BME 2220

I have never experienced a class with more students complaining unnecessarily. This class was a true depiction of what a college level biomedical engineering course looks like, except with an immense amount of support. Office hours were held frequently, in which the answers were quite literally explained and given to students if they asked for them. The professor would take every single individual request to meet seriously, meeting with every single student that asked her to meet, despite having the responsibilities of running a lab and being incredibly high up in her respective field. The material in this class is fundamentally basic statics applied to a biological setting. The professor is more than knowledgeable in the field and as mentioned was more than happy to further explain topics to students if requested. The class demands that office hours be attended, as many classes do, as practice with the material is needed. To put it simply, the vast majority of students that complain about this class were looking for an easy A that required no input or effort on their end. That is not engineering. Initially this switch can admittedly be jarring, but once it is understood that effort is required in college, it is clear that this class is merely a couple of hours a week of work, with exams that contain problems that have fully been given verbatim prior to exam day.

#tCFF23 Oh my god PLEASE if you can, please do not take biomechanics with this instructor!!!

I will preface that fall 2023 was her first time teaching, but the course itself felt very disorganized for the first month. The TAs were helpful, but since none had her as their professor so there was not much advice they could give on exams. I knew numerous of my peers who dropped this class after the first exam since no one knew what to even study for. I also did not appreciate that lecture recording were often posted very near the exam dates, meaning if you missed a class due to illness/family emergencies, you could not catch up in time unless a friend gave you the notes.

My advice to you: switch sections if you can. If you can't, try going to OH consistently and have a group of friends to work on the HWs with. Keep asking pushy questions in class about the test or you're not goign to find out what's on it. Good luck.

Professor Sheybani is a horrible professor. She cannot understand the material let alone explain it to a whole lecture of eager students. Allowing her to teach a class deprives students of actually learning the material. The academic environment is less than ideal. She expects perfection from every student despite her incapabilities and lack of knowledge regarding the material. Furthermore, she refuses to acknowledge her several mistakes and errors throughout the semester. She does not care about her students whatsoever, she only cares about getting her tenure. She told her students to rate her well in the course evaluations because she wanted her tenure. This is a major power dynamic, and students likely felt pressured or guilted to rate her well. Professor Sheybani needs to develop more structure, communication, organization for her courses in the future. #tCFF23

This was the worst course I have ever taken at UVA. The professor was unbelievably unreasonable compared to each semester in the past, resulting in an astonishing drop in grades for the Fall 2023 semester. She was extremely unknowledgeable about the subject, directly copying material from a notebook during lecture and unable to respond to questions during lecture. Additionally, in her office hours, she was frequently unable to explain concepts in the homework problem sets. Her graduate level TAs could not explain the homework problems even with the answer key. I have never been so disappointed by a Professor and a course. I encourage future BME students to do take this course in a semester where she does not teach it. You will save your GPA and learn more. #tCFF23