course
Mechanics of Solids

A fantastic professor with amazing knowledge of the subject. He's a serious and gruff man, but he is willing to answer any questions and conveys the material so well in his lectures. His explanations are thorough and he goes through topics well enough so that students can have a good grasp on what is going on. If there is an option to take a class with him, I highly recommend taking it.

Deodatis is the king of clarity. He is the best teacher I've ever had at CU. In lecture, he organizes his blackboards with superb readability and logical layout. He emphasizes important points verbally and with body language. He doesn't skip "obvious" steps in examples. The first portion of the class was a statics review, and you're never directly tested on that material. He literally tells you 5/6ths of what is on the final. Late homeworks are not penalized at all. You can use an old edition of the textbook with no problems. You should go to the ends of the earth to take this class from Deodatis.

Professor Yin clearly has good intentions, but his classroom delivery needs a lot of work. His handwriting is difficult to read and his accent is hard to understand, even for a Chinese-speaking student like myself who is accustomed to accents. Nevertheless, Yin makes up for those shortcomings by being extremely passionate about teaching and ensuring that the class as a whole does well. He truly cares about students, going so far as to offer makeup exams for both midterms. His problem sets are difficult, but fair (and relatively short), and certainly do-able if you read the textbook. Attending class is essentially pointless, since the textbook for the course is all you need to pass. Class meets three times a week for 50 minutes each, which is completely idiotic and ruins everyone's Friday.

His accent isnt that bad, you won't have trouble understanding him. Lectures move at a decent pace but usually there is no problem keeping up unless the problem is keeping your head up. It's easier to stay awake for the class because its only 50min (though you sacrifice your Friday mornings). His lectures usually guide you through examples, most of which are useful for the homeworks. Some of the theory-ish notes may seem trivial, but these are the things he will test on the 'multiple-choice' portion of the midterms. Midterms are pretty tricky, usually involving a rigorous knowledge of the material. There will be manipulation necessary, so you can't expect to do well just knowing equations or regurgitating homework problems. With a 1 page cheat sheet, the average on the first midterm was under 50%. The final was simple, provided that you knew the answers. 16 questions were given to us in advance and 4 were on the final. FIGURE OUT THE ANSWERS TO ALL OF THEM. He will pick the tricky ones. But make sure you know how to do them all. Homeworks sometimes were really easy, sometimes really hard. There were about 5-8 questions a week, but a few at least were simple copying from a book example or from the notes. No drops, but he is fair, not assigning homeworks during midterm weeks.

His tests are really annoying. In addition to the problems found in all engineering tests, he adds multiple choice bullshit that cost me my grade. Class is like any engineering. You can teach yourself, but go if you feel it helps you. I didn't like the book much. Oh well, it was good enough to learn what i needed, it just took longer than it could have. The final was the only adequate test in the class. He gave you 15 questions a few weeks before, and took 4 questions from those 15 and that was the final.

A good professor. Organized, knows his stuff, addresses student questions quite well. His lectures are well-structured and the material is adequately introduced and explained. Very approachable outside of class.