Ayash, Brian  

This man knows his stuff. I don't understand why he has such low ratings. He gave a take home final, and I am glad to have taken him. Class is easy and requires a mediocre amount of work.

Let me begin by saying Professor Ayash is a good guy. He has a semi-sarcastic demeanor that is admirable. HOWEVER, Bus 342 is an INTRO class to Finance that Ayash believed was an advanced class for Finance concentrations. He skips all the basics and expects you to already know the information, which is impossible because YOU HAVE NEVER TAKEN A FINANCE CLASS before. If I wanted to get royally screwed by 342, I would've taken Gorman, and at least then I would have actually learned something. Instead, I was forced to interpret an advanced finance book by spending thousands of hours outside of class crying. Multiple visits to the tutor and office hours are in your future, and when you finally make a breakthrough you'll have to move on to a new topic. If you want to go into finance, it might not be that bad. However, I would avoid if you don't want to do a ton of work on your own, only to get a C but have it be the highest grade in the class. Don't worry, though, theres a solid 40 point curve.

I can honestly say I didn't learn anything from him. He reads of powerpoints and flies by problems. I really tried for the first midterm and studied hard, meaning I spend hours on hours studying the book and teaching myself. I really got fed up and basically gave up because after the midterm I was 5 points above the class average which was 34% not including the final and last quiz. I didn't study as hard as I should have for the final and still somehow managed to get a B+ in the class (keep in mind I failed most quizzes but got a B on the midterm). But I can honestly say I'm walking away with absolutely no finance knowledge except how to calculate a present value.... Either avoid this cocky, self centered guy who only talks about going surfing and snowboarding, or keep ahead of the class average.

To keep it short and sweet: This was the worst class I've ever taken at Cal Poly with the worst teacher. Chances are, he'll never teach BUS 342 again. It was clear to the administration that he had no business teaching this course based on how many students complained about him and the average grade his students would get on each of his assignments (which was a low F). Don't ever take this professor. If you absolutely have to, be prepared to learn all the material in your free-time, by yourself. On a side-note, I received an F on every assignment but his curve was so fat that I ended up with a B! Don't take any chances, though.

Ayash is not nearly as bad as his polyratings suggest. If you are taking 342, the vocal minority loves to rip on him because he doesn't force feed you the material. He covers everything clearly in class, but expects you to know terms that are clearly defined in the book/ readily available to look up on google. The case studies, homework, and quizzes are hard but not impossible. There are almost no free problems, and every question is unique in the way it's solved. If your intention as a college student is to take the easiest classes possible so you can learn jack squat and boost your meaningless GPA, this is definitely not the class for you. However, if you want to be treated like an adult as well as someone who has a fully functional brain, Ayash is the perfect professor.

Brian Ayash is the most arrogant asshole I have ever encountered. He always talks about how he went to college for 12 years and boasts about all the knowledge he doesn't even make money with. He's an avid surfer and will spend the first 10 minutes of almost every lecture talking about the waves he caught earlier that morning. He CANNOT teach to save his life. Corporate Finance is the first finance class you can take at Poly, but he teaches it like you've been studying this stuff as long as he has. If you answer a question in class incorrectly, he'll make you never want to open your mouth in that classroom again. Going to his office hours is another waste of precious time. There are weekly quizzes and IMPOSSIBLE data cases that no one understands. There is one midterm and one final. The midterm is doable, if and only if you study every single day starting the first day of class. The final is 15 questions from hell. If you value your GPA and mental health, do not take any classes with Brian Ayash.

Terrible professor. I didn't learn a single thing. Solid 50% curve because the class average is so low.

This fool has to pump himself up to prove that hes a worthy professor(i.e. "12 years of school' or "you should see my rolodex") but this is just not the case. Most of the work is just self taught so if you read and do some practice work on your own you'll be ok but that doesnt make this class any easier. Ayash grades like a son of a bitch which is hilarious because he might mark you down on formating when he gives zero guidelines on how you should format anything. The worst part about it is, he doesnt listen to the criticism. Hell just remind you about how he went to school for 12 years and how he knows all. Anyone who has to constantly remind you of his accomplishments most likely has not accomplished anything noteworthy. The only thing I learned from this class is is sometimes polyratings is spot on. Overall, terrible professor and if possible, AVOID taking him at all costs.

DO NOT TAKE HIM. HE IS THE MOST HEARTLESS PERSON EVER AND DOES NOT CARE ABOUT STUDENT DIFFICULTIES. The average was a 4/10 on the midterm and he's not curving it.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS... Does not take time to explain anything and expects you to ace tests.

Professor Ayash no doubt has real-world experience, which I generally value and respect in a professor. That being said, he has NO ability to teach the knowledge he has gained in his past experience, and he clearly has spent a lot of time talking down to/interrupting/shooting down the ideas of junior analysts working under him, because he treats his students the exact same way. He gives 13-14 case studies throughout the quarter and you and your team are expected to turn in 7. He gives little to no direction about his grading criteria for the case studies, and when you get them back graded, you'll generally get a 1 or 2 out of 5. The only comments he will make are things like "didn't like the formatting" or "poor word choice." He gives you a case study on a topic you may not have any experience with and expect you to do a detailed write-up with financial analysis without having introduced the concept to you first. His midterms and tests are out of 10 and 15 points respectively, and the average on the midterm was 4 out of 10. 40%. The final (take-home) took myself and 3 others 5 hours to complete, because we were simply never taught the things he was asking us to do. The material is straightforward if we were taught, but Ayash somehow manages to waste 2 hours 2x/week on not teaching and berating his students. If you tell him that you are struggling or not comprehending his "course objectives" (which, of course, are nonexistent) he does not have one modicum of sympathy towards you. BOTTOM LINE: DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS if you can avoid it. Entrepreneurship students in particular are better off taking this course with York. Professor Ayash is an incompetent professor without an inkling of human emotion.

I'm going to let you Business majors in on a little secret, don't. take. this. mother. fucker. You will walk into this mans office hours and he will whisper sweet nothings into your ear giving you the idea that he can't be that much of a prick. And since he has a nice office on the VIP 4th floor of bus building. No, no you fucking retard. Do not be fooled. This guy is ready to buttfuck you all the way to the depths of hell. If you're reading this and thinking "a teacher can't be that bad". Ha Ha get ready for an emotional rollercoaster at the expense of your GPA with this 50 year old finance bro who still thinks he's on spring break in Cabo circa fuckin 1960. DO NOT DO IT

Very disappointed. I was really hoping to learn more about venture capital, angel investing, initial public offerings, etc. considering that is the course description. Unfortunately, he assumed that we already knew about these topics, and expected us to use such language when discussing cases that cost $50 that had nothing to do with the midterm/final. In fact, we were expected to utilize the internet on take-home assignments (including the final) to learn about something ON the assignment. Cases took up basically the whole class, and it seemed impossible to get more than a 3/5 on them. He seems to be more focused on the grammar and format of the write-up than the actual content. I was really hoping to use some BUS 342 math and intuition in this course, but it hardly ever came into use. In conclusion: course objectives are extremely obscure, and you are treated as though you already know about all the stuff in the course description in the catalog.

Ayash is not nearly as bad as his rating or earlier reviews make him seem. Starting with the material, it really is not that difficult for any competent finance kid, especially for anyone who has already taken 431. That being said, if you are in entrepreneurship and you hated 342, or took a really easy professor, you may find the concepts foreign and challenging. Thankfully, a whopping 35% of the grade is participation... You can know jack about finance and still do relatively well since he curves the grades to ridiculous heights. Finally, regarding him as a person, he may actually be reading his criticisms since it seemed like he tried to tone down his general "prick"-ness and "heartless" demeanor as stated by earlier posts. His personality is honestly not much different than Gorman, or any other Type-A Finance guy; he's blunt, he expects a lot from students in college, and has a similar disposition to any other ivy-league graduate, wall street banker. Call it arrogance or asshattery or whatever but you just have to learn to roll with it like you will in the real world. Overall, not the best professor in the world but definitely not the worst, or deserving of his current .67 rating. It seems pretty obvious he's still learning but I actually sort of enjoyed the concepts of valuing a start-up and the fundamental differences between a typical valuation. A solid 3/4 class.

This guy is so bad. The startups he uses as examples throughout his course are completely different when you talk about startups in modern day world. He has no idea how any of the processes are actually done in Silicon Valley, and his valuation methods on startups are SO FAR off. TLDR: He's a total prick without any credibility in teaching this class. Avoid and take another elective if you can.

First off I would like say whoever wrote the review third from the bottom is quite dumb and naive, as the revelation that "The final (take-home) took myself and 3 others 5 hours to complete" led to a cheating witch hunt that ended with many people failing the class who did not cheat. Now as for Dr. Ayash, taking his class should depend on what kind of person you are. If you are someone who is serious about getting a high paying job in finance (Investment Banking, Equity Research, Trading etc.) Ayash is your guy. If you are a basic bro/girl who thinks "start-ups are rad" and "making apps would be chill" stay clear because Ayash will crush you like Carl Icahn crushes weak CEOs, laughing and taunting your incompetence from his pedestal. Entrepreneurial finance is somewhat of a misnomer. The class should be called something like "Valuation, M&A and Strategy for Small Companies". If you are a CIE guy who has never seen a balance sheet in his/her life, you're gonna have a bad time. That being said if you are a finance major and maybe you took a Gorman class and enjoyed it, this wont be that different. Just know that with Gorman while you were getting smashed, you could at least take solace in the fact that he talked about drinking a lot and lives on a boat. Ayash will just talk about how much money he and his friends used to make and how now he's a stay-at-home dad that surfs. Brian has industry experience like no other in the B-school. I suspect if you somehow manage to impress him he will give you access to the dragon guarded treasure that is his Rolodex. This probably means interviews at IBanks and PE/HF firms normally reserved for Rockefellers and Carnegies. If you are a "big picture guy" with big aspirations, consider Brian.

This is one of my favorite courses I have taken at Cal Poly so far. The lectures and case studies are very interesting and it's always entertaining to be in class, since Professor Ayash has quite a unique sense of humor. I will not lie, the course work is very difficult, especially for Entrepreneurs (like myself) since the Finance majors have had more preparation for a finance class of this caliber from their previous classes. However, Ayash is quite willing to help answer any questions in class or in office hours and is understanding and accommodating of the finance/accounting knowledge gaps some of us Cal Poly entrepreneurs may have. The harsh reviews on here should't be completely trusted, he's a great professor and is very knowledgable about the subject.

Have you ever entered a sexual relationship with a teacher? No? Here's your opportunity! Ayash is happy to screw each and every student for 2 hours twice a week, plus the final. Ayash is a comedian so he'll understand a few jokes at his expense (behind his back). Ayash has transcended the realm of "a mean teacher" to a the point of being the character of the evil teacher rather than a real person. He knows he's evil and he pushes the joke to the point of destroying students for fun. He gives everybody a B in the end by using a ridiculous curve but he fails every case and test you turn in during the quarter just to watch you squirm. He figuratively bathes in the F covered work he has graded while listening to the recorded screams of his abused students. A great distraction from the pain caused by his lectures is to track when he wears his wedding ring. It appears from my team's researcher that the shorter is shirts sleeves are, the less likely he is to wear the ring. All things considered, the class really sucks but if it's required by your major, you'll probably have to take it with him. The class is just a big student roast with a some a finance sprinkled on top. Jokes aside, just try to learn something and keep reminding yourself that basically everyone gets a B and you'll be fine.

Do not buy the cases from hbr! You can get them from the library through interlibrary loan for free! You can save $60 by doing this.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! He is a prick, doesn't care about his students. It's obvious he became a teacher for other reasons rather than to actually teach. Hard to take advice from a guy with "industry experience" but for some reason is no longer in industry. He has too many degrees with no real application with any of them-- so the obvious fallback is a teacher. Ha- this fool is a joke!

Very condescending guy. Definitely a smart guy who has industry experience, but the way he teaches his class does not benefit his students. Will teach only conceptual things in class time and then homework and tests are only on very hard math based questions.

All of you who complain about Ayash and his teaching abilities are a bunch of p*ssies and probably had to retake P.E in junior high. If you want a class that is an easy A where you won't learn a thing, go ahead and avoid him. If you want to learn from an individual who has an unmatched level of knowledge in finance, give it a shot. This class is on par with Gorman's courses, and will definitely challenge you, however, is not unmanageable. This guy did a great job of teaching 438, as well as 436. He expects a lot out of his students, but this is real life stuff. If you can't appreciate a professor pushing his students the way he does, why are you at Poly? Guys the real deal, grow a pair and take his courses.

Guy rocks, these ratings are all from people who are soft. It's hard material, and he presents it in a clear way. If you have a question, ask it. If nobody asks questions he will just keep moving forward (at a pretty fast rate) but if somebody asks a question, he takes the time to answer it and make sure everybody gets it. He is also a savage and its just fun to listen to him talk. Take Ayash if you are driven, want to learn a lot, and be in a competitive environment.

There's a reason his polyratings are so low- he can't present material in a way thats effective to the class. Anytime someone asks a question he immediately puts you down and makes you feel so belittled. He occasionally does a flipped classroom where you're expected to know something so advanced yet he never teaches it to you in the first place. He always starts off in a negative mood and complains about how many emails he gets from students, yet his job is to be there for students with questions. Also he is always WIRED in class...writes gibberish on the board and expects you to be able to somehow know what he is talking about. I would genuinely stay away from his class because Durham and Rastad can teach it so much better which will help you post college.

Take Ayash if you care about learning valuable financial concepts. He asks a lot out of his students and his grading is hard, HOWEVER, the whole class is curved. He is one of the few professors within the Business school that have impressed me with their knowledge. He is very willing to help you in his office hours and if you participate during class, he will take a liking to you. This is one of the few classes I have taken at OCOB and actually believe I have received my money's worth for the things that I learned. There are about two weeks left, and I have an A going into the final. If you are prepared to put in the effort, you will learn AND receive a good grade.

Do NOT take this class. No matter how hard you study it is impossible to pass his tests. He lectures on the book examples and homework is based off of questions from the book but he tests on questions he made up that make no sense at all. He also has proctors for his tests so if you have a question you are out of luck. Even though he does curve, this class is not worth the stress. The group project takes so long to do and its worth so little of your grade. He grades with impossible expectations and is not helpful when you ask him a question. He is so condescending and you leave the lecture more confused than when you walked in. I have had my fair share of bad professors, but no one has even come close to Ayash. I have learned barely anything from this class and am going into spring quarter wishing I would have waited and taken Durham.

This guy actually blows. As a 4th year, I have seen my fair share of tweakers around campus and the general SLO area. Ayash exhibits all the signs of a tweaker and then some. He paces back and forth during lecture spewing complete and utter dogshit, only to test students on information that never once came out of his crack-consuming mouth-hole. To be quite honest, this guy is probably knowledgeable in the industry. But there are so many problems with his teaching style and arrogant demeanor that it is not worth it to take him. The funny thing is, I'm not even doing bad in his class; I just cannot stand the guy. When I had a pretty bad case of strep throat, he still made me come to class to fulfill his stupid participation/attendance policy. How can you justify that as a healthy learning environment?

Brian, while knowledgeable, has no idea how to structure a classroom, or give valuable criticism. I got an A in his class, but it had nothing to do with me understanding Advanced Corporate Finance. His class does not help you learn a thing. He barely teaches you in the lectures. Whatever was in his lecture will not be reinforced with his home works. And neither the material covered in the lecture or the home works are what show up on his tests. His entire class is simply not suited to teach the student anything. The only valuable part of his class is his company evaluation project. This project is to get the actual leveraged value of a company of your choosing, and this is actually a great project. However, he will not help you understand what this project is leading toward. He tells you he is going to give you critiques on it throughout the class, but the critiques he'll give you are a 3 minute video simply telling you what tabs on the excel sheet are correct and which ones aren't. He will never go into detail about how those excel tabs are wrong. And this is absolutely infuriating. He makes it abundantly clear that he does not care about teaching students anything. The only reason I managed to do ok on this project was because I managed to reverse engineer an example one of his in-class speakers sent out in class. I got an A, and I didn't learn a thing. Avoid Brian Ayash like the plague.

One of the smartest teacher's I've ever had. He has a CFA, CPA, PHD, MBA, you name it. But the issue with having this many qualifications is that you don't understand student difficulties or skill level. He feeds off of students troubles and from what I've experienced doesn't want his students to succeed. Avoid him if you can. I wish I did.

He replaced Ramezani for the CFA Challenge Senior Project and did not really make an impact on any of us in the class. Ramezani really cared about how we were approaching the CFA and offered help on studying and how to approach each subject. Ayash literally came into class told us not to fail and had a student assistant give the test. I see the pass rate going from 70% to 40% because of his lack of care and approach to the students taking the CFA. I will concede that it is his first time teaching this senior project so perhaps he will stop being such a prick and offer some better advice.

The CFA challenge. An incredibly hard task. I studied roughly 200 hours for the exam in December 2016 (I find out if I passed in 3 days, not kidding). If you are passionate about finance, take this exam. It is so worth it. Yes it's a TON of work and sucks. But you will eventually be working on this at some point in your career so you might as well take is at your senior project (two birds one stone idea). You take 1 test every Friday for 6 hours. 240 questions. Your grade in the class is based on how you perform on these mock-CFA exams for ten weeks (if you pass the CFA, you get an A). He provides you the resources necessary to study hard. IT IS COMPLETELY AUTONOMOUS STUDYING. ITS ALL ON YOU. You're a senior, and a grown adult, it's your responsibility. I highly recommend this to the avid finance student.

What else is there to say? Fine person, nothing interesting. Class was meh... Blah, blah, blah... Fine person.