The State University of New York Binghamton

Date: May 21 2013
Major: Computer Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
I have just finished my first year in the Watson school of Engineering and let me tell you, IT SUCKS. The one girl who reviewed on December 2011 class of 2015 has nearly everything spot on.

For both chem 111 you take in the fall and phys 131 you take in the spring, you virtually teach yourself everything. I don't know about the next guy but I'm pretty sure my parents should not be paying their own money gotten through hard work just so these researchers who call themselves teachers can get money. For Chem 111 seriously all the professors do is READ off the slides. God it is awful. Physics gets taught slightly (and that's me being generous) better but the material itself is harder.

For Calc I and II try to get a man called Ding Ding or Vallieres. Trust me, you will thank me later. I've heard bad things about other TA's that taught these courses and I luckily happened to be taught by these 2 guys and had a nice time in my calc courses. The engineering department needs more people like them.

I may be completely unsatisfied with the engineering department because I came from one of the best private high schools on the east coast and one thing I liked about it was how caring the teaching staff were. Here Binghamton seems to not care about its freshmen

Anyway, the biggest pain in the butt of freshmen engineering is not the hard core classes, but actually the so called "Engineering" classes. You take 4 of them, 2 in the fall, 2 in the spring. 1 of the 2 classes taken in both semesters is supposed to get your feet wet by exposing you to different engineering programs and learn random stupid facts that you are bound to forget by next year (your midterm/final is based on all engineering facts). The other one, the one that makes me want to burn the entire department, is the so called "Engineering Communications" class where basically you "learn" how to work in a group and "effectively" communicate with other team members to complete a project. The intentions of this class is great don't get me wrong, but if you end up with either a man called WEINSCHENK or a woman called PATTERSON, you might as well shoot yourself. The yin and yang idea seemed to have happened to me this year, I got the 2 best calc professors followed by the 2 worst Engineering Communications professors and let me tell you honestly, I prefer Patterson over Weinschenk only because she expects a excellence from you and is strict about it, which isn't bad except she is excessive and she curses. Weinshenk is just straight up USELESS and thinks he's funny but isnt and is USELESS and has no idea what he's doing. Please avoid this man at all costs. I can write a whole essay on why but I'm already being a nice guy and telling you who to avoid to minimize the temptation of wanting to shoot yourself.

The 2 projects you must do for both communcations classes was addressed by the reviewer I gave the head nod too way up there in the beginning of this review and I full heartedly agree with her sentiments and description on it so read her review.

Honestly, if the stress caused by this department was only from the math and science classes, I would not be this mad because I know in other colleges, even the high level prestigious ones (I've talked to people in Cornell) they have foreign teachers teaching the class and students end up teaching themselves the material, but the engineering classes are just straight up STUPID. You are better off trying to to do other classes that can fulfill the gen ed requirement these engineering classes are trying to fulfill. It's not that it's difficult, hah its actually the easiest courses I've taken but the bad experience and time wasted is so amazing. Alot of the TA's they pick are just complete idiots it's amazing how they were able to land the teaching job.

I'm hoping next year will be better because Im done with these required engineering classes so I will create another review when next year is over

All in all, DONT go here for engineering. This place has good reputation for BUSINESS and overall academics but SPECIFICALLY ENGINEERING IS A NO NO