Professor
Portonovo Ayyaswamy
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Lecture: Extremely dry, often meanders away from his point. Absolutely no sense of pacing for the course. Conduction took 5 weeks, convection 4, and radiation was barely covered. Didn't cover any examples, just pure theory and derivations, which were explained poorly. He complained to the class over Bruinlearn that people weren't attending (without realizing the reason was that his lectures were useless). Homework: Short, won't prepare you for any real heat transfer problem-solving. Discussion: Poor TA scrambles to cover a week's worth of content, equations, and examples in 2 hours. Exams: Open book, open note. Relatively reasonable, though he likes to sneak some wordy explanation problem or derivation in there. Overall: 0/10 would not recommend. There are tolerable professors, and then there's this guy. You'll probably do okay, but acquire a fair bit of trauma doing it. By far the worst part was, as mentioned, the pacing. We were left in the dark about what we would ever cover, even until the very last day. My bet would be the most common question to him was what would be on the exam, as no one knew what he would consider fair game. The syllabus and schedule were forgone. It's hard to convey the mental warfare that was this class. Try to take Lavine instead (she co-wrote the textbook).
Fall 2023 - Lecture: Extremely dry, often meanders away from his point. Absolutely no sense of pacing for the course. Conduction took 5 weeks, convection 4, and radiation was barely covered. Didn't cover any examples, just pure theory and derivations, which were explained poorly. He complained to the class over Bruinlearn that people weren't attending (without realizing the reason was that his lectures were useless). Homework: Short, won't prepare you for any real heat transfer problem-solving. Discussion: Poor TA scrambles to cover a week's worth of content, equations, and examples in 2 hours. Exams: Open book, open note. Relatively reasonable, though he likes to sneak some wordy explanation problem or derivation in there. Overall: 0/10 would not recommend. There are tolerable professors, and then there's this guy. You'll probably do okay, but acquire a fair bit of trauma doing it. By far the worst part was, as mentioned, the pacing. We were left in the dark about what we would ever cover, even until the very last day. My bet would be the most common question to him was what would be on the exam, as no one knew what he would consider fair game. The syllabus and schedule were forgone. It's hard to convey the mental warfare that was this class. Try to take Lavine instead (she co-wrote the textbook).
AD
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - I really enjoyed this course. I'm passionate about radiation heat transfer so I admit I am biased. The lectures are very useful for the HW and exams, definitely attend! The lectures are also very well organized and clear, and Professor Ayyaswamy seems to genuinely care about our learning of the material and skills for the professional world as well. The quarter I took this course, there were only about 7 to 9 students, which I think was ideal for Professor Ayyaswamy's teaching style. Highly recommend this course if you are interested in heat transfer as applied to space technology, because radiation heat transfer is very important in space (of course).
Spring 2025 - I really enjoyed this course. I'm passionate about radiation heat transfer so I admit I am biased. The lectures are very useful for the HW and exams, definitely attend! The lectures are also very well organized and clear, and Professor Ayyaswamy seems to genuinely care about our learning of the material and skills for the professional world as well. The quarter I took this course, there were only about 7 to 9 students, which I think was ideal for Professor Ayyaswamy's teaching style. Highly recommend this course if you are interested in heat transfer as applied to space technology, because radiation heat transfer is very important in space (of course).
AD
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