| Information | Review |
|---|---|
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Peter May
ENST405 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/07/2025 |
Ok, to preface this: Dr. May discovered he was supposed to be teaching this class approximately 4 days before the semester started, so some aspects may have been affected. The premise of this course sounds interesting, and the assignments I could see in the elms page (as Dr. Tilley just handed over his elms page) seem very interesting, but we didn’t actually do any of the interesting ones. Instead, we have been assigned an emergy analysis assignment, split between the class for LEAFhouse and React (two UMD built sustainable housing designs) which some students are going to present at a conference in May. Theoretically interesting, but poorly executed. He has given us very little instruction on how to do such a thing and is very student run. We are also going to have a final somehow but I don’t even know what we’ve really learned enough to have a final on given we do have hw assignments from a provided textbook, but Dr. May doesn’t know any of the answers. We are given 2 attempts and can see which questions are wrong, and students collaborate to get right answers (with permission of May), so grades tend to be good on them but we don’t really know the information or why the answers are what they are. May does seem pretty passionate on the topics and has given some interesting lectures on his experience working as an environmental engineer, but it’s not super relevant to the course. So, again, I don’t know what aspects of this are May himself vs not being prepared to teach this course. I’ve heard he’s better in lower levels (including 360) where theres a mostly defined curriculum, but given other reviews I definitely would not recommend for any upper levels |
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Peter May
ENST403 Anonymous 12/21/2024 |
I second what the other person said. Very disorganized, unnecessarily convoluted way of submitting assignments (always emailing him through elms) and no rubrics... he just copied every assignment from the previous 403 professor and didnt even take his name out of the slides, etc. but then just spends most of class sharing personal stories ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, its easy to get an A because he basically doesnt take points off unless you turned in the assignment very late. but you probably wont learn a lot about invasion ecology if thats what you wanted. but very very disorganized and he seems somewhat inept with technology/using elms, which gets genuinely frustrating |
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Peter May
ENST403 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2024 |
I think I enjoyed this course overall, but it was definitely not very structured. We usually would just have discussions about a paper, but then get off topic and kind of just talk. There weren't many assignments, but the ones we did have were informative and actually kind of enjoyable. Some days, I would leave class kind of just confused and feeling like I didn't learn anything, but other days we would actually have pretty cool conversations. Dr. May is super cool and interesting. He has a lot of personal experience with a large range of environmental topics, so it was beneficial to hear first hand from someone in the field. He was very understanding with deadlines and it was clear he just wanted us to do our best and not get stressed out. Overall a very low stress environment and he was good at making everyone feel welcome and heard in class. |
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Peter May
ENST481 Anonymous 05/11/2024 |
Dr. May is a friendly guy and lenient grader. He is also very lenient when it comes to due dates and asking for extensions. He is a very "chill" professor, but takes it to the extreme. He is just way too disorganized and it really puts a burden on his students. He consistently shows up 5-10 minutes late to his own lecture. He does not post assignments, and expects you to email everything to him through elms. We are nearing finals week and he has yet to grade a single assignment. As well, for a lot of the big projects/assignments he does not provide a rubric to students. He is also doesn't teach at all. Most of his lecture is him scrolling through slides while rambling on about a personal story completely unrelated. Our final is coming up soon and he has not posted a study guide or an outline for what will be on the exam at all. |