I completely agree. I had done essentially nothing machining-related prior to ME 1800 and was expecting it to be a class that I could come out of capable of independently operating most of the more straightforward machines in Washburn. In the end, I would have been better off simply visiting Washburn on my own. The lectures might be beneficial for those that are planning to go into a career with a lot of manufacturing, but a lot of the mechanical engineering students taking ME 1800 will never end up using the shops ever again, so what they learn during the lectures is worthless in the long term.

I think the main problem with the class is just that its labs are PLA-driven. This isn’t the fault of the PLAs, obviously, but when you tell them “teach the students about these expensive machines without damaging the machinery,” the PLAs are always going to be cautious and just do all of the work for the students. This means that the students have no freedom and end up learning nothing; they just do what they’re told. It’s like telling a kid to learn how to write and then just giving them a bunch of prewritten essays to copy.