BMGT390H | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
David Ashley BMGT390H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/10/2024	Professor Ashley is really nice but the grading is vague in this course and this semester was kind of experimental with new projects introduced.
David Ashley BMGT390H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2024	One of the worst courses I have taken at UMD. I cannot decide if it was worse than BMGT438A in regards to lack of lack of learning. I appreciate the efforts from the team, but it is clear that almost every single class we are the 'experimental' cohort and it makes things extremely unenjoyable. If the organization does not improve their efforts I would NOT recommend this program to other undergraduates. First of all, the project and client made me extremely uncomfortable, especially in this geopolitical climate. In regards to the actual work, some of the clients were not even responsive to emails and we had lots of technical difficulties in this class when communicating with clients. It made the 3 hour lectures extremely unenjoyable. I also did not like the fact that we were assigned groups before we even started class. This prevent the opportunity to list people that we didn't want to work with from past experiences and this really showed in my group's lack of teamwork. In regards to the learning for this class, it was difficult to connect these things with what we were doing in our projects as our clients were not asking for the tools and techniques that we learned. Also with this class, the topics seemed to go off topic at times and it was hard to get to the point of learning these things. The learning wasn't engaging and in a 3 hour class on a Monday, it was absolutely awful and no one seemed to focus. Now in regards to grading, it was abysmal. On the last day of the semester, things were being graded from a MONTH ago. That is a failure of coordination between the professor and TA. Not to mention, there are no rubrics on any of the assignments, so students receive no feedback at all and no ways to learn from their mistakes. Students would get the same answers on assignment but receive DIFFERENT scores. I am not sure what this issue is towards, maybe it's discrimination? But regardless a rubric would solve these problems and clear all speculation. The exams were nothing like what we learned in class. For the midterm, it was our job to read a 30 page paper and identify flaws from it which has no relation with our group projects nor what we learned in class. If there is anything to take away from this feedback, make the course organization and provide students with fair and clear grading. After taking this class for the semester I wish I walked away enjoying it, but I find myself wishing that I did not take it and question my commitment to the QUEST program. I often have found through my experiences that the students and peers are what make the program, the program itself has not lived up to expectations.
Joseph Bailey BMGT390H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/29/2021	Although the original class model did not work out how Dr. Bailey may have wanted, he and the TAs did a good job making stuff up on the fly and still making the project useful. The class was a bit disorganized, and I felt that the lack of a real-world client for most of the teams made the class boring and made it very hard to connect the lecture material to something actually useful.
Jose Suarez BMGT390H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2013	Dr. Suarez was the most inspirational teacher I have had thus far at UMD. His lectures are all influenced by his past (amazing) experiences, working at top companies and serving in the White House. All of his speeches leave the students with a lesson learned and piece of wisdom; it makes you forget that you are simply in a college class. He has accomplished so much and has been connected with so many influential people; he has the incredible ability of touching you, broadening your perspectives, and changing the way you think about life. He is an absolutely amazing professor and if you have the chance to have him in a class, I would not let that go for granted!! He cares about the students, is extremely flexible, and will do whatever he can to support you and any of your endeavors.
Jose Suarez BMGT390H ARo 08/09/2013	Dr. Saurez was one of the most transformational professors I had at Maryland. His lessons are based on his years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies and in the White House with 2 past Presidents of the United States. Ie. he doesn't just regurgitate a textbook, he brings real insight from things he has uncovered in the real world. Dr. Suarez has the ability to change the way you think about both your life, and your academic projects - but you have to put in the dedication to learn. It's clear from the reviews below that students were not interested in opening their mind and being a part of their own education. They lost out on a great opportunity to learn from a brilliant professor. If you are driven, ambitious and want to become more innovative in the way you about think and tackle problems, take his classes.
Jose Suarez BMGT390H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/25/2011	Suarez 's ability to keep you engaged with his glorious stories and above-average sense of humor makes him a decent lecturer, in the sense that you at least won't be asleep for 75 minutes. However, he has this hint of superiority around him at all times and that really annoyyed the shit out of me. Like the reviews below me, make sure to laugh at his jokes and tell him how great his speeches are.
Jose Suarez BMGT390H Expecting an A+ freethinker 12/14/2011	Hey, the guy below me. Your review is a bit extreme and we can think of only one person who would write like that. Yeah, that's right. Neighbors know your name. If I may add my few cents, it's absurd for us to judge him based on our conventional way of thinking. Dr. Suarez comes from a new school of thought called systems thinking. If you hadn't noticed, he has been teaching us systems thinking since day 1. Some of us found it a tad difficult to comprehend it at first. However, once you think outside the box and actually try to understand, you will realize that it makes sense and acquire a new way to approach problems, thereby opening yourself up to a whole new world of opportunities. On a different note, it is very obscene and incongruent to compare Dr. Suarez with Mr. Hitler. Whereas Mr. Hitler was a fine political orator but a terrible military commander who had no idea what he was talking about, Dr. Suarez is not only an eloquent speaker but also fully understands his knowledge and comes to his lectures prepared. (And why are you suddenly mentioning about President Obama? I think it was very inappropriate for you to bring politics here.) However, as many others pointed out, he does have a huge ego, perhaps "one too big for the classroom." In addition, he picks favors in the class and gets upset when he disagrees with (or dislikes) the answer or presentation. This trait probably comes from the 12 years of his tenure at the White House and/or his reputation in his field; this is common for people who are well-established in their careers. Nevertheless, it could come as very annoying and would certainly make students feel like the class is about nothing but his career. It's like listening to a war veteran's stories. Overall, I would give him a 4 out of 5. Although some of his stories were discordant with the overall course and his pride certainly came as a bit disturbing to some of us, his class was an invaluable experience for me. Systems thinking really taught me how to approach problems holistically. This new way of thinking has allowed me to understand issues more comprehensively and more clearly. Some of his lectures were also very inspirational. Protip #1: He cares about his students. Try to visit him during his office hours or stay after class. Protip #2: Write down his quotes. They come in quite handy.
Jose Suarez BMGT390H Anonymous 11/09/2011	Totally agree with the review below me. Hitler gave great speeches (and does Obama), but I wouldn't ever pay tuition dollars to either one of those two to teach me one of the more educational classes in the QUEST program. I really hate the way he teaches, and although there's no way around taking BMGT390H with him, be sure to kiss his ass like everyone else does in order to get a good grade.

David Ashley
BMGT390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/10/2024

Professor Ashley is really nice but the grading is vague in this course and this semester was kind of experimental with new projects introduced.

David Ashley
BMGT390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/09/2024

One of the worst courses I have taken at UMD. I cannot decide if it was worse than BMGT438A in regards to lack of lack of learning. I appreciate the efforts from the team, but it is clear that almost every single class we are the 'experimental' cohort and it makes things extremely unenjoyable. If the organization does not improve their efforts I would NOT recommend this program to other undergraduates. First of all, the project and client made me extremely uncomfortable, especially in this geopolitical climate. In regards to the actual work, some of the clients were not even responsive to emails and we had lots of technical difficulties in this class when communicating with clients. It made the 3 hour lectures extremely unenjoyable. I also did not like the fact that we were assigned groups before we even started class. This prevent the opportunity to list people that we didn't want to work with from past experiences and this really showed in my group's lack of teamwork. In regards to the learning for this class, it was difficult to connect these things with what we were doing in our projects as our clients were not asking for the tools and techniques that we learned. Also with this class, the topics seemed to go off topic at times and it was hard to get to the point of learning these things. The learning wasn't engaging and in a 3 hour class on a Monday, it was absolutely awful and no one seemed to focus. Now in regards to grading, it was abysmal. On the last day of the semester, things were being graded from a MONTH ago. That is a failure of coordination between the professor and TA. Not to mention, there are no rubrics on any of the assignments, so students receive no feedback at all and no ways to learn from their mistakes. Students would get the same answers on assignment but receive DIFFERENT scores. I am not sure what this issue is towards, maybe it's discrimination? But regardless a rubric would solve these problems and clear all speculation. The exams were nothing like what we learned in class. For the midterm, it was our job to read a 30 page paper and identify flaws from it which has no relation with our group projects nor what we learned in class. If there is anything to take away from this feedback, make the course organization and provide students with fair and clear grading. After taking this class for the semester I wish I walked away enjoying it, but I find myself wishing that I did not take it and question my commitment to the QUEST program. I often have found through my experiences that the students and peers are what make the program, the program itself has not lived up to expectations.

Joseph Bailey
BMGT390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/29/2021

Although the original class model did not work out how Dr. Bailey may have wanted, he and the TAs did a good job making stuff up on the fly and still making the project useful. The class was a bit disorganized, and I felt that the lack of a real-world client for most of the teams made the class boring and made it very hard to connect the lecture material to something actually useful.

Jose Suarez
BMGT390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/26/2013

Dr. Suarez was the most inspirational teacher I have had thus far at UMD. His lectures are all influenced by his past (amazing) experiences, working at top companies and serving in the White House. All of his speeches leave the students with a lesson learned and piece of wisdom; it makes you forget that you are simply in a college class. He has accomplished so much and has been connected with so many influential people; he has the incredible ability of touching you, broadening your perspectives, and changing the way you think about life. He is an absolutely amazing professor and if you have the chance to have him in a class, I would not let that go for granted!! He cares about the students, is extremely flexible, and will do whatever he can to support you and any of your endeavors.

Jose Suarez
BMGT390H

ARo
08/09/2013

Dr. Saurez was one of the most transformational professors I had at Maryland. His lessons are based on his years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies and in the White House with 2 past Presidents of the United States. Ie. he doesn't just regurgitate a textbook, he brings real insight from things he has uncovered in the real world. Dr. Suarez has the ability to change the way you think about both your life, and your academic projects - but you have to put in the dedication to learn. It's clear from the reviews below that students were not interested in opening their mind and being a part of their own education. They lost out on a great opportunity to learn from a brilliant professor. If you are driven, ambitious and want to become more innovative in the way you about think and tackle problems, take his classes.

Jose Suarez
BMGT390H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/25/2011

Suarez 's ability to keep you engaged with his glorious stories and above-average sense of humor makes him a decent lecturer, in the sense that you at least won't be asleep for 75 minutes. However, he has this hint of superiority around him at all times and that really annoyyed the shit out of me. Like the reviews below me, make sure to laugh at his jokes and tell him how great his speeches are.

Jose Suarez
BMGT390H

Expecting an A+
freethinker
12/14/2011

Hey, the guy below me. Your review is a bit extreme and we can think of only one person who would write like that. Yeah, that's right. Neighbors know your name. If I may add my few cents, it's absurd for us to judge him based on our conventional way of thinking. Dr. Suarez comes from a new school of thought called systems thinking. If you hadn't noticed, he has been teaching us systems thinking since day 1. Some of us found it a tad difficult to comprehend it at first. However, once you think outside the box and actually try to understand, you will realize that it makes sense and acquire a new way to approach problems, thereby opening yourself up to a whole new world of opportunities. On a different note, it is very obscene and incongruent to compare Dr. Suarez with Mr. Hitler. Whereas Mr. Hitler was a fine political orator but a terrible military commander who had no idea what he was talking about, Dr. Suarez is not only an eloquent speaker but also fully understands his knowledge and comes to his lectures prepared. (And why are you suddenly mentioning about President Obama? I think it was very inappropriate for you to bring politics here.) However, as many others pointed out, he does have a huge ego, perhaps "one too big for the classroom." In addition, he picks favors in the class and gets upset when he disagrees with (or dislikes) the answer or presentation. This trait probably comes from the 12 years of his tenure at the White House and/or his reputation in his field; this is common for people who are well-established in their careers. Nevertheless, it could come as very annoying and would certainly make students feel like the class is about nothing but his career. It's like listening to a war veteran's stories. Overall, I would give him a 4 out of 5. Although some of his stories were discordant with the overall course and his pride certainly came as a bit disturbing to some of us, his class was an invaluable experience for me. Systems thinking really taught me how to approach problems holistically. This new way of thinking has allowed me to understand issues more comprehensively and more clearly. Some of his lectures were also very inspirational. Protip #1: He cares about his students. Try to visit him during his office hours or stay after class. Protip #2: Write down his quotes. They come in quite handy.

Jose Suarez
BMGT390H

Anonymous
11/09/2011

Totally agree with the review below me. Hitler gave great speeches (and does Obama), but I wouldn't ever pay tuition dollars to either one of those two to teach me one of the more educational classes in the QUEST program. I really hate the way he teaches, and although there's no way around taking BMGT390H with him, be sure to kiss his ass like everyone else does in order to get a good grade.

Reviews for BMGT390H