ENAE380 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/03/2024	There isn't much going for Dr Xu. She is a poor lecturer and does not know the answers to your questions if you have them. You self-teach the class and will spend a lot of time on Google. Labs are long and take time to complete and will take away time from more important classes like ENAE301 and 311. If Dr Xu could be replaced the aerospace program would benefit from it.
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/27/2023	I had ENAE380 with Dr. Xu. I feel like she is a very nice person who cares about her students, but she has no idea about how to run a class. The premise of the class is that there are lectures she teaches and then there are labs/homework that are due ever two weeks or so. However, most of the time the lectures have no real use for what you are expected to do in the homework. You basically have to teach yourself python for this class. There is also a final project which you get the whole semester to do and accounts for about 50% of your grade. The outline for the project is essentially "create something in python that uses info learned from class", that's it. It's about as wide open as you can get for better or for worse as its hard to know how much time is really needed to get a good grade. Overall, this class is not too hard and as long as you start the homework and project early the class is very easy to get an A. Just don't expect to learn anything useful from the lectures or the professor with Dr. Xu.
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2023	Pretty poor teacher overall. Her lectures are more often than not pretty useless for the homework labs she assigns. Use the TA’s as much as possible as you will have to self teach yourself Python to pass. Also, DO NOT TAKE THE EARLIER LAB DATES. If you are signing up for the course, make sure your lab slot lands as late in the week as possible. Depending on how the class votes for this anyways, labs (homework) are due on the days your lab slots are. This means that if you have a lab slot on a later day in the week, you get far more time to completely the labs.
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/23/2023	She is so kind and awesome to talk to, a very great person. However, it is very difficult to go to her lectures because they do not pertain to her labs. The class was learning how to code by myself and trying to figure it all out on my own with me and my zero Python coding experience, which was very difficult because I attend classes to learn how to do the assignments and not watch Friends videos, random sound clips, and random slides that have no instructions or material on how to do the labs.
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/21/2023	Professor Xu should be replaced. Like I failed ENAE301 because I had to put 90% of my time and effort into this class to just barely pass with a C-. She teaches NOTHING useful past 3rd week of the semester and you have to spend HOURS on Google. She even has the guts to write “Google is your friend” in the course syllabus. Just plain bad professor. Horrible. As another reviewer said, I would be more than willing to give her negative stars.
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2023	Overall, Dr. Xu is a very kind individual. Her lectures are interesting, and definitely have relevance to aerospace engineering, however, the way that the course is structured, the lectures are very unrelated to the work we actually do . . . You should definitely have some coding experience prior to taking this class bc the lectures will not teach you how to code. They will briefly cover very intricate topics that could each have a semester-long course on their own. Most of the 'work' of this class is actually becoming familiar with the necessary python libraries, numpy, matplotlib, etc. What is cool is that you get to choose your own final project in python and be as creative as you'd like. But, since the course does not teach you how to code, it is up to you to figure out how to implement whatever logic you're thinking into python for your project. So in short, nice professor, badly structured course. TA's are nice as well. The course being called 'Flight Software Systems' is also somewhat misleading, but I think the aerospace department is working on that . . .
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Anonymous 12/12/2023	Dr. Xu is nice and her lectures are interesting from a computer science point of view. Otherwise, she spent one lecture on Python syntax and then for the rest of the semester, we were given a syntax cheat sheet and essentially told to teach ourselves. This class relies on Python's large online forums to teach its students and I genuinely have no idea why it's called flight software systems. Her lecture slides are impossible to use outside of class, even the TA complained they were useless. For all she talks about proper grammar, she gives barely any direction on formatting for lab writeups. Surprising that we all received an email from our TA expressing their frustration over our lab submissions, when they haven't been graded throughout the semester so there's been no chance to get feedback and fix the mistakes for the next lab. Before I received this email, I completed my course review but now I realize I was far too charitable then. The funny thing is, having no exams and only labs was fine, I took 362 with the same approach but felt I learned far more in that class. The difference is that the professor in that class was way more hands-on and cared about the details genuinely related to the class which for 380 would be learning to code Python. Dr. Xu needs to be more hands-on in this aspect.
Anthony Banes ENAE380 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/28/2021	Banes is a very nice person himself, but for the fall 2021 semester, he clearly has many things going on especially with the situation of his beloved wife, and this shows when he tries to communicate with the class. Many of his assignment and lab instructions are very unclear, and he always likes to take a small number of points off on some assignments and labs. He is way too specific about how we should format some of the assignments and labs, and the worst thing in fact is that he never communicates on how he exactly wants us to format the assignments and labs before we would formally turn them in for a grade. This is very frustrating. Like how we would know you want us to format in that specific way that you wanted to see without even directly informing us in advance, right? Another bad thing for his class is that he never passes back and returns your in-class midterm exams. The only thing you would know from the midterm exams is your score, but you would never know what exactly you messed up on the exam and what things you should focus on and fix later. This is also very frustrating. In all of my other classes at UMD, you would always get your exam back and at least see which exact questions you had missed. Overall, he is a nice person himself, but he doesn't care about the students and (especially for me) I just feel like he always like to pick on me specifically.
Anthony Banes ENAE380 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/24/2021	Banes is an amazing guy and honestly cares about all of his students. While his lectures can be quite dry all of his exams are open note and pulled directly from things he covers in class. While his coding labs can be quite time confusing he will be very open to answering any questions you may have as well as providing snippets of code to point you in the right direction.
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 11/27/2021	If I could give her negative stars, I would. She is hands-down, the WORST professor I have ever taken in my life. Not only will she NEVER teach you python, she will also assume you are a compsci major with a hefty background in python. Her homework assignments stump even graduated compsci majors. She gives zero direction, expects you to fend for yourself, and if you struggle, its YOUR fault for not understanding, not her fault for failing to teach the subject matter. TL;DR - NEVER TAKE A CLASS WITH MUMU XU. SHE IS THE WORST PROFESSOR AT UMD, AND SHOULD NOT STILL RETAIN A JOB.
Mumu Xu ENAE380 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/11/2020	Dr. Xu's a very hands-off professor when it comes to this class. Her lectures, although interesting, do nothing to actually prepare students to understand the software and programming side of aerospace engineering. There is a lack of communication between professor and TA: the labs that students are supposed to do have no relation to the actual material taught in the class. Thus, when you go to her office hours to ask her about the homework, she literally cannot help you because she did not write the homework. Personally, I think the most important part of this class is the programming (done in Python). Her failure to focus on Python syntax for a bunch of ENAE students that only learned C++ makes the class more difficult than it needs to be. Considering that you don't learn much from Banes' class either, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this class. I highly recommend learning Python during your free time to help you with this class.
Anthony Banes ENAE380 Expecting a B+ fiddlerkrt 12/23/2010	Unfortunately, the fact that the midterm and final are both open-note lulled me into a false sense of security in this class. I did very poorly on the midterm and this cost me dearly even though I had around a 90 on the labs and the final. Here is some advice about this course. Work on the labs in groups since it is faster and it guarantees your code is correct. Next, print the lecture notes BEFORE class and make sure you understand everything. Finally, do not take your time on the exams. The midterm was four pages and I spent way too long on the first three so I left the last one completely blank. I missed an A- by 0.8% so try to heed my advice. Professor Banes is a nice guy, but his lectures are very boring. Do not be fooled by the grade distribution from 2009 like me, because I think he cracked down on this class a little bit.
Anthony Banes ENAE380 Expecting an A a778999 12/25/2009	Not a good lecturer. Don't bother showing up to class because it won't help your grade. Quizzes are take-home and he lets you use the internet. Finals are open-note so just print out the powerpoint slides and bring them in. Labs are assigned and graded by the TA. I was lucky to have a good TA who made easy labs and helped anyone who was struggling. Overall I didn't learn anything from this class but it was an easy A.

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/03/2024

There isn't much going for Dr Xu. She is a poor lecturer and does not know the answers to your questions if you have them. You self-teach the class and will spend a lot of time on Google. Labs are long and take time to complete and will take away time from more important classes like ENAE301 and 311. If Dr Xu could be replaced the aerospace program would benefit from it.

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/27/2023

I had ENAE380 with Dr. Xu. I feel like she is a very nice person who cares about her students, but she has no idea about how to run a class. The premise of the class is that there are lectures she teaches and then there are labs/homework that are due ever two weeks or so. However, most of the time the lectures have no real use for what you are expected to do in the homework. You basically have to teach yourself python for this class. There is also a final project which you get the whole semester to do and accounts for about 50% of your grade. The outline for the project is essentially "create something in python that uses info learned from class", that's it. It's about as wide open as you can get for better or for worse as its hard to know how much time is really needed to get a good grade. Overall, this class is not too hard and as long as you start the homework and project early the class is very easy to get an A. Just don't expect to learn anything useful from the lectures or the professor with Dr. Xu.

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/26/2023

Pretty poor teacher overall. Her lectures are more often than not pretty useless for the homework labs she assigns. Use the TA’s as much as possible as you will have to self teach yourself Python to pass. Also, DO NOT TAKE THE EARLIER LAB DATES. If you are signing up for the course, make sure your lab slot lands as late in the week as possible. Depending on how the class votes for this anyways, labs (homework) are due on the days your lab slots are. This means that if you have a lab slot on a later day in the week, you get far more time to completely the labs.

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/23/2023

She is so kind and awesome to talk to, a very great person. However, it is very difficult to go to her lectures because they do not pertain to her labs. The class was learning how to code by myself and trying to figure it all out on my own with me and my zero Python coding experience, which was very difficult because I attend classes to learn how to do the assignments and not watch Friends videos, random sound clips, and random slides that have no instructions or material on how to do the labs.

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
12/21/2023

Professor Xu should be replaced. Like I failed ENAE301 because I had to put 90% of my time and effort into this class to just barely pass with a C-. She teaches NOTHING useful past 3rd week of the semester and you have to spend HOURS on Google. She even has the guts to write “Google is your friend” in the course syllabus. Just plain bad professor. Horrible. As another reviewer said, I would be more than willing to give her negative stars.

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2023

Overall, Dr. Xu is a very kind individual. Her lectures are interesting, and definitely have relevance to aerospace engineering, however, the way that the course is structured, the lectures are very unrelated to the work we actually do . . . You should definitely have some coding experience prior to taking this class bc the lectures will not teach you how to code. They will briefly cover very intricate topics that could each have a semester-long course on their own. Most of the 'work' of this class is actually becoming familiar with the necessary python libraries, numpy, matplotlib, etc. What is cool is that you get to choose your own final project in python and be as creative as you'd like. But, since the course does not teach you how to code, it is up to you to figure out how to implement whatever logic you're thinking into python for your project. So in short, nice professor, badly structured course. TA's are nice as well. The course being called 'Flight Software Systems' is also somewhat misleading, but I think the aerospace department is working on that . . .

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Anonymous
12/12/2023

Dr. Xu is nice and her lectures are interesting from a computer science point of view. Otherwise, she spent one lecture on Python syntax and then for the rest of the semester, we were given a syntax cheat sheet and essentially told to teach ourselves. This class relies on Python's large online forums to teach its students and I genuinely have no idea why it's called flight software systems. Her lecture slides are impossible to use outside of class, even the TA complained they were useless. For all she talks about proper grammar, she gives barely any direction on formatting for lab writeups. Surprising that we all received an email from our TA expressing their frustration over our lab submissions, when they haven't been graded throughout the semester so there's been no chance to get feedback and fix the mistakes for the next lab. Before I received this email, I completed my course review but now I realize I was far too charitable then. The funny thing is, having no exams and only labs was fine, I took 362 with the same approach but felt I learned far more in that class. The difference is that the professor in that class was way more hands-on and cared about the details genuinely related to the class which for 380 would be learning to code Python. Dr. Xu needs to be more hands-on in this aspect.

Anthony Banes
ENAE380

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/28/2021

Banes is a very nice person himself, but for the fall 2021 semester, he clearly has many things going on especially with the situation of his beloved wife, and this shows when he tries to communicate with the class. Many of his assignment and lab instructions are very unclear, and he always likes to take a small number of points off on some assignments and labs. He is way too specific about how we should format some of the assignments and labs, and the worst thing in fact is that he never communicates on how he exactly wants us to format the assignments and labs before we would formally turn them in for a grade. This is very frustrating. Like how we would know you want us to format in that specific way that you wanted to see without even directly informing us in advance, right? Another bad thing for his class is that he never passes back and returns your in-class midterm exams. The only thing you would know from the midterm exams is your score, but you would never know what exactly you messed up on the exam and what things you should focus on and fix later. This is also very frustrating. In all of my other classes at UMD, you would always get your exam back and at least see which exact questions you had missed. Overall, he is a nice person himself, but he doesn't care about the students and (especially for me) I just feel like he always like to pick on me specifically.

Anthony Banes
ENAE380

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/24/2021

Banes is an amazing guy and honestly cares about all of his students. While his lectures can be quite dry all of his exams are open note and pulled directly from things he covers in class. While his coding labs can be quite time confusing he will be very open to answering any questions you may have as well as providing snippets of code to point you in the right direction.

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Expecting a D+
Anonymous
11/27/2021

If I could give her negative stars, I would. She is hands-down, the WORST professor I have ever taken in my life. Not only will she NEVER teach you python, she will also assume you are a compsci major with a hefty background in python. Her homework assignments stump even graduated compsci majors. She gives zero direction, expects you to fend for yourself, and if you struggle, its YOUR fault for not understanding, not her fault for failing to teach the subject matter. TL;DR - NEVER TAKE A CLASS WITH MUMU XU. SHE IS THE WORST PROFESSOR AT UMD, AND SHOULD NOT STILL RETAIN A JOB.

Mumu Xu
ENAE380

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/11/2020

Dr. Xu's a very hands-off professor when it comes to this class. Her lectures, although interesting, do nothing to actually prepare students to understand the software and programming side of aerospace engineering. There is a lack of communication between professor and TA: the labs that students are supposed to do have no relation to the actual material taught in the class. Thus, when you go to her office hours to ask her about the homework, she literally cannot help you because she did not write the homework. Personally, I think the most important part of this class is the programming (done in Python). Her failure to focus on Python syntax for a bunch of ENAE students that only learned C++ makes the class more difficult than it needs to be. Considering that you don't learn much from Banes' class either, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this class. I highly recommend learning Python during your free time to help you with this class.

Anthony Banes
ENAE380

Expecting a B+
fiddlerkrt
12/23/2010

Unfortunately, the fact that the midterm and final are both open-note lulled me into a false sense of security in this class. I did very poorly on the midterm and this cost me dearly even though I had around a 90 on the labs and the final. Here is some advice about this course. Work on the labs in groups since it is faster and it guarantees your code is correct. Next, print the lecture notes BEFORE class and make sure you understand everything. Finally, do not take your time on the exams. The midterm was four pages and I spent way too long on the first three so I left the last one completely blank. I missed an A- by 0.8% so try to heed my advice. Professor Banes is a nice guy, but his lectures are very boring. Do not be fooled by the grade distribution from 2009 like me, because I think he cracked down on this class a little bit.

Anthony Banes
ENAE380

Expecting an A
a778999
12/25/2009

Not a good lecturer. Don't bother showing up to class because it won't help your grade. Quizzes are take-home and he lets you use the internet. Finals are open-note so just print out the powerpoint slides and bring them in. Labs are assigned and graded by the TA. I was lucky to have a good TA who made easy labs and helped anyone who was struggling. Overall I didn't learn anything from this class but it was an easy A.

Reviews for ENAE380