Professor

Portonovo Ayyaswamy

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2.0
Overall Ratings
Based on 5 Users
Easiness 2.8 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 2.8 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 1.5 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 2.8 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (5)

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Jan. 12, 2024
Quarter: Fall 2023
Grade: A

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).

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June 17, 2023
Quarter: Fall 2022
Grade: C

Hard as hell, and honestly didn't even really get to the convective heat transfer part until like halfway through.

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March 20, 2020
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: P

If you have to take this class for credit/grade, then you have to. If you want to learn the material, take another professor. Very confusing lectures that more than half the class stopped attending after the midterm. He gives hints for the midterm and final in his lectures, though, so you have to attend if you want a good grade.

A nice person. Not an engaging or inspiring professor. After taking this class, I became disinterested in further study of heat transfer. Before taking this class, I was very interested in it.

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March 27, 2020
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: A

Breakdown: Homework 20% - These homeworks are super easy. 2-4 problems from the textbook once a week. The professor knew it was a light homework load but he said it's better to understand the most important problems than to copy down solutions to a lot of them.

Midterm 30% - The professor was very soft on this. The average was around a 92% and it was easier than the homeworks. 2 pages of cheat sheets.

Final 50% - Because of Coronavirus, this was a take home final that we had 3.5 hours to complete. It was challenging in the time span but because it was open book/open note, this is understandable. It was very similar to the practice final he sent out. The concepts of this class aren't too hard but there are A LOT of equations to keep track of.

Overall, his lectures were pretty dry and focused on derivations so most people didn't go. I just sat in the back and did homework. You can skip these and still get a good grade. However, the discussion sections you should not skip. The TA's select the most important practice problems and walk you through how to do them. My TA was super helpful and told you exactly what concepts you need to know. Overall, this professor probably wasn't better or worse than any other one. Like most classes, you'll end up teaching yourself most of the material.

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MECH&AE 105D
Quarter: Fall 2023
Grade: A
Jan. 12, 2024

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).

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MECH&AE 231A
Quarter: Fall 2022
Grade: C
June 17, 2023

Hard as hell, and honestly didn't even really get to the convective heat transfer part until like halfway through.

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MECH&AE 105D
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: P
March 20, 2020

If you have to take this class for credit/grade, then you have to. If you want to learn the material, take another professor. Very confusing lectures that more than half the class stopped attending after the midterm. He gives hints for the midterm and final in his lectures, though, so you have to attend if you want a good grade.

A nice person. Not an engaging or inspiring professor. After taking this class, I became disinterested in further study of heat transfer. Before taking this class, I was very interested in it.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MECH&AE 105D
Quarter: Winter 2020
Grade: A
March 27, 2020

Breakdown: Homework 20% - These homeworks are super easy. 2-4 problems from the textbook once a week. The professor knew it was a light homework load but he said it's better to understand the most important problems than to copy down solutions to a lot of them.

Midterm 30% - The professor was very soft on this. The average was around a 92% and it was easier than the homeworks. 2 pages of cheat sheets.

Final 50% - Because of Coronavirus, this was a take home final that we had 3.5 hours to complete. It was challenging in the time span but because it was open book/open note, this is understandable. It was very similar to the practice final he sent out. The concepts of this class aren't too hard but there are A LOT of equations to keep track of.

Overall, his lectures were pretty dry and focused on derivations so most people didn't go. I just sat in the back and did homework. You can skip these and still get a good grade. However, the discussion sections you should not skip. The TA's select the most important practice problems and walk you through how to do them. My TA was super helpful and told you exactly what concepts you need to know. Overall, this professor probably wasn't better or worse than any other one. Like most classes, you'll end up teaching yourself most of the material.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
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