| Information | Review |
|---|---|
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME472 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023 |
Holds extremely high standards for your capstone project, and grades harshly. This forced the quality of my project to be very high but meant I had no free time and was stressed the entire semester (I spent over 20 hr/week avg). The saving grace is that if you put in lots of effort, she will recognize that and award extra credit. She was not very consistent with grading communication (say one thing, grade another way) but was open to feedback about it. |
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME382 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2020 |
She definitely expects you to know a certain amount of fundamentals for this course. She'll loose patience answering questions she thinks you should know pretty quick. However, she's smart and obviously has a lot of real world experience with the material she's teaching. But her teaching style while online has been to jam a ton of reading and videos down our throats and then go over the books lecture slides during class. We'll literally get assigned 5-6 hours of preclass reading each week. Her grading is weird, but it gives you the ability to get an a B or above no problem. Personally though, she's very caring and wants us to succeed and learn genuinely. She'll be empathetic and push back due dates and offer extra office hours if needed. I like her, but she could be a better teacher. |
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME351 Expecting a C parade 06/17/2015 |
Absolutely awful teacher. She just reads directly from her crappy lecture slides. She also reported over 50 students for academic dishonesty. |
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME351 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/19/2015 |
Smela clearly thoroughly understands and enjoys the subject, but her lectures are made as if being presented to someone who already understands it as well as she does. Almost everything was graded on completion, and extra credit was given out inconsistently (though this was due to the TAs). The exams were pretty awful, with both the midterm and final averages being about 50, even with extra credit questions. The class was graded so that even if you scored 33 on the exams you would still pass. Take Smela if you don't want to fail, but I can't recommend her if you want to really learn the material. |
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME351 Expecting a B jschel 12/09/2014 |
I think maybe Smela has changed her style since these previous reviews were posted... they don't even sound like they're describing the same person. I found her teaching to be very informative, thorough, and clear. Homeworks are graded on completion - If you turn something in, you get 100/100. I've even turned in stuff that's only like 1/3 complete and still gotten 100. Labs are basically graded on completion as well. If you show up and get it to work, you get a 100. The midterm was graded pretty harshly - I think 50% was the average - but I believe she plans to curve the final grade if necessary. I would recommend Smela very highly! |
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME351 Anonymous 05/16/2011 |
Avoid taking ENME351 with smela at all costs. You will thank me later. The only good part about her class is she speaks fluent english, so at very least you can understand the words she is saying. As far as the concepts she is trying to teach, she may as well be speaking an alien language. She should stick to her research and never teach again. |
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME351 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/18/2010 |
Smela is a very smart professor, but she does not know how to teach. She does not convey the concepts of the class and expects that everyone knows how to do the problems prior to her teaching us the concepts. Furthermore, she is a control freak. Every week she has a seating chart made for the class, which you must follow. She even has a seating chart for her exams. Her quizzes are not that bad, but the Labs are a waste of time. Her grading rubric tells you how to get an 85...yes an 85/100 is what her grading rubric tells you how to get. So save yourself and don't take this professor for ENME351. |
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME351 Expecting a C? Anonymous 12/16/2010 |
Please, whatever you do, do not associate with this woman. Maryland really needs to take her out of the classroom. She is extremely smart, however I'm amazed every day as she will talk for 50min and not really say anything. Half of the class is spent learning how to draw graphs. The other half is a collection of random topics, topped off in the last two weeks with non-stop talk about her research. As I'm sitting here studying for the final, I really don't know what the whole class was suppose to teach me. Some other random comments: * There is one test during the semester. She had the entire class retake it because we didn't do well enough. *Yes, 60% of the class did drop, after taking the test twice. *Lab rubrics tell you how to get an 85/100, its up to you to go above and beyond to get that 100. *The labs are bullshit *Quizzes were given everyday at the beginning of class, that changed towards the end to once a week. *Office hours are not helpful *The seating chart was ridiculous, luckily after half of the class left, she gave up. *Homework is done by scouring Wikipedia and the rest of the internets, can take anywhere from 30min (when shes nice, that one time) to about 3 hours. In conclusion, do no take this or any other class with this woman. Ever. |
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Elisabeth Smela
ENME351 Expecting a W Anonymous 11/25/2010 |
I would not take this class or any other class with Smela after what I was put through in this class. As the semester went on more and more seats were open with drops and grades just got worse. By the end of the drop period about 65% of the class had dropped. If you are up for one of the toughest classes out there then this is the one for you, unless you are a part time student only taking one class I would not recommend this to anyone. |