Professor
Raymond Spearrin
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - The class is hosted by the UCLA Rocket Project and runs entirely through TAs, giving it a pretty chill vibe; I never met the actual professor. The workload centers around two group projects, culminating in building a 3.5-foot rocket using manufacturing composite techniques. You will need to put in time outside of lab hours, though accessing the lab is usually easy to coordinate. It serves as a practical introduction to standard engineering skills and is a good way to see if you are interested in joining the club. The grading is very lenient, and everyone I know received an A. I enjoyed the experience and would all around take it again.
Fall 2025 - The class is hosted by the UCLA Rocket Project and runs entirely through TAs, giving it a pretty chill vibe; I never met the actual professor. The workload centers around two group projects, culminating in building a 3.5-foot rocket using manufacturing composite techniques. You will need to put in time outside of lab hours, though accessing the lab is usually easy to coordinate. It serves as a practical introduction to standard engineering skills and is a good way to see if you are interested in joining the club. The grading is very lenient, and everyone I know received an A. I enjoyed the experience and would all around take it again.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - This class was very interesting. I took this as an elective, but was not ready for the MATLAB coding that used in the homework (as I never took the class for it). The TA’s tried to be very helpful with the code, I emailed and went to every office hour and was able to do the homework’s. Homework depending on how much coding there was could take between 2-4 hours, and the textbook and discussion sections were essential to doing them. The professor had great lecturers and multiple ways to get extra credit throughout the course. Each lecture there is an online poll which gives extra credit points. Also at the end of the quarter completing the evaluations and doing a report gives extra credit. Although I did not do well on the exams, there was a curve and with the extra credit gave me enough points to make up for what I missed. Overall I enjoyed the professor and the material, and both him and the TA’s made this class well worth the effort. Yi (my TA) is the goat!!
Winter 2023 - This class was very interesting. I took this as an elective, but was not ready for the MATLAB coding that used in the homework (as I never took the class for it). The TA’s tried to be very helpful with the code, I emailed and went to every office hour and was able to do the homework’s. Homework depending on how much coding there was could take between 2-4 hours, and the textbook and discussion sections were essential to doing them. The professor had great lecturers and multiple ways to get extra credit throughout the course. Each lecture there is an online poll which gives extra credit points. Also at the end of the quarter completing the evaluations and doing a report gives extra credit. Although I did not do well on the exams, there was a curve and with the extra credit gave me enough points to make up for what I missed. Overall I enjoyed the professor and the material, and both him and the TA’s made this class well worth the effort. Yi (my TA) is the goat!!
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2016 - Professor Spearrin makes his classes purposely difficult and pushes students to learn the material thoroughly, but is a fair grader. There's a separate curve for undergrads and grad students, and generally curves the class to around a B/B+ average (I think). He has direct experience in propulsion from his time at Rocketdyne and teaches the course material with enough context to make the lectures relevant and meaningful. Also a cool dude outside of class, and really helpful in office hours.
Fall 2016 - Professor Spearrin makes his classes purposely difficult and pushes students to learn the material thoroughly, but is a fair grader. There's a separate curve for undergrads and grad students, and generally curves the class to around a B/B+ average (I think). He has direct experience in propulsion from his time at Rocketdyne and teaches the course material with enough context to make the lectures relevant and meaningful. Also a cool dude outside of class, and really helpful in office hours.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - You will be assigned a random group at the start of the quarter, and I think your experience will depend pretty heavily on this. You will have a team project that you are working on throughout the entire quarter, while simultaneously having to complete 5 lab assignments (each pretty hefty, bigger assignments than from 157). The instructions for the lab assignments are often a bit unclear, so talking to your team is helpful, and the instructors are also very responsive on Piazza. The class will feel like a ton of work, but I think the grading is actually quite lenient. As long as you get everything done to a reasonable level of correctness, there’s nothing to worry about. Even your team project (ours were rockets, but who knows if that will stay the same) can be terrible and your grade will still be fine as long as you go through the motions.
Spring 2023 - You will be assigned a random group at the start of the quarter, and I think your experience will depend pretty heavily on this. You will have a team project that you are working on throughout the entire quarter, while simultaneously having to complete 5 lab assignments (each pretty hefty, bigger assignments than from 157). The instructions for the lab assignments are often a bit unclear, so talking to your team is helpful, and the instructors are also very responsive on Piazza. The class will feel like a ton of work, but I think the grading is actually quite lenient. As long as you get everything done to a reasonable level of correctness, there’s nothing to worry about. Even your team project (ours were rockets, but who knows if that will stay the same) can be terrible and your grade will still be fine as long as you go through the motions.
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