Introduction to Design Optimization

Introduction to design optimization techniques for engineering components and systems, including truss and finite-element-based problems.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Fall 2026 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 5

Historical reviews of Krishnan Suresh: Exams are take-home and easy, but group projects are difficult due to MATLAB's poor collaboration features.

Grade history

average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

M E 306 orE M A 303, or graduate/professional standing, or member of Engineering Guest Students

    • EMA 303
    • graduate/professional standing
    • member of Engineering Guest Students
    • M E 306
    take one
ME 548 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of
    • EMA 303
    • graduate/professional standing
    • member of Engineering Guest Students
    • M E 306

Professors

Fall 2026

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Krishnan Suresh is a highly rated historical instructor who organizes complicated material logically, though his lecture notes and PowerPoint slides are reportedly unclear. He teaches a MATLAB-focused course with reasonable workload and lenient grading, despite group projects being difficult due to software limitations.

KRISHNAN SURESH is recorded teaching in Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2024. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Fall 2026

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records

No records available.

Student experience

the class

Historical reviews of Krishnan Suresh: Krishnan Suresh teaches an exciting, complicated course with lenient grading and reasonable workload, though lecture materials can be unclear.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2022: 3.87 GPA, 97.1% A/AB (n=34 letter grades); Spring 2023: 3.69 GPA, 85.7% A/AB (n=49 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.93 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=23 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Historical reviews of Krishnan Suresh: Exams are take-home and easy, but group projects are difficult due to MATLAB's poor collaboration features.

Historical reviews of Krishnan Suresh: Suresh organizes material logically, but his notes and PowerPoint slides are unclear, making lectures helpful but not mandatory.

Topics

  • Optimization of engineering design components and systems
  • Truss and finite-element-based optimization

Skills

  • Posing and solving optimization problems for engineering design components and systems.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2024— not enough history to project Fall 2026.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2024

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Not enough comparable courses for Fall 2026 in UW–Madison.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Model outputs & technical records
nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Model & dataset provenance
{
  "model": "nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4",
  "model_revision": "1355db6a052410cfd62085d94b58866fd0f2c3c5",
  "task_version": "14",
  "output_id": "809c18aa484bc17e0ca2ad8e6d6c6931d169189a578f5a3c53805989acabe409",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00"
}