Mackin, Thomas  

Mackin was a very good professor for statics, but I don't know how well he prepared us for the common final - I (and most of the people I knew in the class) passed both of his pseudo-tests with full points and felt like I could do very well on the final, but after 2 hours of hell, I wasn't so sure of my grade anymore. I ended up with a C but I could've easily gotten a B+/A- if I had turned in my incomplete homework assignments.

Mackin is definitely the best professor to take for statics, hands down. He\'s a professor that truly cares about how his students are doing with the material and is willing to do example problems when the majority of the class doesn\'t understand. Very enjoyable lecture even when the material gets a bit dry. The course is not easy, and the some practice problems for the homework may take hours to complete, but at the end, he gets you ready for the final if you do your part. I definitely did not feel ready for the final even though he kept telling us that we\'re ready for it, but after a ridiculously difficult common final, I somehow came out with a B in the class.

Mackin was a decent statics professor. He really cared about making sure that people understood the material...even to the point of stalling for the minority to keep up. I learned the material, but mostly from reading the book, not from lecture. Grading scheme is as follows: 10% HW, 40% Quizzes, 50% Commmon Final. The biggest problem is that most of the in-class problems Mackin did were simple, so when it came to challenging HW problems and the final, most people were stuck. I can\'t say if he\'s better or worse than any other professor, so if you do end up with him, read the book and keep up with the homework.

Mackin is great in office hours and if you have questions about the homework or lecture he can help you out a lot. However, the common final was a joke. His assigned homework problems and things he did in class were simplified compared to the final. I studied for three days for the final looking at all my hw and the notes from lecture, and after walking out of the final I felt like I failed. Most of the people i talked to in my class felt the same, and people I talked to with different teachers said they didn't think it was too bad.

Mackin is a cool guy, really. He jokes a lot out of the situation, and it is not some lame dirty joke. He is very responsive on emails and helps his students to understand the materials like no others. I am an EE and was taking this course to satisfy the support course requirements, and I had no interest in ME or CE whatsoever because these topics are like gibberish to me. Mackin presented the materials from a very simple and comical approach to make sure the students understand, which most of the people did. There were three exams and daily homework assignments. Yes, that means you are required to turn in homework at every class session! They are for there your own good, though! Just be sure to attend his mini-review the session before the exams, he basically give away the problem(s) that will be on the exam. On our exam 2, the average was only one point below the perfect score. Go figure! Oh, and the common final was seriously a joke, it was not that hard if you study the past exams and attend the final exam review session.

Mackin basically doesn't tell you exactly what he wants ever. Lectures should be optional because I have definitely learned more from the textbook than from sitting in his class. People only passed tests if they were over achievers who sat in office hours all day long. Do yourself a favor and take a real professor who can communicate, you know.. with words and stuff.

Mackin is a cool guy. He jokes a lot and overall does a pretty decent job at presenting the material. As far as the lectures go, the lecture examples were straight from the book for the most part, and weren't that helpful. The tests are pretty straight forward and were on about the same difficulty as the final. His grading, however, was...sporadic to say the least with a lot of massive points taken away for small stuff sometimes, and othertimes only a few. If you go to talk to him, he really is very helpful and you can tell that he doesn't care so much about grades, but that you actually learn the material. He offered some extra credit problems/practice tests and overall I felt very prepared for the final. The key to this class is to do as many problems as you can from the book and really learn how to do them. The final was cake as long as you had seen similar questions before. Remember, the class isn't meant to be easy, and three 1 hour lectures a week definitely didn't seem like enough to fully portray the material. Overall, I would take mackin again, you just have to deal with a few clarity issues every now and then.

Mackin is a really great guy. If you go to his office hours he makes you feel at home and talks to you like a friend. He wants you to understand the material more than anything. Also, if you are doing bad at the beginning, don't worry about it because what really matters is the final. I got a 100% on my first midterm and a 11% on my second midterm. I thought I was going to fail the class. He noticed that the students were concerned, he allowed students to redo the exam to get half the points back because he wants you to learn and not stress over a grade. The work load is pretty light and you have homeowork due every week. Overall, he is the best professor I had so far. He is someone who understands the students and keeps them relaxed during times of panic. If you want an A in this class, just go talk to him in office hours and get an A on the final.

I had Mackin for statics and dynamics a year or so ago. Honestly, Mackin is one of the coolest dudes I\'ve ever met. He jokes about Spongebob Squarepants, throws out self-depreciating jokes demonstrating his humility, and is an overall funny guy. Plus he is famous now; he is going to be one of the experts on some discovery channel show. As far as teaching goes, I liked the pace he taught at (slow and steady) although I could see how others could see it as a negative, seeing as how there is a common final. Though slow, his lectures were never boring. I wish Mackin taught every ME course, but it is better to have been Macked than to have never Macked at all.

Mackin is a great a guy. He's funny in class, and also great during office hours. My only gripe is the way he taught the material and his attitude in teaching it. His class is about half lecture and half comedy and he'd often do the latter more. I remember him trying to explain a difficult concept and he says,"You guys know what I'm talking about right?!"(his go to phrase when he can't explain something clearly) He then proceeds to tell a joke while we stare at him with confused faces. His lecture notes are hard to follow (especially his notations) so if you're the type of student that likes to write down notes in an organized manner, good luck. The way he solves problems is messy/scattered and he often asked us to solve the problems that he should've been teaching us. This become frustrating quickly, and even reading the assigned sections before lecture still proved to be difficult to solve the problems without his intervention. He's not the type of professor that will teach a methodical process to solving problems and in no way do I feel he prepared us for the upcoming common final. I'm only passing the class because my problem session tutor is able to explain things better than he can. If there's one thing I could wish for it'd be that the money that went towards this class go to my tutor. Albeit a graduate a student, he taught the subject in a more efficient and coherent manner than Mackin on every level. I understand that dynamics is a demanding course, but it becomes a lot more difficult when you have a professor like Mackin teaching it. From who I've talked to he's great for statics, but I highly recommend NOT taking him for dynamics if you can avoid doing so. If you do end up taking him for dynamics here are some tips: Do all of the pre-lecture hw assignments He's awesome during office hours and will not let you go until you understand what's going on His quizzes are from the book with different numbers side note: He bought an ipad this quarter so he'd be able to post lecture notes on polylearn but none were put up. double side note: his notes were pretty bad anyways, so I'm not surprised he never put them up

Super cool & funny professor! He works on really awesome projects on the side like his robotics company & testing shoes for Nike. As far as his teaching in dynamics goes he's kinda unorganized and doesn't really give a methodical approach to solving problems. But honestly, it is a difficult subject to teach. Even more so when you have only 50 minutes to go over concepts & problems. As long as you do the pre-lecture hw & the readings you'll be fine. Be prepared to be confused at times. Pro tip: Mackin is mostly helpful during his office hours.

Professor Thomas Mackin is a cool, chill, funny dude that brings comedy into his dry dynamics class. I think this really enlighten the class a lot since every subject/section was really tough. I still don't understand a lot of the stuff and probably need to restudy for my major. I think he is a nice cool teacher and really tries to teach the students to understand the concept. However, he is definitely is not good at explaining the materials. And he expect us to understand and know them on the tests, which seems unfair at times. ONE OF THE MOST ANNOYING THING was that He GIVES you HW for the next section and the lecture was basically review of the HW. While some students liked this style, I personally did not like this method. I think a lot of people complained and throughout middle of quarter he start to teach normally like everyone. Here are some Pros: On the test, you can get HALF POINTS BACK if you redo the test that you've missed correctly. I think this really helped the class a lot!!!! Also, there is fairly light HW that is divided into PRE-LECTURE HW & POST-LECTURE HW. He lets you drop 5 lowest HW(5%) grades (All the HW is done in MCGRAW HILL CONNECT, which you have to buy either for $70 or $130 something if you want the ebook also.) There are 3 Quizzes (10% each), 1 Midterms (15%) ! Do well in them!!!!! Then Project (10%) as a group. I felt like the Project either helped out your grades if you did well, but mostly waste of time. I think he should of just bumped up the HW to like 10% and either Midterm or Quiz to be 10-15% which would of been better. Final (40%). I was really not ready for Final at all. We wasted our time working on Projects instead of studying and He didn't write any of the FINAL EXAM Question!!!! which was a downfall for our class. He was like teaching 3 different sections.... Since other teachers wrote the FINAL EXAM it was insanely hard... I barely passed the class. In the end, I think he adjusted the grades around a bit to give a CURVE to everyone. Compare to other teachers Mackin was much more easier, but he should go over more examples and prepare us for the FINAL EXAM Or give some massive curves!!!

Mackin is a super cool guy whose class is super relaxed even though the material can be tough. He has a few, easy quizzes, I believe two midterms, and the common final. The quizzes and tests can be corrected for half the points back, the homework is all online and isn't too heavy, there's one fun group project, and he curves generously. I failed one quiz, got a D+ on the final (which was hard as hell), and half-assed the homework and still ended up with a B. Mackin doesn't want you to worry about pass/fail, just understanding the material. Overall, the only class I actually wanted to go to last quarter, I learned a lot about dynamics, and would highly recommend Mackin!

a lot of people decided to gang up on his polyratings at the end of the year because it was his first time teaching dynamics and he had a bit of a learning curve, but i still thought he wad awesome. now that he's had that i would definitely say he is gonna be one of the better dynamics teachers and you can level with him at office hours to get where you need to. oohh and the quizes and tests are open note sooooo thats a huge plus in my eyes

Mackin was hands-down my favorite professor last quarter. His were the only lectures I actually wanted to attend. He's funny, explains the material well, and really knows his stuff. Dynamics is hard stuff so lots of people didn't like him for that reason, which is stupid. At the end of each class, he'd engage the class and gauge everyone's understanding so he could slow down or review if necessary. He was super in-touch with the class's progress and always taught at the right speed. There's graded online homework before and after each class, quizzes every other week or so, and a common final. The homework was manageable and really helped with the quizzes, but the common final was brutal. I was a high-B student and got a D- on the final. All variables, no numbers, only one answer. It was terrible but Mackin curved it generously so I still ended up with a B. Dynamics is brutal, take it with Mackin.

Professor Mackin is a genuinely good guy who cares about his students. Ultimately he cares that you learn the material, not necessary your grade or fitting people to bell curves and what not. That being said, his class can be sporadic at times. Lab reports had no clear grading rubric and seemed to be based on how much extra work and analysis you could fit into a report. Lectures seemed to cover a different, unrelated topic every day. Maybe its just the class structure, but I felt lost a lot of the time during lecture and relearned the material while doing homework. Despite the negative, he is a very approachable guy, very helpful if you seek him out, and very knowledgeable on the subject. I know this is his first time teaching design, so I think he was working out the kinks this quarter and will get better once he's taught this class a few times.

I took Mackin for the trial ME 328/329 Combo course and I couldnt have imagined it with anyone else. He legimitately cares about the students and your learning and could give a shit about grades. 70% of our work was on connect which was annoying but I think he honestly thinks that connect is a good way for you to get instant feedback even though we all complained about it all the time. The class was lecture 8-11 am on monday and wednesdays and I had no problem staying awake and paying atttention which is saying something. He's a great lecturer even though sometimes he seems to get lost in his own derivatons. He's funny and got to know all of us and really cared about our opinions and what worked best for us. If i ever get a chance to take a class from him agian, I would

I'm not sure I learned much in 328, but I did enjoy myself. Mackin's class is one of those classes where you learn JUST enough to get by. You do learn the basic of design, you do end up knowing what is contained within the syllabus. However, the nice thing is that he is a very easy grader and the class isn't a ton of work. I got a solid 90 on both my midterm and final, partially because I think he didn't want to spend a lot of time grading everything. He's also keeps class time interesting, great for the less interesting topics.

mackin is a great professor for design. he's really into the material, and teaches it pretty well. it's a tough class to teach because there's so much to cover in just 10 weeks, so we basically learn a new topic every single class. his midterm was a bit unfair to some, but he did give an opportunity for corrections. said there would be pop quizzes but he only ended up giving two. the lab was a bit funky because students submitted their own ideas and he said "okay now pick which idea you want to do" and that's your project for the quarter. overall a solid professor, would take a class taught by him again if i had to .

He is a great professor! He explains very nicely and have nice humor. He is also kind and actually wants students to good on test. Homework are very effective and helps a lot for learning and understanding as well as completing the tests. I would very much recommend him!

Prof cried today.... What a weirdo hahahah get a grip of your life.