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!!

This class was quite difficult, however I found it very enjoyable. I had some interest in applied thermofluids prior to enrolling in 150C, and taking it with Spearrin just reaffirmed that for me. Grading breakdown was 30% HW, 30% Midterm, and 40% Final. Lectures were engaging and informative, and because it was at 8 AM this quarter the professor offered an extra credit incentive to come in-person. In my opinion, Spearrin explained everything concisely and clearly, and he taught the basic concepts very well. He sometimes even gave direct hints on how to solve some of the homework questions and what to expect for conceptual exam questions. Homework was very difficult and time-consuming, sometimes taking upwards of 20 hours a week to complete. They were a mix of hand calculation/theoretical problems and coding ones done with MATLAB. He makes his own homework assignments so there are no answers anywhere online. Despite this, the (recorded) TA discussions are very helpful in that they essentially write the majority of the code (save for some parameters that need to be tuned to answer the questions) for you and give you some significant indications on how to approach the written problems. I made the mistake of trying to forge through these questions myself prior to the Friday discussions and ended up spending unnecessary time working on an analysis that ended up being incorrect. The exams are difficult, but fair. All you have to do is fully understand the homework assignments to be able to score very well, but this was easier said than done because some of the calculations were extremely long and involved multiple steps, therefore increasing the likelihood of you making an error under a strict two or three-hour time constraint. Fortunately grading was pretty lenient, not just on the exam but overall; scoring around average on the midterm (~76%) nets you in the A-/B+ range, but more people came down on the side greater than the mean. He also gave plenty of opportunities for extra credit, not least the aforementioned lecture attendance, but also via an extra credit problem on the final (worth 5 points on a 100 point test) and an extra credit research assignment which could boost your grade up to 3%. Overall, expect to put a lot of work into this class, but you will see your efforts pay off.

Great lecturer, cool examples, gives opportunity for extra credit. Exam fair and straightforward (but not easy), he tells you what to study, no tricks or surprises. The homeworks were long and involved but I have heard they were better in previous quarters so that may be TA dependent.