Dr. Ely enjoys teaching here due to the unique student body on campus, Our students are much more motivated than at other schools. Our students come here for the engineering education and they know they must be committed and they expect to work hard. The most challenging aspect of teaching at Mines according to Dr. Ely is trying to design new courses or trying to keep an older course current to deliver the state of the art information to all students. Student body backgrounds and knowledge bases change every couple of years and with technologies constantly evolving, it requires a professor to constantly be aware and current. Dr. Ely knows that being a Mines student requires a high level of time management.
Every course has the same level workload as all the others.
There never is that one blow off or easy course. That is why he feels that the biggest benefit of a Mines education is the ability for the student to walk out the door prepared for and willing to work in a professional environment. They have sufficient training to be able to contribute to projects from day one. Mines students also generally exit the program being good communicators and better time managers which gives them the ability to advance faster. Dr Ely s greatest rewards come from alumni who get back in touch with the department and explain how they thought certain courses were awful or useless when they took them but acknowledged after getting into the workplace that they were really a benefit.