Chiu, Yi-Wen  

Professor Chiu is a new professor here at Cal Poly and therefore should not be criticized too harshly for making rookie mistakes. That being said, this past quarter with her was a disaster. As this was her first time teaching Geographic Information Systems (GIS) ever, she had no idea how to teach students the skills we needed to master. She would breeze through exercises without explaining the purpose of what we were doing, then was shocked when we could not do it on our own. Her exams were very poorly timed; she just didn't understand that we were slower at completing projects than she was because we didn't have years and years of GIS experience like she had. Overall, being in the guinea pig class for Dr. Chiu was an incredibly frustrating experience, but by the end of the quarter I can say that she had learned a few things and will hopefully be a better professor for the next class. Also, since this was a skills-based class for a computer program, Dr. Chiu may very well be a great lecture professor for other classes, I don't know. What was encouraging was that Dr. Chiu did demonstrate that she wants her students to succeed and that she wants to improve her ability to teach. I think that she could be a good GIS professor someday, but it will take some time. If you happen to be enrolled in a GIS class with her, I would recommend several things. First, keep everything on a flash drive and know the times that the GIS labs are open. All too often I would try to work on GIS over the weekend and would find that I could not because the data was only accessible in the lab. Second, don't hesitate to visit her during office hours often and let her know of anything you are having trouble with or don't understand. Chances are the whole class is also struggling and she won't notice until somebody says something. Lastly, take advantage of the GIS peer advisers and Russell White, the GIS specialist at the library. They can help you. A lot.

During this entire quarter all I could think about was how this professor reminded me of that small little dog that runs through the back of scene 23 in The Incredibles by Pixar. Seriously, if you look it up you will only be able to see it...