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Maria Bardossy BMGT434 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/18/2021	Hard class. Was not adjusted well for a pandemic and varied engagement levels. Tasks seemed endless, although if you stayed on par with some of the stuff you certainly get something out of it. Her class was one of you get out of it what you put into it. Problem is that during an online semester, encouraging several difficult group projects and relatively strict grading (mainly for the group projects) can be demoralizing. By the end I didn't have much reason to do more than the bare minimum despite knowing what I could get out of it. She is very smart, and you can pick up what she says if you pay attention, but it is pretty draining if you stay with the entire lecture and give the appropriate efforts to the group projects. Overall well designed class, far too much work though.
Maria Bardossy BMGT434 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/27/2021	This class was one of the most time consuming and stressful classes I have ever taken. We had an open ended and complex group project once a week while also having long HWs throughout the semester. She is very nice, but her teaching is not on par with her expectations. She is very smart, but is not great at explaining her thoughts. Overall, do not take this class unless you want to be working on nonstop group projects that are very difficult.
Maria Bardossy BMGT434 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/26/2021	A lot of work. A couple of presentations a month, in the first half of the semester, but huge presentations weekly near the end of the semester. On top of the presentations, there's a lot of other homeworks/quizzes/readings/busy work sprinkled in. For the first few presentations, the TA and guest lecturers tried to wear you down, piss you off, and throw you off your game. Additionally, the presentations would be on extremely vague cases with little to no guidance. With a couple of weeks left in this semester, I can confidently say that I haven't learned anything yet. Her lectures are the hardest things to sit through, and I have not understood a single thought she has tried to convey. I really don't know why she's teaching.
Bruce Golden BMGT434 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/12/2020	This man was truly my least favorite professor I had at UMD (and this is coming from someone who performed pretty well in his class. Despite being a distinguished professor in the analytics department, he is completely incompetent when it comes to education technology. He makes absolutely no effort to properly use Canvas and gives a ridiculous amount of paper handouts and assignments. Even though most of his assignments aren't very difficult, he assigns them in massive quantities and with no official rubric. His grading system is unclear and you have no clue what your grade will be until the very end of the semester. He is a somewhat engaging lecturer, but manages to talk about absolutely nothing most of the time (he generally spends about 50% of class time talking about topics completely unrelated to course content). My advice to someone considering his class: run for the hills. Either take this course with a different professor or don't take it at all. It will do nothing to prepare you for a career in consulting
Bruce Golden BMGT434 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/18/2016	I'm a senior, and I have had my share of terrible professors. But professor Golden is, without a doubt, the worst professor I've ever had. Make no mistake, he is a nice guy, but when it comes down to teaching he just... sucks! This semester was his first time teaching BMGT 434, and he seems to be knowledgeable on the subject, but the class is structured so that you can't really do much better than an A-. Which really sucks because, for our semester, if we have a 90% or higher, we are exempt from the final, and the only, exam. But for all of our projects and assignments this semester, he did not provide a specific rubric that he is grading us on and instead grades us on what he subjectively thinks is a perfect paper. As a result, many of us had to resort to going the extra 5 miles to impress him just for the sake of a higher grade. He is so out of touch with technology that he had to get a TA to photocopy his written ANNOUNCEMENTS so they can be put on canvas. Oh, and he doesn't post the grades on Canvas at all, so we never know if we make the mark of being exempt from the final or not. We made several attempts to get him to open up to us about what he expects from our work. But he would simply repeat the same instructions and then continue giving us 80% on our work without any feedback. Not to mention the pop quizzes that he gave out to us in class- which I wouldn't have minded IF HE ACTUALLY TAUGHT US ANYTHING USEFUL AT ALL. The class is literally listening to students present the article that the class is assigned to read the night before, and Golden contributes by clarifying and discussing things with us. But because different students present their material differently, it's hard to pay attention to the presentations given the fluctuating quality of their work. Projects: the projects that we do in separate teams are actually pretty interesting. This is the one part of the class that I have to be thankful for because I feel like I've actually learned something by working alongside other students to brainstorm approaches to solving problems. However, Golden, again, takes off points without giving us enough feedback. Furthermore, he likes to dock your points on quizzes and the final with little details that contribute nothing to our understanding of the subject matter. For example, given a 20-year dataset, he asked us, from memory, which year was the outlier. How are we supposed to remember this in a pop quiz? Suggestions for students: if by some unfortunate event you have this guy as your professor, you want to take notes and write down the details that he might just briefly go over in class. Overall, the class workload is fair, you just want to maximize your grade at every corner possible if you want to be able to skip the final exam.
Michael Ball BMGT434 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/07/2011	This class was tough. Professor Ball is so smart that he moves quickly through topics not realizing that slow students like myself need him to break it down into smaller steps. I was totally lost, failed a few homework assignments, and was overwhelmed. But I went to him for help and he was the most kind, patient, helpful Professor I've ever had. He sat there with me for hours and worked through all the questions I had. After I understood what was going on, I really LOVED the class! The topics are interesting and very applicable to real life situations. My recommendations for this class: 1) Take it. 2) Ask him for help. He's really great if you go to him and tell him you're lost. 3) Don't wait until it's too late - Go to him once you get confused. 4) Don't give up - If you try, it gets easier. I ended up with a 92% on the midterm and an A- in the class, after 40s and 50s on a couple homeworks. It is definitely possible to do well in the course. Just don't be afraid to ask for guidance.