MAE 3820

Gabriel Laufer is what is wrong with the MAE department at this school. After the first three semesters with him as an instructor, it made me sick to my stomach knowing that I would have to have to deal with him again for a fourth consecutive semester. That feeling was only exacerbated when he explained to us the structure of this semester’s course.

Laufer knew full well how he was going to structure this semester because he taught this course for at least the last six years (I say at least because based on the dates of the outdated lab manuals we have been given and the old power point presentations are in 2010). However, rather than taking time in the fall semester before course sign-ups, when he had us all as students for the first course in this lab sequence he failed to tell us how the spring semester would be structured until the last day of the semester – nearly one month after we signed up for our courses, bear in mind. At that point, he finally told us that we would have to sign up for labs on a three-week cycle and they would be scheduled randomly with no consideration for when we had signed up for our lab times on SIS. In addition to that, we were required to sign up for these lab blocks during our winter breaks when many people would be unavailable. This model was especially problematic when he scheduled the final aerospace lab of the semester and rather than picking time slots in the four hour block on Wednesday when all aerospace students had signed up for their lab times originally (and therefore would have no course conflicts) he chose another day and offered three time slots, two of which overlapped with a course that all aerospace students have to take. The conflict was resolved by his TA, Damien Lieber, who was the only bright part of this entire course.

Laufer shows no care for his students. I have peers who have made requests to have small accommodations made when they have been sick which he has simply shut down with “life isn’t fair”. On another occasion, a peer approached him about using the low speed wind tunnel for testing a project to which he told the student that he (the student) would just break the wind tunnel. I find that amusing considering that during the first lab block of the semester the tunnel was broken and that that lab manual instruction didn’t match the lab because so many of the tunnel components were already broken. Furthermore, during that same time period, only one of the three airfoils available for testing in the lab was correct and matched the lab manual. Another was an excessively obscure airfoil and the third was simply unlabeled making it useless. The lack of respect for his students inspires a lack of respect for him, in myself and many of my peers.

The grading policy for this course is unfair to aerospace students who had to take two labs with the harshest graders putting the 24 of us at a distinct disadvantage over mechanical students who could have chosen to take four labs with easy graders and receive better grades for work of the same quality.

At no point in the two semesters of this lab course did I learn anything useful or build any skills that contributed to my knowledge of my subject or my ability to contribute to the work of a real engineering team. I simply learned that Laufer is in fact a terrible professor and that this lab course is a waste of time. Maybe he said something one time that was of use but hours of listening to him go off on useless tangents taught me that nothing of value was ever going to be said so I stopped trying to glean any information from him. I cannot believe that this is who this department has put forward to inspire young engineers. It is truly a shame when there are professors such as Kathryn Thornton, Rita Schnipke, David Sheffler, Jim McDaniel and last year, the far superior Donald Jordan, all of whom do a fantastic job at both teaching and inspiring. Dean Benson, if you want to improve this university, employ more faculty who can inspire young minds.

Laufer has been an exceptionally terrible professor to deal with and I cannot even say that I have seen a human side of him that is redeeming. I hope he can be put to use in some way by the department that doesn’t involve him crushing the academic curiosity of 20-something year olds. It shocks me that he is still teaching after so many semesters.

I am so sorry to everyone that has to suffer through Laufer.