mae 301 - thermo I
mae 308 - fluid mechanics
mae 315 - dynamics of machines
eng 331 - comm for engr and tech (i guess this is online)

trying to get some ideas early before all the "recommend me some easy teachers" threads show up. don't necessarily want the easiest teachers, just ones that actually teach (i know it's asking a lot).

any advice you can give is appreciated.

2/21/2008 11:51:02 PM

going solely by

Quote :

"just ones that actually teach"

301 Boles most definitely
308 Dunno, to me they all seem equally ok. I'd put them at Gould, Ma, Kuznetsov - Gould's stuff is tougher but the most in-depth
315 Ro definitely, Wu teaches but is hard to follow, and I dunno about tran, only had him for 415 but if he's anything like he was in there, he used to be lenient.
331 Doesn't matter, look at the GDRs

This is purely my view, and there's a definite difference in whether a teacher gives better grades or whether they teach the material better. I'm just giving you the ones I think can get the most material through to you.

2/22/2008 1:20:11 AM

mae 301

I had Boles and I highly recommend him. he's the co-author of the textbook, and he knows his stuff and presents it very clearly. he gives reasonable homework, and his tests (3 if i remember) are very similar to the homework....

Leach may also be teaching this. I had him for 302 and do not recommend him. His teaching style is quite boring and his explanations are lacking....

I see also that Corson may be an option. I had him for 412 and highly recommend him. His lectures are clear and entertaining, and he has a very friendly personality. He's an adjunct and only teaches, so he is very willing to help you understand the material.

mae 308

I had Ma for this and 310 (heat transfer). It's pretty easy to get a good grade in her classes, because she mostly goes over examples in class and the essence of the examples appears on the tests. Otherwise, I didn't feel like I learned the fundamental material very well, so there are probably better options available.

mae 315

I had Tu. His instruction is above average, but could use a some refining. His homeworks are mostly from the book, but the book (S. Rao, Mechanical Vibrations) is somewhat lacking as a guide for some of the homework problems. His tests are multiple choice, which is strange, but if you know the material you can generally do well. However, there were always a few odd problems, but this was made up for in a curve....

I've heard people on here praise Tran, but I was not impressed by his lectures for 305/306 and in 415. He, like Ma, emphasized methods for particular problems/examples, which left you with a subpar understanding of the fundamental principles. However, he was quite lenient in 415....

I had Wu for 435. He moves rather fast and is somewhat difficult to understand. I wouldn't recommend him....

As an aside, I would recommend picking up a copy of J.P. Den Hartog's Mechanical Vibrations (new for $13.57 on Amazon) as an additional reference for this class. It's an old book, but a classic that is still very much applicable. The explanations are clear and there are many interesting examples. Also, it has a good set of problems at the end with all answers (not full solutions) provided. However, since the books is such a classic, I imagine that many of the problems have full solutions available on the internet.

eng 331

Look at grade distributions and pick one. I had Helo online and nearly everyone got an A, despite some absolutely horrible work (which I witnessed through some group assignments).

2/22/2008 2:03:06 AM

Whatever you do do not take moses for ENG331.... I imagine any other teacher would not have given me C for my efforts but she did

301- Boles all the way
308- not too sure on this one
315- definitely Ro or Tran....if you want to learn about gears and stuff like that, take Ro... If you'd be more into cams then take Tran

2/22/2008 3:06:53 AM

301 boles all the way. the others are a toss up.

2/22/2008 7:59:21 AM

thanks for all the advice everyone.


anybody else got anything to add?

2/22/2008 8:45:01 AM

301- Boles, you'll learn a lot although your grade might not show it.
308- I had Ma, she lost our 2nd test and rather than retesting, she gave everyone 100s. She's gone now, but Gould seems to be the person you're looking for.
315 & 435 - Ro, he's easy to understand, willing to help you, and goes through the material at a nice, easy pace.

331- Check GDRs. It's usually a joke class anyways.

2/22/2008 8:49:03 AM

^^^ Ma is no longer at NCSU. If you want to see why, go look at her GDR for 308 last semester.

308 & 301: Be careful about taking Kleinstreuer. If you want to see why, go look at his GDR for 308 last semester.

Seriously, he is brutally difficult, but if you can hack it, he's pretty funny and I actually came to like his approach. He focuses on physical understanding of the material and will give you tests with no numbers at all, just symbolic math and physics. Last semester the class started with ~40 people signed up, 14 took the final.

301: Boles is head and shoulders above the rest. When you take his class, follow his solution method. Then go use his solution method in other classes, it'll help.

2/22/2008 8:58:10 AM

Good teachers:

Boles
Buckner

None of the rest have been good. I think Tu is good, but the difficulty of the course wont make you learn the material (multiple choice tests). You have to do more work than he asks to learn the material.

2/22/2008 11:11:32 AM

Holy shit, what happened to Ma's 308 class to get that GDR? Was it because they gave her the boot, or they gave her the boot because she ended up with that GDR? I heard about the second retest for 100's but didn't know she was gone. Her nametag is still up on the door.

2/22/2008 12:25:20 PM

wonder how many tests they had. if it was anything like most ME classes at state, 3 tests and HW for most of your grade. and in general my ME classes went like this:

the first test was usually fairly straightforward and easy A/B material if you did the HW in any form.
second tests. second test was a rude awakening for a lot of people, not as straight forward, bad test average. third seemed to be in between the 1st and 3rd. Finals were easily doable reviewing the old tests.

If she gave out 100s on the 2nd test, and most people got As/Bs on the first test, theres a HUGE chunk of their grade is an A.


Im sure thats not what happened and it was something else we dont know but i was just thinking

2/22/2008 1:18:48 PM

the only thing I hated in her class (other than her stunning and beautiful 'I just rolled out of bed' look ) was that she didn't recognize error propogation and would knock you for numerical errors through the entire process if you made a small mistake early in the problem.

2/22/2008 2:30:39 PM

dont take leach for anything.

308 take Ma. pretty easy and gives a good general understanding.

315 i really liked Wu.

just no leach.

2/22/2008 3:03:54 PM

sorry, apparently ma doesnt teach anymore. those see through white T's made class awesome. and by awesome i mean pretty gross.

2/22/2008 3:06:20 PM

301- boles..he'll make you actually learn stuff and work but its good. just get used to his bitching and turn off your phone
308-...had ma so no idea
315- ro because wu is shittrash (avoid him for 435 too)
eventually
316- tu or "mr. multiple choice" as tran calls him

[Edited on February 22, 2008 at 5:26 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2008 5:25:14 PM

i thought tran was great in 315. He was very helpful during his office hours.

[Edited on February 22, 2008 at 6:32 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2008 6:32:07 PM

I was in Dr. Ma's 308 course last semester. The following is what I wrote on her evaluation. It's a pretty complete review of what happened.



Dr. Ma cancelled the first day of class. This was the beginning of a trend. Over the course of the semester we learned that she did not get tenure and was therefore leaving NCSU for a position somewhere else. Interestingly, she was supposed to teach my Heat Transfer course as well, but was replaced by Dan Cassidy right before the semester began.

After a few class dates, we learned that we were not going to learn everything on the syllabus and only about 2/3 of the material would be covered. We didn’t really follow the syllabus at all and our first (and only) exam covered fluid statics, a section most other fluids teachers skip as it is so basic.

The first exam was a take-home exam passed out near the end of September and was based on material covered in the first two days of class. They were taken up and never returned. I think she said that she lost them. This was a lie however as the TA who taught us toward the end of the course said that he graded and alphabetized them.

She seemed to know that what she was doing was against policies and procedures, and even asked the class on a few occasions whether we had talked about what she was doing with our friends. Others instructors seemed to know about this course, but none of them did anything openly to help us. I felt that any real complaint to an administrator could hurt my chances for a passing grade in the course. I therefore remained silent.

Class was regularly cancelled and these cancellations were even scheduled toward the end. These were widespread and basically removed Thursday classes for a good portion of the course.

The final exam was on 30 October a month and some change before the end of the semester. About the middle of October was the last time she came to class. She did not proctor the final, instead sending a grad student who was asked that morning.

We had been told that after the final, there would be four classes left. Each of these classes would conclude in a quiz that would be worth five percent of the final grade. Instead of teaching the classes herself, she sent our TA.

From the TA we learned about the fate of our first exam and other interesting details. He was a very effective teacher and tried to teach us the important parts of the course. Most of what he told us was new material that had not been covered. Included in the “new” material was the definition of a fluid. Needless to say, time did not permit for us to learn the course in four days.

After the second post-final class date, our final grades had been posted. Apparently the quizzes we were taking were not included in the final grades. I got an A. So did the twenty or so other students I spoke with. From that I gather everyone received an A.

Overall, the course was a waste of time. The entire class is now at a severe disadvantage in the coming courses. We have almost zero real knowledge of fluid mechanics and will suffer because of it. The worst part is there is nothing we can do about it since she already cleaned out her office and left.

Please, in the interest of retaining the value of our degree, do not hire another Dr. Ma. Do not let non-tenure teachers have the freedom to do this to sixty students. I pay a lot of money to go to this school and I should not feel like I have wasted any of it. We need competent teachers who do their jobs. Anything less than that is unacceptable.




This is the grade distribution. Everyone was give a 100.

[Edited on February 22, 2008 at 6:39 PM. Reason : ]

2/22/2008 6:38:11 PM

don't worry, you don't need fluids

all you need to know from that class is a basic Bernoulli eqn for 412

2/22/2008 10:45:17 PM

^^ meh, no ones stopping u from learning fluids. You're an engineer so u basically know u have to teach urself most of the material for all ur classes anyways. Take the free A and be happy, no ones stopping u from reading ur fluids book and learning the material urself. You're never gonna use that shit in the real world anyways. Yes u paid for the class and u received a free A which will boost ur gpa (or keep it up if it already is) and help u get a good job. School is worthless anyway so be happy and move on.


Anyway, to the OP, if you dont take boles for Thermo 1...if you get him for thermo 2 you will most likely have a lot of catching up to do. So it's probably advisable to save urself some trouble and go ahead and take him for 301.

[Edited on February 22, 2008 at 10:54 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2008 10:46:53 PM

^^^Wow...just....wow. Still remember the day she basically brought the one hot girl in my class to tears by berating her in her office about how bad of an engineer she was gonna be.

2/23/2008 2:32:36 AM

My purpose in that evaluation was to shed some light on the semester and let the administration somewhere know what's up. I posted it here unedited because like I said, it is a pretty good description of the semester.

But seriously graz, are you suggesting that what Dr. Ma did that semester was ok?

2/23/2008 10:35:53 AM

^ Unfortunately, experiences similar to yours have happened in the MAE department in the past and even when you do alert the administration, university employment is structured such that there isn't really anything they can do about it. Back in 2005 my 315 class only covered half the required curriculum and was a joke because the prof was tenured and being forced out. These people have a habit of covering their deficiencies by handing out good grades, but it is really a disservice that devalues our degrees.

I had Roberts for 301. He usually only teaches it during the summer and is tough but was one of my more favorite professors, and as a rule any graduate student teaching an undergraduate course does a good job.

2/23/2008 11:57:05 PM

Quote :

"as a rule any graduate student teaching an undergraduate course does a good job."

Wat?

I think you meant that they give good grades.... I've had three classes(two econ and one comp sci) that were taught by grad students and they sucked as far as actually teaching. Hell, one of them had a take home final that she let us work on with other people.

2/24/2008 7:14:39 PM

^ I was referring to the PhD students in the MAE department who teach the regular classes this thread is talking about instead of labs. I have no idea how grad students teach in other departments, but in MAE they are better than a good number of the professors.

2/24/2008 8:33:12 PM

^ I'll agree. I've had a few ME grad students and I often prefer them over regular profs. They can relate more to students and know how to get the material across better.

If anyone here has had Sid Becker teach them anything you can agree. The guy is a genius but knows how to dumb stuff down.

2/24/2008 10:38:28 PM

Dan Cassidy was a good grad student teacher..not sure if he still teaches

2/25/2008 8:52:12 AM

Quote :

"as a rule any graduate student teaching an undergraduate course does a good job."

Alex York ftw! He pretty much single handedly taught my statics and dynamics classes when Dr. Seelecke and Dr. Wu failed to.

2/25/2008 10:22:46 AM

thanks for all the suggestions. keep them coming.

i learn a lot more from my dynamics TA during his office hours than i do from silverberg during class.

2/25/2008 11:32:51 AM

sid becker was rad...little scatter brained at times but good none the less
sean danby or whatever was good in lab and i've seen him teaching a real class this semester(fluids maybe), id take him for a real class

i think the trend of grad students being good teachers has a direct correlation to them being white/english speaking

2/25/2008 3:45:04 PM

I had Ma spring 07 and even then she canceled every other class and lost the 2nd test, supposedly. I didn't study for a single thing and still got a B

2/25/2008 4:52:46 PM

Quote :

"But seriously graz, are you suggesting that what Dr. Ma did that semester was ok?"

Yep, I'll take free A's all day long. I just want a good gpa and my degree already. Never going to use any of this in the "real world" anyway. If your taking the "I paid for this class I want to be taught route" every professor will tell you u don't really learn shit till grad school anyways. With that said, most engineering students are fully capable of reading their textbook and figuring out fundamental concepts on their own. When she canceled class you could have still used that allotted time to study on your own and read your book/work problems.

You haven't wasted your money you paid for an A which will help your gpa which will in turn help you get a decent first job. Like I said, no one stopped you from teaching yourself, which is what happens in every engineering class anyways since it's impossible to cover more than just basic concepts in class.

2/26/2008 12:43:28 AM

oh no THE TEACHER IS GIVING EVERYONE A'S HURRY TATTLE TAIL ON HER THAT BITCH TRYING TO RAISE MY GPA.

the class is useless anyway. what a fuckin goody goody TheCapricorn

2/26/2008 12:53:40 AM

You know what. You guys are right. I feel pretty dumb for implying that a teacher should show up during class. What the fuck was I thinking?

2/26/2008 1:42:57 AM

^Capricorn, I agree with you.

You should read the book and try to learn as much possible, but the teacher shoulda showed up. There's a lot of insight I know I've gained from my professors as far as technique and strategy go, but a book would of never shown. He paid for the class, and Ma should of done her job. As simple as that.

One more thought:
If it bothers you that much, just go sit in another teachers class and listen to lecture.

[Edited on February 26, 2008 at 8:16 AM. Reason : ]

2/26/2008 8:14:27 AM

Quote :

"every professor will tell you u don't really learn shit till grad school anyways."

That's a load of BS.

2/26/2008 9:48:17 AM

for real. i use thermo I, II, fluids, and heat transfer concepts everyday. grad school in engineering is generally for those want want to teach or do R&D. what you learn in undergrad can be very relevant to your job.

[Edited on February 26, 2008 at 10:02 AM. Reason : ]

2/26/2008 10:02:33 AM

I had dan cassidy for 308, he was awesome but a grad student so probably gone now.

DO NOT TAKE MA UNLESS ALL YOU WANT IS A GRADE.

YOU WILL NOT LEARN SHIT AND WILL ME SCREWED IN ANY CLASS THAT ASSUMES SHE TAUGHT YOU SOMETHING.

2/26/2008 2:02:44 PM

i believe we have established that Ma doesn't teach here anymore and she sucked when she did.

keep the good advice coming

2/26/2008 3:12:26 PM

Quote :

"I had dan cassidy for 308, he was awesome but a grad student so probably gone now."

Nah, he's still around. I'm not sure if he's really doing any teaching this semester though. I think he is pretty much a summer school teaching person, which is fine by me because he's good at it.

Take Tran for anything. He's hilarious in class, but gets the knowledge to you at the same time. Talk to him about Pack sports and he'll go on and on.

2/26/2008 7:49:43 PM

For MAE 315 definitely take Ro, he will teach you a lot, and no matter what he gives out 25% A, B, C, D and no F's

2/26/2008 11:37:32 PM

For Thermo 1 and 2, take Bowles, yeah he wrote the book, and yeah you wont get a good grade, unless you complete his on the side task (HINT!!!). But you will know turbines, boilers, cycles, everything front and back.

2/26/2008 11:39:20 PM

^^ except last semester it looks like he only gave out half as many A's as promised. I think it was 13%/38% or something.

Ro's project was kind of tough, but he graded it fairly lightly, I thought. He gave us three, maybe four weeks for it. Tran hands out two easier, less open ended projects, but I've never had Tran so I can't really comment on him as a teacher.

2/27/2008 12:43:20 AM

for controls, definitely take Buckner. I had him for 208 and controls, he's the man.

2/27/2008 12:32:56 PM

301:Boles
308:Gould - strict, but the knowledge floweth forth from him

331: Pittman, tell her Joey referred you.


I learned most of my 308 material in 412 with the great P.B. Corson. He is the man.

2/28/2008 12:58:44 PM

Quote :

"308:Gould - strict, but the knowledge floweth forth from him"

is that flow laminar or turbulent?

2/28/2008 1:35:45 PM

I would agree with both Hurley and Nerdchick

I have Buckner for 435(controls) and he is a really great instructor in the way of explaining difficult material. I had Boles for thermo I and II. While he's not the easiest professor ever, he teaches you good methods at which to approach thermodynamic problems.

[Edited on February 28, 2008 at 8:34 PM. Reason : .]

2/28/2008 8:33:23 PM

So they are offering 301 with Boles online next semester, dont need to take 302... If I watch every lecture how would this go?

3/1/2008 12:24:24 AM

is it an online section, or a distance education section? If it's DE, remember you have to pay extra for those classes. Other than that, I'd think it would be fine. But if you have questions . . . it will be tough to see him as he is rarely there.

3/1/2008 1:54:17 AM

^ Can you even get in those if you aren't at a satellite campus? It sounds like one of the classes where it meets in daniels and they keep netmeeting up with UNCA or pembroke, etc. The people taking it distance have to come to class - it's a distance class not an internet class.

3/2/2008 2:43:42 PM

MAE 301-Boles

MAE 308-Gould

MAE 315-Tran

I had all of these teachers. They may not have been the best, but I came out of those classes with a pretty good knowledge of each. As long as you put effort into the class, show up to class these guys are usally willing to help (at least they were in my case)

ENG 331-Julia Helo or Hello (can't remember) take it online. rather easy. I got an A+

3/2/2008 3:54:21 PM