Deb Niemeier

This professor has taught: EDSP652, ENCE204, ENCE465, ENCE466, ENCE467, ENCE688J
Information Review
Deb Niemeier
ENCE467

Anonymous
05/17/2024
Despite the potential benefits a capstone class could provide for senior students, Professor Niemeier undermines its usefulness for future engineers. She claims she won't hesitate to fail soon-to-be graduating seniors, which does not foster a healthy classroom environment where students feel comfortable seeking help. When students do take the time to ask for help or clarification, she responds as if they are not putting any effort into their work simply because they have questions. After realizing she is not helpful for the project, it becomes clear that working with the project sponsor is more beneficial. The class would likely improve without her involvement, as it could be self-run by students with the guidance of project sponsors. To make matters worse, we had to turn in a draft of our final report with the promise of receiving feedback before our engineering expo and final report due date. However, we received no feedback or acknowledgment from her.
Deb Niemeier
ENCE467

Anonymous
05/16/2024
This class was set up with 1 credit in the fall and 2 credits in the spring. To start, I do not believe she should have ever been a teacher. A professor is someone who will help students grow and reinforce behavior through positive feedback, her interactions with students are quite the opposite. Throughout my year, a few incidences were brought to those higher up and while they tried their best to fix said situations, the way in which she interacted further with students after the fact was in no way better. Individuals would come out of her office crying if the group you were placed into was not producing quality work or not working well with each other. She will single individuals out and create an atmosphere of interrogation within her office. As a student you never feel relaxed in her “learning” environment as she always seems to want to pick a fight with someone. You will feel helpless when interacting with her due to her superiority complex. Some things wrong with her class: her expectations were not outlined correctly in the syllabus or in the grading rubric. You can go to her office hours all you like but she will only tell you everything is correct as she skims what is shown to her. When the grade comes back it will either be a B, C or lower. Successful feedback is not produced within this class. She is embarrassing as a capstone professor and I personally have had interactions with past capstone professors voicing their dislike in both the program and the professor. Expecting students to fix proposals over winter break due to her mistakes of missing something in the submittals is absolutely ridiculous. Grades were not changed and students were told it is not worth the “argument”, students were expected to resubmit proposals the first week of the spring semester with changes while this was not reflected in a grade change for either fall nor spring semester. She should not blame students for her mistakes and while it is late in her life, she needs to learn how to take accountability. I do believe she needs to have repercussions for her actions and since the entire year I saw no changes I also am ashamed of the civil engineering department.
Deb Niemeier
ENCE467

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/25/2024
One of my top 3 least favorite professors I have had in my entire college experience (stacked with haghani and Chang if you know) Continually will cut you off mid sentence when you are in a meeting with her seeking advice. Constantly lies to students stating what other capstone groups are doing to make you feel like what you are doing isn’t enough. Overall: 0/10, would not recommend :p
Deb Niemeier
ENCE465

Expecting a D+
Anonymous
12/20/2023
Extremely stubborn and inconsiderate, and will actively mock your work in-class (albeit with your name removed) if she feels it is not up to her standards. On the rare occasions when that is not the case, the feedback that is given tends to be extremely unhelpful and will often result in a lower grade when trying to implement it. She will also commonly let meetings run for 20 minutes over the expected time, and will often schedule multiple groups for the same time slots as well. That is on the rare occasions when she is also actually trying to be helpful - usually she will just go nearly radio silent. I'd say don't take her class, but since it's the capstone... best of luck.
Deb Niemeier
ENCE465

Anonymous
09/06/2023
Extremely strict and stubborn in her ways. Gives out a few extra credit assignments which can actually deduct points from your existing grade if she decides they are not completed to her satisfaction...
Deb Niemeier
ENCE466

Anonymous
12/23/2022
You see that ~90% A rate for 466? That won't happen ever again with this new professor. Very strict grader so pray you get an equally strict group who will go above and beyond on the reports. Good luck, you'll need it.
Deb Niemeier
ENCE204

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/06/2021
I had to take this class for Carillon Communities and I would honestly not recommend it. Because this was an LLC class, it is all freshman, but she taught the class like an upper level class with really little guidance and high expectations. There was only one lecture from her the entire year, the rest of the class was group work where we just read the directions and on canvas, and the other part was a guest speaker every week. I really enjoyed the guest speakers because I was actually learning about something. For the first two months, the class average was about a 50%, and she ended up turning the grades off because students kept complaining about their low grades. The grading is also really unclear and there was little to no direction on how to improve out writing and projects the next time around. Go to office hours and literally always go above and beyond on projects and she will at least see you are trying. The professor seems really passionate about the social parts of engineering, and she is very accomplished, I just don't think she is used to teaching a lower level LLC class.