| Information | Review |
|---|---|
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Birthe Kjellerup Shirtliff
ENCE205 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/04/2025 |
I also agree that more people should be reviewing this teacher, warn us on the water track!!! Honestly, this class is one of the most unstructured and unorganized classes I've had in college. The content itself should not be hard to understand, but the teacher makes it hard. She does not teach actual material, there is almost never any practice problems done in class, the presentations she gives us are also filled with her going on a tangent that doesn't relate. Class is only 50 minutes, but is often wasted because she is just not teaching. She likes to ask open ended questions to get us to "learn", but she expects us to know the answer even though she has taught us nothing. Our exams in this class were terrible, they did not relate to the course content at all. We were told that content related to lecture would be on the exam, just for the lab content to show up instead (no one told us, so a lot of people were not prepared). The class also seems to change each semester, so there was no way to know what she would be testing us on at all. Our exams were not even written a week before the exam, so the TAs could not even give us any hints on what would be on the exam because they didn't know themselves. It was very frustrating studying for topics, just for them to not show up and to see topics that we weren't even told to review. Speaking of the TAs, the teacher and the TAs have no communication whatsoever. The TAs would tell us to prepare for something, just for her to not test us on it. They would also answer our questions telling us what we wrote was correct, just for the teacher to mark it wrong because it wasn't specific enough. Assignments are also assigned weeks after we do something, for example we will finish a lab one week, and then get something assigned randomly 1-2 weeks after, even though there was no assignment up during the class. She also decided to dump 3 projects on us in the last 2 weeks of the semester (around finals btw) with no warning. The syllabus was not complete for the whole semester until that point, our grades were also not confirmed and over half our assignments have not been graded (again we only have 2ish weeks left). I have no idea what my grade is right now actually, and am just assuming I probably have a B? Even though the exams were terrible, they are only worth 10% each, so your grade is a bit cushioned. Overall, this class could have been better if the teacher would actually teach or test us on what she said she would. These opinions are agreed on with everyone on the water track that has had to take this class. My best advice is to take this class with people you know, especially to sign up for a lab section with them. There is a lot of group work, but even if you don't know anyone, the class is small enough where you will eventually work with everyone in your section. There is probably no other option except for her, but use this comment as a warning, good luck to you! |
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Birthe Kjellerup Shirtliff
ENCE489J Expecting an A Anonymous 03/28/2025 |
Note: the premise of this course is to prepare a sustainability based product or approach, and then present it at the Green Global Challenge in Denmark over the summer. I think the premise of this course is interesting it’s just taught quite poorly. Dr. Kjellerup seems to try to be so hands off that no one actually knows what is happening or what to do. We are over halfway through the semester and still don’t have decided upon groups or topics. We should theoretically have some sort of prototype or completed product something by the end of the semester though so we’ll see how that goes. Current course structure is as follows: The first four weeks are like a getting to know our classmates and student run presentations on like Danish food, movies, news etc pretty much every single class period which is *fine* but way too long to spend doing that. And all it seems to have taught the students is that they can just throw a presentation together in like 20 minutes at 10pm the day before. We also never actually receive grades for any of this or really know what she thinks of us so all we can do is hope she gives all As for just like showing up I guess bc I don’t know what else we’d be graded on. We did have like one guest lecture before break on biogas from a guy which was cool I guess but not really relevant to what I wanted to do. And then suddenly a week before spring break she’s like “oh shit, there’s actually a project” and tells us to form groups and think of an idea. So we did form groups and thought of some ideas. But pretty much all of it was way too big to be done by undergrads in half a semester but she refused to actually *tell* any of us that and let us go all of spring break trying to develop those ideas and then everyone gradually realized the topics weren’t good and we had a zoom call Thursday where we were all wanting to switch and she’s like okay but come up with new groups and your topic by Friday at noon (aka like 24 hours) which is absolutely wild. But we don’t really know what like some of the problems are in our chosen topics, what might be actually small and feasible enough to tackle in 7 weeks, etc. And we also have to somehow create an abstract for Undergrad Research Day in a week when we barely even know our general topic. Proposed class plan in case she actually reads this: Get into interest groups earlier. They should be formed by no later than 4 weeks. Start even before then by connecting us with people in Denmark with what problems they have, aspects of their life, etc. But actually give us time to ask questions, etc. Then after interest groups are formed help with her position as teacher and person with connections by *connecting us* to people and experts in those topics, specific Danish resources to check out, etc. And again able to ask Danish people what they think of our ideas, what aspects we should focus on within them, etc. Then we can start on preliminary trials, designs etc and have a fairly solid plan for the way forward by spring break. Now I do think Dr. Kjellerup is a nice person with good intentions which is why I am giving two stars instead of one. I hope she sees this feedback and improves for the future. |
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Birthe Kjellerup Shirtliff
ENCE205 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/14/2024 |
I'm honestly shocked no one has reviewed Kjellerup yet because this was the most annoying, pointless, awful class I've ever taken. The lecture was 1 hour and 40 minutes, once a week and all we did for the whole time was draw pictures on a whiteboard. I can't even begin to explain why we did that because none of it ever made sense. We had no opportunities to write notes when we did this and the only things I had to study with were the few notes I got from lecture slides and nonsensical pictures of these whiteboards. The exams were difficult and she still hasn't graded a single homework or the second exam. We got our first exam grade back a month after taking it. She is incredibly slow on doing anything, and you honestly have to nag her about anything you need. She wasn't in her office for office hours the few times I went, and scheduled meetings during that (which she was late for anyway). There were no rubrics for anything in this class, including every single lab report for the lab section. This class frustrated me to no end and if there were any other options I would say to not take this class, or not take it with her. |