David Alciatore

School: Colorado State University
Department: Engineering
Location:Fort Collins, CO
Overall Rating
rated by 22 students
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 Dave's classes are hard, and require lot of work. Good news is he is very clear because most of material is well-researched, and lifted straight from textbook. Flipside is he is most unhelpful professor, no matter the situation you are in. Again and again, you will find yourself brought up in a tight spot where he will endlessly blame you. No matter what the conversation, his 4-pointer grade will surely be news of the day.
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 Courses of Dave are taught well but they are not exhaustive. I get to learn sth, not completely. His 4-pointer pride prevents him from helping students in need of actual progress.
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 Pros: He is considered the best professor in ME department owing to the fact that he was a 4-pointer back in school. He is extremely organized. He gives detailed guidelines of subjective evaluation of project work. He requires heavy programming in his projects. He is good in explaining concepts because he teaches a wide variety of course material.
Cons: 1. Very bad with creativity. The focus of his classes is to test student's memory only. Although he claims that he is eager to give marks for presentations and participation, he brushes them aside during grading.
2. TA's can be helpful. It is extremely important to get along with them because they are the ones that do the grading and everything for class.
3. The class is so big that he can never come to know who did the majority of work. Hence the project evaluations are subjective.
4. Projects are tough.
He is an egoist. He is opiniated about students. For example, minority students are kept aside in certain groups for projects regardless of their abilities. I was placed in one that I knew right away would be a problem, but he made no effort to help.
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 Pros: Really excited about teaching
Has a very effective teaching style
He answers all questions and makes students feel good about asking questions
Dr. Dave is one of the best teachers I have ever had. He is so excited about his work that it gets students excited too. There is homework every week, but he sufficiently prepares you with detailed notes and examples. He gives real life examples and makes the information that we learn relevant to other things.
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 Pros: He's really smart and answers any question you have during the lecture if you ask it right away.
Cons: I don't feel like he's very consistent/fair with the project grades. Not that they were bad, it just didn't seem correct, and you can't dispute them.
This class as a whole is a great class. The project is awesome and is a lot of fun. Just make sure your whole group is on board and that you are building something that you're proud of and excited to finish. You learn a ton in this class. The exams are a little rough though. (Typical Dr. Dave fashion).
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 Pros: Course is very well organized.
If you put in the effort, you will learn a lot.
Cons: His notes are a bit all over the place, I would recommend bringing the book to take notes in.
Judging this course by Dr. Dave is kind of irrelevant. The man's a machine and has been teaching this course longer than I've been alive. As such, he has it down to a science and is very consistent. Every thing really comes down to the group you form in the first week and the project you decide on. If you have a good motivated group, things should go just fine. Expect to pour a lot of time into this class. Chose a project idea that hits all the categories and will be reliable. The TA's for this course were amazing and really put in the extra effort to help people out.
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 Pros: Extremely smart guy, knows what he is doing, willing to help students, and very reasonable.
Cons: bad hand writing, makes it hard to read lecture notes sometimes.
This class is one you will have to put a lot of time into, however if you do, getting a B is definitely do-able but an A is unlikely. Everything but the tests are pretty easy, just make sure how to use MathCad, Dr. Dave LOVES MathCad and he will test you on it.
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 It is hard to Pro/Con this class. Really what makes or breaks your grade is the group that you choose or are placed into. Homework is done as group homework and the labs and project are done as groups as well. Individual scores come from 2 midterms, a final, and an in lab practical exam. If you read the book and try really hard to gain an understanding of how individual components work together as systems the exams are not that difficult. However if you want a good grade in the class getting a good grade on the project is essential. Make sure that you choose a simple but fascinating project that will look good when completed. Also make sure you don't end up with a group member who plugs something in wrong or backwards because it is easy for things to go wrong on the project. Definitely expect to put a lot of time into this class! What you think may be a simple few hours to put together you end up spending hours trying to figure out what is wrong.
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 Honestly being a girl with Dr. Dave as a teacher BLOWS. He's extremely sexist and could honestly care less about you. The class is SO much work so if you take it make sure to take it when you don't have a lot else going on with your schedule. He blows through material that it's hard to understand whats going on, plus his "book" he wrote SUCKS. teaches you absolutely nothing. I had to go back to my ECE book to figure stuff out.
Just make sure you get in a group that people know what they are doing electronically and programming wise otherwise you are screwed. As for the tests... they are all multiple choice, which sucks because there are no partial points. I feel like as a junior you shouldn't be taking any multiple choice tests anymore.
All is all, you probably won't be able to avoid him with this class, therefore get a good group, save your ECE book and make sure you DON"T procrastinate on the project, and the simpler the project the easier it is on you.
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 It is quite clear that Dr. Dave loves billiards. He loves billiards so much, that he spends the majority of class talking about billiards. His website made me feel like it was the year 2000, and consequently, made me feel a little bit of that excitement that I got when I first logged onto that old Gateway desktop, which sported the Pentium II processor. I really think he needs to update his website, and talk less about billiards. Don't get me wrong, billiards is great, but I did not sign up for "billiards 100". Nor did I sign up for a class that was somehow reminding me of the good old days of playing SkiFree on Windows Freakin' 95. Billiards.
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 Overall, Dr. Dave is a frustrating teacher to learn from. Although he wrote a pretty good book for the class he pretty much teaches straight out of it, so if you don't understand the book he won't be able to clarify. The biggest problem I had with Dr Dave is that he is a totally different person outside the classroom. He is enthusiastic about teaching the course but does not want to deal with you outside of class or in lab (the TA's are invaluable in this respect). For some reason he has everyone do all the homework in groups, which means that if you can't get together or your group members are slackers you get screwed. Ditto with the project which, lets be honest, is the focus of this class and only thing Dr Dave really cares about. As far as how difficult the project is...its in the luck of the draw. Get in a group with someone who knows what they are doing or else you might spend hours upon hours trying to figure things out. He does do a good job telling you what topics will be on the tests, but all the questions are trying to trick you and nothing is straightforward.
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 Dr. Dave is by far the worst instructor I've ever had. This was the third course that I was forced to have him for and I hated every minute of it. He's terribly hard to understand when he lectures. His notes that he puts on the board are ALL OVER the place and really unorganized. When you later try to study his notes you have no idea what he was doing. He absolutely hates helping students outside of class. It irritates him that he is forced to have office hours and when you show up he treats you like "What do you want and why are you bothering me?" Definitely stick with the TA's on asking questions. Don't be scammed into being in a two-man project group like I was when he says "Oh we'll definitely take it into account when we grade you" because he DOESN'T! He blatantly lied to us on that one. His tests are the most unstraightforward tests that I've ever taken. He does not test you on what you should know, but rather almost every question is a trick. He tries to trick students on purpose and it's very discouraging as you are taking the test, realizing that he's doing this. It's very sad that he is the way he is and everyone should BEWARE upon taking any course from him.
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 Dr. Dave (as he typically called) is one very hard professor for Mechanical Engineering. He teaches a variety of topics in this class and he asks obscure questions about the material taught. Things that you would only know if you dove so deep into the material that you could teach the class your self. Furthermore, I was told by friends in another class that Dr. Dave purposely made our test brutal and its rumored that he is doing this to weed more student out of engineering.
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 Dr Dave is a horrible professor. I can't believe they still let him behind the podium. It is CRYSTAL clear that he doesn't care AT ALL about his students, he only teaches to show you how smart he is, and what all books he has written and that you need to check them out. He is egotistical and refuses to help you unless you are a female and show some skin. I would NEVER take a course from him again.
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 I gotta say, my opinion of Dr. Dave just kept dropping as the class progressed. I liked him a lot in the beginning and was excited to take the class. But then the project came around, and his egotistical side started to really show. He has a very high opinion of himself, and will not take a hint of criticism. He also seems a bit sexist, as the few girls in the class seemed to have it harder than the guys, especially when it came to project presentations. My project was pretty bad, but he invited it into class, while a group of 2 girls and a guy that had a working and really good project were pretty much just brushed aside. He is also not willing to work with anyone when it comes to groups. I was placed in one that I knew right away would be a problem, but he made no effort to help. And, as was said before, though I did a majority of the project work, I got the same grade as everyone in my group, regardless of what went on my evaluation.Now to the project. Get a good group, or you're in trouble. It's not just a project group, it's also a lab and homework group. I ended up doing roughly half the homework and almost all of the labs because of a bad group assignment. Then the project came, and I did all of the non-programming stuff, as well as the report, which took a long freakin time. I'd say I did at least 1/3 of the work in a group of 4, but like I said, nobody got a better or worse grade.I'll end on a high note. I never understood any electrical theory until this class. The basics, yeah, I could get them, but a lot of the higher level stuff that eluded me in EE204 was clarified in here. Dr. Dave is pretty good at explaining things, I'll give him that.
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 As the semester was going on, I thought Dr. Dave was a great guy. Always seemed happy, lectures were ok... and then the project came. Just so you guys know- in ME307, if your group screws up, it goes against you. Those group evaluations don't do ANYTHING. Just look at the grades from last semester if you don't believe me. Dr. Dave was very uninterested in the my welldoing, and seems to think he is god. I think the group homework most of all is crap. Too bad if you have to take this class from him.
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 Dr. Dave is a very organized professor, and as long as you go to class, he will tell you everything you need to know in order to succeed. He does expect his students to work hard and figure some things out on your own, but in an engineering course you should expect a few long nights. If you go in to his office, he isn't going to be too helpful unless you have at least gotten started on your own and have an idea of what exactly you need help with. If you want to be lazy, you are going to hate Dr. Dave, and you will probably do poorly in the class. If you put in the effort, you will learn a lot from Dr. Dave. As for the comment that you have to spend a lot of money to do well on the project, it is not necessarily true. Projects that are more technically difficult tend to cost more, simply due to complexity. However, you can do it pretty cheap if you look around. Some companies will donate or give you deals if you ask, and you can get free samples from microchip if you require more pics. Also, there is a 5-point bonus in the grading system for making an inexpensive project, so it is something to try to do.
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 I don’t see how people can say Dr Dave is a bad prof, he’s awesome. I didn’t know an amp from a tesla walking into ME307 but now I am considering taking up electronics as a small hobby. We learned some very awesome things in this class and Dr Dave KNEW what he was talking about. If you had a question he could answer it. If you ran into a problem he would try and help as best as he could. This is my first time with Dr Dave and it was great. Dave is the man, he expects you to work hard and know the material, we’re engineers not liberals arts majors, there are no “well-you-almost-did-something-productive” points. Cowboy up and learn the material if you don’t you’ll be FUBAR’d out of your mind. As for the model student comment, we all know EXACTLY who you are talking about and I think even Dr Dave thinks he's a tool.
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 Dr. Dave is a horrible teacher, the only way you will do good in his class is if you a "MODEL STUDENT", by this I mean you are a kiss ass and attend every class with fourteen questions ready to ask from the assigned readings in which you are two chapters ahead. About the final projects that are assigned. I found this to be very disorganized, the TA's are never around to lock in scores or help for that matter. I also found the TA's to be slightly under-educated in the subject matter. About Dr. Daves tests they are very unfair, I found there are three ways to pass a Dr. Dave exam: 1-Kiss ass, brown nose etc. 2-Study for a week straight and sacrafice all other classes in exchange for his 3-Be blessed with a photographic memory. I would avoid Dr. Dave if at all possible. He is a Horrible teacher!!!
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 Dr. Alcitore is an excellent teacher. I have taken both ME250 and ME307 from him and would gladly take another one of his courses. However, he is a very difficult teacher which explains his why some student bash him. He holds you to very high expectations and requires that you meet these goals in order to pass his course. Don't expect to BS your way through his course. Do expect to leave his course with a feeling that you have really increased your knowledge. His test are very difficult and contain very detailed questions about the material. His questions require you to do more than memorize but actually understand the principles. HINT: Any test questions he reviews post-test are guaranteed to be on the next test or final.

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