Bednarek, Ziemowit  

This was Professor Ziemowit's first time teaching 342. The course consisted of a mix of lecture and practice problems. He made it very clear how to work through the problems and in the beginning of the course tried to get a lot of class participation for doing them on the board. The class was great for 342 because he uploaded all of the slides from past classes and was always suggesting to see him in office hours. The tests themselves weren't difficult if you studied what he told you to. We did one independent home work and one group one. Both were manageable. Final was 40% of our grade while our Mid term was 20%. 2 Hw's= 15% each. 2 Quizzes=10% total. Overall the class was very interesting and teaches you a lot but try to stay focused throughout the quarter. I strongly recommend professor Ziemowit because he showed a lot of care for his students success.

Bednarek was a great professor! Sometimes he wasn't the clearest, BUT if you actually went to his office hours and talked to him you would learn a great deal. Not only about the class, but also the love he has for his cats. The two excel projects were easy, as long as you do not procrastinate and go get help in office hours for clarification. They are time consuming however. A fun part about Bednarek's class was the stock exchange simulator, and is worth extra credit! So definitely do it. He grades the class based on how you do compared to other students, so keep that in mind. Midterms were extremely fair, know the qualitative slides and the practice problems that he give you. Great professor if you actually put effort in yourself.

DWIGHT SCHRUTE if he were a finance professor and real

This class was a complete waist of time. You will spend the quarter listening to him try and crack jokes with students. He assumes the entire class is stupid and proceeds to let you know it. What was really lacking though was passion on professor Bednarek's part. He is extremely smart but didn't seem interested in teaching us and spent too much time asking us how he was doing. If you are serious about finance, I would not take this class. The actual material was way too easy as-well. Basic math for the most part . The tests suck because they are heavily weighted on theory which comes in the form of short answer/essay questions. HW is busywork and annoying. I don't know what Berkeley is teaching but I have completely lost respect for their business program.

This class was interesting. The first couple weeks he comes off very hard giving you stuff from BUS 342 he expected you to know everything about. There are 2 HW assignments (partner projects basically), one midterm, 5 quizzes, and a final. The homework assignments were the worst. Each time you got to work with a partner on an excel assignment. The first assignment he barely goes over in class...he didn't even tell my class when he posted it. It wasn't hard just took forever. Second project is super tedious. You have to download all this information off of Yahoo Finance and it takes forever. But again really not that hard. His quizzes were pretty hard. The last couple he let us use notes but the first few were kinda bs. He always told us in class we would never need to memorize formulas for an exam (he gives a formula for the midterm and final). But for the quizzes he didn't give formulas so you actually did need to memorize it. Most people do poorly on these. They are also pop quizzes usually, sometimes he'll email saying there is a quiz the next class. He kept pushing back the first midterm which was annoying. We had quest speakers during the quarter which were cool but it affected the date of the midterm. He worked with us though and we picked a date everyone liked. It was exactly like the practice midterm he posted on PolyLearn and the average in the class was an 85%. The final was a lot harder. Everyone I talked to struggle. It was nothing like the practice final. He does curve it though. Overall, he is a funny guy. He will constantly make fun of the whole class for not knowing anything especially since at the beginning of each class he talks about the financial market and he gets super annoyed if no one raises their hand to discuss stuff. Make sure you read the news. There is also an extra credit stock trading game. Make sure to do this because finance department gives out only 25% As to a class so if you don't do the extra credit and everyone else does it actually hurts you. It is a pretty boring class in terms of material. The most interesting stuff is the stuff at the end about the efficient market hypothesis and behavioral finance. It isn't too bad though just get through it.

Awful. Good Luck on the final

Bednarek is just about as average and uninspiring as a teacher could get. He knows the material and the class is manageable, but boy does he seem miserable teaching. If you're looking for a class to get you excited to learn finance, this guy isn't the guy. He treats teaching finance (and living life) as if it is the most boring thing he has ever done.Seems as though he'd be better suited locked in a cubicle where he can lock himself and his dismal attitude away for the day. I did fine in the class, actually really well until I didn't turn a homework in (worth 15%). Whoops. Average on the final was a high F I believe and it was curved so no worries. Overall, I just took him over Gorman because I wanted to pass.

Solid class. This professor will teach the material in an understandable way, but it seems like he really doesn't want to be there. When the class first started, it seemed like he was mean, always insulting students, but as it went on it was evident that he just has a strange sense of humor and it was actually really funny. On the exams, he tends to throw a few curveballs, so don't just memorize the process of completing a problem make sure you understand the concepts and the math behind what you're doing. Also, he expects you to remember everything from 342 and stats at the beginning of the quarter along with a good understanding of the current events in the financial markets so read the WSJ or something.

Look, if you're actually trying to learn finance and not take a professor, because it's an easy grade don't take Bednarek. If you want the easy grade, by all means, take his class. If you had finance with Gorman, this class will teach you nothing but shit. 90% of what he tests on is based on 342, and the rest of the 10% you don't get to see until the last few weeks. I wish I had taken Gorman's 431 and gotten a fair grade, because at least then I would have made some value out of the damn class. This class is the epitome of why Cal Poly students don't get into investment banking. Bednarek barely seems to care about teaching students, so don't expect to get too many insights about finance.

Professor Bednarek is a nice guy who is very willing to help. However, not really sure how much I learned from the class because of his teaching style. Mostly just spits out a bunch of information on the whiteboard and doesn't really highlight the important material. Class consisted of 2 projects, 1 midterm, and 1 final. Projects were more like long homework assignments so nothing to stress about.

Lazy

This professor was very unclear and had no course structure. He was also very rude and didn't understand how to be professional. During our final project presentations, he would interrupt each presenter and try to make a joke or spew some irrelevant information. It was disrespectful and very annoying. It seemed like the only thing he cared about was trying to make himself feel good by making bad jokes and putting down students. Avoid him if possible.

Idk why everyone is hating on him, but he tries. The guy knows finance like the back of his hand (not as well as Gorman, but close). He makes very dry jokes, which shouldn't be taken personally, and actually help bring a good vibe into the classroom. The only downside is that he sometimes goes through excel stuff pretty fast, but any questions i've had have easily been resolved during office hours.

You are an idiot if you don't take bednarek. Hes a super funny guy. He makes 8am class actually enjoyable. He is clear about what he expects from you and he teaches it clearly (although the material is very intense). Seriously do absolutely everything in your power to ensure you get Bednarek. Do NOT take this class with Gormon unless you have no regard for you mental health. My most enjoyable finance class so far! Actually a really interesting project (stock market simulation) with an extremely chill presentation at the end .

this professor is such a silly guy and it is probably my favorite finance class. i giggle in every class

Bednarek was the most informative and knowledgeable professor I have ever had at Cal Poly. Not only was he hilarious but he actually made the class extremely engaging with a stock simulation that left me with so much valuable experience. Highly recommend! He comes off tough but he is very willing to help his students.

You will be quizzed on BUS 342 the first week of classes and he will say you will be dropped from the class if you don't pass the quiz. However, he has no authority to drop you from the class like that and he said every single person passed the quiz which is pretty unlikely. His real goal is to get people to drop the class before they take the quiz, he even said this. In my opinion, BUS 342 knowledge wasn't really necessary for the class so I wouldn't worry too much. I mean I took BUS 342 a year before this class and still did well. Just don't freak out like I did when he says you're going to be quizzed on BUS 342 and could be dropped from the class. Other than that, the midterm was pretty easy and expected but the final was completely different and really hard.

Bednarek was an okay professor. He was a little hard to follow along during the second half of the quarter with the lectures about more math based material. His midterm consisted of 4 questions 2 quantitative, 1 excel & 1 conceptual. One of the questions was actually on the study guide he gave us and the excel problem was very similar to the one he went through in class. Make sure to not miss lectures where he goes over the in class problems because those are almost the same as the midterm and is why helped me get an A on the midterm. The final (cumulative) was a different story and is probably why I got a B-. I knew I totally bombed that. He claimed the final to be 5 questions with one excel problem. There was no excel and all the problems were NOTHING like the study guide nor the in class problems. I knew nothing and I wasn’t the o my one that felt the same way. Good luck on that. Maybe study the end of the chapter problems he recommended to do? The stock Trak was alright I found it to be stressful because me and my partner knew nothing about trading but it was a cool learning experience. The presentation at the end was very chill about your Stock Trak results don’t worry about that too much. What really screwed me over was that final smh idk what he was thinking.

Have an open mind with Bednarek. Make the effort to get to know him and build a relationship with him, and you will learn to love him. Go to his office hours, go to class, he cares about the students that care about his class (and your grade will show it too). Study the end of chapter questions he assigns and know them like the back of your hand and you will do well. He is super funny too, with great life advice! Probably one of my favorite Cal Poly professors, but trust me, you must make the effort to get to know him.

Prof. Bednarek is a very cool guy! He can be hard to follow during his lectures, so ask questions. A lot of people don't ask questions and end up not learning much. I realized this about half way through the quarter. After I started asking him questions to clarify what he was lecturing about, his teaching abilities skyrocketed. I think he is just a very smart guy and doesn't realize at first that he needs to dumb it down a little for students. SO ASK HIM QUESTIONS!! But overall a great professor and I would take his class again. Also has some pretty cool outlooks on life!

Professor Bednarek has probably been the worst professor I've had at Poly by far. In fact he's just the shell of a professor, I would avoid him at all costs. He's unable to emphasize key concepts, answer student questions, and the worst part is how he fights for Dr. Gormans attention and approval by bashing other professors in the department. The course could really use a restructuring, StockTrak is a pathetic excuse for an assignment. It's just assigned to us so it takes the burden off his shoulders when teaching. It's practically the equivalent of a parent handing their screaming child their iPhone with baby shark playing on youtube, in the middle of a mall food court - a distraction. Professor, cut the apathy in class, show some pride and stop trying all the other late night show hosts terrible jokes in class. If you can't do those three things, well find a new career because you're ruining our future ones.

Professor Bednarek course consists of a midterm, a final, and a stock market portfolio project using Stock Trak (with a final presentation about it at the end of the quarter). What is important to know is that you should keep a transaction log with google sheets of all your trades and WHY you did them so that your final report and project will be EASY to right because you did the work in a timely manner throughout the trading weeks. You are required to make about 10 trades in a week, USE FIN VIZ.com and look up the meaning of the ratios for reasons on why you did the trade. DO NOT just say you made the trade because it seemed like a good idea, have GOOD reasons and your weekly reports due on Fridays at 5 pm will be easy. You learn a lot about the stock market by looking everything up yourself online and learning ratios on your own time for reports. PRO TIP if you want to do well on Stock trak, if you have the money, buy Investor's Business Daily Leaderboard platform (it helps determine to buy ranges and sell points for stocks that could make you profit if it works out!). Now on to my opinion about Bednarek, he went to Berkeley, but he is a total idiot and a jerk and has no REAL world experience. He PREACHES humility but genuinely has NONE. He will scorn students in front of the whole class who leave class early and make fun of them (even if they had a doctor's appointment or something important). Also he is hard to read and is very rude to students. I constantly went to office hours, but its guaranteed USELESS if you want help. For example, there was an excel activity with a graph, and we had to interpret it... I went to office hours to get help and asked him to explain it, he COULD NOT explain it and I asked quite a few different ways to get a legit answer. Then this same graph ended up on the midterm and he asked us to interpret it.......... Needless to say, this man is not fair and does not care about his student's success and doesn't want to help you. Also he will hate you and call you out if you take a 2 second video clip of his excel "skills" on the board that you DO need to know for the midterm and final exams. I asked him many times to post videos to youtube or polylearn because it was difficult to see how he did things with excel in class and goes way to fast. He NEVER posted anything useful or in a timely manner and he didn't post what I told him was difficult in the excel activities. In conclusion, its a good class if you love to study the stock market. OH and PRO TIP!! He will go over a type of problem on the first day of class in a scribble manner, and this WILL be on the Midterm EXAM, its called the PORTFOLIO OPTIMIZATION problem. For our class, he did not post the "step by step tutorial sheet" until after the midterm exam, so see if you can ask for it ahead of time to post it to polylearn, trust me it IS important. Overall, I am very displeased with this teacher, he also hates trump, so if you mention him in your stock market presentation as a "Reason" for the stock market being bad a certain trading week, HE thoroughly ENJOYS it... Also I studied the book a lot, but his midterm questions are pretty random and its a crap shoot if anything you studied a billion hours for shows up. You do not need to know the Technical Analysis type excels for exams and he will tell you this, DO Know the excel for the Free cash flows, some form of this is presented on the midterm or final. Bednarek has a rude and bad personality, don't waste your time in his office hours. I'd ask him a question and try to take notes, and he'd yell at me for not looking up while he talked. In conlusion, this dude has a lot of microaggressions and I do not like him as a person. Stock trak weekly reports were the most time consuming, but he basically admits at the end of the quarter that he SCIMMED reading them. He basically reads the first week's reports and the final reports and nothing in between. THIS was a bummer for someone like me who spent so many hours writing unique and meaningful reports of what I had learned. So basically make the first week's report count and the final count, of course your final report will be easier to write if you worked hard on all the weekly reports, but you could make something good even if you didn't. I wish Bednarek could get fired because he will make you feel small and insignificant as a person and honestly I wouldn't try to get to know him. Even Gorman is a better person than this dude, I even have way more respect and admiration for Gorman than this dude... In conclusion, the class isn't too bad and it is manageable, just hated the teacher.

Absolutely pathetic excuse for a professor, even worse now the Finance department head. Dr. Gorman's Appendix 10-B taught this entire course way better than Bednarek ever could.

Overall: His class is tough, but fair. This was prof. Bednarek's first quarter teaching at Cal Poly. I think previously he taught at Berkeley and some school in Australia. He was very dry in his lectures, and many of the students weren't able to focus on the material in the lectures. Midterms were hard, but graded on a heavy curve. The good thing is he allows you to drop a midterm if you don't do well, the bad news is that the weight of the midterm that you dropped is then added to the weight of your final (so your final can be worth 40%, 70%, or 100% depending if you dropped zero, one, or two midterms). If you have to take him, its not the end of the world. Just make sure you review often on your own and understand all the practice problems that the book has, because often our test questions weren't thoroughly covered in class. Good luck cadet!

This guy.....Let me just start by saying hold on to your knees while he's fucking you in the ass with his tests. He tells you to review the problems in the book, yet his test reflect NOTHING the book lays out. He tells you to study these sets of problems, yet he throws a curve ball on EVERY SINGLE problem. His lectures are long, tidious, and he'll do one example then pretty much give you the finger. Don't take this guy if you can. For his first quarter at cal poly, he was a real d-bag.

Unfortunately, a very lazy teacher. Literally the worst preparation for a final I have taken at Cal Poly (and Roche's tests are pretty bad). He gave us practice problems that did not reflect the test at all, and told us if we could do them we would do well on the test. The final had nothing to do with the practice problems, which screwed over most of his class (there were people who weren't sure if they got even 1 problem right on a test that could be worth up to 100% of your test if you dropped the midterms). The midterm was poorly planned as well (he just used an online test in class out of the book) but he did curve. He means well and has some ability to teach, but he talks about random crap and doesn't actually tie it all together. Overall, he could have been good, but is a very lazy teacher and because of that I felt I did not learn nearly as much as I could have with a teacher who took his time to prepare his class for tests and explain topics more clearly.

I found out my grade today for Ziemowit's first quarter BUS 438 class. I am actually quite pleased with a B because after his final, I honestly felt I would have ended up with way worse. Overall, his class was not very good in my opinion. To be fair, it was his first quarter teaching at Cal Poly. However, the class lacked structure that made me feel like I had no clue where I stood gradewise and his test style varied throughout the quarter which was annoying from a test-taking standpoint. To touch on the first point, your grade is determined by three exams, two midterms (each 30%) and one final (40%). You have the option to drop the midterms, but this would result in a grade weight of 100% for the final. If you only drop one, the weight for that exam would be given to the final, which would make the final worth 70% rather than 40%. This can be helpful in a sense. However, it was not executed very well during the quarter. For the first midterm, students had to inform Bednarek if they wanted to drop the exam before finding out their grade and the curve. But on the second midterm, students were able to see how they performed on the test and the overall curve and then had the chance to drop the exam. This was clearly UNFAIR. Basically for the second exam, students could drop a grade they knew was bad, while on the first exam, those that dropped took a huge risk not knowing what grade they got. I wish Bednarek addressed this obvious discrepancy in his class, but he did not. Furthermore, everything is recurved at the end of the quarter, so the grades you received on the exams will not necessarily translate into your final grade. For these reasons, it is difficult to gauge your own grade. To touch on the second point, his exam style varied throughout the quarter, which was not good from a consistency standpoint. His first exam was all short answer, his second was online multiple choice, and his last was all short answer. Furthermore, his exams are very difficult (mainly the second midterm and final). He tells you to practice using the problems in the book, but that will not help you. His exams are completely different from those in the book. I understand that he wants to test your understanding, but it is not fair to inform students to prepare one way, but test in another way. To further highlight the difficulty of his testing, Bednarek only goes over problems from the book in class that he considers on the easy or the medium difficulty side without highlighting what he considers a hard difficulty question. Unluckily for students in his first quarter class, most of the questions on the exams were in the hard difficulty tier because most students including myself had never worked with problems presented in such ways beforehand. As stated before, I understand that he wants us to learn the concepts well so that we can approach any situation and apply the concepts. However, this does not give him any reason to test students in ways the students have never seen or were prepared for. To add salt to the wound, he should not be informing students to prepare with the textbook problems if they will only constitute the easy-medium difficulty problems. How are we supposed to know what the hard problems look like??? On another point, his lectures are not good either. He reads off slides from the textbooks. I apologize for this long review, but I feel it is important to inform readers of how Bednarek's 438 class is and the difficulties they may face if they decide to take him. I wish students in any professor's first quarter of teaching would get a break gradewise. I felt like a dying guinea pig all quarter long with Bednarek's class and consequently, my GPA will suffer for it.

Professor Bednarek is a very smart man who struggled a little bit in his first quarter teaching trying to gauge the work ethic and intelligence level of his students. I thought his first midterm was really easy but because the problems were not all EXACTLY like the ones he did in class, people panicked and performed poorly. Therefore, he experimented outside of his comfort zone on the next midterm and gave a book-generated multiple choice exam which completely backfired because it had several bugs and threw in random questions from the text that we did not cover in class. But give the guy a break, he was only trying to make the exam easier for his students because so many people complained about the first one. He also tried to help his students out with some extra credit and some curving; but the class got so caught up in trying to calculate their grades that they did not spend any time studying. I do not think this class was hard at all and I think that the people who are complaining are the same lazy students who expect to get an A just for showing up and do not put any effort into actually learning the material until the night before the exam. My one complaint about him was that he was not very helpful or patient in his office hours, but looking back I realize how frustrated I would be in the same position if every single student came into my office so concerned about their grade and GPA.

Absolutely agree with the comment below. I think the greatest flaw of Prof. Bednarek was being too open to criticism from the class. After the first exam he recognized that many people were struggling and tried to help, but many students took advantage of it. I also agree that he was impatient in office hours and towards the end of the quarter it became very difficult to talk to him about legitimate questions. I think this is something he will improve on as he gets into a groove with his syllabus and class structure. All in all, I would take a class with this man again and he is not a teacher to avoid. Although I'm not sure what he's teaching now because it isn't 438.

Prof cried today.... What a weirdo hahahah get a grip of your life.

Not sure who wrote the comment below, but my guess is it was the professor himself. All those things are true, but what he fails to mention is the professor's ability to help you actually learn the material. We had 2 homework assignments for the quarter and 2 exams with only 5 or 6 questions. Most people wouldn't complain about having that little to do, but the lack of opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge can seriously affect you grade. Most people were done with his final with about an hour to spare. Both exams were carbon copies of practice exams so you only needed to learn what was there. His grading scheme for the exams was the worst part - he would take 50% off a 30 point questions for making a minor error - the average grade on his quick final was a C. Being tough with grading is fine, but he should at least give enough questions with enough depth to let me show I learned something and didn't just memorize a practice exam. His whole grading scheme make his boring lectures even more worthless than just reading the slides he posts online. Hopefully he picks up his game soon.

Bednarek is a great professor. He really knows the field of Finance, with years of industry experience and he will teach you what’s important out of all the material. The book was awesome, and he knew the authors from Berkeley and Stanford. His exams are fair and he gives you a very clear idea of the types of questions that will be on them. He expects you to show up for lecture, but is very willing to be interactive and will change his approach and methods based on class feedback (he surveyed us mid-term to ask how the class was going). A fair grader and truly nice guy, he is always available for questions at class break and office hours, and he always responds to emails, usually within the same day. I would highly recommend taking Bednarek, and I’d definitely take another course from him.

Ziemowit did a great job last quarter. Sadly, he is one of the only quality professors in the MBA program at CP. There were a few times later in the quarter that he rushed through things. Other than that he was very thorough and cared about student learning. Yes, his exams were fairly easy, but he wants to set up students for success. I especially think he did a good job seeing as we came to his class in the worst possible classroom in the business building right after accounting when our brains were already shot. I do wish we had half of the class in lecture and half of the class in the computer labs with excel.