Looking at the reviews posted so far this quarter, I would say they are accurate to a degree, but may be a little harsh. I did think it was a little petty that he has pasted the entirety of both of the negative bruinwalk reviews written for this quarter in emails addressed to the class, but it is what it is. Anyways, I would agree that he goes over pretty basic derivations of concepts in class and always uses the most simplistic cases that you can think of. While this seems okay at first for the first 2-3 weeks of material, it leaves you pretty unprepared to do the homework and understand the material once you get to the more complicated topics (ESPECIALLY CONTROL VOLUMES). This is also true when he goes over practice midterm/final problems; he always chooses really simplistic questions that don't really reflect the kinds of questions on the actual tests. However, I think that if you attend discussion, you'll be in a much better position to succeed in the class. The TA explains a summary of the material in a concise and easy to understand manner and explains a variety of practice problems very in-depth (honestly maybe a little too in-depth but I'm completely fine with it). The professor still does a sufficient job of at least introducing and explaining the topics so you're in a position to pick up the material quickly during discussion, which is still nice. If you do still need help, I think he's relatively helpful in office hours, and he's always willing to answer questions during class as well. As for the exams, I would say they are not too tough in terms of actual content and length, but echoing the sentiments expressed below, they could definitely have used clearer wording. I thought it was a little unfair, given that most of the time they wouldn't offer clarification even when the wording and diagrams were vague and nearly impossible to understand. Clarifying questions to the professor were often met with one word answers or passive aggressive responses, and I sometimes found myself guessing what the question was asking. Nonetheless, they were 24 hour tests, so time wasn't really an issue, although we were required to submit a video explanation of our answers, which was a little annoying but fair. Overall, the class wasn't bad; I thought the professor did an okay job of getting through the material. He never kept class longer than it needed to be (which I actually respected and appreciated a lot) and was friendly overall (although I do wish he was more open to new genres of music). You shouldn't worry too much about grades; he's actually pretty generous in the end, even if it doesn't always seem that way.

I am writing this review because the professor emailed all the students about the previous review (and how it "brought a smile to his face"). I hope that he has a pet to hold so that he doesn't cry himself to sleep tonight.

Anyways, as for the class goes, it is very different from winter/spring quarter 2020. During the lecture, you're gonna see him deriving equations and stuff but you're not gonna see him solve practical questions past the second/third week. You most likely won't be able to do homework without going to the discussions (I say just go to discussions and save yourself some time from the lecture).

The exams are notoriously difficult. The first red flag is that the exams are 24-hour format (we know how hard engineering professors make these exams). Only about half of the problems will include stuff you've done from homework or discussions. The other half consists of questions that you've never practiced before and you don't even know what the question is asking. The wordings don't make sense and there is no figure/diagram to help you get started. When students email him for clarity, he just answers with some generic responses that doesn't get you anywhere. If you can't seem to draw the figures, you might as well just give up on the problem. Do NOT believe him when he says that "we have done x/y/z multiple times" because he is straight up capping. With all these caps, you can probably build a bridge to the moon before you build your dream Elon Musk + xae a-12 prototype and launch it to the space.

I say the one good side to him is that he has a "real talk" with the students at the last lecture of the quarter. He provides some interesting insights but that's pretty much it. Good luck

Don't be fooled by these other reviews. Yes, Professor Kavehpour is a "cool" guy, who plays music during lecture breaks, make humorous small talk with the few students who turn their cameras on, and makes light sarcastic remarks to get a chuckle. BUT, that does not make him a good professor, and unfortunately, the truth is exactly opposite. His lectures only consist of lengthy and rambling derivations, and he does not actually teach how to solve any practical problems with the material. Additionally, the material itself is also very difficult to understand in concept. You come out of lectures completely lost and confused feeling like you haven't learned anything (because you probably haven't).

His tests are absolutely ridiculous as well, because 1.) he doesn't teach how to actually solve problems in the first place, and 2.) his tests are filled to the brim with grammatical errors, confusing and misleading wording, and things we have never seen before. Additionally, he said that the tests are not curved, which is compounded by the fact that many people literally got like 60% or lower.

I'll admit, the first week, I too thought the professor was really awesome, because he was super chill and all that, and I thought this was going to be a nice class. Boy, oh boy, was I wrong. For a discouraged student stuck at home in front of a computer screen all day, the professor's "cool guy" vibe wears off after the first week, and its all downhill from there.

One tip if you do take this class: actually go to discussion sections. They are much more informative and helpful than the lectures, and you actually learn things from them. So don't ditch them. Unlike many classes, this class's discussions are actually worth going to.

This is the review that I wish I had read before taking this class. This class was very hard, extremely frustrating, and really just morale-destroying. And don't just write this review off as a disgruntled student who failed the class. The grades haven't come out yet, but I'm expecting a high C or a B most likely, which I will be fine with, given the nature of this class. If I knew what I was getting into, I would've had second thoughts about taking this class with this professor. Good luck.

This review is not written to discredit others, but instead to share a different and honest opinion. This course is difficult in nature, but Professor Kavehpour makes it enjoyable. We learned this course virtually due to the pandemic, which complicates the class a little more, but Professor Kavehpour makes generous accommodations, such as giving 24 hours to complete take-home exams. The lectures were interesting and pertinent to the real world. The derivations bored the class a little, but they are still necessary in order to understand where certain equations and relationships come from. The exams were difficult but doable. The biggest gripe with this class that I share with most students, is that it is sometimes difficult to understand what is being asked on the exams. The diagrams are not given, unlike the homework, which can throw many people off. If you want to succeed in this class, go to discussion sections, keep your camera on during lectures (if you're also taking this during the pandemic), ask questions, and show that you are interested. In the end, the professor kept to his word and gave students a higher grade than they deserved, so don't stress about grades too much, even if you bomb an exam. He will weigh your lower exam score less heavily in the final grade.

kinda weird there wasn't a real syllabus / hw / office hours, lot of lecture examples were just the book examples, & final exam date/time was 'solidified' 2 days beforehand, but what do i know?

He failed a lot of people the second midterm for lazy diagrams on a 24hr test and said he wouldn't curve (in the end he weighted it less if needed and I think graded pretty easy on the final) but as you can imagine that led to some very upset reviews, so I guess here's the perspective of someone who actually drew the diagrams and got an okay grade. First advice, draw the diagrams. I thought it was a little whack that he made us do videos for fear of cheating but it sounds like from past reviews that was actually a problem so I guess that's understandable. So think of it like more than getting the answer, imagine writing your test as if you're explaining the steps, really more to show you know what's going on than to find the solution. I did think some of the questions were worded a little funny at first, maybe a little from a minor language barrier, but overall I didn't think they were unreasonable and tbh rewatched lectures during the exam that talked about the types of problems that he would give and used the lectures to determine what he wanted more than the actual exam questions. I personally thought he was pretty good at explaining things in lecture.
On the topic of homework, well they weren't exactly collected to grade. If I'm going to be entirely honest, I didn't actually make it past like the first week and a half of homework, so I cannot deny the claims of my peers on homework. Genuinely, I think there is value in doing practice problems to see if you understand the material and well do as I say, not as I do... For sure if I started doing poorly on tests the first thing I would do is get back into the homework grind. But I must say, with the pandemic and everything it was actually really nice not to have to stress about the homeworks and have the time to spend with family and try to figure out ways to keep extracurriculars engaging virtually. Anyways, I found that lectures and discussions and 24 hours were enough to do okay on the exams. I guess I personally prefer a harder 24hr exam anyways usually, cause I'd rather have to think more in depth for a day and focus on understanding the whys than learn everything through repetition to do it fast on a timed final. If you prefer the second, I can understand why you might not enjoy this (see other reviews).
Small note that he started class 10 minutes late every time on purpose, and I honestly appreciate that so much and most of the time it was the only way I could eat dinner since I had another 2hr class right before that liked to run late and I was on east coast time. In summary, I didn't spend a whole lot of time outside of class, but I felt that he did a pretty solid job of teaching everything in lectures.

Taken online during COVID.
I really liked kavehpour and thought his lectures were the most entertaining and engaging of my online lectures. He plays music during the breaks and jokes around with students, so the class feels more personal. The tests were very fair in my opinion. A lot of people cheat (see other reviews for example) but you can still do well in the class without cheating. I got most points on the tests just by reviewing his lectures and reading the textbook. The class doesn’t curve down, so even with the cheating it shouldn’t affect your grade. He is super strict on little conventions and you can lose a lot of points if you don’t set up your problems correctly. Your whole grade is based on the two midterms and the final, so that would’ve been stressful if we hadn’t had so much time to work on the tests. I also found the material pretty interesting and very applicable to the real world. I never went to office hours but he definitely seemed approachable.
Overall: good class, fair grading, little to no work required outside of the tests, interesting professor, and cool material.

Don't be fooled by the review submitted on Dec. 23, 2020, that started with "Don't be fooled by these other reviews. ". The first 2 sentences are completely accurate. BUT I think the prof did a great job teaching and tried very hard engaging with the student. YES, the materials are HARD. But is it not a given that all MAE 100+ classes are hard? 85% of the time I know what is happening during lectures.
I think his midterms are not extremely difficult that are undoable but I think the final was challenging indeed. He gave us 24-28 hours to do 2-4 problems and I think that's very fair. One thing about the exam is that a lot of wording is unclear and sometimes doesn't make sense, which makes drawing the diagrams difficult.
The professor does not go over many example problems in lectures because he only has 2 hours, not 134242 hours. which is why there is a discussion where the TA goes over 5-6 problems a week + a review of past week's lecture. You should go to all your class' discussion regardless, why would you ditch it if you wanna succeed in the class?
Yes, this class is hard. Yes, you are studying mechE or Aero or some engineering. Yes, you decided on that major. Yes, there will be harder classes to come. Study. Do the homework, and understand all of it. Go to discussion and understand all of it. Go to TAs office hours and ask questions about the HW, discussion. I would not say I'm smarter than everyone else, cuz I started in community college. But I got 100 and 90 on the 2 midterms and expect around 80 - 85 for the final. I did ZERO outside studying other than understanding homework problems and discussion problems. ZERO outside studying or reading the textbook or watching youtube Indian guy. ZERO. You can do it :)

Just as a preface, I took this course completely online due to Covid-19.

Kavehpour was an engaging lecturer who really went the extra mile during this unprecedented quarter. Lectures were relatively easy to follow, even when the subjects were very in-depth or difficult to understand the first time around. Kavehpour provided only the relevant information, which was particularly helpful to me and many of my classmates. I had great experiences going to office hours each time I went. He was quick to answer any questions and would take the time to make sure I had actually developed an understanding of what was going on. I would absolutely take another course taught by Kavehpour.

Kavehpour rocks for being my only professor who had live lectures, its good to feel like you have some human interaction every other day, even if I didn't turn my video on. I would watch with my roommate who was also in the class and we always had a fun time. Because it was live, it went the full two hours (making it a bit tedious sometimes) but that meant we could go further in depth and ask and answer questions. Kavehpour also just seemed to be having a good time which I cannot say for my other professors. The midterms were good, reasonable difficulty, and the 24 hour time limit made them not stressful. I did them together with my friends in the class and I suspect a lot of students did the same or cheated. Proctoring would probably be a good option just for fairness but I'm not complaining. I also really liked that the homework wasn't graded, I would do it all while studying for the tests and it worked much better than stressing about it every week with deadlines. Basically I would only worry about this class before each test but it would never be too stressful and I learned the material well. Leave your camera on and you'll become a class celebrity apparently, go Ross