Vijay Gupta will take you on a roller coaster of emotions throughout the quarter. He started off weak by drawing 18 "arbitrary potatoes" the first lecture confusing the whole class. But then the next 5 weeks were hella solid imo and he taught the concepts pretty well. Right before the first midterm he'll tangent and tell you how he solved a murder trial using the strength of a bottle of wine which was dope, but then you'll get a 70 on the first midterm because its super hard. Then he'll teach super well again and surprise you with a week 10 midterm making you wanna cry. But then the midterm is super easy and all 3 problems are straight from lecture! You'll get a 90 something because all my homies hate algebra and start studying for the final. THEN the night before the final he'll tell everyone to check CCLE for a Christmas miracle and he gave everyone A's to B+'s and changed the final to be one question and if you get a 50% you get an A. Somehow not turning in a HW and getting a 70 on the first midterm got me an A. This man works in mysterious ways and I love him. If you get this silver fox as your prof, it'll all work out, just your mental health may take a slight toll.

Professor Gupta is a very reasonable and understanding man, first and foremost. He cares more about the education part of his class rather than the actual grades (which is a good thing, as I'll get into later). His lectures can be pretty boring sometimes, but the material is not really all that hard. As the other review for this quarter said, while he can be a bit disorganized or go off on a tangent sometimes, his lectures are actually pretty solid most of the time, and you come out of them feeling like you have actually learned something. His drawings are also pretty entertaining, and we all rejoice when he draws his famous "Arbitrary Potato" diagram to summarize the class topics for each chapter.

For homework, he gives weekly problem sets usually with 5 or 6 questions. These questions come from the book, but he writes them down on the document, so you won't need a textbook to complete them. His tests are relatively straightforward, although one problem may be a bit tricky. But he is very understanding and if you got most of the concept right, he will be generous with partial credit.

Finally, for our Fall 2020 quarter, Professor Gupta, the epic chad that he is, gave us an early Christmas gift and gave most of us A's (because apparently our class was already doing 'exceptionally well' this quarter), and for those who didn't have A's they took a very toned down/easy final to boost their grade. Of course this was probably an exception, but it demonstrates how he wants to see us understand the material, and is understanding of our circumstances as students in this time. Basically, I got 75% and 85% on both midterms, and ended up with an A.

I took Gupta because I heard his class was very easy, which something changed this quarter and all the midterms and finals got way harder than previous ones. That being said, statics is a super easy subject so his tests went from easy to something you might have to study a couple hours for. The homework also got much more difficult and the TA's were no help and even told me wrong information often times.

His lectures are super boring if you can even hear him. He sometimes uses an overhead projector to project diagrams that are so old that even he has trouble figuring out what is on them. I'm not sure whether it is helpful or not to go to lecture unless you want a nice place to sleep. I almost never took any notes until the very end of the class where it started to become a little more difficult.

aRbiTraRy pOtAtoEs

Gupta is an interesting professor. He definitely cares about teaching, but I don't think he was particularly engaging. It was the one class that I always found myself struggling to stay awake in, and there were usually a few people just fully asleep in their seats.

He is lenient about grades, though, in that failing a midterm will not alone break you. My class was told that our first midterm was the worst in years by the TA, but most people I know still got As in the class. He tends to use examples from lectures and discussions as similar if not the exact same problems on exams.

I had concerns initially because the Gupta has a really bad microphone and it is hard to understand what he is saying. His drawing are also pretty bad but he got better over the quarter. However if you copy down all the equations he writes down you should be fine. The midterm problems are copies of the homework problems so do the homework. The second midterm was week 10 which was really annoying but because of that he pretty much cancelled the final.

He rambles a lot in lecture about the applications of MAE 101 to biology but we were never tested on it. Though he isn't that great at lecturing, he's an understanding guy when it comes to student concerns. I learned most of the class from YouTube, Chegg, and Slader.

Overall it's a really easy class so don't stress.

He really cares about his students and them learning but oh my, this class was a roller coaster of emotions. His lectures aren't super clear or helpful, shoutout to Jeff Hanson on Youtube for teaching me a lot and making everything that Gupta said in class make sense. His midterms were 3 questions and reasonable and he pulled some stuff from the lectre (watch it on 2x speed it lowkey sounds normal). But having a midterm week 10 (and telling us week 9) was not it and my mental health was plummeting that week. Luckily he cancelled the final ( which I did not study for) and he served us a fat Christmas miracle so shoutout to him for that. The TA's had review sessions which were kind of vague but it at least condensed the material and they usually saw the tests before so they kind of hinted at what was going to be on the tests. I never went to discussion and did great in this class, Gupta also gives a lot of useless examples/applications and you get lost when he's explaining them but you don't need to know them for the midterm, it's just so you can learn about the application of the material if you're interested. Basically this whole course is about how to apply F = ma = 0 and don't overthink the stuff. Homework is straight out of a bunch of different textbooks also. So I would take this class again, you have to work, but the curve is usually pretty good. At the end of the day though, he does listen to his students and genuinely cares about everyone learning way more than the tests and tricking you on there. Also, he often reuses problems from old tests.

Gupta wasn't a particularly exceptional lecturer, sometimes I found it more helpful to open the textbook as his figures and derivations were pretty confusing sometimes. Homeworks were relatively challenging but not too bad, and the midterms were shockingly easy. I'm pretty sure like 90% of the class got an A, but I know for a fact that these midterms were easier than pre-coronavirus midterms so keep that in mind. Overall he seems like a nice guy and is very knowledgeable, so I'd recommend his class.

This class was a mess. Lectures aren't helpful (didn't go to class after week 4) and everything about it felt very unorganized. We had a midterm week 10, less than a week before our final... like??? I learned everything from Jeff Hanson's youtube channel (statics and solids playlists). I recommend you don't rely on lecture to teach you the material because Gupta is a notoriously bad lecturer.

The midterm and final exams were hard af this year, idk what changed with the midterms compared to what past reviews have said. The only reason I think you should take this class with Prof Gupta is for the grade distribution. I was slightly below average on the first midterm, did really well on the second midterm, and felt like I did hella bad on the final but I still walked out with a B+.

While the midterms were pretty straightforward, the final was almost impossible to do in the time allotted and was extremely difficult compared to the midterms and the homework. No idea how this class is curved because I thought I failed the class but then Gupta gave everyone an A??? Old midterms are pretty useful and he also tests on examples he's used in class like the one where he prevented a guy from going to prison using statics (aka the one with the champagne bottle). He talks about himself a lot and spent more time taking about MIT than beam theory (which was unfortunately also tested on the final). Easy class, okay professor,

Gupta is a pretty bad lecturer — he rambles a lot and doesn't explain things well. He spends a lot of time talking about how smart he is and flexing on everyone about how he went to MIT. He shows up 10 minutes late to every lecture. The class is pretty poorly organized. He spends like 3 weeks on really easy problems and then goes over the more tricky stuff (like beam deflection) in a few lectures. Honestly I would just watch YouTube videos (I would recommend Jeff Hanson's channel), they explain things better than Gupta. The only reason you should go to lecture is to hear the random stories he tells that he sometimes includes on tests. I also bought the textbook which everyone told me not to do, but it was pretty helpful. I would recommend buying it. Overall this was not a very difficult class. I got a 68 on one of the midterms (and felt like I did pretty well on the final) and got an A.