MAE 3620

Meh, he's a bore, but the stuff he teaches is good to at least expose yourself to just once. Most of the material is covered in software you'll learn to use once you get a job, but I guess if you want an advantage you can learn this stuff well enough to know how software does what it does... Just get through it and you'll learn something at least.

Class is boring; Thacker's lecturing style tends to put you to sleep. Most of the HW were notterribly hard, but very time consuming. The tests are ridiculous in that at least 10% of his answers are wrong, and the class has to correct him after the fact. On the plus side Thacker is a nice guy.

This is a classic Thacker course. He is not the best professor, but he is not the worst either. If you are taking this class its cause you have to, not cause you want to.

Thacker just shouldn't teach anymore. you have to take it, so get a good homework group together. the tests have nothing to do with the homework. Ask him for a curve and he'll give it to you

This class is about as boring as they come. The material is ancient and aside from the occasional quirky joke, Thacker never fails to disinterest me, partially because of his teaching methods and also due to the dry nature of the class material. Homework can be a real pain, but the TA is great and really saves you a bunch of time if you attend his Office Hours.

Probably the worst class I've taken at UVA. Material is dry and poorly covered. Thacker makes no attempt to make the class interesting and teaches it as if it were 20 years ago. Tests are poorly made and homeworks are inconsistently graded. Prepare for a miserable class.

Professor Thacker is overwhelmingly boring. He takes attendance so make sure you go to class. The homework assignments are impossible so just wait for your TA help session. Grading on the homeworks is arbitrary at best. The tests are miserable but everybody does poorly.

You basically have to go to the recitation in order to do the homework and the tests are nothing like the homework.

Most miserable class ever. You wont learn anything.

Well it's a Thacker class so what ccan you expect. Reading from lecture notes, show and tell, awkward pauses, and long tedious hw. Besides that the class is doable. All the test were on collab this year and there are some complications with that. The test are mostly conceptual so make sure to know your bearings...no pun intended

The class centers around the lecture where he gives you detailed and lengthy notes that summarize the textbook. There are weekly problem sets due that you must go to the TA for if you want to do well on them (it is nearly impossible to get the correct answer by yourself). As far as the tests go, do your best to study for them but your efforts will likely prove futile.

Easy...just go to the TA sessions and they will do all the HW for you

Going to Russell Biagi (our TA) was basically the only way I could do the homework. Some of the homework problems pretty difficult; however, the biggest complaint I have is that the homework never related to the test questions. The test question are more conceptual.
The class material is worth it though. It's important to a mechanical engineer.
John Thacker is a good man. He's not a very good lecturer in my opinion, but if you go to him for help, he'll help you out.
The finite elements lab portion isn't very hard.