. THe labs are not too difficult and they're interesting because you get to modify the Linux kernel. His powerpoint lectures are posted online, so you can review them if you didn't get it the first time. Many people may suggest you avoid taking 453 with Dr. Bellardo, but there are many things you can do to succeed, and you'll learn a lot from him. Dr. Bellardo is one of the most frequently available professors for office hours (even outside his official times). You should visit and he'll help you understand the material and debug your program. Obviously, you should start your programs early. The entire class is curved, so you might be surprised to find that your grade is higher than you think it is even if you didn't do well on the tests. If you want to challenge yourself and learn a lot, take Dr. Bellardo for 453.

Are you a CSC/CPE major? Would you like to spend 30 or so hours a week on this course? Are the words "harder than Nico" a challenge, rather than a deterrent, to you? If the answer to all of those questions is yes, Bellardo's your man for OS. Totally nice dude, but he's not a great teacher at this point. He's young, and he might very well improve. I can't speak to that. I can only speak to my experience with this class, which was not so good. Excessively hard, programs that take too long and that you have to program without much knowledge about how the evaluation will go, little to no partial credit. I'm willing to cut the guy a little slack--he has high standards, and I respect that. I just wish I had taken this course with someone else.

You know you live in a messed up world where Staley has a higher Polyrating than Bellardo. Yes he is very tough. But god damn, he is incredibly fair and straightforward with you. He makes his intentions clear. Learn from him.

I sent proff an email at midnight asking a specific question about a specific point in the specification. I received a reply in the next ten minutes. I sent an email in the evening simply asking for a clue on a program, I recieved a reply almost immediately. More than any other professor I know he makes a point of making himself available for questions and help. The course load is quite reasonable (especially compared to a staley class, why is his polyrating higher???). He taught the material adequately, I failed both exams and still got a B by acing the assigned programs.

The guy is useless, his specs are bullshit, his lectures are boring. Do your brain a favor and take OS with nico.

One of the best teachers I had at Cal Poly. He is extremely understanding and willing to discuss your questions at great depth. His grading is extremely fair and he gives his students consistent updates with how they are performing in the class and on specific labs/tests/projects. I also took him for his iOS Swift class which was also fantastic. Overall, a very personable person and great explainer of tough design concepts.

I am still taking this class. But a couple of us are clearly struggling. They way he presents the material is complete BULLSHIT. One of the worst professors I've ever taken. Honestly, Cal poly? For such a prestigious school, you sure know how to hire shit professors. Don't take him, whatever you do. NOT FOR IOS NOT FOR OPERATING SYSTEMS!!

Bellardo does not understand students' struggles. He is very stuck in his ways, and won't change the format of the stupid "hybrid learning" crap. There is only one lecture a week for a 4 unit class! The other day that we were supposed to meet, we have "virtual lecture" which is like instant messaging him questions at night. He expects his students to do everything on their own. His tests are rediculously hard also. None of the topics related to the programs were EVER discussed in class. You are on your own there. The most annoying this is the stupid wiki, which is the most busy work EVER. This is the most frustrating class ever!

Bellardo in general was a nice guy, and taught the subject well. Beware his projects though. This was his first quarter teaching networks, so maybe it'll be different in the future, but as it was the feedback for programs was somewhere along the lines of horrendous. The 2nd and 3rd programs were the most complex, and grades for them weren't recieved until the week AFTER finals week. Because he doesn't actually grade it, he just runs a script, the scores were completely non-related to how well the program was written / how well it worked. It was based entirely on how robust his script was. On program 2, the class avg was 8 / 45 and on program 3 it was 3 / 20. That said, each program was only worth 2.5% of the final grade. The tests were fair, and the class was curved.

Bellardo is a recent PHD graduate from UCSD and so the expectations he sets for his classes are very high, but don't let this discourage you from taking him. He is extremely knowledgeable in the area of networks and operating systems and is a generally approachable and friendly guy. His projects can be quite time consuming but he usually picks projects that are somewhat fun to work on, so you don't burn out coding 30-40 hours a week. His grading scheme is also way way way way easier than a certain someone *cough* staley *cough*. His tests are insane and the class generally performs pretty badly, but he curves the final grade. Take bellardo, put in some effort and you'll be amazed at how much you can learn in a quarter.

Dr. Bellardo is a good instructor. He is newer, but has done a great job of having high standards and sticking to them(Clint would be proud). The class is very hard. You have to be pretty good at programming in C/C++. I didn't pass, because I was lazy and didn't do the programs(a natural way to fail). The biggest problem is that the lectures, labs, hw, and programs, don't sync up with each other very well. In lecture and hw you learn one thing(more high level network concepts), in lab another(practical; how you actually connect wires), in programs another(how you write the programs which implement some of the high level ideas). I found that it was a lot of information to absorb and apply. If you can get the labs and programs done you would pass for sure.

I highly recommend taking Bellardo for Networks. The most important aspect of a professor is his ability to convey information. Bellardo has organized lectures and presents material clearly. The programs are challenging, but getting them working is just a matter of effort. Networks is not as hard as many people hype it up to be. On the contrary it is a very interesting class, giving students a broad overview of how the internet was built and works. Take it with Bellardo and you will learn something.

This class is very hard. If you take Bellardo for networks, then be ready to spend a lot of your time in the CSL past midnight. The programs he assigns are frustrating and they must work perfectly to receive any credit for them. Each one soaked up much of my time and made me want to kill myself. Also, if you don\'t get a project working perfectly, it results in a grade drop of one letter. I could not get the last project to pass his grading robot despite spending countless hours on it and it working flawlessly from my end. Labs are pretty easy with Bellardo. He has a quiz every Thursday with questions that come straight from the book, so be sure to read the sections he assigns before the quizzes. The midterm and final were very challenging and raped everyone. You will get a 45% on it or so, but so iwll the rest of the class so its fine. Basically, if you want to challenge yourself and learn a lot about networks then take Bellardo. Otherwise wait and take it with Smith.

This class is difficult. Dr. Bellardo designs the class so you essentially HAVE to attend office hours to complete the programs. The programs of this class often don't have that much to do with lecture. KEY TO SUCCESS: Start program early, and work on it during his scheduled office hours. Bug him during office hours and ask him lots of questions.

Dr. Bellardo 464 class is even harder than 453. The upside is that you will learn a lot about the network stack. The labs are straightforward, but they are very time-consuming, and you'll often have to stay for at least 2 1/2 hours. There are also many reading questions that are hard to answer, and you don't know which ones he'll put on the quizzes. There are 4 programs that must pass a grading script, and they are all time-consuming. The last 3 are especially difficult, and only one person got full credit for the 4th. If you take this class, make sure your quarter only has 12 units. Like any class with Dr. Bellardo, office hours are your best friend.

Networks is a great topic to learn about, and is very cool as get into more details. Bellardo does a great job explaining the concepts. It's a different story when it comes to his midterms however: they are amazingly difficult and the average on both of them was around 50%, but he curves the class HUGELY at the end. He also mentions "this is not a programming class" which I think is a joke as there is an ENORMOUS amount of challenging programming you have to do. There are 4 programs, the last 3 being very frustrating and time-consuming. They must pass his automated grading script with at least basic functionality to get any credit; if you fail to do this with one program, you can't get higher than a B. The first one is a packet sniffing program that is standard to all 464 classes over the years; this one is meant to be a review from 357. Programs 2 and 3 were hellish, having to implement two different layers of the network stack. Program 4 used the sockets API, where we had to write an HTTP server (not the infamous chat server from previous quarters of this class); just passing basic functionality was incredibly time-consuming and irritating as not all tests that were required for this were covered in the program spec, and in the end only about 1/3 of the class got any credit for the program and only 1 got 100%. Nevertheless, despite the frustrations, this class was rewarding in that you learn a lot about networks through both concepts and coding. Just do NOT take this class with more than 12 units, and go to his office hours often.

I have no idea what everyone is complaining about. Bellardo definitely enjoys giving you a little bit of a hard time but if you ask him for help on specific, well thought out questions he is knowledgeable and very helpful. I struggled significantly in the final program, an HTTP server, but he spent time with me understanding what I was doing and helped me get a handle on the material. My theory is people have still gotten to the 400s somehow without understanding that you can't just show a professor your code and ask "What's wrong?"! You have to put in the time debugging, and then if youre still stuck, you ask for help about the CONCEPT youre stuck on. **This is exactly what he says on the first day**. His lectures are entertaining and informative (I also happen to really like the material). I found Bellardo's lecture on IPv6 to be truly illuminating. One last note about the material though: This class is the hardest I have taken as poly, and that is a combination of the material and the teacher. Bellardo definitely makes this course obscenely, ridiculously more difficult than it has to be, but the end result is hopefully you become a better more disciplined programmer. It's not just difficulty for difficulty's sake, although it may seem that way. And one more thing to all you complainers: the class is fair. The spec is well written and informative. You have adequate time to complete the assignments assuming you sacrifice all free time to the class :p

Networks is simply a boring class. I feel Bellardo receives hate just because he teaches it, but he truly is a great professor. He is fair and definitely knows what he is talking about. He is always willing to go the extra mile and help you out if you approach him with your struggles. Bellardo is most likely going to be a better choice than anyone else you will get.

So, this is not an easy class. You've probably heard the stories, and all that, but in the event that you haven't, most people have a good deal of difficulty in passing the assignments. The good news is, he grades on a curve, so if everyone else does badly (likely), you can all do OK. The Wiki previously mentioned is gone, and it's back to a 2 lecture/1 lab class. The material he presents is really cool, especially the projects. I think he's a black hat, and just won't admit it. If you're looking for an easy quarter, Bellardo is not the guy, but if you wanna learn cool things, this is the prof to take.

Dr. Bellardo is a nice guy, and networks is a cool subject. However, the projects take 5x longer than they should take because 1) the specifications are incomplete, and 2) the automated grader provides almost no details as to why your program failed. Of course you contact Bellardo for help, and he will give you a small 'hint', which sometimes helps, but frequently results in you spending another 10 hours trying to guess what the problem might be. Why all the holes in the specifications, and the lousy feedback from the grader? The real cruncher is that I don't feel I am learning very much even though I am spending tons of time on this class.

This class made me miss 357, where the specifications were complete and the teacher assistants would help you if you spent enough time bashing your head against a wall for an assignment. Bellardo's approach was to have each student do an assignment with incomplete specifications, bugs, and a grader that gives you almost no hints as to what failed in your program. You can spend days trying to figure out the difference between your program is his, only to learn that you failed due to a missing newline (something you think he would tell you..). For each program it is up to you to figure out what the heck each of his tools does since he does not tell you. The tests he will not tell you what he wants you to know, and would prefer to test you on "how well you absorbed the material". Naturally, the class average is always an "F", which makes you wonder if learning is actually happening in this class. Having only roughly 20% of the class finish the final assignment is a clear indicator that there is some SERIOUS miscommunication. Finally for a person who cracks down hard on students for copying code, he is a huge hypocritical since all of the code he provides to you isn't actually his. The smartalloc is Staley's and Fishnet is a final project from some graduate students at a different college. Seriously, don't take this guy. If you know anything about networks after taking this class, it is either because you taught it to yourself or because you knew it before taking the class.

Bellardo is a very well versed teacher in the area of networks and you will definitely learn a lot from any of his classes. His classes require a very LARGE workload and should not be taken with other programming intensive courses. He expects a lot from his students and his grading makes it known, but is always helpful during office hours. Also, he does curve so it is not like everyone fails. The course load was heavy, but I learned a lot from this class.

Since this is a graduate level course, it's not difficult. However, Dr. Bellardo's easy courses are not that easy. You have to present a paper in this class and he has high expectations for it. If you like group discussions on distributed systems, you should take this class. You also get to work on a team project, which is fun.

I learned that if I were to take up hunting, I should shoot deer, not bears, because a bear will hunt me back if I successfully wound it. Fascinating! I didnt know that the key to production and operations management was so brutally simple!