CH ENGR 104B
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Laboratory II
Description: Lecture, four hours; laboratory, eight hours; outside study, four hours; other, two hours. Enforced requisites: courses 101C, 103, 104A. Course consists of four experiments in chemical engineering unit operations, each of two weeks duration. Students present their results both written and orally. Written report includes sections on theory, experimental procedures, scaleup and process design, and error analysis. Letter grading.
Units: 6.0
Units: 6.0
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Most Helpful Review
He's had a reputation for being harsh, sarcastic, unfair, etc. Here are some factual tidbits about him: he was coerced into reassigning the grades in 104AL in W08 when he gave out only 1 A and 2 A- to a class of 49 (avg grade C+; the new grading scheme still only had one A); the highest grade he gave out the next quarter was a B+. My experience with him wasn't all that bad. Writing a lab report for him is like walking into a minefield; any slight wrong move can cost you big. He'll tell you that shorter is better, but I've found that this is bad advice because then you'll just get lazy and leave out important details. Basically, the trick is to cram in as much important, meaningful, and relevant analysis as you possibly can into the page limit. Also, be as quantitative as possible, be perfect in formatting, and make your writing very concise. Put a lot of meaningful plots/visuals. People in my class started figuring him out by the second report (5 of like 50 people got 90%+, a figure thought nearly impossible to reach). It's also essential to really understand the experiments because a lot of them have tricks (or design flaws, possibly intentional) that you need to figure out to do well on the reports/presentations (but he won't tell you that). And these rumors that he's subjective/arbitrary in the final grades may be a bit wrong. He reassigned our grades in 104B and admitted that he accidentally didn't include our report scores when calculating our grades. I bet this isn't the first time this has happened, and that no one had really bothered/had the guts to approach him about it. He's an old dude, really smart but nevertheless makes mistakes like any old guy. He's pretty nice and I'd use this class to make your writing and presentation skills better. He grades you as if you were his employee so I'd get used to the criticism and use it for improvement/prep for the real world.
He's had a reputation for being harsh, sarcastic, unfair, etc. Here are some factual tidbits about him: he was coerced into reassigning the grades in 104AL in W08 when he gave out only 1 A and 2 A- to a class of 49 (avg grade C+; the new grading scheme still only had one A); the highest grade he gave out the next quarter was a B+. My experience with him wasn't all that bad. Writing a lab report for him is like walking into a minefield; any slight wrong move can cost you big. He'll tell you that shorter is better, but I've found that this is bad advice because then you'll just get lazy and leave out important details. Basically, the trick is to cram in as much important, meaningful, and relevant analysis as you possibly can into the page limit. Also, be as quantitative as possible, be perfect in formatting, and make your writing very concise. Put a lot of meaningful plots/visuals. People in my class started figuring him out by the second report (5 of like 50 people got 90%+, a figure thought nearly impossible to reach). It's also essential to really understand the experiments because a lot of them have tricks (or design flaws, possibly intentional) that you need to figure out to do well on the reports/presentations (but he won't tell you that). And these rumors that he's subjective/arbitrary in the final grades may be a bit wrong. He reassigned our grades in 104B and admitted that he accidentally didn't include our report scores when calculating our grades. I bet this isn't the first time this has happened, and that no one had really bothered/had the guts to approach him about it. He's an old dude, really smart but nevertheless makes mistakes like any old guy. He's pretty nice and I'd use this class to make your writing and presentation skills better. He grades you as if you were his employee so I'd get used to the criticism and use it for improvement/prep for the real world.
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Spring 2022 - I have no complaints about Dr. Simonetti himself. You can tell he tried his best. He actually cared about the learning experiences of students. That said, the lab itself was awful. Most of the experiments were just moving water around in some shape or form. The equipment didn't work, because it was ancient and never maintained. Things also depended heavily on your team. Bad team, and you are hosed. Dante clearly tried his best, but there's not much he can do when the equipment is broken. Workload was definitely on the more intense side. Fortunately, the grading is pretty lenient for the class, but that's pretty much the only good thing about the class. The class honestly felt like a massive waste of time as a guy who's now in industry, where equipment works properly and is actually maintained.
Spring 2022 - I have no complaints about Dr. Simonetti himself. You can tell he tried his best. He actually cared about the learning experiences of students. That said, the lab itself was awful. Most of the experiments were just moving water around in some shape or form. The equipment didn't work, because it was ancient and never maintained. Things also depended heavily on your team. Bad team, and you are hosed. Dante clearly tried his best, but there's not much he can do when the equipment is broken. Workload was definitely on the more intense side. Fortunately, the grading is pretty lenient for the class, but that's pretty much the only good thing about the class. The class honestly felt like a massive waste of time as a guy who's now in industry, where equipment works properly and is actually maintained.
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Fall 2021 - Welcome to our quintessential chemical engineering lab! Come, as we explore our amazing experiments, including: DYN: Watching water warm up! RO: Watching water become less salty! DIST: Watching water become vapor! ABS: Watching water become slightly acidic! RXTR: Watching a line go up and down! The entire laboratory is so underfunded that it might violate OSHA regulations, and we waste so much water we're probably single handedly responsible for California's drought, but hey! It's a "fun" and interactive experience!
Fall 2021 - Welcome to our quintessential chemical engineering lab! Come, as we explore our amazing experiments, including: DYN: Watching water warm up! RO: Watching water become less salty! DIST: Watching water become vapor! ABS: Watching water become slightly acidic! RXTR: Watching a line go up and down! The entire laboratory is so underfunded that it might violate OSHA regulations, and we waste so much water we're probably single handedly responsible for California's drought, but hey! It's a "fun" and interactive experience!
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