Teaching

“I like the applicability of this course. I really enjoyed the way this taught and I feel like I am leaving this course with a strong improvement on my engineering skills pertaining to a field I am pursuing.”
“Excellent course!!! I found each and every lecture absolutely fascinating! I never enjoyed a class at UM as much as I did this one. Professor Zekkos was an excellent instructor. Always well prepared for class and answered all questions. The homework was for the most part reasonable difficulty. However I wish the homeworks were more design-orientated. For instance, given these parameters, design an landfill containment system etc. That would probably be my largest “issue” with the class, which isn’t really much of an issue. Once again, this was a great class – thank you for everything professor!”

Great focus on the truly important things such as intuition over formulas. liked the quotes.”
“The instruction in this class was great. Dr. Zekkos did a good job of covering a broad group of subjects. This gives a good base of knowledge for those going into geotech and helps those of us that will be in other concentrations understand what to look for and consider when we enter the working world. I especially appreciated Dr. Zekkos’s enthusiasm and real life examples, which make the material much more interesting. He motivates me to work hard to excel and learn, especially outside of the classroom. Finally, his willingness to meet and discuss not only course material, but also the students’ lives and interests makes him very approachable and easy to talk to.”
“I think the instruction in this course was excellent. Professor Zekkos was constantly available for office hours and questions, and even if the material was difficult to understand, I was never worried, because I knew that Professor Zekkos would respond to my email or be able to meet to help me to learn it.”
“This course sparked an interest in the field of geotechnical engineering for me. I found the material to be very interesting. I believe the instruction of the course was excellent and the methods of teaching were very helpful.”
“An excellent course. I have a much greater appreciation for geotech engineering although I am planning to concentrate on structures. Professor Zekkos was one of the best professors I have at at UM. It is very clear that he is passionate about what he does. He expects a lot of us, but he always explains why. I feel more prepared for a future in graduate school and the industry. The lab section of this course is the most valuable lab I have taken in CEE so far. I found the labs to be very relevant to what we learned in class. They greatly improved my understanding of the material. Mustafa was an excellent GSI and explained things very well. I did not buy the textbook for this class and I found that I did not need to. I checked it out of the library once to complete a homework assignment. In the future, it might be beneficial to list the book as ‘recommended’ instead of ‘required’ although the reason I did not need to book could be because Professor Zekkos’s completeness in lecture. I enjoyed going to lecture. It never seemed like a chore. Great class!”
“Professor Zekkos – The emphasis placed on experience and professional engineering was enlightening and helpful”
“I liked how he talked a lot about real world cases involving geotechnical engineering. It made things a lot more interesting.

“This was a great course. I feel like I have gained alot of knowledge from it. The instructor did an excellent job and I admire his passion for the course content and for teaching. His teaching style was very practice-oriented and I feel that this was very beneficial to the students. I also greatly appreciate the instructor’s willingness to help students outside of class with not only the course content, but more importantly career goals. I feel that the instructor has made a great impression on me and that I will benefit from this course and the instructor’s advice for years to come.I have no suggestions for improvement. Perhaps, however it would have been nice if the semester project were assigned a little bit earlier in the semester to allow students to think about it as they learn the course material.”

“The format of CEE 345 appears polished and Professor Zekkos has done a great job helping students gain insight into the material through the use of more traditional methods in addition to presenting modern solution techniques. The lab was one of the best labs during my time at Michigan and really complemented the class.”
“I learned a great deal from this class. Professor Zekkos did an exemplary job making each class interesting by discussing the topic’s importance and applicability to every day life. Professor Zekkos was approachable and extremely knowledgeable about the subject.”
“I have not met a professor as passionate as Mr. Zekkos. I cannot recall a time where a professor cared as much as Mr. Zekkos did this past semester. Mr. Zekkos helped with any problems I have had with out any hesitation, anytime he was not busy! He would even take time out of his lunch break to help. His level of instruction is extremely high and I learned a great deal from his course. I had no concept of Geotechnical engineering, until Mr. Zekkos course informed me of it and now I have a growing passion for Geotechnical engineering! By the way, this was the most important evaluation to me. I really cared about this course. Thank you Mr. Zekkos for the great semester and for all the valuable life and Geotechnical lessons. I will never forget you.”
“Professor Zekkos is enthusiastic about the course and is very knowledgeable about the subject. He does a good job with presenting the information in a way that the students can understand what is being taught.”
“I like that Prof. Zekkos was able to not only teach us about geotech principles, but that he also gave us advice for when we become practicing engineers in the field. This was a really valuable part of the course and had important information to take away, even if we weren’t going into Geotech ”