MAE 3140

I thoroughly hated this class. Why make the class so difficult and hard to follow that an 80 is an A? Classes like these where the professor is clearly uninterested in teaching (and there are quite a few) are what hold back UVA engineering.

This class was neither easy nor fun. But I think some of the other reviews go a little too far. Professor Esfarjani was definitely not a great professor but I don't think he was the worst one I have had. I disliked the grading structure (6 quizzes, 1 dropped) but I don't think the grading distribution at the end was too far off the mechE average. On any given class only 20 / 90 students would show up. You had to really focus to follow what he was doing (and sometimes you still couldn't) but lectures were definitely the best way to prep for the quizzes. Overall not great, but not the end of the world either.

In a simplified sense, there a four kinds of classes, distinguished by 2 characteristics, hard/easy, and useful/not useful. From all accounts of students last year, Professor Hopkins' class was a easy-useful class. Impressively, Professor Esfarjani has managed to immediately change this class into a hard-not useful class.

Grading in this class is entirely governed by 6 quizzes, one of which is dropped. These quizzes are exceedingly difficult not because they are conceptually challenging, but because Professor Esfarjani does not provide us anything near an adequate preparation for them. First, the lectures are completely useless due to a combination of terrible organization, illegible handwriting, and poor explanations. Second, the textbook deviates greatly from Professor Esfarjani's lectures to the point where it only further confuses the students who are already confused by the awful lectures. Third, the practice problems we recieve to prepare for the quizzes are often unrelated entirely to the questions asked on the test. With that said, the practice problems are still probably the most useful resource we are given because they are at least somewhat coherent, which can't really be said about the other resources.

Professor Esfarjani claims that the quizzes are "a test of your understanding of the concepts introduced in class." As one of the very few who has done well on the quizzes thus far, I can say that this is not true. I have gained next to no knowledge of heat transfer through this class and have done well on memorization and luck.

Professor Esfarjani is a highly intelligent person and I'm sure he is a good researcher but that is what he should stick to. He has shown extreme arrogance and an inability to even consider feedback from students. Having him teach this class reflects poorly on the department as a whole and I know that this class has made my peers question their choice of mechanical engineering.

UVA was just fucking with us, when they allowed this guy to be our teacher. The material is not even that difficult compared to other Engineering classes; However, the teacher, while smart, is unprepared, hard to understand, and has illegible handwriting. There is extremely little course structure, he had us buy an irrelevant textbook, the homework solutions usually contain small errors that don't get addressed before the quizzes (and by quizzes I mean the only grade in class... no homework or project grades). His collab site is an organizational train wreck making it difficult to find the relevant information you need. I'd hold off on this one if you can... lol but its a required course so you can't.

As an engineering student, I have been in my fair share of difficult classes. For the most part, I have found that if I utilize the resources given to me by the professor. This course is the exception.
Organization: Probably the most difficult part of this course is that it seems to lack any form of organization. The topics are not apparent, and I cannot separate the trees from the woods. Every time I prepare for the bi-weekly quizzes I find that I have no big picture concepts and don't even know what the subject matter that I am supposed to be studying for is.
Lectures: Very difficult to follow. The handwriting is poor and the slides contain such little and obscure detail. This is why class attendance is probably around 50% at best. Even the examples that he gives us are confusing and are often filled with filled with errors and not solved completely.
Homework: The only way I can really study/ have any clue what is going on is by using solution manuals to teach myself. Still, the do little to help prepare students for the quizzes. On one occasion the homework assigned to supplement the quiz was exclusively Chapter 6 problems, yet the quiz included a Chapter 7 homework problem.
Quizzes and Grading: You would think with such a lack of any semblance of organization that the grading would be merciful. You would be mistaken. The quizzes are very difficult and include information that was not taught well/at all. The grading is not lenient.

I know in the past students complain about hard exams/courses. Usually I just shake it off and credit it to the expected difficulty of an engineering degree. I cannot believe the audacity to rob an entire class of prospective mechanical engineers of their money and their education. Usually you're bound to see a negative review on the Course Forum, but I believe that what I have listed here echos the sentiments of nearly everyone in the class. I enjoyed Thermo and Fluids and did well in both. Unfortunate I have learned nothing in this course, and I might as well not apply to jobs that specialize in this field or tell them that despite passing (or failing as there is still plenty of time to tank my grade) I know next to nothing about Heat and Mass Transfer.

I came into this class with high hopes for fun and success. As time went on I realized that the MAE Department only wants to ensure that we fail in our future. Professor Esfarjani seems like an intelligent man, but he's not teaching in a way that makes sense. The lectures are haphazard and we have a textbook with homework problems unrelated to the tested material. Our grade in the class consists of 6 quizzes where our lowest score is dropped. This means our entire grade is dependent upon exams every 2 weeks that no one seems prepared for. Although he posts problems from other textbooks, he doesn't provide any form of solutions or guidance to them. When he asks us for feedback on his teaching and difficulty of tests, he shuts us down without taking our thoughts into consideration. In regards to the lectures, it seems as though he doesn't plan ahead and his lectures are just whatever comes into his head next. Also, about 20 min of our 75 min lecture is spent setting up and fixing the blackboard site for the online students stream which should be prepared prior to class. Halfway through the semester I don't feel confident about passing and this has been one of my worst times at this university. I'm sorry for those that are forced to have this man as their teacher for future classes.