Drasco, Steve  

I have looked forward to this class since scratching the surface of astronomy in some of my other classes and found myself sorely disappointed. Drasco may be a good physics teacher but he is a less than enthusiastic teacher for a 100 level astronomy class. He is clearly not interested in the subject and that lack of interest reverberates through the class room. He attempts to bring in current news on astronomy to mask his disinterest but the details are often vague or missing. With time he may have the potential to do better, but its hard too be interested in a class that the professor is not interested in. If you can get David Mitchell for this class I have heard he is much, much better.

Drasco is the worst professor I have had so far at Cal Poly. Not only is mean, but he knows nothing about astronomy. He doesn't seem to care at all about the class or his students. If you ask him a question, there is a 95% chance that he will say "I don't know." I simply asked him if we needed to know the formulas for the quiz once, and he replied,"What, all two of them? you can decide for yourself if you want to memorize them." He just always has an attitude. Also, his lectures are pointless because he barely scratches the surface of the material and then expects you to know random information for the test. Once, I had to miss a midterm because my dad fell, hit his head, had to have brain surgery, almost died, and then was in a coma. My mom emailed him for me and when i got back, all he did was lecture me on how i need to be an adult and how I handled the situation sooooo poorly because I didn't email him myself. Does he have NO compassion? Seriously, if you can avoid Drasco for astronomy, DO IT!!!!

Drasco is by far the worst Professor I have ever had in all my years of schooling. He is extremely rude to his students and is NEVER helpful in answering any questions. He never knows any grades, what will be on the tests, what we need to study, or anything else for that matter. If you can, I would advise taking anyone else for this course because he clearly does not like the subject (he has told us how much he dislikes it a number of times) and has no passion for teaching or for his students. He encourages questions but then is extremely rude in all of his responses.

Drasco is mean, arrogant, and completely lacking in knowledge/passion for astronomy. I am a straight A student and studied for hours, but his tests are worded so poorly, that it is hard to know which answer he is looking for and I got a D on the first midterm. I'm just hoping to pass this class so i never have to deal with this man again. His lectures are pointless because maybe 10% of the questions on the test come from them. It is even almost pointless to read the book because very few of the questions come from there as well. Honestly I don't know where he's getting his questions! DO NOT TAKE HIM OR YOU WILL REGRET IT...BIG TIME!!!!

I had him for astronomy and thought he was good. He told us about a lot of recent discoveries that weren't in the book which was cool. Sounds like a bit of a rough crowd here...

THE BAD: He has zero interest in astronomy. He explicitly announced that in class haha. The class laughed at him and from then on no one had any interest in what he had to say. INcredibly boring to listen to. Smart ass when people ask questions. Really nervous and hard to look at cause it makes you feel like you're making fun of him. GOOD: He can sometimes make good points when they're physics related. And like some of the other people say on here, he talks about interesting space news, but only in like the first 5 minutes of class.

This is Prof. Drasco first year at Cal Poly. In the beginning of the year, I have to honestly admit, he was a horrible professor. The only reason why I even went to his class was because we had to turn in homework for credit. But toward the end, he got a lot better and I\'m glad to be able to see him improve. His homeework are straight from the book so most of us copied the solution and he actually catches people! So try to do the homework!!! His exams werent bad he gives us a page of cheat sheet for every exam. For some reason, i always fail his exams. Well not fail but did horrible on it. I understand the material I just can\'t get the exam. He is a good professor tho and he really cares about his student! He is willing to meet you at any time to help you on things you don\'t understand. I think everyone should take him!!!

Drasco was awesome. He really does want all his students to do well with the course and is extremely willing to help students with any homework or exam problems they don't understand. His labs were especially fun because he was very involved and helpful. This was his first time teaching but he was always prepared to teach the lab and wasn't just learning it alongside the students. He did some awesome demos both in lecture and in lab that really helped understand the topics. Overall, I would strongly recommend Drasco to anybody. Also, ask him what type of car he drives ;)

Overall the best physics professor I've ever had. Amazing lecturer. I mean his lectures simplifies the book. Homework load is light, but is a good way to exercise what you have learned in lecture. I could have pulled off an A, but I did horrible on the first midterm. This is the guy to take for your physics classes.

Dr. Drasco's lab starts like this. He will pretty much break down the lab for you which is freaking awesome. He will explain the connection of what you have learned in the lecture in the lab and note ways of getting better results. He usually has something set up on the first table which relates to what you will be doing in lab. You can turn in the lab anytime before the next lab. Amazing professor indeed.

Drasco was a decent professor who saw a lot of improvement throughout the quarter. His lectures were ok, but not very succinct or organized. I found myself learning most of the material directly from the book or from my lab professor, who I thought was much more capable at communicating with us students. He collected and graded every day's homework for awhile but eventually began just grading for completion. His tests were alright, but over half of the problems on them could be completed by a 7th grader with your allowed one page of equations and a basic knowledge of algebra. To put it plainly but in a more confusing manner than is necessary...if I had the option of being randomly assigned a physics professor from the department, or taking Drasco again, I would take Drasco.

Pros: Drasco presents the material fairly clearly and neatly. Just make sure to read his specified sections in the textbook following each lecture. He also doesn't overload you with homework, but gives you 3 or 4 problems each night (I had the class mon-wed-fri). Cons: Drasco makes you turn in your homework at the very beginning of class or else it's late and he wont accept it at all. He seems to pick favorites (I was one of his least favorites for whatever reason, so there were some issues there with unreasonable markdowns on the midterm). He seemed cool at first, but most people by the end of the class seemed to dislike him.

I don't know what all of these other reviewers are on. This guy is awful. His grading is very erratic and it is impossible to figure out what he is asking for on tests. If you forget one little thing on the test, you'll end up getting one whole problem wrong, and each one is 10-20% of your grade for the midterm, which are each 18% of your grade. Did I mention there are 3 of them? Yes, the week before dead week there is a third midterm. The final is only worth 21% of your grade, so basically if you do bad on either of the midterms you are absolutely screwed for getting a good grade in the class. His homework grading is equally as erratic as for the tests, basically, if he sees anything wrong with it, you get an 8 out of 10. Although he claims at the beginning of the class "I'll never grade you on if the homework answers are correct or not," the fact is that you basically have to get the problem right to constitute doing "a good effort" on the homework. During the lecture, he tries to be funny, but ends up just sounding like an ass most of the time. The worst part about the lecture is that he never does any examples. I think we're on example 4 and we're in dead week. And, he gives homework every night, even before midterms. It's not like he gives a shit ton of problems, but since he never does any examples in class, you have to figure out how to do them every other night. During the lab, he is a total nazi and doesn't let you leave early ever, and gets all pissed off if you even think about leaving or arriving late. The labs are graded similarly to the homework, if he finds anything wrong he'll start taking off points. The only good thing is that he's sometimes too lazy to grade the lab and just gives everyone a 10/10.

Great lecturer and interesting lab section. I would recommend taking him as he is still a fairly easy grader on homework and labs. By the way, did I mention this was his second quarter teaching at cal poly!!!

Ehhh, okay guy, definitely wants to improve but when I took him he was completely average. For some reason half-way through the quarter I stopped understanding the content and even a year later, I am not entirely sure why. He is okay, not the best, not the worst.

I was in his physics 133 class and some of his astronomy class. The guy wasn't the easiest or anything like that, but he was passionate about the subjects. He kept me interested and had a fun sense of humor, especially in person. I recommended his classes to my friends.

Drasco is a very nice person, BUT his lectures are useless. All he does in lecture is do proofs and derive equations. In the whole quarter he only ever did ONE example with actual numbers. He never showed us how to use the equations he was deriving. You get an equation sheet on the midterms, which are basically "Do you have the formula needed on the paper?" If so, all you do is solve for one variable, and the rest is given to you. I DO NOT recommend him if you want to learn PHYS 133. I got through his class without the slightest understanding of the subject and I could have had an A in the class if not for the simple mistakes I made. And his Lab grade is based one Lab Final that no one was able to finish. No lab reports. Screwed my grade even more.

I gave him a C on everything just because I wasn't used to his style at the time. But I think I would rate him higher than that now. (one full year later). He is pretty theoretical, which is the part I wasn't used to. I should've gotten at least a C in the class, maybe even a B, but I switched the most important formula around in my head on the second midterm and failed. Anyway, Drasco is a nice guy and is funny (in my opinion). He doesn't like when people appear uninterested, like big yawns or texting, and makes sure they are embarrassed if he catches them. His homework was long, and difficult. But as long as you try, you get 100%--its a completion thing. but he provides solutions after the fact, and those are hugely helpful. Make use of those. You can learn from just those in the worst case scenario. I think Drasco deserves more credit than people on here are giving him.

actually terrible

I had him as a lab professor for 133. In my case the lab lead the lecture in material and he was excellent at explaining the new material. Loved him as a teacher, and from day one he seemed exactly like the character Leonard Hofstadter to me.

I heard from people that took him last quarter that he was a major stickler for homework assignments but this quarter, he has actually improved a lot. He gives out daily homework assignment and I don't know about others that took the class, but as long as you actually try to do it, you'll get points. You should definitely read the assigned readings if you want to succeed because he IS a theorist and rarely does examples. He is definitely there to help so if you have questions, but his exams can be challenging. P.S. EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT PHYSICS IS A LIE!!!

steve drasco is wonderful professor... if you havent taken physics before in high school he totally defiantly the professor you should take... quizzes midterms and final are all worth the same so if you mess up on one of those then you can always correct your mistake... he is very understanding, and will talk and discuss about your progress during his office hours... i personally think hes a wonderful professor

If you have taken physics classes before, and need reminders, take Drasco if there aren't any better options, if you don't have any kind of physics experience, don't take him. He doesn't explain the concepts, all he does is deriving equations, and giving "previews" of higher levels of physics, and many methods that you don't need for this class (and he says this clearly, after spending 15 minutes talking about it). The class itself isn't the hardest, weekly quizzes, 2 midterms and 1 final. The only thing is that he doesn't do any example problems, and doesn't go over the homework, so on the exams, there may be surprise questions.

He knows how to teach, but he does not know how to teach the right material. At some point you sort of just realize that all he does is show you how the equations from the book are derived, and focuses very little on application. This is especially apparent at the end of the class when the material gets more difficult. However, he is a nice guy, and makes a funny joke every now and then. Put in a little effort and you'll do ok, but I would not recommend him as a first choice.

Professor Drasco is a great teacher to take for physics, especially compared to the other physics teachers. He is humorous and teaches you everything you need to know. Drasco spent a lot of the class time discussing vectors, especially unit vectors and could have spent more time doing actual problems. The physics problems in his tests weren't that hard, but the multiple choice problems were very tricky and tested the limits of your understanding of the material.

If you really enjoy theoretical discussions and learning physics by yourself, then Drasco is the right professor for you. However, if you are like me and an EE who has to take modern as a support class, then do not take Drasco. He loves relativity, but that's only two weeks of the material and after that his enthusiasm sort of drops. He does not address students questions and more often than not, will simply interrupt them claiming we have no time. Basically all he does is prove the various equations (which is helpful because homework is like that), but he does almost no real examples and often just approximates using orders of magnitude which confuses the hell out of everyone. Overall, good lecturer, bad professor. You'll probably do fine since he curves the class so much cause everyone does so bad.

What the guy/gal below said. Amen. I too took this class and have long since graduated from Poly, but I was cruising Poly Ratings for a kick and thought that I should pipe in and let you know how much of a joke this prof is.