Alejandra Mercado

This professor has taught: BIOI603, DATA603, EDSP652, ENEE222, ENEE322, ENTS622, ENTS659M, ENTS669D, ENTS669K, ENTS689W, ENTS759B, MSML603, MSQC603

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Alejandra Mercado ENEE222 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/09/2024	Her lectures are very engaging. The homeworks were decently challenging, but we had access to a lot of hints (which were basically the solutions). The labs were pretty difficult, but nothing too bad if you understand the class material well enough. She is a great professor, would 100% recommend her. She really cares about her students learning and tries to ease our course load as much as she can.
Alejandra Mercado ENEE222 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/09/2024	Mercado is a solid prof. I personally didn't enjoy her lectures that much and stopped going (hence the reason I got a B), but she tried her best to convey the material in an interesting way. The homeworks were pretty hard and labs too, but the content and math is interesting so she is definitely a solid option.
Alejandra Mercado ENEE222 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024	Overall, love Mercado. She definitely cared about us and wanted us to succeed. She did implement a slightly odd grading system which is hard to explain but did mean that you couldn’t really tell your grade during the semester but it did help in the end (her version of a curve). She was a pretty good lecturer and also posted old Papamarcou videos and paper notes for if you don’t understand something/miss something/miss class that pretty much go directly with her notes (I watched both- occasionally something slightly different but nothing that should affect class performance- mostly Mercado focused more on explaining applications than Papamarcou in an attempt to make us more interested) Grading was hit or miss depending on TA for hw and labs (MATLAB assignments) (they gave me full points on some stuff I missed but then took off a ton for small errors), but exams were generally graded pretty fairly. But, as a forewarning, THIS CLASS IS A FUCKTON OF WORK. If you want to do well, 15hr/week is like the bare minimum. I pretty regularly spent 20hr/week at the beginning of the semester and is the only reason I was able to keep my A as my grade went down while I was no longer doing that due to other classes. Homeworks were ridiculous time commitments (like 6hr per assignment with one a week) plus like 2 hr labs once a week, lecture quizzes after every lecture, and then I was also watching the lecture videos and taking notes, not to mention general studying. Also, labs are a disproportionately percentage of your grade so make sure you double check them before submitting. She posts lots of practice problems like a week and a half before exams (though I think it would be better to spread them out to their respective modules) but they were pretty helpful and then went over questions in class that were often pretty close to the exam questions. So overall good teacher but the class sucked
Alejandra Mercado ENEE222 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/31/2023	This semester was Mercado's first time teaching 222. She followed Papa's curriculum very closely, providing all the same resources and assigning the same labs and homework assignments. This was a good call because Papa is goated with the sauce. Notably, they did not co-teach and Mercado's exams tended to emphasize different aspects of the material. Her lecture style is very engaging and I feel like I learned a lot in her class. Overall, I found Mercado to be very invested in the success of her students. She frequently checked in with the class to ensure that material was being paced well and calculated final grades by creating five different category weightings at the end of the semester. Her philosophy is that students who understand all the material should earn As, even if they don't perform equally well on all types of assignments. Lecture quizzes acted as a free 10% of your grade in the default weighting as well. I am not leaving a perfect review for three reasons: 1. It was very difficult to determine what your grade in the class was at any point in the semester, as Mercado locked ELMS grade calculations and the weightings were unclear anyway. 2. Exams had a very long turnaround time for grading. 3. Although I appreciated how Mercado highlighted aspects of the course that she felt were more important for practical understanding, this unfortunately led to her exams being different from the homework in the framing of some concepts. As somebody who learns from practice, I felt that there was no good way to prepare for these differences. More could have been done to reconcile Papa's course materials with Mercado's flair.
Alejandra Mercado ENEE222 Anonymous 05/01/2023	Professor Mercado's ENEE222 was pretty good. Lectures were clear, tests and labs were well organized. My only complaint was that the homeworks were unnecessarily hard, especially compared to test problems.
Alejandra Mercado ENEE322 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/22/2022	Although this class had me on my nerves for the longest because of my poor performances on midterms, I would definitely say that I recommend you take Prof. Mercado because she is a great professor for the reasons mentioned below. The only thing I would warn you about is that, although her exams are short and simple, they are insanely easy to make stupid mistakes on and lose a large portion of your grade. So be aware about that. Other than that, I appreciate this class, and definitely would recommend it to other students
Alejandra Mercado ENEE322 Anonymous 06/21/2022	She is incredibly nice. The lectures are clear and generally follow Papamarcou's lecture notes, although Prof Mercado likes to emphasize practical applications as well. As others have said the exams are easy and she gives way more than enough time.
Alejandra Mercado ENEE322 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/19/2021	This review is slightly old - I actually took the class with her in Spring 2020. Professor Mercado is fantastic. I cannot emphasize enough that she is now my favorite teacher in the ECE department. She gives very clear lectures with wonderful illustrations and visualizations of concepts - something that is INCREDIBLY important in 322 and any signals class (but often not stressed enough by professors!). I took Papamarcou for 222 and Mercado for 322 and I can definitively say that I learned more effectively from Mercado, though I absolutely have a lot of respect for Papamarcou, who is also a great. Perhaps one issue for some would be the style of Mercado's tests - they are EASY and SHORT. This means that if you miss even one problem in its entirety you will not get an A and probably something more like a B or a C on the test. Mercado is good at emphasizing what needs to be known before these tests, but if you are an anxious test taker this might not be the style for you since everything is worth so much. I didn't have a problem with it but I figured I'd document it in case that would be a concern for anyone else. I would 11/10 recommend taking any class with Mercado
Alejandra Mercado ENEE322 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/13/2020	Amazing professor. She explains things very well and her exams are extremely fair. She isn’t trying to trick you and as your best interest. I really learned a lot about signals without having to stress that much. Papamarcou is also a good choice but I think she is better.
Alejandra Mercado ENEE322 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/17/2019	When I originally registered for this class, I was apprehensive that I had not been able to get into the section taught by Papamarcou. Now that I know both professors and their styles of teaching, I'm glad to say that I'm much more satisfied with Dr. Mercado, and would elect to take the class with her over Papa if I was somehow given the option. Professor Mercado teaches very thoroughly, and always answers questions in an easy-to-understand manner that demonstrates why certain equations or mathematical concepts work as they do. Further, Mercado always relates the concepts we have in class to actual practical (employment) applications. In my experience, this helps me to remain much more interested in the topic at hand. Exams are fair and test you on your understanding of concepts and properties, rather than your ability to perform complex calculations and algebra. She always provided ample study material, and it never felt as if we were tested on something we hadn't already covered in-depth. I definitely recommend Mercado over any other professor for ENEE322.