| Information | Review |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/19/2024 |
He's genuinely a nice professor but everything else is pretty bad, his lectures are mostly derivations and aren't too helpful beyond the equations that they give you. His homework that he gives you is pretty hard and I don't feel he does the subpar of teaching the content. I and atleast 30 people have gone to every office hours for 2.5-3 hours every week to figure out how to even approach the problems. The only material to review for the exams are HWs, and lecture notes which don't feel adequate as exams often have questions that we never really encountered before beyond a passing remark in lecture. As of writing this review he has only graded half the HW, and has been sluggish with the HW solutions, he only gave out solutions for our last HW the day before the final so we had no idea if we were doing the content of the last HW correctly. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE324 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 05/15/2024 |
Poor lecturer, harsh exam policies, creates homeworks that even the TA actively struggles to understand, and is overall very disorganized. He is clearly knowledgeable about the subject material, but his methods of assessing that material and the grade distribution make it difficult to come back from the smallest misstep. Furthermore, homework solutions even include mistakes, which calls into question how harshly he should be grading homeworks. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE283 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2024 |
Ive had him for 283, 362 and most recently 324. Pros: He curves grades and the homework in his class is usually the deciding factor in your final grade, as they account for a large portion of the final grade and are usually similar problems to those on his exams. He is also a genuinely caring guy that will let you submit homework a little late given a good reason (and he usually doesn't make you prove that reason, do with that what you will). Finally Ive heard that he is extremely helpful in office hours, and is really committed to seeing you learn. Cons: He loves, and I mean LOVES deriving the necessary equations from scratch. This is nice for large classes, as you are able to take a load off and concentrate in spurts when he boxes a final equation or states that something will be useful for the upcoming exam. In smaller classes however you have a lot more pressure on focusing on the teacher and staying off your phone, so this aspect of his lectures isn't the best. He is also pretty disorganized from what I can tell, but that is a combination of him being a newish professor and the school giving him seemingly 800 classes to teach per semester. He is truly the Aerospace department equivalent of a utility man (for all my baseball fans out there). He takes awhile grading homework and exams but that never really bothered me much, so to each their own. Final Synopsis: I would take him again only because I know my strengths. I feel that I learn best on my own reading notes and not through the professor themselves. If you are similar I would highly recommend taking his courses, but if you know you need to learn in lectures then maybe he isn't for you. If you are in Aero you will probably have to take his course at some point, so if you are the second kind of student visit his office hours as much as possible, as in a one on one setting he is very helpful. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE324 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/01/2024 |
Dr. Silbaugh's structures course has to be one of the worst I have ever taken at this school. His lectures are nonsensical and rely heavily on theory and "indicial notation," making the lectures unreadable. Throughout the early parts of the course, he kept encouraging us, saying that things will all come into focus; nothing ever came into focus for this class. I've taken hard classes but usually the work you put in helps you learn the course material. In this course, no matter how hard you work, you will not understand anything other than a Rank II tensor. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE324 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/22/2024 |
He sucks…. That should be more than enough to explain. All his lectures are nonsensical handwaving, doesn’t help with the homework and all he talks about is indicial notation and how it is “relevant” in the industry. Always late to class, as there is traffic in I270. Just leave early man! |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE362 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/23/2023 |
He's late to class, doesn't really explain the material well, and makes the content feel overwhelming and non-understandable during 362 lectures. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE283 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/23/2023 |
Im not sure if it was his fault or the course chair’s, but I found this class honestly the most poorly organized class Ive taken. Exams graded very late, homeworks graded late, and Final grade far past deadline. Furthermore, there was a complete disconnect between the exam material and what was taught in lecture and homeworks. Lectures consisted solely of derivations without context(which may be useful in a higher level course, but was never tested in 283) with a complete lack of exams and applications. Only reason I’m not giving a zero is that he was friendly and helpful in office hours, and at least curved exams pretty heavily. He seems to care, and I wouldnt be opposed to taking him for a different class. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE311 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/21/2023 |
Man is a hypocrite. Shows up late to class 5-15 minutes everyday and I can’t even get a ONE DAY extension for homework because I should “learn time management.” First few weeks seemed okay and then I didn’t know what was going on. I am also switching majors because of this guy. The only good thing about him is that he is mostly helpful with homework during office hours. If that’s all you need, and you can get the homework done on time, then he is just ok. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2023 |
Dr. Silbaugh is one of the most knowledgeable professors I had in my aerospace engineering degree. He seems to know just about everything about aerodynamics, from real-world applications (always gives us stories about his applied aerodynamics experience in industry), as well as historical theoretical models that paved the way for modern aircraft development. His lectures are quite derivation heavy, and while there can be more emphasis on example problems, his goal was to teach us the theory behind incompressible aerodynamics. And imo, he did so exceptionally. Not a single equation that we utilized came from out of nowhere. Every model that we used was explained thoroughly and I feel as though leaving the class I have learned a lot about fluid dynamics and the simplifying assumptions that pave the way for incompressible aerodynamics. Moreover, Dr. Silbaugh is the most flexible professor when it comes to homeworks, office hours, and exams. He gave the entire class an extension for almost every single homework, and has changed his office hours multiple times throughout the semester to accommodate for different students. He often stays quite late as well. In terms of the exams, he is extremely fair. Everything on the midterm and final were things we went over thoroughly in class, and worked through homework. Before both exams he held special office hours where he answered all of our questions and outlined the relevant principles tested on the exam. One slight remark, is that he was quite behind with grading homeworks. This however was partly due the fact that this course wasn't assigned a TA (~35 students). If you take this course with him be prepared to think critically as the first few weeks will be very foreign content relating to fundamental theories of fluid kinematics and dynamics, but rest assured it will all tie into the classical aerodynamic models studied in the 2nd half of the course. Difficulty scale: 8/10 |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE283 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/10/2023 |
Really passionate about the material and cares about his students but can be a little disorganized and focus more on the conceptual and derivation side of things instead of doing examples. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE414 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/05/2023 |
Easily one of the best professors in the major. Compared to the other junior year fall profs, I'd chose him over any of them any day. He has the fairest exams in the major, with everything covered in class that you need to know. He doesn't do examples in class, instead going for a more theoretical approach to the content but the homework, while challenging, is exactly like the exams. He is very helpful in office hours and clearly wants to see everyone succeed. I find his class to be a nice break from the other classes I am taking right now. You can tell he is new, as the class is sort of weirdy structured, but towards the end of the semester, you can see how concepts come together. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE283 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/01/2023 |
He does spend a lot of time deriving equations but I find it’s a good way to better understand the material and the textbook has plenty of practice problems worked out. You can definitely tell he’s interested in teaching and the material, which makes his lectures more entertaining. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE283 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/14/2023 |
Does not go over examples in class, went through one example this entire year when the class begged for it. Doesn't go over everything that will be on the exam which you are expected to know it from the text book. Classes are extremely boring with spending 50 minutes deriving equations and the rest of class going on tangents about random plane facts that aren't relevant to the course. Office hours are terrible as when you ask a question he will talk for 10 minutes and say everything except the answer to the question you asked. Practice exams aren't like the actual exam at all. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE283 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/14/2023 |
I do not recommend what so ever. He took 4 weeks to grade exams, we don't do ANY practice problems in lecture and instead lectures are all over the place. I learned from reading the textbook and praying. The lack of practice problems is a huge struggle. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE283 Expecting a C- Anonymous 11/13/2023 |
Hate this guy. His lectures are so all over the place. Im switching majors because of this guy. i cant ever focus in lecture. I cant tell what I need to know in lecture or what is not necessary. He rambles for the first 20 minutes on important topics but doesnt write anything down for us to copy. Maybe its because hes new idk. L prof |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE283 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/20/2023 |
Super friendly guy and very passionate. Lectures were thoughtful but could be disorganized, however i believe this is because he is new to teaching and he will hopefully work it out with time. Sometimes he was too passionate about air and forgot that half of us don't want to build planes, so he skipped a lot of space content that is normally in the curriculum :( |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE311 Anonymous 08/30/2023 |
He's a generally newer professor, but already he really seems like he wants his students to succeed. He tries to teach as much as he can, with exams generally matching what we saw on the homework. There were reviews right before each test which were also nice. However, while he does a good job with teaching a class, he really struggles on organization. He tends to lose track of himself when writing on the board, getting lost within his own notes. He's also really bad with getting grades posted on time; 4/8 of all our HW grades for the semester weren't revealed until after the final. The final wasn't released until two weeks later! Silbaugh's doing the best he can, but there's a lot he needs to work on. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE311 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/05/2023 |
Awesome professor! He seems really passionate about teaching and cares about his students. Yeah, he pushes you to get stuff done on time, but he doesn't "shame" you if have a good reason for being late. |
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Benjamin Silbaugh
ENAE311 Expecting a C Anonymous 06/19/2023 |
Instructor really sucks! Came to class 5 min late every single darn lecture! Takes an ETERNITY to grade hw! Posted our final grades a week after they were due! And then shames us if we ask for an extension bc “we should manage our time better.” 🙄🙄🙄 |