Dolan, Dale  

Dolan was pretty good. Nothing really stands about him or his style, but he teaches well, so that\'s all that matters. He has a slight sense of dry humor which is nice sometimes. He doesn\'t assign homework which killed off half of the class on the midterms, but if you DO it anyways and talk to him in office hours which seemed to always be empty of other students when I went, you\'ll learn a lot. Grading is sensible: two tests, a quiz, and a final. Oh yah, don\'t buy the text at the bookstore for 160 or whatever. Get a softcover or something online.

He seemed really apathetic about teaching, and after the first two-three weeks he basically doesn't lecture at all. I had to self-study everything in this class. He is cognizant of where the class is in the course and the tests and quizzes are written fairly and appropriately. Overall, I would avoid him.

Prof Dolan isn't the most enthusiastic lecturer, but he gets the job done. His tests and quizzes were fair and covered the core material pretty well. And once you get him talking, you can tell he enjoys EE. Be warned that he likes to talk about his grading curve a lot. Sometimes for half of the class time. Which is a lot when there's only class twice a week and he cancels class fairly often. Overall though, when he is teaching, he covers the material efficiently and effectively.

Dale is the man. He kinda has a dry Canadian sense of humor and always likes to chat with people in class before that (number):10 start time and even after class. His midterm and final for this class were relatively difficult if you did not spend at least twelvish hours on MasteringEngineering beforehand, but they are curved appropriately. His HW is on MasteringEngineering and is extremely easy with a Chegg account but I would highly recommend taking the time to do the HW properly as it is the best way to simulate any quizzes and exams (also make a cheat sheet while you do the HW, it comes in handy for exams as well). He does plenty of examples during lecture and gives you what you need to know concept/equation - wise for the HW. If you are struggling with the material, he is fantastic 1on1 for office hours whether it be reviewing problems or simply asking for studying advice. TL;DR: Go to class, do the HW properly, study, and Dale will make sure you will get a good grade. 100% would take again.

check this out: reddit.com/r/dolan

Dolan's reviews dont show the whole picture. He goes through the material systematically and does lots of examples. He is a great guy and if you go to his office hours he actually does want to help you unlike some other professors. His class consisted of weekly homework and quizzes, a midterm and a final. The quizzes are weighted pretty heavy, but they give you a great understanding of what will be on the test and final. Aside from the obvious, if you want to take this class with Dolan just go to his office hours and study for the quizzes

Dolan is one of the hardest to evaluate professors that I've taken. On one hand he presents the material in a straightforward manner, but on the other he'll often go off on 30 minute tangents explaining how the material is used in an industry setting, which is FINE but he often sacrifices time which he could be using to flesh out the material itself to do so. He uses MasteringEngineering which I have mixed feelings about but ended up being alright. The only grades at all in the class are four quizzes (he drops the lowest), the midterm, and the final. You're allowed a sheet of notes for ALL quizzes and exams. All and all a pretty straightforward professor, but his lectures are VERY dry and his presentations aren't always as cohesive as they should be.

Okay so before I begin let me be clear I am not a bad student and I don't have anything negative to say about my professors at my community college or any other professor I took this quarter but I felt it was necessary to write about Dolan because I've never seen anything like this guy. It's like someone hired Homer Simpson to teach an engineer course. I seriously know people who work at McDonalds who take their job more serious than this clown. Okay, so we all knew this quarter was going to be a joke when the first day he comes in with a piece of paper with a bunch of negative comments that have been made of him and he tried to persuade us he had reasons for all his negative reviews. Let's start with lecture. I'm convinced this guy puts at the most 15 minute thought before coming into the lecture. In our class he would typically just draw a circuit and mess with it the whole time and never do a complete problem. He would waste time working out shit that can just be plugged into a calculator and you can tell he didn't do it to teach us but rather just to waste time cause he knows damn well he put zero thought prior to lecture and just wants to kill time. As someone else mentioned above he switches between different teaching styles and he said his reason is because it's not fair for only one group of people to learn lecture the way they learn. Which in other words means no one learns since he doesn't have a set way of teaching. Okay, now on to the homework. When you get a lecture like that how the hell are you expected to do 12 problems a week? Everyone I know relied on Slader and the solution manual to do the problems because you definitely are not going to learn how to do anything from him. I don't know if he was good at his job at one point but he is awful at office hours and just not helpful at all. Now we can go to the quizzes on exam. You think this fat lazy sack of shit would grade and write his own exams considering he barely works right? Nope he hands it off to his TA (who at least in our quarter was a senior, not even a grad student) and it will all depend on that person. Yes, a person who doesn't even attend lecture determines what questions will be asked. I have negative opinions on his cock sucker TA but that's not what you guys are here for. The final this quarter was ridiculously long and covered subjects Dolan never taught us. Specifically he barely covered anything in mutual inductance and transformers and on the final he decides to put that on there. In a broad sense, take even the crap he decides not to teach serious because I'm sure this disorganized motherfucker doesn't even remember what he taught and might be okay to put it on the final Anyways, the point is this guy clearly is a professor strictly for the money and it shows. I guess if you want to hear positive comments about him I'll say he is okay as a person but that's about it. I mean he clearly is educated and has an impressive degree. The man just needs to go elsewhere because teaching is not something he is good at.

Nice guy and quite funny actually. He is very straightforward with the quiz and tests as far as telling you what to expect. The grading scheme is such that 82-100 is an A, and then everything else is just shifted down. This class can be over your head if you're an M.E though. I would recommend something more practical especially as an elective.

The tests and quizzes aren't too bad but he really struggles to present the material in a way that anyone can understand it. You will end up teaching your self most of the material. Thankfully it's really not all that hard. However, I would probably only spend about half the time I spend on this class if he could truly teach the material.

This guy is not a good professor in lecture format. He never teaches the same way twice, even within the same week. One day it's powerpoint only, the next it's a quasi-example-based "lecture" where he half-explains the material in jumbled sentences. He seems to know the material really well, he just struggles to communicate it in a way that is in any way understandable. He could easily be a good professor if he just took the time to actually make a course schedule and plan his lectures, but he's lazy about it, and it shows. I would not recommend him unless you're really dedicated to teaching yourself the material, because he won't do it for you.

He is knowledgeable about the subject, but all the examples in class are catered toward power generation, and he bases his lectures around examples. This isn't bad in and of itself, but the examples seem ill prepared, and as a student, it was hard to take notes or follow what he was doing. Thankfully he posts notes online, but I feel like I just faked my way through this class by memorizing how to solve the problems instead of understanding the material. I wish it wasn't, but this class is really just plug and chug. Granted, I am not a power guy so I didn't have high expectations for this class anyways.

Did not enjoy the prelab quizzes. Knows the material well and can troubleshoot any problem.

Overall, Dolan is a good lab professor. The lab consists of a prelab quiz and him lecturing for about the first hour and then the lab itself which typically took an hour. The pre-lab quizzes are fairly difficult so study the lab sheet before class! With any problems during the lab he's very willing to help although he can kind of talk down to you at times. He requires a lab report every week, but if it's a shorter lab you just have to give him your data and answer a few question and you have a week to do it. Definitely try and get partners that actually contribute to the report. His lab final is written and practical. The written portion was fairly hard but the practical is easy.

People above are not joking when they say that this professor is incredibly lazy. This class had such an amazing potential to be great. But it was just a show and tell lecture were he incoherently presents information straight out of a power point. The only real work done in this class were the lab assignments which weren't the most difficult thing in the world. There is the benefit that you'll get some good experience using matlab, but it's not the most applied thing. He takes forever to upload his lecture slides (not that they're great by any means). Studying for his final exam is complete BS. I don't know about his other classes, but he mentioned the book once for this class and then never touched on it again. Then he suddenly gives us textbook problems to prepare for the final exam. That would normally be great if it didn't feel like I'm cramming information that was never taught in the class. If you're an EE trying to get in an extra power class and you're already stuck with this guy in 406, don't do it. You're better off asking Poshtan to let you into his 511 class or take 417 with Nafisi in the fall. 420 isn't worth it. If you're just interested in sustainability, then you definitely won't learn it here.

Business majors: A degree for the intellectually impaired, HA HA.

GOOBY PLS