Meagher, James  

Don't be misled by my bad grade in this course. I had immense troubles with this course (it's very hard). If I didn't have Meagher I probably would have failed. He helps in office hours and he helps in the classrooms. It took me a long time to understand statics. With Meagher's help I recovered, too late to salvage my grade, but not too late to hinder my understanding of the course material.

Dr. Meagher is one of the greatest professors that I have ever taken. And yes, I am saying this even though I got a C. He covers all of the material very well and thuroughly. He gives lots of examples and you can easily understand it all. His homework is kind of hard but his exams are much easier than the homework. I got a C mainly because of stupid mistakes. But, I'm ok with the C because I know that I learned, and remembered, all of the stuff that was taught. Dr. Meagher is a great professor and I'd advise any one to take him for this class.

Meager is a by the book guy. He would not add me, I got in cause someone dropped his class. He adjust his grades so that the average is a C, so I hope your not in a class full of smart people. He teaches very logicaly, yet I felt like sleeping in his class because of his very calm and monotone voice. He helps at his office hours, but usually that is packed with other people.

Professor Meagher (pronounced "Maw-her") was a nice guy. I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed in the grade I got because I felt I put a lot of work into this class. But overall I thought he was pretty fair. Our first test was a piece of cake, and th second was quite hard, so be warned. Anyway, I'll try to take him again for Dynamics.

Meagher's lectures for this course was about average. In my opinion, he presented some materials very well (Truss, Frames and Machines, Centroids), but there were other areas where he wasn't as good on (friction, 3D moments, 2D). He gives at least 3 problems every day after his lectures. Also there are 4 exams and one final. He drops the lowest exam score out of the four. Honestly, I thought the first exam was really hard (failed it), but the other three exams that were given were very do-able and sometimes easier than the homeworks he assigned. I failed the first exam mostly because I did not know what I was doing, and passed the other three with at least a B by trying to do homework without the solutions. I was able to pass the class with a B due to the help of my friends, so my bit of advice is to find someone to do homeworks with and try to get concepts down. The solutions that my friend gave me was somewhat useless to me most of the time because I didn't understand what they were doing at all (they shortened their work by a lot).

Meagher was a horrible professor. The guy did not realize that most of the class was struggling the whole quarter. He would refer to common engineering terms and processing assuming we knew what he was talking about. We did not! He treated the course as if all of the students are seasoned veteran engineers, we were not! Statics is the first real course all engineers must take, it sets a foundation for the years to come. So, speaking in laymen\'s terms, would have been nice, showing complete calculations would have been nice, explaining what the hell a matrix is would have been nice (i had not yet taken linear so i had no idea how to solve one). He did none of the above. Long story short, skip this guy if you can.

Failed to cover topics for tests. Left class feeling ripped off scholastically and financially. Beware students and parents.

I really liked Meagher!! He definitely gets you ready for the common final. Yes, sometimes he does assume you already know some of the stuff so he doesn't explain it and writes random things on the board, but all you have to do is ask and he's sooo understanding and will explain to you step by step and before you know it you understand it all. Highly recommend Meagher, he's so nice and a great professor.

Very thorough instructor. His exams will cover every topic from every section that is gone over. He says that he does not scale the grades but if that was the case I would not have gotten a B. I thought I had failed the class. Dr. Meagher is not the most helpful person in his office hours though. Might as well just pound it out on your own. He is intentionally vague until he goes ver the problems in class. He does give plenty of examples though.

Dr. Meagher is awesome at presenting the material in a way that you can easily understand. I was never at a point where I didn't know at least something that was going on. And for this class that's a rarity. But he was able to present the material that even though I think that I bombed the final, I was still able to get a B. I took him for statics and was happy then, I'm very happy now. Hardest class at Poly? Not with this guy.

It's probably not too much of an exaggeration to say I hated every minute of this class. Professor Meagher moved the class along at a very fast pace, and sometimes it was hard to absorb everything. Really, that was no surprise to me, though, since I had also had Prof. Meagher for statics. But the point is, even though this class was pretty tough, Prof. Meagher did a great job teaching the material. Even though I sometimes had to stuggle to keep up, thanks to Prof. Meagher, by the time the final came around, I felt fairly confident. After the class was finally over I realized how much I learned, and how great a class it was. Now, thanks to my very thorough understanding of dynamics, a lot of the other classes I'm taking are much easier. So anyway, definitely take him if you get the chance, but don't expect it to be easy.

Meagher was an ok teacher. It seemed like he went over derivations and equations very quickly to give more time for examples, which is what i think most people learn from anyways. He gave 3 tests, and 3 homework problems nightly. Overall, it wasnt too hard of a workload. Be prepared for a word problem on one of the tests... something along the lines of "what quantities are conserved" "what is the governing principle" etc...

he will give you a zero for sure if you copy solutions. just a heads up

In lecture, meagher (pronounced ma-her) tends to vomit equations on the board and expect that to be sufficient. he does a lot of practice problems, but rarely finishes any of them. this is why office hours exist. in office hours, meagher is a completely different professor. he will practally do your homework for you and will work through every single step of a problem until you are comfortable with it. go to office hours and i guarantee the course will be a lot easier for you. lastly, dont copy the solutions manual for hw because if you do, he will definitely fail you. seriously. dont do it.

buy the book and learn dynamics by yourself. thats what youre going to do anyway. holla!

You Suck Meagher! That is all I can say.

Absolutely terrible lecturer. He is a nice man, but vibes is not as trivial as he presents it.

Jim is a very mellow and considerate guy, which is a bit deceiving since George Carlin was so harsh. Ask him a question outside of lecture and he\'ll give you the straight answer. Unfortunately, he is very bad at conveying information during class time. He\'s more of a \'teller\' than a \'teacher\'. He gets an A as a person, and a D as a prof.

It\'s pretty obvious that Meagher cares about the students understanding Vibrations and the usefulness of the subject. I mean, I definitely appreciate the fact that he\'ll bring up applications, since otherwise, the class would probably feel like a painful version of signals analysis with very specific problems. However, it\'s difficult as hell to go through a difficult lecture while being under the impression from the professor that this should all be a piece of cake. He made a few too many assumptions that we can remember a transfer function (I sort of did, but I felt bad for seniors who last took math 2 years ago instead of 1 year ago). One of the things that I think makes the lectures difficult is that the lectures just seem like a constant barrage of material at times, which is either supposed to be common knowledge and therefore effortlessly understood by us or a lengthy derivation in which we don\'t know what the goal is. I have very mixed feelings about the class, though, since before the first test, other students and I felt great about the material and thought to ourselves \"you know, maybe it really is simple.\" However, after the test, I found that I was killed by some difficult grading because I didn\'t understand the concepts as well as I guess I was supposed to. I\'m not sure if this was a \"first test fluke\" or something, though, since the final definitely went better.

HORRIBLE FOR VIBES. He knows his stuff but he teaches it horribly. It never made sense during lecture, but it made perfect sense when classmates explains it. He skips over detail and makes mistakes in class. He's so smart that he doesn't realize that everyone else finds the material challenging. Some people prefer teachers who don't waste time by breaking down trivial material step by step, but vibes is NOT TRIVIAL.

He definitely knows his stuff. Spends a little too much time on theory rather than application in lecture. The thing you need to realize about this guy is he seems to give you a grade on what HE thinks you know. Go to his office hours, make sure he knows your name, and never put sum of moments = I(alpha).

This is going to be a very thorough comment so pay attention. POSITIVES: Dr. Meagher is absolutely brilliant and it is easy to tell that vibes is his subject and that he knows a lot about. He conveys the material very well in lecture (I had Davol for lab) and is organized with his notes on the board and tells you the objectives ahead of time. He is a very nice guy (in and out of class) but doesn't like being fooled around with in lecture (everyday there were a bunch of disrespectful students talking about their irresponsible weekends when class was supposed to start) and uses sarcasm but in a good way. He is AMAZING in office hours, I regret not going to more of them. YOU MUST go to his office hours; do the hw when your supposed to (no one in the class did) and ask for help on them with time before the midterm so you don't freak when you do poorly. He will show you step by step how to approach a problem, not only in o.h, but in lecture as well and sort of "thinks out loud" when he lectures too, which helps. When there is time to take a question, he will do so and do his best to answer (the only reason why this didn't seem to occur this quarter is because 1- too many dumb questions were asked,and 2- too many poorly worded/constructed questions were asked, seriously, I am not that smart of a student and I had some questions but he did a good job covering most of the material and people would ask the dumbest, almost off-topic, questions all the time). NEGATIVES: He is left handed and this somehow causes him to cover up what he is writing from many angles of the classroom but its never for long periods of time. He talks while his is writing and after he is writing and what he says is useful so its hard to copy the notes and copy/remember what he said; BUT he will clarify later in class or o.h if asked so don't be lazy. The only "real" problem I had with him was that he wrote the notes sooo fast on the board. I enjoyed listening to him talk about vibes and learned a lot but he did this while writing too fast that I was rarely able to copy everything down and focus on what he said. Other than that the only complaint is that he is not teaching controls :/ because he would be WAAAY better than any of the professors teaching it now. Out of all the lectures, there are only 4-5 that were really tough to understand and the whole class was like wtf, but that is a small amount considering the course reputation, and 2-3 of those lectures DON'T even show up on any of the exams. OVERALL: Dr. Meagher is a nice man and a great professor, he is professional and knows the material very well and conveys well to students. HE CARES about his students so much its almost ridiculous, by far (other than Lemieux and Davol) more than other professors. He gives the the basics to vibes and teaches how to think about a vibes design problem; the material is so applicable and important to learn and he does an excellent job doing this. YOU CANT be lazy! its really not that bad; read the book section ahead of time, do the hw at an appropriate time, go to his office hours at least once a week, show up to class ready to engage and you'll do fine. Also, review MATH 344, especially Fourier and Laplace- this will help you dearly; the ME 326 prereq is somewhat of a joke, linear analysis is much more important and used more in vibes; just don't be stupid and know how to do an FBD/MAD for simple systems. We are lucky to have him as the DEPARTMENT CHAIR next year when Davol leaves, but sadly, this will mean he probably wont lecture vibes again for the next three years. CONCLUSION: If he does end up teaching it, or your a student looking at this when his Dept. Chair position is up, TAKE HIM FOR ME 318. And for the idiots below (directly and beyond that) , not only does he focus on practical applications (which is why I enjoyed him in lecture)but he does do examples and its kind of hard to not "just to theory", ITS VIBES! no duh its a lot of theory, cmon man. Also, he presents vibes in a trivial way BECAUSE IT IS!, with respect to how he shows you- that you can treat real world systems as a spring-mass-damper system, and he shows you that Laplace and Lagrange can basically always be used and they are also very trivial, as well as the matrix approach to MDOF problems which weren't bad at all, so stop complaining. Unless he completely changed how he taught vibes in the last 1-2 years, then your jackasses.

worst. professor. ever.

Fine teacher, but a little dry in the presentation. I wouldnt suggest having her at 8:00 in the morning, might be difficult staying awake.

Meagher is a very smart guy. He loves vibrations and FEA. However, he would be just tearing through material, leaving the entire class staring bewildered at the board. He would mention formulas and theories key to the material and simply say \"remember that formula...good, now moving on\" when most of the class either (1) hadn\'t taken that class, or (2) took it 2 years ago. The material was very difficult, but to Meagher, it was simple and straightforward. HOWEVER, he is very nice and very good in office hours. He will help you out, give you advice, or just chat. I would recommend taking him, but be prepared to do a lot of work and a lot of studying! You will learn a lot, though.

I have taken Meagher for 3 consecutive quarters for 3 different classes: ME 318, ME 517, ME 404. Meagher is by far my favorite professor on campus, he teaches what is relevant, and really helps you UNDERSTAND what is going on. Awesome for office hours, and actively tries to be a better professor. If you complete and understand ALL of the HW he assigns, then there is no reason you shouldn't get an A. Try to sit in the middle or right side of the class room, he is left handed and his writing gets blocked by him as he works down the board. His lecture style may take a week or two to get use to, he works left to right on the board, but you should work top to bottom on your notes.

Dr. Meagher is a nice guy who enjoys what he does. He tends to make mistakes while working problems on the board, which can lead to confusion later on, but due to the complexity of some of the material, it's understandable. He's very good at his office hours, but sometimes has trouble explaining the homework without using his notes or solutions. Overall advanced vibes was a useful class if you want to learn how to model non-ridged body mechanical systems.