Jose Aranda-Espinoza

This professor has taught: BIOE232, BIOE331, BIOE332, BIOE371, BIOE489H, BIOE489M, BIOE604, BIOE605, BIOE606, BIOE610, BIOE689J, GEMS296, GEMS297, GEMS396, GEMS397, GEMS496, GEMS497

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Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 07/07/2023	took it over summer. passing, but was a horrible experience. he is the least personable person ive met at college.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 07/06/2023	Took it over summer. This guy is the least personable person I've met in college. He is rude and comes across as having a massive superiority complex. He regards everything he does as being easy, when it's the students' first time learning it. First exam was not bad (average was an 80), second was made horribly and average was a 50. He didn't space the lectures out correctly so he crammed the third exam in a week after the second exam (two lectures), leaving us to self teach most of the content. His pop quizzes were made to be very difficult, but you can get points back. First exam was an hour long. Second exam took us two hours (an hour overtime). The third took 3 hours (2 hours overtime). That's class from 12:30pm to 2:30, then exam from 2:30 to 5:30. The highest grade in the class is a B, and 90% of the class has a C. There is no curve. If you are not confident with diffeq, taking this over summer will tank your gpa, unless you make sure to grind 5 hours per day.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 06/13/2023	I spent so long every week working on this class. I went to office hours every week,did the homework in advance, went to every class and discussion, and tried my best and barely passed with a C. I have never struggled in a class like I did in this one. The exams are tricky and it his goal is to confuse you, the in class "extra credit" was my 13th reason, and his teaching style just really sucks. Doing the homework and fully understanding it really really heps so make sure you do that. Half the class is doing awful in the class and half the class seemed to be doing amazing so he doesn't curve, but he really should. He is really funny at times, but this is balanced out by how mean he can come across at other times. I like him as a person but certainly not as a professor.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 06/05/2023	I usually never review professors or classes because I never really leave the class with strong opinions on anything ngl. But Helim is the exception. Helim is genuinely one of the worst, most unsympathetic, most uncaring professors I’ve ever had the displeasures of taking. He does not care about his students at all. During class he “teaches us” by rambling/mumbling/muttering through a pdf of his chicken scratch handwritten notes (copied straight from the textbook, often littered with mistakes) in a quiet monotone near-whisper. When asked to provide more examples or explain his work he just says go to the TA’s office hours or there are examples in the textbook. Some of the materials provided by the TA’s literally have disclaimers that their work may have mistakes/ be incorrect. (The textbook is also awful, there are no steps written out for the examples, barely any explanations, and the homework is so disconnected from the chapter. He does not curve, he only gives small amounts of random extra credit. He consistently contradicts the textbook, the TA’s, and himself in class. He gives random in class quizzes based on the material he taught in the same lesson. nHe does no care about his students well being at all. My grandfather passed away during the beginning of finals and I was not doing well. I wrote him an email explaining my situation and asked him If I could take the last midterm in a couple days because I was grieving. HE NEVER EVEN REPLIED TO THE EMAIL EVEN THOUGH HE SAW IT. I went to talk to him after class about my email and he cut me off and just said “there’s nothing I can do for you”, no sorry no nothing. I was genuinely appalled. He is rude to students who ask questions and does not care about anything really. Being near this man actually makes me want to peel my skin off. Ngl I would take him for bioe371 because the other option is Koh. But just be aware of his ‘teaching’ style ig and lack of basic human empathy.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 06/02/2023	He is extremely rude to most students. If I could I would give him a 0/5 because he does not care about students succeeding in his class whatsoever. He gave us extra credit which did help, but some of the extra credit was really hard, and hardly anyone got credit for it. He used the extra credit as an excuse to not curve the class so that he does not have to do extra work at the end. A lot of students were scared to ask him questions because he always responded weirdly or was rude. Whenever someone did ask him questions, he would tell that person to ask the TA which is weird because he is literally the professor that's getting paid...... TAs were extremely helpful in this class because he just did not wanna answer any questions and disliked the class for some reason. Overall: one of the worst classes I have taken because he was so awful at teaching and genuinely did not care about the students succeeding in the class.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/15/2023	Helim was not a good professor for this class. He would display and read a PDF of his written notes for the entire class and only wrote out steps to an example once per class. It was very hard to learn concepts when all you got in class are sped-up verbal instructions and a PDF that was equally as confusing. He is also an extremely degrading individual who makes anyone who doesn't understand feel stupid for not understanding. When people asked questions in class that seemed simple, he would say things like "oh, you should know this already" or "have you not been paying attention?" I went to his 1 on 1 office hours because I was still confused about the concepts we were learning, and I asked to go over 1 problem step by step. He responded with "we went over examples of this in class, you still don't get it? I'm not going to go step by step because we already did that." The concepts aren't too difficult, but the way they are taught is not the best. The TA discussion and office hours are what helped me the most so defiantly go to those. Homework is based on completion, but they are super long. The exam questions were reasonable but time was a huge issue because the problems were lengthy. He also give graded classwork about topics that were covered in that class so be prepared.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/14/2023	Horrible experience. He is a rude and inconsiderate person. The homeworks are difficult, the exams are borderline impossible, and he gives very little extra credit on exams (the exam averages were consistently in the low 60s, and he does not curve). This class humbled me deeply and has to be the hardest I've taken thus far (harder than orgo and diffeq). I was kinda hoping this guy would be fired at some point during the semester because his grumpy ass should not be teaching if he's out to fail us all.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/10/2023	He makes the easiest concepts, hard. His "notes" are the same as the book just in his own handwriting. The textbook isn't great either. He makes homework based on completion, but his grading is honestly horrible. There's barely any partial credit given for exams. The final is optional, but most people are taking it because the class midterms were OKAY. The average was around the 60-70s every time. Feel so bad for us BIOE, I thought DiffEq was meh, but this doesn't compare. He just makes it harder because he doesn't know how to explain or teach. Seems like a cool guy, but he's rude. Each lecture the class is always so quiet because we're all just trying to process what's going on set aside a few.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 03/15/2023	This guy is trash but I'm giving him 2 stars instead of 1 because there isn't a better option than him (as of 2023). About the professor: - He is incredibly rude to his students and really doesn't seem to care about them either. For example, when we asked when the homework answer keys will be posted, he responded with "when you see them on elms." Or someone will ask for him to go over an example and he says, "no... there are examples in the textbook." It's almost comedic how disconnected he is with his students. About his teaching: -This man pulls out a pdf of hand-written notes (riddled with mistakes) from whenever he started teaching this course and mumbles through this pdf the entire class. He says "this goes here and then you do this and then you have the answer... moving on" all while scrolling through this confusing pdf of notes and very rarely writing things on the board. This goes back to him not giving a flying f*ck about his students because he's too lazy to write out the examples on the white board. Although, when he does muster up the energy to go through something on the board, it makes sense and is easy to follow. - He also gives pop quizzes on the same material covered in class that day. You can just see the panic and confusion in most people's faces when he gives these pop quizzes... he calls them "independent classwork." - The homework is incredibly difficult and you need to go to the TAs office hours AND discussion sections in order to complete it. On the bright side, it's graded for completion. - The exams are brutal and he does not give that much partial credit. It's not even the concepts that are difficult, he just finds a way to make "easy" material very difficult by making the algebra for most questions incredibly long and tedious (time crunch). He does not curve the exams but he does give out extra credit (in the form of confusing pop-quizzes). The other teacher for this class, Dr. Koh, is even worse so I would take Espinoza but just beware and make sure you prioritize it if you want a good grade. Both teachers are awful but at least Espinoza makes the final optional. Good luck, you'll need it for this class :)
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/02/2022	Although Helim can be a bit soft spoken in class and does go really fast some days, he will listen if you tell him to speak up and is pretty accommodating. I still thought he was a great professor and taught diff eq way better than my actual diff eq prof. He is also funny and relates things to actual bio and engineering concepts if you listen carefully. He’s also great in office hours. To get a good grade, go to every discussion and every class. It’s ok if you miss some class days, but definitely don’t miss discussion. The TAs go over HW problems due that week and will help with any example you ask. Both Helim and the TAs also will basically tell you exactly how the exam will be set up and what each question is going to be (it’s category). Helim also gives a practice exam the lecture before every exam and the TAs hold an exam review after this answering the whole thing. The practice exam is usually exactly like the actual exam (represents each category of question that will be asked). Extra credit is also great. Does give classwork “quizzes” in class but will help you so that you solve the problem correctly, just ask. Overall great class and great prof! Not an easy A but definitely doable.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 05/18/2022	His lectures are terrible. The hw is terrible. The exams are okay. Help from the TAs were the only thing that made this class bearable. Do not take this professor if you have any other choice. His notes arent very helpful and his class is not engaging AT ALL. One of the worst
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 03/30/2022	He simply has copy-pasted the textbook for his lecture slides...how is this not plagiarism? His handwritten notes leave much to be deserved in terms of understandability and legibility. He speaks so quiet sometimes you don't even know he is in the room. He randomly assigns "classwork" giving you 5 minutes to submit something hastily handwritten at the end of class. The only good thing is that he grades homework for completion so you can actually check the answers and learn without panicking. This is where you will actually learn the material. The exams, contrary to what people are posting below, are not simply practice homework problems. You should look at examples from the textbook he mentions to "Study" in class as well. Apparently he also doesn't allow examples on reference sheets for exams? Strange.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/29/2021	I am not sure why everyone rates Helim so low, but his class was very fair and I felt that I learned a lot. Forst, it was an 8 AM class which did make it difficult to focus, and his lectures are basically him going through the textbook in his own handwriting. However, I thought he made more sense than the textbook, and he skipped over things in the text that you wouldn't have known if you didn't go to lecture. The homework was very long (6 + pages), and was only graded for completion. However, the reason I rate this class so highly was that our exams always had only problems from the homework, discussion, or class with minor modifications. So basically, if you show up to class, discussion, and at least go over the homework answers (which he posts), you should do extremely well on the exams. On top of that, he gave many opportunities for extra credit on each exam, and the discussion was a great tool to teach you how to solve specific problems that would almost always show up on the exam. TL;DR Go to class, do the homework, and go to discussions and there is no reason you shouldn't get at least an A-
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/20/2021	Yes, lecture is pretty much repeating the textbook. I thought he made more sense than the text and if he didn't you could just ask questions in class, so you don't have to open the text if you go to class. He also hints at what questions will and won't be tested. Homework is completion. Classwork is graded, but collaborative and you can ask him or TAs for help. Exams were very fair. Questions taken straight from hw or lecture notes or were very similar. Allowed equation sheet. Lowest two non-exam grades were dropped. Lots of opportunity for extra credit applied to exam grades. Final is optional, don't count on taking the final. TAs were very useful. We worked on hw in discussions. They led review sessions leading up to every test. Overall, I felt like he wanted us to succeed and was accommodating. He even tried new teaching style of working out problems and taking questions/problems from students during class, but the class voted to return to his old lecture style.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/05/2021	Helim should not be allowed to teach anymore. The only reason I performed well in this class is that I never attended lectures. The lectures are pointless repetition from the textbook. He also randomly calls on students. All in all, he just seems like the kind of professor that's out to get students. I do not align with this teaching style because it is ineffective.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE232 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/08/2021	Response to the review below: Helim is a nice dude, agreed. I am not mad that I did not do well, I have an A+ right now. Helim is a terrible professor absolutely horrible. For his lecture, he reads the textbook and goes over the examples that are already done in the book and his explanations usually contribute nothing to the our understanding of the materials. His lecture is borderline useless I don't know why I even show up. The only way to succeed in this class is to read the text book. And even then, it is hard because this textbook sucks. It will prove something or solve an example and show absolutely no work, skipping from the first step to the last for any given 5 step problem. It makes absolutely no sense for someone trying to learn something for the first time. To make matters worse, the assigned homeworks take concepts in class and multiply the difficult 10x over, leaving you struggling to understand what the hell is happening or how to even begin. The TA's in this class (especially Martha) have been incredibly helpful, they are by far the best material provided to us. All in all, avoid at all costs. You will have to read a textbook multiple hours a day, and maybe even multiple times before you begin to understand anything. In this is coming from someone who is doing very well so far. Just take it another semester if you can or you will hate this class and be sad with how much work you have to do.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/24/2020	Helim is a nice dude. People giving him a one-star cuz they mad they did not do well. This course is not easy and you definitely have to take things more into your own hands. He does not give HW often so you NEED TO REVIEW AND PRACTICE A LOT ON YOUR OWN and make do with whatever problems he does do. His exams were very doable if you put in the work. It is very easy to ignore this class until it is too late to do anything so stay on top of it.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/21/2019	Avoid if you can. He made 371 harder and more difficult than it's supposed to be. He has ridiculously high standards and he claims he is not curving. Gives extra credit as a "curve" but he usually picks the most difficult questions for extra cred, making it nearly impossible to get. It doesn't even boost your grade. We had a take-home exam due the day before finals that was extremely difficult and took up so much time. if there was a 0-star rating I would give him that.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 03/25/2019	If I can give him less than a star, I would. He doesn't teach. His notes (which he reads off of) are straight from the textbook so there's no point in going to class. Even when he tries to do examples of problems, he only focuses on the ones already in the book. The way the grading system work is really messed up. Quizzes are 25% of your grade, and the lowest one isn't dropped. This is very frustrating because the class is at 9am and the quizzes are given the first 10 minutes of class. So if you miss one, you're screwed. Only way I can probably pass this class is if he curves.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE371 Anonymous 03/18/2019	Absolutely the worst professor in the world I can assure you. Never take him because you will end up learning nothing from him. He may be a nice person, but he cannot teach. He has zero passion for teaching and if you take his class he has ridiculous standards for every student. Unless if you're phenomenally good at math, you will struggle if he's the professor for 371. Avoid at all costs. I am not even a bad student but the semester I took his class affected my grades, solely because he was the professor for 371. He doesn't teach, he just reads the textbook to us, and even when he attempts to teach, he never really explains anything and assumes we all understand. Even when you go to his office hours he is frustrating to talk to. I would never advise my worst enemy to take his class, that's how horrible he is as a professor.
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.
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE121 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2011	The review below is correct- Helim was a terrible teacher. He has an accent, is incredibly monotone and speaks really soft (which is 10x worse if you have him for an 8am class) so everyone either falls asleep or brings a laptop and just messes around the whole time However, this is an extremely easy class, as long as you do well on the lab reports
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE689M llak789 05/21/2011	Terrible teacher
Jose Aranda-Espinoza BIOE121 Expecting an A bioe012 12/18/2008	BIOE121 was a very good course. Professor Aranda is a nice guy, but he does not help students directly when he is not asked to do so. The work load was slightly high for a one credit course, but an A is very easy to earn; complete all the lab reports and go to lab! This is possibly the easiest science course during freshman year.