CMSC132H | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132H Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/06/2019	Great professor. Funny and covers the material well. Class is hard though.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132H Expecting an A Anonymous 09/23/2012	Great professor, awesome person. If computer science is not your thing, this is the best professor you can have. He explains every concept thoroughly and tests you only on what he goes over in class. I'd highly recommend going to class because if you don't, the powerpoint slides will seem really disjointed and incoherent, but in class he explains everything. Projects are extremely reasonable and are very relevant to what you're doing in class. Quizzes mimic the worksheets he gives out. If you have a problem in the class, USE YOUR RESOURCES (professor, TAs) because they can immensely help. Makes some funny jokes that lighten the mood of his class, creating a very comfortable environment. The only complaint is that the end of the semester is pretty rushed in terms of material. He goes over many design patterns, sorting techniques, and algorithm strategies very quickly, and you're expected to have a basic understanding of ALL of them on the final exam.
James Purtilo CMSC132H Expecting an A+ OtG 03/19/2012	Purtilo is a solid professor who respects his students. He is an efficient teacher, and he frequently ended class early, since we tended to get ahead of the other sections. He makes it clear that he is dedicated to producing "satisfied customers" of his students.
William Pugh CMSC132H Expecting an A- ashivkum 10/13/2011	Best professor in the department, in terms of balancing knowledgability, skill of teaching, and inspiration he provides to students to go out and learn things for themselves. I had a slightly rough semester (in terms of workload), but managed to learn a lot from him. Skips around a lot, beginning of class is devoted to announcements and sidenotes (he shows a lot of XKCDs, HacDC, and other topics related to the subject, but outside the scope of class, which sometimes takes up most of the class), we were one of the few classes who actually explored threading a bit more in-depth than others. 3 projects every semester are devoted to going out on your own, picking a project you want to do, and doing it. It should be "something cool", "something cooler", and "something coolest" respectively. Go to his office hours not just for questions on projects, but just for general interest in the subject. Get to know the guy. He may be helpful in the future, in terms of internships and jobs (had many stints with Google and other major companies)
William Pugh CMSC132H Expecting an A Anonymous 08/25/2011	Overall the honors version of this class is good to take because of the small class size and the opportunity to get help on projects from the professor. Pugh was a pretty good teacher, and was very knowledgeable of all the material. Sometimes I felt like he skipped around to different topics not in the curriculum, or he would expect us to know certain things without having spent time on them in class. I also got frustrated on some of the projects because it seemed like we hadn't learned enough to do them, but in the end this helped me learn better. He would provide more information about the projects as they got closer to the deadlines and would provide ample time in class to work on them/ask questions. Id say take this class over the regular version.
William Pugh CMSC132H Expecting a B Anonymous 05/20/2011	Pros: The curriculum is fair, he provides some really great tools for motivation with stuff you can do outside of class, and he's got great experience. Also, he really takes the time to know and help his students. If you approach him with a question, be it class-oriented or about computer science in general, he'll go into great detail and make sure he answers your question despite how long it might take. Cons: This is probably a personal thing, but he he didn't teach with slides which might work for a lot of people, but I feel like after glazing over the information in lecture, I learned more from slides from different sections. Overall, this class is still worth taking.
William Pugh CMSC132H bigbabby 05/14/2011	He's an interesting guy, and a pretty good professor. He allows laptops in class and mainly teaches by example and not powerpoint, which prevents class from becoming a slog. Only potential downside is that he assigns more projects and at a faster interval. If you are truly interested in programming and becoming better at it, Pugh is a good cs132 professor, but if you didn't do so great in 131 and are just scraping by, look for someone else.
James Purtilo CMSC132H pukenukem 10/19/2010	DO NOT TAKE HIM FOR CMSC132 OR ANY INTRO-LEVEL CLASS......FOR AN UPPER LEVEL COURSE HE HAS NO EQUAL. Just so we are clear. Dr. Purtilo is a phenomenal professor, engaging lecturer, and an all-around wonderful person. However, he is simply not interested in teaching lower level classes. He instead will lecture on far more upper-level topics of overall software engineering and product development which, while very interesting, have little to do with the course material. He will occasionally go through the syllabus but blow through it at a staggering speed so no one can not learn any of it. In our class he did "show and tell" Fridays where he brought in ancient relics of computer engineering and explained their functions, inner workings, and how modern design has since expanded. For one interested in such a subject this experience is phenomenal, but anyone taking the course simply to learn Java would roll their eyes. If you enroll in his class you will want to attend every lecture out of interest, however, will have to pray that another professor posts their lecture slides and that your TA knows how to actually code in Java (or read the textbook I suppose...gasp!). My course took a significant amount of outside-lecture work. He has long left Java in his profession so any syntax question on its inner workings (you know, the entire midterm and final test material) he will do his best to answer for you and certainly take time outside of class to be sure he gets you the right answer. But this whole process could have been avoided by simply taking a professor more focused on lower-level programming. If you are competent learning material outside of lecture and are genuinely interested in computer science his knowledge, persona, and class complete a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn material beyond the textbook from a truly remarkable person. BUT If you are taking a lower level class to satisfy some random requirement his class will require a lot of unnecessary work.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2010	Pretty easy class. Projects could get a bit tricky, but tests and quizzes were not a problem at all. Starting the projects early and getting them out of the way is a good idea. Nelson was encouraging and helpful the few times I have approached him outside of class. As a teacher, he did a pretty good job explaining concepts. No complaints here.
William Pugh CMSC132H Expecting an A+ ajlohr 05/16/2010	though he did stray in content a fair bit from what the course description was, it ended up making the class more interesting. The semester that I had him (Fall 09), he had three times throughout the semester in which you had the freedom to pick your own project topic and learn a lot outside of class on something that interested you. That being said, don't take him if you aren't motivated enough to work on and learn rigorous individualized material on your own.Also, he put up several of his personal books as prizes for the writers of the best projects. Also, he had an interesting policy that apart from regular lecture time, there were optional subgroups that students could choose to join. His choice not to focus on the somewhat dull material covered by the 132 course ended up making the course a lot more interesting and provided honors students with an opportunity for quasi-independent work at times. In general, he was incredibly flexible to class desires in how he would run his class.
Fawzi Emad CMSC132H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2009	Fawzi is a great guy. Really nice and respectful to students and he understands students very well. He is very funny too and an interesting teacher. He will often start the class saying "What the hell am I doing right now?" or something like that because he will chat with students almost to the point that he forgets he has to teach. But don't worry, you will always get through all the material for the day and you will understand it well enough. Biggest recommendation: start the projects early. You will be amazed at how good you feel and the stuff you can do when you've already finished your CS project early.
William Pugh CMSC132H Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/20/2008	Pugh is a really interesting professor, and really knows his stuff when it comes to Java (he wrote part of the language spec). He is a pretty good teacher, though in the honors section we would often times digress from curriculum to talk about other things - which meant learning some things on your own.
Chau-Wen Tseng CMSC132H Expecting a B ganelo 11/30/2007	He's a little idiosyncratic, but his class is fairly easy to understand, and he answers questions well (for the most part). Nelson is the main professor for CMSC132, so there isn't much Tseng can do with regards to exams, etc.

Nelson Padua-Perez
CMSC132H

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
04/06/2019

Great professor. Funny and covers the material well. Class is hard though.

Nelson Padua-Perez
CMSC132H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/23/2012

Great professor, awesome person. If computer science is not your thing, this is the best professor you can have. He explains every concept thoroughly and tests you only on what he goes over in class. I'd highly recommend going to class because if you don't, the powerpoint slides will seem really disjointed and incoherent, but in class he explains everything. Projects are extremely reasonable and are very relevant to what you're doing in class. Quizzes mimic the worksheets he gives out. If you have a problem in the class, USE YOUR RESOURCES (professor, TAs) because they can immensely help. Makes some funny jokes that lighten the mood of his class, creating a very comfortable environment. The only complaint is that the end of the semester is pretty rushed in terms of material. He goes over many design patterns, sorting techniques, and algorithm strategies very quickly, and you're expected to have a basic understanding of ALL of them on the final exam.

James Purtilo
CMSC132H

Expecting an A+
OtG
03/19/2012

Purtilo is a solid professor who respects his students. He is an efficient teacher, and he frequently ended class early, since we tended to get ahead of the other sections. He makes it clear that he is dedicated to producing "satisfied customers" of his students.

William Pugh
CMSC132H

Expecting an A-
ashivkum
10/13/2011

Best professor in the department, in terms of balancing knowledgability, skill of teaching, and inspiration he provides to students to go out and learn things for themselves. I had a slightly rough semester (in terms of workload), but managed to learn a lot from him. Skips around a lot, beginning of class is devoted to announcements and sidenotes (he shows a lot of XKCDs, HacDC, and other topics related to the subject, but outside the scope of class, which sometimes takes up most of the class), we were one of the few classes who actually explored threading a bit more in-depth than others. 3 projects every semester are devoted to going out on your own, picking a project you want to do, and doing it. It should be "something cool", "something cooler", and "something coolest" respectively. Go to his office hours not just for questions on projects, but just for general interest in the subject. Get to know the guy. He may be helpful in the future, in terms of internships and jobs (had many stints with Google and other major companies)

William Pugh
CMSC132H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/25/2011

Overall the honors version of this class is good to take because of the small class size and the opportunity to get help on projects from the professor. Pugh was a pretty good teacher, and was very knowledgeable of all the material. Sometimes I felt like he skipped around to different topics not in the curriculum, or he would expect us to know certain things without having spent time on them in class. I also got frustrated on some of the projects because it seemed like we hadn't learned enough to do them, but in the end this helped me learn better. He would provide more information about the projects as they got closer to the deadlines and would provide ample time in class to work on them/ask questions. Id say take this class over the regular version.

William Pugh
CMSC132H

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/20/2011

Pros: The curriculum is fair, he provides some really great tools for motivation with stuff you can do outside of class, and he's got great experience. Also, he really takes the time to know and help his students. If you approach him with a question, be it class-oriented or about computer science in general, he'll go into great detail and make sure he answers your question despite how long it might take. Cons: This is probably a personal thing, but he he didn't teach with slides which might work for a lot of people, but I feel like after glazing over the information in lecture, I learned more from slides from different sections. Overall, this class is still worth taking.

William Pugh
CMSC132H

bigbabby
05/14/2011

He's an interesting guy, and a pretty good professor. He allows laptops in class and mainly teaches by example and not powerpoint, which prevents class from becoming a slog. Only potential downside is that he assigns more projects and at a faster interval. If you are truly interested in programming and becoming better at it, Pugh is a good cs132 professor, but if you didn't do so great in 131 and are just scraping by, look for someone else.

James Purtilo
CMSC132H

pukenukem
10/19/2010

DO NOT TAKE HIM FOR CMSC132 OR ANY INTRO-LEVEL CLASS......FOR AN UPPER LEVEL COURSE HE HAS NO EQUAL. Just so we are clear. Dr. Purtilo is a phenomenal professor, engaging lecturer, and an all-around wonderful person. However, he is simply not interested in teaching lower level classes. He instead will lecture on far more upper-level topics of overall software engineering and product development which, while very interesting, have little to do with the course material. He will occasionally go through the syllabus but blow through it at a staggering speed so no one can not learn any of it. In our class he did "show and tell" Fridays where he brought in ancient relics of computer engineering and explained their functions, inner workings, and how modern design has since expanded. For one interested in such a subject this experience is phenomenal, but anyone taking the course simply to learn Java would roll their eyes. If you enroll in his class you will want to attend every lecture out of interest, however, will have to pray that another professor posts their lecture slides and that your TA knows how to actually code in Java (or read the textbook I suppose...gasp!). My course took a significant amount of outside-lecture work. He has long left Java in his profession so any syntax question on its inner workings (you know, the entire midterm and final test material) he will do his best to answer for you and certainly take time outside of class to be sure he gets you the right answer. But this whole process could have been avoided by simply taking a professor more focused on lower-level programming. If you are competent learning material outside of lecture and are genuinely interested in computer science his knowledge, persona, and class complete a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn material beyond the textbook from a truly remarkable person. BUT If you are taking a lower level class to satisfy some random requirement his class will require a lot of unnecessary work.

Nelson Padua-Perez
CMSC132H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/17/2010

Pretty easy class. Projects could get a bit tricky, but tests and quizzes were not a problem at all. Starting the projects early and getting them out of the way is a good idea. Nelson was encouraging and helpful the few times I have approached him outside of class. As a teacher, he did a pretty good job explaining concepts. No complaints here.

William Pugh
CMSC132H

Expecting an A+
ajlohr
05/16/2010

though he did stray in content a fair bit from what the course description was, it ended up making the class more interesting. The semester that I had him (Fall 09), he had three times throughout the semester in which you had the freedom to pick your own project topic and learn a lot outside of class on something that interested you. That being said, don't take him if you aren't motivated enough to work on and learn rigorous individualized material on your own.Also, he put up several of his personal books as prizes for the writers of the best projects. Also, he had an interesting policy that apart from regular lecture time, there were optional subgroups that students could choose to join. His choice not to focus on the somewhat dull material covered by the 132 course ended up making the course a lot more interesting and provided honors students with an opportunity for quasi-independent work at times. In general, he was incredibly flexible to class desires in how he would run his class.

Fawzi Emad
CMSC132H

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/14/2009

Fawzi is a great guy. Really nice and respectful to students and he understands students very well. He is very funny too and an interesting teacher. He will often start the class saying "What the hell am I doing right now?" or something like that because he will chat with students almost to the point that he forgets he has to teach. But don't worry, you will always get through all the material for the day and you will understand it well enough. Biggest recommendation: start the projects early. You will be amazed at how good you feel and the stuff you can do when you've already finished your CS project early.

William Pugh
CMSC132H

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/20/2008

Pugh is a really interesting professor, and really knows his stuff when it comes to Java (he wrote part of the language spec). He is a pretty good teacher, though in the honors section we would often times digress from curriculum to talk about other things - which meant learning some things on your own.

Chau-Wen Tseng
CMSC132H

Expecting a B
ganelo
11/30/2007

He's a little idiosyncratic, but his class is fairly easy to understand, and he answers questions well (for the most part). Nelson is the main professor for CMSC132, so there isn't much Tseng can do with regards to exams, etc.

Reviews for CMSC132H