Illustration by Alessandra Felloni

A SIPA 2017 graduate was asked to share the answer to the question: What was your biggest SIPA regret? This student ardently asked to remain anonymous. 

My greatest regret is taking Energy Systems Fundamentals class (it is a requirement though, sigh). The class simply does not teach much, is not designed to prepare students for other energy classes, professor mostly skipped slides with charts and more or less complicated information and elaborated a lot about some qualitative matters, the exam was just all about memorizing everything by heart, the recitations took unreasonably long three hours and did not carry, in my opinion, much importance (except for guest lectures). I would highly recommend giving energy students more options to choose from when taking the required introductory class. And additionally, at least a dozen of my peers (regardless of the grade received) characterized the class as "useless", "would not recommend taking it", "waste of time", "just an artificial barrier for non-energy students to take energy-related courses", "one of my least favorite classes here".