DeTurris, Dianne  

if this professor is really this bad, just don't take it with him and go take the class with another professor. STUPID!!!

DeTurris gets a bad rap, but she is actually super sweet and really wants her students to succeed. Plus she has three degrees in aero, which is mad impressive. 10/10 would recommend.

She will most likely be the only option unless they find someone else willing to cooperate with this insane person. Wow, where to even start. She literally doesn’t give one single shit about the class, shows up and gives a completely scatterbrained lecture that involves her repeatedly making mistakes, having to look things up in the book, etc. her tests are poorly written and often have mistakes that make a problem unsolvable. It’s as if she’s never once tried one of the tests she’s written. I learned next to nothing all year and showing up to class is a complete waste of time. Hope she gets fired, and if you get stuck with her band together with some classmates to self teach because deturris is a moron.

Seriously needs to be fired, but they can't seem to find anyone to replace her. She is consistently both condescending and incorrect, which makes it very difficult to want to listen to anything she has to say. Will sit up in front of the class and babble incoherently, I'm fairly confident she is actually insane. Her tests make it seem like she wrote it blindfolded and never took a second look, riddled with mistakes and inconsistencies that make the problems unsolvable without unexpected jumps in logic. There is a MASSIVE gap between what she talks about in class and what we are tested on, and the homework and textbook are legitimately the only ways i learned anything all term. RUN from this professor, she is the worst.

DeTurris is crazy . . . but in a good way. She's extremely energetic, which makes the class interesting, and she makes a point to become friends with the students. She'll make fun of anyone for all kinds of things, but all in good humor. She presented the material well, and assigned plenty of homework problems (which weren't collected). Her midterms were always three problems, split up into sections. They were very similar to homework problems, so while they weren't easy, they weren't too hard either. She can be a little intimidating at times since she's so outgoing, but that's definitely a plus since it makes it hard to fall asleep in class. Overall, I definitely recommend DeTurris.

I think deturris was a decent teacher. she could have made 301 a very demanding class, but it was really up to the student. since homework isnt collected its up to you to stay on top of things or cram at the end. i think either method works well for a class like this. The grade is based on 3 tests and a final, all weighted 25%. This quarter, if you did bad a test, it would be weighted less as long as you earned 20 points better on the next test. overall, deturris was pretty good, and 301 didnt turn out to be the class i was dreading. also, she takes time to learn most people's names, which is kind of nice.

petition, not partition. you fool.

I like her a lot. Her grading is more than fair and is able to recognize student's difficulties. I will say though that even though she gives very specific hints about what is on the test, what ends up being on the test was a very vague representation of what she said. Anyway, she's very entertaining and sweet.

Dr.DeTurris is a awesome teacher.definitely, she knows what she is talking about. she explain material well done. her quizess and the test are fair.also, she is so helpful in office hours. except she is kind of hard on grading.

honestly, you have to take dr. d to find out if you like her, apparently. but don't judge her based on these evaluations (why am i telling you this, because if you're an aero, you'll have to take her anyway?). admittedly, there were times she screwed up when she said stuff in class, but she'd correct herself or admit it if someone corrected her. she's not a jerk and she is a very fair grader. you better know the stuff forwards and backwards, though (and it's not hard at all) because the midterms have about one more question on them than is appropriate for the time allotted. the final you'll get through with time to spare. but she's really a pretty decent teacher as far as the material she teaches goes, and she is helpful in office hours.

Good old Double D...Man, first of all, am I the only one who can't get over the fact that her belt goes up to her boobs? Very moody, very unprofessional, and very dumb. She has no idea what she is talking about in class. She copies notes from some random proof she found in some obscure book. Don't bother asking her any questions, DEER IN HEADLIGHTS. She is witty though, and she'll make you feel dumb all the time for calling out her mistakes. Just remember, she got her PhD when schools were practically handing them out to women. You can tell she has her position becuase of her gender. The D is for Dumb. Real Dumb. I personally have no respect for her.

Its too bad aero only has one professor to teach this class. Her teaching method isnt good. doesnt appear to know the subject beyond undergraduate level; i wonder how she got her phD. doesnt answer questions properly. she's hyperactive all the time, making her lectures even less benefitical since she just rambles. she belittles students whenever they make a mistake. if she doesnt like you, your screwed. if your an aero student, ur screwed.

People don't generally complain about deturris, so I don't see why she is getting such a bad rating here. Her homework is not hard, and neither are her tests (just practice racing through the homework, because you won't have enough time on the tests). Labs are long, but just find out what she wants. Alot of people do extra work, the she doesn't even look at, and then leave out the important stuff. As for deer in the headlights, that is just her way of making class more interesting. Nobody falls asleep in her classes, because she acts stupid. But it's just a show, she's alot smarter than she puts on (though she is moody). In my opinion, the best aero teacher at poly.

Yeah, you know she was "numero uno" at Georgia Tech. "The most popular girl in the class", and she said it so well!

I don't know why Dr. D has such a low rating, but she is the best Aero professor around. Her homework wasn't turned in in this class, so I can't say much about that. However, she did give us sufficient problems, along with the answers, so we could do them to prepare for the test. To be honest, I never cracked the book (except to use the tables....endlessly) and using her notes was able to complete all the homework. She lays out a method for solving gas dynamics problems that really works and makes it possible for people to understand. I think her tests were fair in difficulty, but short for time. She writes her tests too long, so the average is usually low. Don't worry about it though. Everyone seems to want to bitch about her long tests, but she squares it up with a curve at the end. Dr. D is great.

This teacher is rather crazy. However, her craziness makes class interesting and worth going to (the subject matter does not). Any teacher that openly insults the students during class is alright by me. For example, I asked a question in class about material she covered a few weeks prior (but since homework isn't collected, I didn't bother to do it until the night before), and she reluctantly answered stating at the end something like "oh, you're not gonna pass." (she was wrong). She also remembers your name, which is nice, except for the fact that she also associates your name with something smart or dumb that you said in class. In the end, the class isn't too hard if you put some time into it. There's far worse classes you have to take.

Dr. DeTurris has a unique and fun teaching style. Although a lot of people did not like her sense of humor and mistakenly thought she was stupid and didn't know her material they couldn't be more wrong. She genuinely wants the students to learn by putting in some hard work. Take her class seriously, and her seriously and you will do just fine.

Dr. DeTurris teaches with a unique style. A lot of people enjoy her classes whereas other people really have a hard time with her. I really enjoyed her class. She teaches things simply and keeps things positive/energetic. Her approach isn't as methodical as other instructors, so I can see why people don't like her style, but she does a very good job encouraging and supporting independent thinking. Her emphasis seems to be on developing learners more than making us into machines that can spit answers back out. She treats you with maturity and gives you the responsibility for your learning. She is very helpful - just ask questions. Her classes aren't super strict; most of our midterms and finals were fair; homework was not graded. She realizes that you need to understand things well before you can get really specific with equations. People can feel dumbed down because of that, but let's be honest: unless you are actually doing a graduate-level project, you don't necessarily need to get way deep into the material. You just need enough to figure out where you would like to focus your attention. I do not think Dr. D undereducates her students, but instead follows a different emphasis for learning, one that isn't too base or an easier shortcut. I really respected her because she did treat us as individuals instead of as engineering trophies for the department. Think what you wish. I recommend her highly.

This class (only because of this damn teacher) had the unique distinction of being the only class I've taken this far with the grading system based not on numbers, but on how much the teacher flirts with you. Having said that, I might add the females in this class did bad in general, while a few males got excellent grades for the cute-baseball-cap-smiles approach. She likes that. Let me also say, for a 2 unit lab in which I turned in around 120 pages of quality work and participated fully (not to mention the final), I think I deserved better than a D. You can ask my partner, who also got a D and labored with me every week writing these things. Or, you can ask the many other D's in the class. Incidentally, these are 'A' students, coming out with a 'D' from Dr. D. Is it her favorite letter? Who knows. Just hope she likes you, otherwise your work and your time will not matter.

Deturris (DD) BLOWS. Dr. DeTurris fell short of my expectations. Instead of guiding us through the lab and the material, she seemed to be learning it with us for the first time. She didn

So you want to know about Dianne Deturris. She is arrogant and unwilling to accept any criticism. Good luck on learning anything useful about propulsions in this class, I truely can't belive that the Aero department only has this one class on propulsions. Its really sad. As far as simple theory, the professor is competent However, the second real life steps into the picture you had better hope one of your fellow students knows how to answer the question. The homework load isn't bad and the tests are acceptable. I believe however that more emphasis should be put on the details rather the general thermodynamics of propulsions that we already know from 302 and 303. A nice lady, but she also holds grudges.

Deer in headlights ... that is what deturris turns into when you ask her a question. She cant teach, she reads to you. She takes the material out of the book and puts it on the board. When you ask about what something means you get the look ... the one that makes you wonder if the lights are still on in her head. It almost seems like when asked a question, even one of a simple nature, her brain experiences smoething that, for a normal person, would compare to sitting in an electric chair. Tests, they arent hard, she doesnt understand the material enough to make them hard. Once while going over a test question, she included a "magic math step". I tried to recreate this step in all the math software I have and it doesnt work out. She used this "magic step" to fix a wrong answer. The only thing hard about her tests is time pressure. If you have the test 90% correct in your mind, it's 30% correct in hers. She is the devil when it comes to grades. Office hours = that blank stare. Sorry you have to take her cuz there aint nobody else!

Hey ... If you think this teacher knows what she is talking about ... get your head out of your rear and actually listen to what she is saying. "I just look at tha pictures" (Deturris) D stands for DUMB!!!

I don't know who wrote the last comment..."take this class with another teacher". It's a joke, right?...please explain, I don't understand. There are only 7 teachers in our department (more or less), if you have the luxury of chosing whom to take the class with, then I wasn't told in my 5 years here... Moving on, yeah, DeTurris can be a pain. Do not expect to enjoy the class, but it's not the end of the world either. She is just a drop in the ocean of crap AEROs have to swim in.

Absolutely fun class to be in. She has a lot of energy in class. The lectures are pretty rushed sometimes, but not impossible to follow. Definately keep up with homework and go to class. For the tests, WRITE ALL YOUR NOTES ON YOUR NOTE SHEET. There's a lot of material and you don't want to depend on memorizing everything.

I cannot believe this woman has a PHD in Aero. She lacks an understanding of fundamental Aerospace concepts. The only thing more apalling than her lack of understanding is the piss poor manual that she attempted to put together for 401. I'm tempted to send a copy to another teacher that actually earned their right to be standing in front of the class to prove just how many errors that thing is packed with. Biased grading policies, attempts to overshadow her lack of understanding by berating students, watered down often incorrect versions of gas dynamics and combustion engine design...could not do a derivation to save her life...absolutely apalling...someone needs to fire this lady or send her to human resources, she really is an embarassment to women engineers. Try and take Dr. Marshall for 303, and Waters for any combustion class or better yet, just switch to ME...the rest of the department isn't too much better.

Heres the deal....Dr. D might not be the most knowledgable in her field and she is a bit hyperactive, but her classes are really easy. There are no surprises on exams if you do the homework and if somethng is on a test she will tell you five times and the ask you to highlight it in your notes before you leave and then tell you to tatoo it on your arm.

So, by the time you get to 401, you've probably had a Dr. D class. My suggestion is always to ask her to repeat herself because she speaks so fast its hard to write it all down. It's like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hose (on at full blast). Write the best lab reports of your life and proof read.

Too fast and she thinks we know everything. Don't teach if you can't convey the subject matter to the ignorant mortals on this universe. Other than the fact that she can't teach worth a damn, self-ceneterd, egotistical, thinks PH.D folks are better than everyone else in this world, and enjoys laughing at the less unfortunate folks who don't know as much as her, she's alright.

Changing the grading after the second week was lame. If certain people can't hack it that's there problem, you shouldn't give in to their laziness. After three classes with this professor she still amazes me as being the most difficult to retain any knowledge from. She is quite sarcastic, which wouldn't be bad for a friend but not for a teacher who makes fun of you if you have a question. She is now tenured so nothing you ever do will matter.

"This is your opportunity to help other students, not to rip on a professor because they failed you!". That's what the polyrating site reminds us before we submit this evaluation. I think if one wants to know how this professor performs, the more objective way is to do a survey for students who took his/her class and have graudated (so that students won't be punished for telling the truth). For Deturris, I doubt he will get an passing evaluation. Personally, I think she is not knowlegeable with the material she teaches. She takes personally stuff into the grade (e.g. if you ask her questions that she doesn't know how to answer and make LOOK dumb, you're screwed), this doesn't happen to me; but I witnessed this happened to other students. Anyway, like I said the survey i mentioned would tell. She's tenured now? Get students to sign a partition, send the complaint to the department of education and get her fired! (together with the Donald Trump's gesture).

Dr. DeTurris is an amazing professor and she keeps classes interesting by making funny anecdotes and observations. Some people might not be able to keep up with her, but she has lots of energy which can be contagious if you have an interest in propulsion/high speed aerodynamics. Being a graduate level class (AERO 540), Dr. D understood the responsibilities/challenges that graduate students have and so she was more relaxed on testing and grading. For example, we only had one midterm and one take home final, but we were expected to know our stuff. We also had a final presentation on anything propulsion related that you wanted to learn more about. The course moved very quickly and the lectures blazed through the material in the book "Rocket Propulsion Elements" by Sutton. However, studying the material more in depth on your own time is expected if you're a graduate student taking a graduate level course. Having said that, Dr. D will still do her best to help you out if you ask her with any questions. Overall, I would strongly recommend taking AERO 540 with Dr. D. She's also currently the only professor at Cal Poly doing propulsion so if you want to work on it she's your only hope. Good luck!

What the guy/gal below said. Amen. I too took this class and have long since graduated from Poly, but I was cruising Poly Ratings for a kick and thought that I should pipe in and let you know how much of a joke this prof is.