ENGR 1620

Professor Lewin is a great professor and an even better person. He really cares about his students, and during the final project, he would stay late to help students work out problems with 3d printing/code/organizing.

Professor Lewin is a Systems engineer, so this intro class is modeled after what real Systems engineers would do. You will learn about the project lifecycle, and how to complete a project from start to finish...and then you actually do it. I made a plate tectonic simulation for 8th grade students at a local Charlottesville middle school.

The class will be heavily focused on groupwork and presentation skills. There are no written tests, quizzes or homework - effort counts as long as you show Lewin that you are putting forth the effort.

Definitely would recommend taking this class if you can, I know first semester engineering doesn't really let you pick you schedule. I don't know if Lewin is still teaching intro, but nevertheless it was a great experience.

This is by far one of the most rewarding classes I have ever taken. Professor Lewin is an extraordinary professor whose passion for design and engineering shine through every lecture. This class and Professor Bailey's intro to engineering class are formatted in a similar way. The whole semester is spent working on a single project that counts for most of your grade, and by completing this project, you learn about the design process. Our task was to build a machine/game to teach a life science topic to sixth grade students at a local elementary school in Charlottesville. The class starts out very easy (but still interesting) with very little work outside of class. It was my easiest class in the beginning of the semester, but by the end, it became my most time consuming class. Doing all of the project planning, etc. is fairly easy and not time consuming, but by the end of the semester we were putting in tons and tons of time outside of class to get our project finished in time for "Demo Day" at the elementary school. However, this was by far my most rewarding class of my first semester at UVA. It taught me a lot about working with a team, the design process, and how hard work is worth it in the end (especially when little kids tell you how awesome your project is!) This class reassured me of my passion for engineering. Although some other intro to engineering classes may be less work, I don't regret taking this class in the slightest, and I highly recommend it.