Reviews of professor Sean Niemi

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Grade in class is based on how nice your TA is, not how much effort/correct work. No clear rubric for design reviews AND exams, so grading is vastly different across the TAs who grade them. Extremely unfair when a group gets >15% higher on a design review with lower quality work. Class does not have to be as messy if Dr. Niemi was more involved.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Very knowledgeable in his field. Generally explained things well. The class is a lot of work but not nearly as bad as advertised. My only major complaint is that it shouldn't take 6 weeks to grade an assignment. Even a simple canvas quiz took them several weeks to grade which is frustrating.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
I have encountered many poor instructors in the past but few who posses genuine apathy towards students as Sean Niemi does. His existence forces me to abandon my belief in karma

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Dr. Niemi is by far the worst professor I have had in the engineering department. If he thinks that your questions in emails are "stupid" or "pointless" he will ignore them and ignore any future emails that you send. Prepare to get counted off for ridiculous and trivial things on the midterm, final, and every team project. Midterm average was a 50.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
One of the most disorganized professors I have ever had. Assignment grade turnaround is incredibly long and grading can be wildly inconsistent between TAs. The new DML can hardly be considered a valuable learning experience.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Throughout the semester, it seemed like the new "DML 2.0" was thought up the night before the fall semester started. TAs were wildly uninformed. With time, hopefully all the disorganization, inconsistencies, and other issues get fleshed out. As a person, almost unbearable to be around. Extremely rude, snarky, and most of all unprofessional.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Niemi is a great professor teaching one of the most work-intensive undergrad courses for ME majors. He explains material well and is very personable and easy to talk to in OHs if you have any questions. The class workload has definitely lightened up over the past few semesters. Grading is strict and some TAs grade much harsher than others...

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Wish there was rating b/t OK-good. Class structure has changed, which made it very unorganized. This isn't Niemi's fault exactly. I do think the stress caused him to take it out on students and get frustrated. It's tough, but I don't think that should happen. Overall, he's very knowledgable and a great engineer; just questionable teaching style.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Niemi makes it clear that your success depends on his mood. Sometimes he's feeling good and extends assignments, but you'll get used to hearing, "Yeah, I'm an asshole. At least I'm not evil." on the weekly. He's real with his expectations but that doesn't excuse the 10:00pm due dates, lack of organization, and awful attitude.