BIOE332 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE332 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/15/2016	The worst professor in the world. How does the department even let the guy teach??? Not only is he horrible at conveying the material, he expects you to have a very solid math foundation and even expects you to know how to solve partial differential equations. This is the most math intensive class I took in college and no one was prepared for it. After the second exam, about 60% of the class was failing (NO JOKE)!!! Not to mention, this was even with making the exams open notes/book! As a result, he made the third exam a take home exam, and the project and extra credit also helped to boost some peoples grades. In the end I would approximate about 50% of the class got a C or lower. Don't do it to yourself, he's the worst!
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE332 Anonymous 05/12/2016	Helim is a horrible professor for undergrad classes. Avoid him at ALL costs. He completely goes back on what he says, he "clarifies" things and makes them more confusing, is useless in class, and is totally disrespectful when you try to contact him for any help. He literally only cares about his grad students. He's the most unorganized professor I've ever had and has literally no schedule to speak of.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE332 Anonymous 05/09/2016	I would like to start this review by noting that in all my undergraduate career, I have never given a professor or TA a poor course evaluation. This does not mean that I did not feel I had professors who were not very good professors but I never felt so inclined to give a poor evaluation. I know that Dr. Helim is a great researcher and incredibly intelligent person. But a great teacher he is not. This course was by far the worst learning experience I have had in my life. I'm honestly not sure how to put all my frustrations and anger into a written statement but this is my best effort. I understand that Transport is a difficult course. However, the difficulty with this subject was not my issue with this course; I have taken math intensive and difficult courses before. My issue was the lack of sufficient teaching or resources for the students to learn the material. The lectures were either Dr. Helim reading off a pdf filled with errors too quickly for anyone to follow or Dr. Helim writing illegibly on the board. The material he went over in class were derivations. Both the textbook and Helim's lectures were filled with various typos and errors, a mystery puzzle left for the students to figure out themselves. In almost every class I have ever taken at UMD, solutions to the homework were posted on elms after the due date or gone over in class or discussion. None of this happened. We never learned how to do the problems in class and even after we tried our best to figure out if they were done correctly, there was no way of knowing if we had done them correctly. Moreover, there was no way to really practice for this exam and study problem which we were tested on. Even worse, the first two midterms we had in this class tested on material that we never learned in class or went over in the textbook on our own. In fact, about half the points on the first midterm were on Bessel functions which we didn't learn in class, was not on the textbook, and our TA did not know how to do it. How were students were expected to be able to do these exams are beyond me. Multiple students went to other faculty in the department seeking answers and were told to do the extra credit in the class and were basically brushed off. Dr. Helim told us himself in class that the extra credit will not have much of an impact on our failing grades. Students were also told to try to gain point on the class project. I don't know how other projects went, but for our group project, what the Dr. Helim wanted on this project was unclear. Despite doing our best and asking him in person, we still do not know. We also brought our project to Dr. Helim ahead of time to see if what we did was sufficient. We were told that our project was boring. What that means for the project grade of this ten person project group is beyond me. In the end, my frustration as a student is not nearly as much with Dr. Helim (although I am extremely angry with how he taught and administered this course) but with the Fischell department and its negligence. Students went to other faculty seeking answers and were basically brushed off. I don't think that when 63% of the class is failing, the fault is completely on the students. I learned how to use COMSOL in this class. But that was it. I honestly don't know anything about transport design. This class was a waste of my time and the money I put towards tuition, and a testament to how the department failed its students.
Arthur Johnson BIOE332 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/09/2010	I have had Dr. J for 3 classes and yes his classes are hard but let me tell you first off that hes not bad. Trust me I’ve complained about him a lot until I did my research. He has published numerous papers on teaching methods and teaches they way he does ON PURPOSE. He deliberately makes it hard to understand and deliberately does not have office hours and is nowhere to be found come deadline. AS AN ENGINEER THIS IS HOW THE REAL WORLD IS. Clients will ask you to solve certain problems you know nothing about and do it as a team effort. Thus he always has group assignments and wants us to learn on our own and essentially teach ourselves, which unfortunately is a skill an engineer must have. To do well in his class for 332/455/120: You must do reading prior to class. Again, you MUST do it to get an A although you can get by with a B by doing nothing. I have read his papers on teaching and every one he mentions that “Do not let your students get away without doing the reading before class.” Do it or not its up to you, except for 332, doesn’t matter either way. This is why the quizzes are seen as hard (again 332 ur f’ed either way). You MUST raise your hand and ask questions, or joke around with him before, in or after class. You must suck it up and make an effort to GET NOTICED. The way he assigns grades is compile all the averages of all assignments and determines the amount of students that get A’s, B’s and C’s. Then he goes through the list and chooses students based on the amount of people he already assigned per grade. So you must get noticed for him to bump you up otherwise he’ll screw you over. Pretty much do some reading before class, contribute well on group projects (of course) and make sure to get noticed; be on first name basis with him. Also he is extremely smart, ask any BIOE prof they have a lot of respect for him and I don’t like Dr. J as its hard to get A’s, and classes suck but he wants us to be good engineers and actually does care about us.
Arthur Johnson BIOE332 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/22/2009	I realize that BIOE120 is a pain in the ass, but Dr. Johnson's other two classes are much more useful. My advice: For electronics, take notes because the book is not helpful at all. Dr. Johnson especially likes students that show initiative, so if you have questions, ASK. He loves a good question. For the final project, become very good friends with your classmates and you'll be fine. I recommend going to Radio Shack also, since the materials in the electronics lab are not always reliable. For transport, the group projects really suck BUT they teach you some very useful things. 1) If you don't trust that your group members are going to do something right, do it yourself. 2) Dr. Johnson takes group evaluations seriously, so make sure you contribute as much as humanly possible, and if someone doesn't contribute, tell him. 3) Start working as soon as you get the project.
Arthur Johnson BIOE332 Expecting an A nodice 12/17/2007	Dr. Johnson is sort of an institution in the ENBE/BIOE departments - he's been teaching for a very long time, and knows exactly what he wants from his students (although he doesn't always tell you first). So far, I've had him for ENBE455 and BIOE332. Here are my impressions: ENBE455: Decent course. Labs, homeworks, quizzes, and the final lab practical weren't bad at all, particularly if you did some outside studying (don't just split up the homework problems among your group -- make sure you know how to do them all). However, the end-of-semester project was pretty bad - there weren't enough supplies in the lab to go around, and no group got their project to work completely. Once he assigned the project, he stopped giving help outside of class. Be prepared for this: I've heard it from this year's students too. BIOE332: This course is mostly about the projects, and does an excellent job of preparing you for a career in engineering. You get four randomly-assigned groups and three projects, each of which entails a pretty major design report with only 2 weeks to do it. He's specifically vague when he gives out the problem statements - he wants you to ask clarification questions , and his answers are helpful. If in doubt, be sure to ask. Lectures aren't really that helpful - he expects you to have read the material beforehand, so he just gives you a narrative of what's in his book (you probably won't learn much in lecture unless you come prepared with questions). All in all, BIOE332 is probably the most work for any one class in the ENBE/BIOE curriculum (even more than ENME331), but it's worth it to do a good job -- you'll learn a lot.
Arthur Johnson BIOE332 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/05/2007	As a teacher Dr. Johnson is pretty terrible. He goes way to fast, has a very dull voice so its hard to focus, and its hard to understand what hes talking about. For both electronics and transport processes you have a choice of doing a lot of work and maybe getting an A, or doing absolutely nothing and getting a C. Still he is the only teacher for these classes so you just have to deal with it. For electronics, he gives a quiz, hw, and lab every week. Homeworks are pretty straightforward. For labs, make sure you write up a legit lab report. It will be pretty short but have an objective, methods, results section. The quizes he gives were on information he taught last class or they were recycled questions that everyone got wrong from previous quizzes. For the first half (analog) you can study whatever he is teaching from the book itself since it explains the information much better. The second half (digital) is actually pretty trivial and he does a decent job explaining it. You do learn a lot in labs especially when whatever you are doing is not working. Troubleshooting your circuit will help you understand the concepts much better. Towards the end of the semester make sure to use the spec sheet to help check for too much current or if a chip is esd sensitive. For transport process, he goes at an insanely fast pace and it is very hard to pay attention to him. Fortunately the practice quizzes online are basically the same question as the quizes he gives in class. Homeworks are not as straightforward as in electronics but they are doable. The majority of your grade comes from the 3 projects which involve lots of work. To me putting effort in the class seemed pointless because I would do bad anyway. Still if you put in the effort to be successful, every class afterwards will seem a lot easier.
Arthur Johnson BIOE332 Expecting an A scroofoo 10/23/2007	Tough course but by the the most rewarding if you are planning on being an engineer after college. Tight deadlines and bad groupmates are the two things to overcome here (exactly what you will see in the real world) Work is a lab, homework, and quiz a week plus 3 25-35 page technical design reports. You will also have to review other group's reports twice during the semester (hint: write alot to get a good grade). This is 7 credit hours of work packed into only 3. You must multi-task like crazy to get everything in. Or you could coast on the back of your groupmates- but there are group evaluations so be warned. Johnson may seem like he goes a mile a minute in lecture, but that is because he wrote teh book and has expected you to have read the section he is teaching before you came to class. Be warned that this requires a ton of work but once you pass it, you know you will have passed the hardest course in your major and be ready for real-world bioengineering.

Jose Aranda-Espinoza
BIOE332

Expecting a C
Anonymous
05/15/2016

The worst professor in the world. How does the department even let the guy teach??? Not only is he horrible at conveying the material, he expects you to have a very solid math foundation and even expects you to know how to solve partial differential equations. This is the most math intensive class I took in college and no one was prepared for it. After the second exam, about 60% of the class was failing (NO JOKE)!!! Not to mention, this was even with making the exams open notes/book! As a result, he made the third exam a take home exam, and the project and extra credit also helped to boost some peoples grades. In the end I would approximate about 50% of the class got a C or lower. Don't do it to yourself, he's the worst!

Jose Aranda-Espinoza
BIOE332

Anonymous
05/12/2016

Helim is a horrible professor for undergrad classes. Avoid him at ALL costs. He completely goes back on what he says, he "clarifies" things and makes them more confusing, is useless in class, and is totally disrespectful when you try to contact him for any help. He literally only cares about his grad students. He's the most unorganized professor I've ever had and has literally no schedule to speak of.

Jose Aranda-Espinoza
BIOE332

Anonymous
05/09/2016

I would like to start this review by noting that in all my undergraduate career, I have never given a professor or TA a poor course evaluation. This does not mean that I did not feel I had professors who were not very good professors but I never felt so inclined to give a poor evaluation. I know that Dr. Helim is a great researcher and incredibly intelligent person. But a great teacher he is not. This course was by far the worst learning experience I have had in my life. I'm honestly not sure how to put all my frustrations and anger into a written statement but this is my best effort. I understand that Transport is a difficult course. However, the difficulty with this subject was not my issue with this course; I have taken math intensive and difficult courses before. My issue was the lack of sufficient teaching or resources for the students to learn the material. The lectures were either Dr. Helim reading off a pdf filled with errors too quickly for anyone to follow or Dr. Helim writing illegibly on the board. The material he went over in class were derivations. Both the textbook and Helim's lectures were filled with various typos and errors, a mystery puzzle left for the students to figure out themselves. In almost every class I have ever taken at UMD, solutions to the homework were posted on elms after the due date or gone over in class or discussion. None of this happened. We never learned how to do the problems in class and even after we tried our best to figure out if they were done correctly, there was no way of knowing if we had done them correctly. Moreover, there was no way to really practice for this exam and study problem which we were tested on. Even worse, the first two midterms we had in this class tested on material that we never learned in class or went over in the textbook on our own. In fact, about half the points on the first midterm were on Bessel functions which we didn't learn in class, was not on the textbook, and our TA did not know how to do it. How were students were expected to be able to do these exams are beyond me. Multiple students went to other faculty in the department seeking answers and were told to do the extra credit in the class and were basically brushed off. Dr. Helim told us himself in class that the extra credit will not have much of an impact on our failing grades. Students were also told to try to gain point on the class project. I don't know how other projects went, but for our group project, what the Dr. Helim wanted on this project was unclear. Despite doing our best and asking him in person, we still do not know. We also brought our project to Dr. Helim ahead of time to see if what we did was sufficient. We were told that our project was boring. What that means for the project grade of this ten person project group is beyond me. In the end, my frustration as a student is not nearly as much with Dr. Helim (although I am extremely angry with how he taught and administered this course) but with the Fischell department and its negligence. Students went to other faculty seeking answers and were basically brushed off. I don't think that when 63% of the class is failing, the fault is completely on the students. I learned how to use COMSOL in this class. But that was it. I honestly don't know anything about transport design. This class was a waste of my time and the money I put towards tuition, and a testament to how the department failed its students.

Arthur Johnson
BIOE332

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/09/2010

I have had Dr. J for 3 classes and yes his classes are hard but let me tell you first off that hes not bad. Trust me I’ve complained about him a lot until I did my research. He has published numerous papers on teaching methods and teaches they way he does ON PURPOSE. He deliberately makes it hard to understand and deliberately does not have office hours and is nowhere to be found come deadline. AS AN ENGINEER THIS IS HOW THE REAL WORLD IS. Clients will ask you to solve certain problems you know nothing about and do it as a team effort. Thus he always has group assignments and wants us to learn on our own and essentially teach ourselves, which unfortunately is a skill an engineer must have. To do well in his class for 332/455/120: You must do reading prior to class. Again, you MUST do it to get an A although you can get by with a B by doing nothing. I have read his papers on teaching and every one he mentions that “Do not let your students get away without doing the reading before class.” Do it or not its up to you, except for 332, doesn’t matter either way. This is why the quizzes are seen as hard (again 332 ur f’ed either way). You MUST raise your hand and ask questions, or joke around with him before, in or after class. You must suck it up and make an effort to GET NOTICED. The way he assigns grades is compile all the averages of all assignments and determines the amount of students that get A’s, B’s and C’s. Then he goes through the list and chooses students based on the amount of people he already assigned per grade. So you must get noticed for him to bump you up otherwise he’ll screw you over. Pretty much do some reading before class, contribute well on group projects (of course) and make sure to get noticed; be on first name basis with him. Also he is extremely smart, ask any BIOE prof they have a lot of respect for him and I don’t like Dr. J as its hard to get A’s, and classes suck but he wants us to be good engineers and actually does care about us.

Arthur Johnson
BIOE332

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/22/2009

I realize that BIOE120 is a pain in the ass, but Dr. Johnson's other two classes are much more useful. My advice: For electronics, take notes because the book is not helpful at all. Dr. Johnson especially likes students that show initiative, so if you have questions, ASK. He loves a good question. For the final project, become very good friends with your classmates and you'll be fine. I recommend going to Radio Shack also, since the materials in the electronics lab are not always reliable. For transport, the group projects really suck BUT they teach you some very useful things. 1) If you don't trust that your group members are going to do something right, do it yourself. 2) Dr. Johnson takes group evaluations seriously, so make sure you contribute as much as humanly possible, and if someone doesn't contribute, tell him. 3) Start working as soon as you get the project.

Arthur Johnson
BIOE332

Expecting an A
nodice
12/17/2007

Dr. Johnson is sort of an institution in the ENBE/BIOE departments - he's been teaching for a very long time, and knows exactly what he wants from his students (although he doesn't always tell you first). So far, I've had him for ENBE455 and BIOE332. Here are my impressions: ENBE455: Decent course. Labs, homeworks, quizzes, and the final lab practical weren't bad at all, particularly if you did some outside studying (don't just split up the homework problems among your group -- make sure you know how to do them all). However, the end-of-semester project was pretty bad - there weren't enough supplies in the lab to go around, and no group got their project to work completely. Once he assigned the project, he stopped giving help outside of class. Be prepared for this: I've heard it from this year's students too. BIOE332: This course is mostly about the projects, and does an excellent job of preparing you for a career in engineering. You get four randomly-assigned groups and three projects, each of which entails a pretty major design report with only 2 weeks to do it. He's specifically vague when he gives out the problem statements - he wants you to ask clarification questions , and his answers are helpful. If in doubt, be sure to ask. Lectures aren't really that helpful - he expects you to have read the material beforehand, so he just gives you a narrative of what's in his book (you probably won't learn much in lecture unless you come prepared with questions). All in all, BIOE332 is probably the most work for any one class in the ENBE/BIOE curriculum (even more than ENME331), but it's worth it to do a good job -- you'll learn a lot.

Arthur Johnson
BIOE332

Expecting a C
Anonymous
12/05/2007

As a teacher Dr. Johnson is pretty terrible. He goes way to fast, has a very dull voice so its hard to focus, and its hard to understand what hes talking about. For both electronics and transport processes you have a choice of doing a lot of work and maybe getting an A, or doing absolutely nothing and getting a C. Still he is the only teacher for these classes so you just have to deal with it. For electronics, he gives a quiz, hw, and lab every week. Homeworks are pretty straightforward. For labs, make sure you write up a legit lab report. It will be pretty short but have an objective, methods, results section. The quizes he gives were on information he taught last class or they were recycled questions that everyone got wrong from previous quizzes. For the first half (analog) you can study whatever he is teaching from the book itself since it explains the information much better. The second half (digital) is actually pretty trivial and he does a decent job explaining it. You do learn a lot in labs especially when whatever you are doing is not working. Troubleshooting your circuit will help you understand the concepts much better. Towards the end of the semester make sure to use the spec sheet to help check for too much current or if a chip is esd sensitive. For transport process, he goes at an insanely fast pace and it is very hard to pay attention to him. Fortunately the practice quizzes online are basically the same question as the quizes he gives in class. Homeworks are not as straightforward as in electronics but they are doable. The majority of your grade comes from the 3 projects which involve lots of work. To me putting effort in the class seemed pointless because I would do bad anyway. Still if you put in the effort to be successful, every class afterwards will seem a lot easier.

Arthur Johnson
BIOE332

Expecting an A
scroofoo
10/23/2007

Tough course but by the the most rewarding if you are planning on being an engineer after college. Tight deadlines and bad groupmates are the two things to overcome here (exactly what you will see in the real world) Work is a lab, homework, and quiz a week plus 3 25-35 page technical design reports. You will also have to review other group's reports twice during the semester (hint: write alot to get a good grade). This is 7 credit hours of work packed into only 3. You must multi-task like crazy to get everything in. Or you could coast on the back of your groupmates- but there are group evaluations so be warned. Johnson may seem like he goes a mile a minute in lecture, but that is because he wrote teh book and has expected you to have read the section he is teaching before you came to class. Be warned that this requires a ton of work but once you pass it, you know you will have passed the hardest course in your major and be ready for real-world bioengineering.

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