In this paper is reported the attitudes and perception of students in a systems Engineering e-learning course and a teacher with more than six years of experience teaching online courses. The paper reports the teacher and students' perceptions about the e-learning courses experience. Personalized interviews with some of the students were carried out. ATTLES and COLLES surveys were also applied to students. The teacher and students were interviewed about the advantages and disadvantages experienced over their e-learning experience. The teacher recognized the benefits of the flexibility in an asynchronous environment, the democratic values of the media which gives voice to each one in the class and the possibilities for a reflexive practice. It is also recognized the volume of work involved and the need to develop strategies to cope with numerous students. From the student point of view, the greatest difficulty detected is fear to the unknown and the perceived workload to comply with the requirements of the course when compared to a traditional face to face course. Their lack of planning and organizing abilities are the main cause for the manifested students' lack of interest to participate in online discussion forums. Communication strategies and adaptation strategies are proposed to involve the student into discussion and create a more comfortable and trusting environment. It can also be concluded that attitudes towards thinking and learning, as measured by ATTLS, find a balance between connected knower and separate knower. The results from COLLES survey permitted to conclude that in general in the three courses students perceive that they found in the course what they initially expressed as desirable.