MSE 3670

Prof. McDonnell is an extremely nice, energetic, and intelligent guy. His lectures were interesting because he explains things well, even though he moves pretty fast through the material. The homeworks were fair, although sometimes graded a bit harshly as you have the option to make corrections the following week. I found the textbook to be incredibly helpful as it supported his lectures but went more into depth on the concepts and helped me do well on the exams.

Professor McDonnell is a really nice guy. He is very approachable at office hours, he gets to know his students individually by name and encourages asking questions. Also, he really knows what he is teaching in depth. Overall, the class material was interesting, and he gives you freedom to pursue any related topic for a class project . The average grade for when I took the class was between a B+ and A-.

The one problem with McDonnell's teaching style is that he went over material very quickly. So quickly that it was difficult to pay attention, think about the concepts, and take meaningful notes at the same time. Sometimes, it was difficult to just pay attention, because he just flies over some concepts and it is easy to get behind. As a result, I had to rewatch many of his lecture videos (about 18 out of his 26 lecture videos), which was very time consuming (40+ hours). In addition, some of the homeworks in class felt like busywork, because many of the problems required copying formulas out of the powerpoints and just plugging in to get an answer.

Overall, McDonnell is a good professor, and he knows his material inside and out, but he does go quite fast.