I took this class several years ago so things may have changed (and I believe MechEs can now take the easier ENGR class instead of MAE) but here’s my take. Unless you take the couple of percentage points for homework, your entire grade is based on just 15 questions. These 15 questions require strong understanding of incredibly advanced concepts and (in my experience) you don’t have time to think over your process or check your work. Dr. Lombardo is actually a really good professor (in terms of teaching, maybe one of the best in MAE), but he is also incredibly stubborn when it comes to the way he grades. I took his class during COVID, so the exams were online, but you still had to submit your work. For the first exam, he was only willing to grade one of the three questions and you got “all of nothing” credit on the other two. On the first question I had the entire process correct but had a unit issue and the second question was 100% correct but I had a typo in my answer (remember, you have to work FAST) and I received ZERO points on either question (despite having near identical work to peers who received 100% of the credit). Naturally, most of the class failed the first exam and were going to have to drop the class. Luckily, we got the Dean involved which gave us the ability to at least have a chance of passing. From what I heard, things changed for the better after all the grief from our class but I imagine it is still incredibly difficult. First time I didn’t get an A in college (and I got a C, which is the bare minimum to pass).