Historical instructor

TIM OSSWALD

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.50/5 from 26 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

ME 310
Quality 3/5Difficulty 2/5
He's a great guy but a bad professor. Interesting lectures, actually wants to be there. However, this is the worst course structure I've ever experienced. The only assignments are labs and exams, and the labs are so different from lectures they should be a different course. As a result, studying for exams is extremely difficult.
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ME 310
Quality 3/5Difficulty 4/5
Although he is very interested in what he teaches, he treats students as knowledgeable colleagues, leading to confusing exam questions and completely disorganized lab structure. He also is terrible at operating technology required to lead lectures. I was interested in the first part of the course, but found it less than ideal towards the end.
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ME 310
Quality 3/5Difficulty 4/5
Professor Osswald really knows his stuff, but the class structure/flow seemed kind of random (especially after spring break). Im not very interested in the material personally, so the lectures were also pretty boring. He cares about his students and doesnt write trick questions in the exams, its mostly the class structure I have a problem with.
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ME 310
Quality 4/5Difficulty 3/5
He definitely is very knowledgeable on the material for lecture and is very passionate. A bit hard to pay attention to as he goes off on a LOT of tangents. Exams were surprisingly difficult in comparison to the labs and lecture material.
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ME 417
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
This class is definitely worth taking if you are looking to work for any plastics manufacturing company. It is more in depth than ME 313 or ME 418 (also taught by Tim). You should prepare for exams with practice problems from the book. Sometimes you have to use excel for homework problems. Making a study group for the class is helpful!
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ME 417
Quality 2/5Difficulty 4/5
Not a fan. The homework assignments do almost nothing to help you understand the content of the class. Instead, the homework asked you to make huge graphs using technology that was never discussed in class. Most of the students in the class are graduate students . There is also a prerequisite course that was not listed on the course page. STAY AWAY
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with TIM OSSWALD

No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.

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Recorded teaching history

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Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

Instructor identity & provenance
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