ENEE290 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Richard La ENEE290 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/19/2025	He posts slides, normally watching youtube videos helped me more. Ask the ta's for the practice problems as they can be helpful for exams. Exams generally do not allow calculators, so expect simple computations and really just testing basic skills. Questions normally are reasonable and exams are graded fairly. The projects are graded leniently and come with decent instruction.
Calin Belta ENEE290 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/30/2024	Great professor. I didn't go to many classes, but his teaching ability seems alright. His midterms and final are very fair, just straight up homework problems. They are also open note so you're not pressured to memorize anything. He had small hw set once a week which only takes a couple hours max a week. Also had 2 matlab projects which were pretty easy. If I put in a little more studying, definitely could have ended with an A, but I barely went to class and didn't study until a few days before each midterm/final. 100% recommend him.
Calin Belta ENEE290 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/19/2024	Love this professor. He doesn't want to trick you and just wants to make sure you understand the content. All exams are open note even the final. There is no practice problems but exam questions are the same exact format as lecture and discussion problems. He also gives a lot of time for tests. Attendance isn't mandatory and he posts slides and worked out problems on elms but recommend you go b/c sometimes his handwriting isn't clear and he does a good job explaining step by step. There was hw once a week but they were pretty doable as well as 2 Matlab projects which were hard to understand but in the end weren't bad.
Calin Belta ENEE290 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2024	GOAT. Everything's open notes and even though his lecture slides aren't super helpful and he isn't that easy to follow in class, his class is easy if you put in the work. Content is relatively easy, nothing super hard. Final and midterms were very fair even though there weren't any study guides or practice exams.
Calin Belta ENEE290 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2024	He is an absolutely amazing professor. He is very considerate and caring towards his students. I absolutely recommend him when taking ENEE290. He actually cares about his students and wants them to pass. All his exams were fair and open-note, and the answers were posted within a few hours after the exam was finished. All of the slides are posted beforehand and the worked-out examples are posted after class in ELMS. If you happen to struggle in class, I recommend you to watch videos on YouTube or go to his office hours. His office hours are extremely helpful and will try to explain to you step by step on questions or concepts you're confused about. Your workload is manageable, with weekly homework and about two projects, each with a two-week deadline. Side note, his handwriting sometimes is hard to read, but other than that, he is a great professor!
Calin Belta ENEE290 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/11/2024	Calin always engages with the students in his class and tries his best to help students understand the content. He went at a good pace and was always willing to stay a few minutes after lecture to explain the material or offer help at office hours. As others said, he always posted notes and slides on canvas and communicated frequently. The 2 open-note exams - based on homework and classwork problems - were so straightforward that I barely had to use my notes during the actual test. I would totally recommend him.
Richard La ENEE290 Anonymous 12/10/2024	Dr. La is a very nice person and a very knowledgeable instructor who goes out of his way to help students when they need it. Unfortunately, his lectures are difficult to follow as he moves quickly through complex equations and explains concepts using examples that are often more confusing than the concepts themselves. ENEE290 itself is also fairly difficult class, covering almost two classes of content in one semester, with the curriculum jumping somewhat abruptly from Differential Equations to Linear Algebra back to Differential Equations. La's exams are hard but have questions similar to the practice exams provided from past years. Homework is assigned about weekly and is graded very generously by the TAs. There are several MATLAB projects that are very challenging and require significant time to complete. La's version of the class is on a massive curve where an 80% is an A, but you will have to work hard for that grade.
Calin Belta ENEE290 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/10/2024	Extremely good professor. Really tries his best to engage with and talk with the class, and is very good with communication. Great professor and posts all notes and lectures. Will always take time to explain concepts to you.
Calin Belta ENEE290 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/18/2024	New to UMD, but definitely takes the time to make sure he explains the proofs behind relevant material and lets us know what to expect on exams. Everything is open note, and you can even have pdf note files on your computer. Makes sure to try and have people engaged and posts all the whiteboard work after classes. Slides are posted too before classes for students to follow along or get an idea of the material in advance. If you don't understand any of the material, he'll take the time to try to help you out in class, or you can ask him about it after class or in his office hours. 10/10 great experience so far.
Calin Belta ENEE290 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/16/2024	This guy is so awesome. Exams were fully open-note and answers were posted promptly. He posts all lecture slides and examples done in class. No practice exams but I never needed them.
Julius Goldhar ENEE290 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2024	I loved taking this course with Goldhar. As he says from the start, homeworks are difficult so that you find the tests to be easy. Only 2 midterms, and on both and the final he used problems directly from the practice problems he gave out. The course goes very fast, and the best way to describe his teaching is, well, jittery? The diff-eq section was understandable by just giving yourself time to process what you just learned (I'd say it took about a week, from learning + discussion and lab), and for linear algebra there are so many resources online that you'll get the hang of it. Our TA was very reliable, so having him as a resource also probably helped me get a good grade. There's also an immediate +5 curve for the class, an 85% is considered an A-, which is really nice. Its a lot of work, but he knows this, and his leniency with grading makes up for it.
Joseph JaJa ENEE290 Expecting a B+ plannetterpuser63790 03/16/2024	I took ENEE290 in Fall 2023 and JaJa was a good professor. It was the second semester of the class being run and the course was structured to alternate between diff eq and linear algebra. His lecturing was very monotone but if you can get past that, you'll find that his lectures are helpful and he wants you to succeed. When introducing new topics, he generally took us through the derivation for a particular method, be it for diff eq or linear algebra, which I didn't find terribly helpful, but it's there if you learn better like that. Some topics took a few lectures to stick, like when we started covering eigenvalues and eigenspaces in the linear algebra units, but in general, if you know what to ask about, he will try his best to clear any confusion, so much so to the point that when almost the entire class got a question wrong on the first exam, he spent the next lecture taking us through how to answer it properly. The exams were quite easy and covered mostly more recent content. Homework assignments were split between mathy assignments, which I felt were significantly harder than class content and exams, and MATLAB "labs." There was no curve for the class. Overall 3.5/5.
Richard La ENEE290 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/05/2023	This was the first semester of ENEE290 and it went pretty well. It covered basic Differential Equations while also going into Linear Algebra. I will say, La did a lot of derivations in his lectures, just to end up on a formula that you didn't really need the derivation for. La definitely cared about our grades and would always ask to see if we were understanding the material. MATLAB's weren't that hard and the TA was always helpful. Homeworks were fair and not too complicated. The two midterms were very fair and not too challenging. I will say the final had a lot to do and it was hard to get everything done in time, but the class was pre-curved and an 80% was an A. I don't know what future semesters of this class will be like, but he first semester went pretty well and I think it was a bit easier than the MATH246 alternative and we learned all the fundamentals that we needed to.

Richard La
ENEE290

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/19/2025

He posts slides, normally watching youtube videos helped me more. Ask the ta's for the practice problems as they can be helpful for exams. Exams generally do not allow calculators, so expect simple computations and really just testing basic skills. Questions normally are reasonable and exams are graded fairly. The projects are graded leniently and come with decent instruction.

Calin Belta
ENEE290

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/30/2024

Great professor. I didn't go to many classes, but his teaching ability seems alright. His midterms and final are very fair, just straight up homework problems. They are also open note so you're not pressured to memorize anything. He had small hw set once a week which only takes a couple hours max a week. Also had 2 matlab projects which were pretty easy. If I put in a little more studying, definitely could have ended with an A, but I barely went to class and didn't study until a few days before each midterm/final. 100% recommend him.

Calin Belta
ENEE290

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/19/2024

Love this professor. He doesn't want to trick you and just wants to make sure you understand the content. All exams are open note even the final. There is no practice problems but exam questions are the same exact format as lecture and discussion problems. He also gives a lot of time for tests. Attendance isn't mandatory and he posts slides and worked out problems on elms but recommend you go b/c sometimes his handwriting isn't clear and he does a good job explaining step by step. There was hw once a week but they were pretty doable as well as 2 Matlab projects which were hard to understand but in the end weren't bad.

Calin Belta
ENEE290

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2024

GOAT. Everything's open notes and even though his lecture slides aren't super helpful and he isn't that easy to follow in class, his class is easy if you put in the work. Content is relatively easy, nothing super hard. Final and midterms were very fair even though there weren't any study guides or practice exams.

Calin Belta
ENEE290

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/15/2024

He is an absolutely amazing professor. He is very considerate and caring towards his students. I absolutely recommend him when taking ENEE290. He actually cares about his students and wants them to pass. All his exams were fair and open-note, and the answers were posted within a few hours after the exam was finished. All of the slides are posted beforehand and the worked-out examples are posted after class in ELMS. If you happen to struggle in class, I recommend you to watch videos on YouTube or go to his office hours. His office hours are extremely helpful and will try to explain to you step by step on questions or concepts you're confused about. Your workload is manageable, with weekly homework and about two projects, each with a two-week deadline. Side note, his handwriting sometimes is hard to read, but other than that, he is a great professor!

Calin Belta
ENEE290

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/11/2024

Calin always engages with the students in his class and tries his best to help students understand the content. He went at a good pace and was always willing to stay a few minutes after lecture to explain the material or offer help at office hours. As others said, he always posted notes and slides on canvas and communicated frequently. The 2 open-note exams - based on homework and classwork problems - were so straightforward that I barely had to use my notes during the actual test. I would totally recommend him.

Richard La
ENEE290

Anonymous
12/10/2024

Dr. La is a very nice person and a very knowledgeable instructor who goes out of his way to help students when they need it. Unfortunately, his lectures are difficult to follow as he moves quickly through complex equations and explains concepts using examples that are often more confusing than the concepts themselves. ENEE290 itself is also fairly difficult class, covering almost two classes of content in one semester, with the curriculum jumping somewhat abruptly from Differential Equations to Linear Algebra back to Differential Equations. La's exams are hard but have questions similar to the practice exams provided from past years. Homework is assigned about weekly and is graded very generously by the TAs. There are several MATLAB projects that are very challenging and require significant time to complete. La's version of the class is on a massive curve where an 80% is an A, but you will have to work hard for that grade.

Calin Belta
ENEE290

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/10/2024

Extremely good professor. Really tries his best to engage with and talk with the class, and is very good with communication. Great professor and posts all notes and lectures. Will always take time to explain concepts to you.

Calin Belta
ENEE290

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/18/2024

New to UMD, but definitely takes the time to make sure he explains the proofs behind relevant material and lets us know what to expect on exams. Everything is open note, and you can even have pdf note files on your computer. Makes sure to try and have people engaged and posts all the whiteboard work after classes. Slides are posted too before classes for students to follow along or get an idea of the material in advance. If you don't understand any of the material, he'll take the time to try to help you out in class, or you can ask him about it after class or in his office hours. 10/10 great experience so far.

Calin Belta
ENEE290

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/16/2024

This guy is so awesome. Exams were fully open-note and answers were posted promptly. He posts all lecture slides and examples done in class. No practice exams but I never needed them.

Julius Goldhar
ENEE290

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/23/2024

I loved taking this course with Goldhar. As he says from the start, homeworks are difficult so that you find the tests to be easy. Only 2 midterms, and on both and the final he used problems directly from the practice problems he gave out. The course goes very fast, and the best way to describe his teaching is, well, jittery? The diff-eq section was understandable by just giving yourself time to process what you just learned (I'd say it took about a week, from learning + discussion and lab), and for linear algebra there are so many resources online that you'll get the hang of it. Our TA was very reliable, so having him as a resource also probably helped me get a good grade. There's also an immediate +5 curve for the class, an 85% is considered an A-, which is really nice. Its a lot of work, but he knows this, and his leniency with grading makes up for it.

Joseph JaJa
ENEE290

Expecting a B+
plannetterpuser63790
03/16/2024

I took ENEE290 in Fall 2023 and JaJa was a good professor. It was the second semester of the class being run and the course was structured to alternate between diff eq and linear algebra. His lecturing was very monotone but if you can get past that, you'll find that his lectures are helpful and he wants you to succeed. When introducing new topics, he generally took us through the derivation for a particular method, be it for diff eq or linear algebra, which I didn't find terribly helpful, but it's there if you learn better like that. Some topics took a few lectures to stick, like when we started covering eigenvalues and eigenspaces in the linear algebra units, but in general, if you know what to ask about, he will try his best to clear any confusion, so much so to the point that when almost the entire class got a question wrong on the first exam, he spent the next lecture taking us through how to answer it properly. The exams were quite easy and covered mostly more recent content. Homework assignments were split between mathy assignments, which I felt were significantly harder than class content and exams, and MATLAB "labs." There was no curve for the class. Overall 3.5/5.

Richard La
ENEE290

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/05/2023

This was the first semester of ENEE290 and it went pretty well. It covered basic Differential Equations while also going into Linear Algebra. I will say, La did a lot of derivations in his lectures, just to end up on a formula that you didn't really need the derivation for. La definitely cared about our grades and would always ask to see if we were understanding the material. MATLAB's weren't that hard and the TA was always helpful. Homeworks were fair and not too complicated. The two midterms were very fair and not too challenging. I will say the final had a lot to do and it was hard to get everything done in time, but the class was pre-curved and an 80% was an A. I don't know what future semesters of this class will be like, but he first semester went pretty well and I think it was a bit easier than the MATH246 alternative and we learned all the fundamentals that we needed to.

Reviews for ENEE290