ENME472 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Aris Cleanthous ENME472 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/02/2025	Aris is a nice guy. For capstone, I think he's one of the better options. He wants all of his teams to create a functional prototype, and he does what he can to help you get there. That being said, he fell short on a few occasions throughout the semester and genuinely pissed me off from time to time. - He would call out and publicly shame students for arriving late to class—fair enough, it's unprofessional—but he himself was not always present and set up at the start of class, and didn't even show up to the final class of the semester (without telling students, mind you) - He would give students some real attitude for no reason during lecture sometimes, which I did not appreciate at all - He would claim that his feedback on drafts was proportional to the effort you put into the draft—fair. But, it didn't always shake out like that. Multiple times he provided no feedback on entirely new sections of our reports, and didn't provide any feedback at all on the 3rd report in time for Design Expo. The entire purpose of Report 3 was to get feedback on our design for Design Expo, so this was perhaps his biggest shortcoming of the semester to me. Nor did we receive any feedback on the last draft before the final was due for Report 4, which was also a big letdown. All of that being said, I would still take Capstone with him again. I just hope he can address some of his hypocrisies and shortcomings for future semesters.
Shapour Azarm ENME472 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/08/2025	Pretty terrible capstone professor. He is the sponsor for all of the elderly assistive device projects, which is about 3 groups. He has a specific product that he wanted us to design, but would be absolutely no help in guiding us about the features of the product or what exactly he wants it to do. He changed the project requirements mid semester to a stair assistive device that helps users walk up the stairs to a stair assistive device that also CATCHES a person if they fall. due to this, we scrambled to change and build our prototype in the last 4 weeks of the semester. I had a pretty terrible group as well and personally emailed him for an extension citing the fact that I had 3x the amount of hours of any other team member in my group and I was the only person doing a majority of the work. He basically said he didn't care lol. In addition to that, he didn't remember my name until 2 months into the semester despite me talking to him every single class asking him for advice as our sponsor. Instead, I went to Prof. Cleanthous to give me advice which he gladly and clearly did. do not take this prof. he is incredibly irritating
Elisabeth Smela ENME472 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023	Holds extremely high standards for your capstone project, and grades harshly. This forced the quality of my project to be very high but meant I had no free time and was stressed the entire semester (I spent over 20 hr/week avg). The saving grace is that if you put in lots of effort, she will recognize that and award extra credit. She was not very consistent with grading communication (say one thing, grade another way) but was open to feedback about it.
Aris Cleanthous ENME472 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/31/2023	Cleanthous was great for 472. He led the zoom lectures for all sections this semester and I thought it was fine, but realistically you can skip almost all of these and not miss anything. He was the instructor for my section too. Gave some useful feedback during our studio sessions and kept it fun. Way easier and less stressful than 371 with Dr. Vince and the DeWalt reps. His report feedback could be really funny too. He'd tell us in class to check what he wrote for our recaps, then we'd look and it would say something like "good" or "could be better." Would take again for sure.
Ratnesh Tiwari ENME472 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/18/2022	He was an awesome mentor for our capstone project and kept pushing us to do better, in the end it was his resourcefulness and feedback that helped us win all three awards at the end of the semester.
George Dieter ENME472 Expecting an A kvizzle321 03/13/2012	This man is wise beyond his years. He is quite friendly, and loves to talk to students. However he is quite slow in getting his points across (due to his age). Nonetheless, he is very helpful with the senior design project.
Linda Schmidt ENME472 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/08/2011	This woman is a fun sucker. Do not take her unless you are about to roll your eyes into oblivion for all the stupid stuff she makes you do for the project. Take another, more easy going professor. She is waayyyyy too anal for the class to be enjoyable.

Aris Cleanthous
ENME472

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/02/2025

Aris is a nice guy. For capstone, I think he's one of the better options. He wants all of his teams to create a functional prototype, and he does what he can to help you get there. That being said, he fell short on a few occasions throughout the semester and genuinely pissed me off from time to time. - He would call out and publicly shame students for arriving late to class—fair enough, it's unprofessional—but he himself was not always present and set up at the start of class, and didn't even show up to the final class of the semester (without telling students, mind you) - He would give students some real attitude for no reason during lecture sometimes, which I did not appreciate at all - He would claim that his feedback on drafts was proportional to the effort you put into the draft—fair. But, it didn't always shake out like that. Multiple times he provided no feedback on entirely new sections of our reports, and didn't provide any feedback at all on the 3rd report in time for Design Expo. The entire purpose of Report 3 was to get feedback on our design for Design Expo, so this was perhaps his biggest shortcoming of the semester to me. Nor did we receive any feedback on the last draft before the final was due for Report 4, which was also a big letdown. All of that being said, I would still take Capstone with him again. I just hope he can address some of his hypocrisies and shortcomings for future semesters.

Shapour Azarm
ENME472

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/08/2025

Pretty terrible capstone professor. He is the sponsor for all of the elderly assistive device projects, which is about 3 groups. He has a specific product that he wanted us to design, but would be absolutely no help in guiding us about the features of the product or what exactly he wants it to do. He changed the project requirements mid semester to a stair assistive device that helps users walk up the stairs to a stair assistive device that also CATCHES a person if they fall. due to this, we scrambled to change and build our prototype in the last 4 weeks of the semester. I had a pretty terrible group as well and personally emailed him for an extension citing the fact that I had 3x the amount of hours of any other team member in my group and I was the only person doing a majority of the work. He basically said he didn't care lol. In addition to that, he didn't remember my name until 2 months into the semester despite me talking to him every single class asking him for advice as our sponsor. Instead, I went to Prof. Cleanthous to give me advice which he gladly and clearly did. do not take this prof. he is incredibly irritating

Elisabeth Smela
ENME472

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/20/2023

Holds extremely high standards for your capstone project, and grades harshly. This forced the quality of my project to be very high but meant I had no free time and was stressed the entire semester (I spent over 20 hr/week avg). The saving grace is that if you put in lots of effort, she will recognize that and award extra credit. She was not very consistent with grading communication (say one thing, grade another way) but was open to feedback about it.

Aris Cleanthous
ENME472

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/31/2023

Cleanthous was great for 472. He led the zoom lectures for all sections this semester and I thought it was fine, but realistically you can skip almost all of these and not miss anything. He was the instructor for my section too. Gave some useful feedback during our studio sessions and kept it fun. Way easier and less stressful than 371 with Dr. Vince and the DeWalt reps. His report feedback could be really funny too. He'd tell us in class to check what he wrote for our recaps, then we'd look and it would say something like "good" or "could be better." Would take again for sure.

Ratnesh Tiwari
ENME472

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/18/2022

He was an awesome mentor for our capstone project and kept pushing us to do better, in the end it was his resourcefulness and feedback that helped us win all three awards at the end of the semester.

George Dieter
ENME472

Expecting an A
kvizzle321
03/13/2012

This man is wise beyond his years. He is quite friendly, and loves to talk to students. However he is quite slow in getting his points across (due to his age). Nonetheless, he is very helpful with the senior design project.

Linda Schmidt
ENME472

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/08/2011

This woman is a fun sucker. Do not take her unless you are about to roll your eyes into oblivion for all the stupid stuff she makes you do for the project. Take another, more easy going professor. She is waayyyyy too anal for the class to be enjoyable.

Reviews for ENME472