| Information | Review |
|---|---|
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Benjamin Shapiro
BIOE371 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/03/2016 |
He's a great professor and knows his stuff (he likes giving examples based on cars and cruise control). His quizzes can be crazy at times and i had 2 or 3 quizzes with zeros but I still ended up with a B+ in the class. His exams are standard and this is were you need to pick up and slack from quizzes so as long as you pay attention in class, study and understand his notes you can easily get a perfect score. He cares about students understanding material so he will ask multiple times before moving on if you understand so if you don't just say you don't. |
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Benjamin Shapiro
Expecting an A Anonymous 04/04/2012 |
Ok first off let me give you an unemotional, fair review. Yes, he does care strongly about his students; and the makeup exam was definitely unnecessary. He actually gave one for students being "under too much pressure" while they took it. My mind was blown. After being part of the FALL 2011 class also, I wish the two posters below me took the course then. Stop complaining about the material moving too slow. When he moves at his pace, you will pray to god you had it this easy. Get off your high horse. -Pay VERY close attention during class(not just half daydream and copy notes) -Write very thorough notes, (writing why he did certain things) (obviously) thats really it. i literally did not look at the material til a day or 2 before. and im far from smart. if you pay attention and focus hard during that one hour youll be in great shape when it comes down to studying for exams. oh and also take the hw seriously. its worth more than exams, so dont put it off like any other engineering class. |
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Benjamin Shapiro
Expecting an A pat 02/13/2012 |
The other review is solid, so I guess I'm just posting to confirm this. If you want to actually learn anything about controls, you will have to do it outside of this class on your own accord. We literally spent WEEKS on trivial bits of linear algebra and ordinary differential equations. In my opinion, he is a great guy who will bend over backwards for you to learn something. However, spending insane amounts of time on simple topics is not fair to those of us who actually keep up with the information and want to get something out of the class. No offense, but if you are sitting in a senior level engineering class complaining about "crazy math!" then the train for your business, liberal arts, or humanities degree left your a$$ behind a long time ago. Because BIOE consists largely of pre-med sh** heads and people looking to do dirty deeds for grades, Shapiro's style of teaching was taken advantage of, severely. For example: Most of the class bombed the mid term, and as such they complained relentlessley that they "deserved credit here" because it is not what they "meant to put down". Most teachers would have kindly told them to shove off, but Shapiro gave back MANY points and a makeup test, which people still tried to squeeze points from once they bombed that also. If you are not mathematically challeneged to an embarassing degree as a senior, this class will be insanely easy. Too much time on dumbing down simple material. The real beauty and power of control theory is overlooked and never quite achieved. I Did not get my money's worth (It was unreachable). |
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Benjamin Shapiro
Expecting an A zhangsta 12/22/2011 |
Dr. Shapiro is one of the rare professors that cares tremendously about whether or not his students understand the material. However, this attribute is also his downside because he tends to teach the same material 2-4 lectures in the row whenever someone doesn't understand it. While this might sound great for some people, it really just takes away from the class as a whole because everyone missed out on some of the more interesting material. In addition, he doesn't assign the homework based on the progress of the class meaning you essentially have to teach yourself how to do the homework, which isn't how you would want to spend your night especially since the book is not very well-written. As for the exams, they are out of 15 points with 8 points in T/F questions and 7 in computations. The computations are relatively simple so the T/F are the ones that tend to determine your grade. They tend to be fairly simple if you understand the material and if you don't overthink them. Overall, he's a good professor who knows his stuff, but he is much too willing to accommodate the bullsh*t of the people in the class who either don't know anything or are trying to fish for answers. |