BME 2315

Your ability to code is gonna determine how easy this course is for you. Rohde makes it clear in the beginning that this is not a coding class, but a class where coding is essential, and he MEANS it. If you are weak in coding please take CS 111x before attempting this course.

Pros:
- Online videos mean you can easily skip class
- Rohde is very knowledgeable on the subject
- One program (MatLab) is used throughout the entirety of this course
- Exams are open notes

Cons:
- Rohde is not good at answering questions and may potentially in fact hate teaching undergraduates
- PDEs make an appearance despite PDE not being a requirement for this class

Tips for success:
- Look ahead in the course to see upcoming material
- Start the homework early
- Take notes on the online videos

I have a lot to say about this class and I am going to try to be comprehensive as most of the criticism I would give on the course evaluations would be much more helpful for other students to hear. Firstly, before I get into my feedback from the professor, I will say the class is fairly easy. If you remember some Matlab and watch the videos this class will be easy to get an A. Just take care to start the homework a few days early because they can take a while depending on the week (we had maybe three homeworks that were longer than usual). Usually, you can figure out the homework by looking through the posted videos. For this fact, I do recommend the course (it is required for all BME). If you want an easy class but an unhelpful professor, this is your ideal choice.
Now onto the Professor. First of all, he wasn't awful but just terribly unhelpful that I opted to only ask on the piazza in the hope of getting a TA to answer instead of him. We had two lectures a week and it was mandatory to attend on Tuesdays. Thursdays were run as a sort of office hours/ extension of what he had learned. Over time, most people opted not to go on Thursdays. On Tuesdays, he would let us ask questions and then go through a "recitation" which was usually just an example. Most of the time we would not get to the recitation as the questions would take a huge chunk of time. Here is where my real critique starts. A lot of times when someone would ask a question he would accuse us of not watching the videos ahead of time saying that "the videos are necessary to watch before class". I know that I and a few others DID watch ALL of the videos ahead of time and little by little stopped asking questions because every time he would first accuse us of not watching his videos and then assume we knew nothing (since he assumed we did not watch the video). Because of this assumption, he would take 20 minutes going over all the basics before asking us to repeat the question since he had forgotten it. This made for a very inefficient class time and combined with his subtle belittlement, many people were discouraged from asking questions. He would also often say "the videos are short and usually only 15 minutes so it is very easy to get done". Most weeks we would have 3+ videos and often 20-40 minutes each. I still watched all of them but his underestimation of the time we put into his class felt like we were underappreciated.
Because of his inability to answer questions concisely a lot of people stopped coming on Thursdays and on Tuesdays most people did not pay attention other than a few people in the front row. If you do want to ask questions and have a BME schedule, be ready to have very limited office hours times. The TA's office hours are more accessible but I really could only hypothetically go on Mondays. Thankfully, there IS a Piazza which at least helped me to answer questions I needed quick and simple answers to.
Lastly, he was also VERY inflexible. I did not have any issue with this but he did mention the concerns of others and that definitely alerted me. We had homework that was due on Thursday at midnight. A few people apparently asked for an extension and a few submitted things a minute late and asked if it could be counted as on-time (he gave 20% deductions for it being late). He said that he thought it was fair to have a midnight deadline and since he drops the lowest homework, we should not complain. I found this pretty rude since some people can have difficult circumstances and it also put a stronger pressure to turn it in at the exact minute (this isn't a huge issue if you have a normal week but students sometimes have jobs/ family emergencies).
Overall, this professor was unhelpful but the class was fairly easy.