Review:
I don't know who wrote one of the last reviews, but to say things that are 1 hurtful and 2 quite frankly false is unacceptable. I would dare anyone on this campus to find a professor who never makes a mistake; in fact I would dare them to find a professor who doesn?t make a mistake once per class. There's no such thing as a perfect professor or a perfect class. Dr. Panetta has been one of the best and most supportive teachers I've had at this school, she?s the reason (one of the few) that I remained at this school rather than leaving when I had the chance. She has been nothing but a positive influence in my life, and she has done much to make me the best engineering student I can be. There are a few people who may think that this professor doesn?t know what she?s doing, and makes mistakes? these are the people who don?t do well in her classes. If you work hard and understand the material then you enjoy her class, and you don?t have a problem with the quizzes and exams. I hate to break it to everyone out there but we?re no longer freshmen and it?s becoming time when professors and TA?s no longer hold your hand through every step of the process. They are going to ask you to (gasp) think on your own a little bit and (surprise) penalize you when you don?t.

I will concede that this year?s final project was difficult, but it was doable in the space provided. Every programming class (especially in assembly) is a memory management class; these TA?s did write it on this processor as it?s the one that?s been used for several years now. For some groups there were issues with not being able to write code in the memory space provided, for others there were no problems. It?s true they could have shown us how to flash the EEPROM and we would have had no issues w/ memory constraints (especially as this is where program code is supposed to go on the 68HC12 microcontroller) but they didn?t, so we had to THINK a little bit. Oh and just as a side note, the space in DB12 was $0b00 and you didn?t want to do movw (those I think take up 6 bytes of memory) you wanted to use equates to define the clocks and then use the ORG command followed by a DB in order to actually initialize the variables (this takes up no memory, and there is then pretty much ample space to work with for the rest of the program). I don?t know what TA?s this kid had but mine where fantastic, they knew this stuff backwards and forewords and where able to help me with many small issues and questions I had, as well as give me clues that helped me save memory and make my code more efficient.

I can?t respect the review, or the views of someone who doesn?t believe in working hard to learn something. At some point in your life there won?t be a teacher to tell you how ABSOLUTLY everything fits together, and at some point you?ll have to figure it out for yourself. The more practice you get with that in mind the better off you?ll be in the real world. This woman is an excellent teacher, she will demand a lot from you but if you?re willing to put in just a little bit of true effort, you?ll get a ton out of it. Take a class from her, be daring and do some work?you just might find you?ll learn something.

Workload:
The workload is fine as long as you stay on top of it. Dr Panetta gives out weekly assignments (problem sets) and there are quizzes based on the homework and lecture. She tries to make her students think on exams rather than just parrot the exact material she?s given you in lecture. This is not an easy class, there?s a lot to cover and it requires extra work, but it?s enjoyable and you learn a lot if you do the work.

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