MECH&AE 171A
Introduction to Feedback and Control Systems: Dynamic Systems Control I
Grades
3.09
Average grade awarded in MECH&AE 171A. Not a student rating: this is what the grades were.
In the A range
41%
of the 1,153 letter grades
D, F or W
6.6%
of every letter grade awarded, plus withdrawals
Taken pass/no pass
-
the registrar has this letter grade only this term
The registrar's own records: 1,153 grades over 17 terms, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Every instructor is pooled here.
What is inside that record
4 of those terms are summer sessions, and summer sessions are counted here.
The table below splits them, and term averages across those 17 terms ran 2.45 to 3.54.
Historical grades for all professors, across recorded terms. The course summary above includes all professors.
- A+ 85 · 7.4%
- A 253 · 21.9%
- A- 138 · 12.0%
- B+ 130 · 11.3%
- B 192 · 16.7%
- B- 84 · 7.3%
- C+ 70 · 6.1%
- C 92 · 8.0%
- C- 33 · 2.9%
- D+ 27 · 2.3%
- D 22 · 1.9%
- D- 14 · 1.2%
- F 13 · 1.1%
- I 6 of 1,159
Percentages are of the 1,153 letter grades. Grey bars are non-letter outcomes: incompletes (I).
How the non-letter outcomes are counted
They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.
By instructor
| Instructor | Predicted GPA | Raw | n | Terms | A range | Workload | Spring 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IWASAKI, TETSUYA reviews ↗ | 3.10 | 3.10 | 424 | 5 | 37% | average | not teaching it |
| LOPEZ, BRETT THOMAS reviews ↗ | 3.15 | 3.15 | 340 | 4 | 45% | light | not teaching it |
| FRANCO, ELISA reviews ↗ | 2.95 | 2.94 | 217 | 3 | 40% | light | not teaching it |
| KIM, DENNIS reviews ↗ | 2.94 | 2.91 | 86 | 2 | 35% | - | not teaching it |
| SEPULVEDA, ABDON reviews ↗ | 3.38 | 3.54 | 30 | 1 | 63% | - | not teaching it |
| OSMANOVIC, DINO reviews ↗ | 3.11 | 3.12 | 30 | 1 | 43% | - | not teaching it |
| SEPULVEDA, ABDON EDUARDO reviews ↗ | 3.24 | 3.33 | 26 | 1 | 58% | - | not teaching it |
Why Predicted is not the Raw average
“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department, so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.
Grade records describe outcomes. For what a course is like to take, read student reviews written on dibs below or follow the separate external review link.
Workload and assignments
Work types reported in BruinWalk reviews of this course, across recorded instructors and terms. They may differ from this term's syllabus.
What the work looks like
- 2 exams, said by 10 reviewers
- Quizzes mentioned, no number given, said by 1 reviewer
- 8 problem sets, said by 8 reviewers
Read from 30 reviews 17 days ago. dibs counts only what a review actually states, so a kind of work nobody mentioned is absent rather than zero.
What comes first
The chain dibs can see is 6 courses long before MECH&AE 171A. Read from Fall 2026, because dibs has not read a class page for MECH&AE 171A in Spring 2026 and a department can change what it requires. This is a floor, not a deadline: dibs has not read a class page for MATH 3B and MECH&AE M20, so the real chain can only be longer than this, never shorter.
Counted in courses rather than quarters: dibs does not know which of them a department lets you take together.
In Springs
Ran in 4 of the last 4 Springs.
From the terms dibs holds, which start in Fall 2021 and exclude summer. A department can run a course in a quarter it never has before.
From the registrar's catalog
Lecture, four hours; discussion, two hours; outside study, six hours. Enforced requisite: course 107. Introduction to feedback principles, control systems design, and system stability. Modeling of physical systems in engineering and other fields; transform methods; controller design using Nyquist, Bode, and root locus methods; compensation; computer-aided analysis and design. Letter grading.
Sections in Spring 2026
From the people who took it
Student reviews
What taking MECH&AE 171A was like: the work, the teaching, and what students wish they’d known.
Your experience could be the first.
No student reviews are available to read on dibs for this course yet. Took it? Tell the next person what helped, what was hard, and how you spent your time.
Looking for more perspectives?
External reviews are separate and do not count toward the dibs rating.