ENGR 1621

You don't have a choice, but it's a terrible lab. The assignments couldn't be any less relevant to engineering. There's very little problem solving and a whole lot of data entry and just general tedium to go through. Grading is often arbitrary. A TA once took 10 points off of a drawing assignment because "the lines aren't straight enough"

Such a stupid class. You basically just have a weekly lab that you have to turn in by Friday at 4PM. These labs are either Excel based or MathCAD based and teach you absolutely nothing about anything. They are boring, tedious, and are randomly graded based on what TA you have.

Just follow the instructions exactly, box your answers, and you should be fine. It's not difficult, but it's annoying. Most of the labs take 30 minutes to an hour so just set that time aside on Thursdays or Fridays and you should be good.

Also, it says that the lab time is at 8:30 on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday but you only have to go to the first one because after that all the assignments are posted online. The only time you go after that is if you want help on your assignments.

This is just a class you have to get through. There are only 12 assignments throughout the semester. If you put in a little effort, doing well should be easy. Office hours are usually nuts, but most of the TAs will check your answers.

There are two outcomes for this class: you get TA's that grade strictly or TA's that are lenient. Hopefully you get the latter, but if you do happen to have a meticulous TA, go to office hours to make sure your labs are golden. The year I took this, some TA's graded so harshly that they had to curve the other sections down half a letter grade.

This class was pretty pointless. Don't take it if you don't to. Wasn't really that hard, but the TA's aren't that helpful and it's just a waste of time.

Just a bunch of weekly assignments. Make sure to read the directions and if you don't know how to do it, go to office hours as the TA's actually help you. Sometimes the problems are difficult to do just because you don't know how to use the program, though that's what the point of the class is (to learn how to use the programs). Didn't really learn anything though.

So overall I thought the class was pretty easy. I made sure I had all the problems on the problem sets correct before I handed them in yet I still managed to get a B! He takes points off for absolutely RIDICULOUS things. For the first 6 weeks because my name was not in the top right corner, I lost 5% on each of my assignments before I even knew I was supposed to. I went in to talk to him about it and he was rude and arrogant and made comparisons to the real world as if the placement on my name is going to matter that much. At the end of the semester I ended up with an 89.8 raw average and he sent out an email that my class was going to be curved up! Apparently is curve was less than 0.2 so I still got a B not even a B+. I sent him a nice email about how I worked hard in the class and how I was really close to the A range and had lost a lot of points for silly things like the placement on my test. He was extremely rude in the reply saying things like "to my disgust" I will let you bring in your labs to let me look at them. I didn't of course because I was so done with him. My advice to you: this is required so make sure your name is in the upper right hand of the page. Label everything with units and you should be fine. Hopefully you want have to talk to him face to face!

This isn't really a class. You just spend 2-4 hours trying to figure out mathcad or excel through the worksheets and readings to finish an assignment every week. Overall, the assignments are not too bad... they just take up some time. Prof. Cahen specifically says you do not have to show up to class if you can do the assignments on your own. Basically, if you can sit down in front of your computer for a good 2-4 hours and you're not a dumbass, you'll be fine :).

One thing that makes this class difficult is the fact that your class may round down. In order to make things fair, Cahen adjusts grades so all TAs have the same average. The only tip I have is to do as much work as possible. Show your work, show all steps, clearly show that you double checked your work, write your units...etc. I had a pretty strict science teacher in high school, so I was used to labeling EVERYTHING and writing complete sentences for math problems. If that's the case, you won't have a problem. The TAs literally take points off for everything.
Overall, it's pretty much an easy A or A- if you can sit down on a computer and read directions. You end up learning some cool functions on excel and MathCad!

This course is required for all first-year engineers...there's no way of getting out of this class, unfortunately. It's an overall easy class. Make sure you go to the TA office hours! It's 1000x quicker to ask them questions than to try and figure it out yourself.

Not a terribly hard class, however all the assignments are graded harshly. You do not have to show up to class, its simply an assignment due every Friday in excel or mathcad. Getting the correct answer is only a small part however, as formatting matters more to the graders. Take your time and follow instructions exactly and you should be able to do well.