Reviews for CMSC250H

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Emily Kaplitz CMSC250H Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/27/2023	Emily is the best. It is impossible to beat her in teaching. There are few professors in the department who have such a student-benefitting mindset as what emily has.
Emily Kaplitz CMSC250H Anonymous 02/06/2023	Emily Is the BESTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
William Gasarch CMSC250H Expecting an A theGreat 01/19/2023	Pros: - class was about 13 of us and its a great environment where u become friends with some ppl your age in the cs field - gasarch is engaging and you learn a lot - do advanced math that you wouldn't get the chance to do in regular 250 - homeworks can be time consuming so start them early and REACH OUT FOR HELP. The TA (shoutout Emily) was amazing in this class - Exams are not time sensitive at all which is nice. And theyre open note Cons: - go very off topic into gasarch's own work so you don't learn the important stuff as well
William Gasarch CMSC250H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/31/2022	Probably the most favorite CS class I've taken at UMD so far. As a disclaimer, this class probably doesn't prepare you well for 351 compared to regular 250 because of how fast-paced and how quickly topics are gone through, but 250H does go over necessary topics such as induction (at a much faster pace) so it's not a big deal at the end of the day. Gasarch is an incredibly intelligent professor who goes through topics very quickly, and he sometimes expects you to understand them immediately which may not be possible at all times. Another problem with this class at times is the number of typos or changes to the assignments which can get pretty annoying. This is probably the biggest downside to this class as you should expect every assignment or untimed midterm to have a few typos so make sure to send questions through Piazza or email if you see anything that is incorrect. At some point in the semester, you'll get used to it though so it shouldn't be a huge problem. It's also sometimes kind of difficult to wrap your head around the content because almost everything is published by Gasarch, so if you're unable to understand the topic, there isn't really a supplementary textbook or resource to go through. However, Gasarch and Emily are super accessible through email, office hours, and Zoom. They are understanding regarding questions involving course content, and grading is done fast. There are no minus grades given as well, and the cutoffs are usually lowered for an A, but it changes every semester based on the difficulty (88 this semester). Compared to previous years, I would have to say that 2022 was much easier. 250H is weird due to the fact that they are certain programming assignments that are given out. These are usually pretty easy and can be done quickly considering examples are given out for the code. I do recommend using Python because Java doesn't work without certain optimizations such as needing to use imports such as BigInteger to increase number thresholds, but I did use Java (wasn't as proficient at Python) and it's just a little more work compared to using Python, so if you don't know how to use Python don't worry. All assignments are to be done through a computer as Emily and Gasarch prefer to grade LaTeX documents (which you will learn how to use LaTeX through Overleaf) compared to handwriting. Untimed midterms are pretty chill as they're 50% of the grade with about a week to do, and for each of the timed exams, we're given 2 hours and 15 minutes to do which shouldn't take you that long as they are 3 questions each. Exams are open note and are done at night at 8 PM which can be sort of inconvenient, but Gasarch is a night-owl so it's whatever. To do well in this course, make sure you find a study group and work together on homework assignments. You don't have to be incredibly smart to do well in this course, but you need to do the work, and I recommend trying to score highly on the assignments are the exams/midterms make up 65-70% of the class. Take advantage of Gasarch's dead-cat policy as he gives a two-day extension on almost every assignment, so if you have any questions after the weekend then you can ask in class before it's due. Make sure to show everything possible as tons of points can be taken off otherwise for not including simple and obvious steps as inferring without showing is not accepted. As a side note, Gasarch and Emily will bring in treats for certain occasions such as muffins for Muffin Math or chocolates just out of the blue, so that's a small bonus as well. The camaraderie is definitely one of the best parts of this class as it's very inclusive and everyone gets to know each other at a much deeper level. If you really match Gasarch's wavelength you can also end up playing certain games with him such as Dominion which was pretty cool. Overall, I highly recommend this class over regular 250, but only if you're committed to the work. You should end up getting a higher grade, significantly improve your mathematical maturity, and just learn more about discrete mathematics at a higher level.
William Gasarch CMSC250H Expecting an A skushnir 05/20/2021	Gasarch is definitely going to present an intellectually harder course than the regular 250 section but I think he's worth it. You are forced to think creatively and out of the box which helps in other subjects. Also, his tests are not that hard.
William Gasarch CMSC250H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2021	I am gonna start with a disclaimer for this course in general. Seeing the CMSC250H, enticed me into the class because I thought, oh cool a CS honors class, that sounds like a cool experience. However, CMSC250H is quite a misleading name for this course. The name for this course should be MATH250H because this is almost entirely a math class (Discrete Mathematics: Proofs, inductions, probability, combinatorics). In the honors version of the class, you go much faster on topics, you actually learn some coding stuff, and you do alot of problems related to Gasarch's books and research (the research part sounds cool at first, but as someone who finds math boring, it really isn't that fun). So every week we had a Honors homework assignment due Monday 9am sharp and a regular homework assignment "due Monday 9am", however Gasarch has this thing called "dead cat policy", which is essentially a free extension until Wednesday 9am (y'a know, incase your cat dies). The homeworks are quite challenging intellectually, and studying/working on them with classmates is the way to go. On that topic, the class is significantly smaller than the non honors section which is a good and bad thing. It's a good thing because you actually get to have a professor who knows what your name is and you get to meet some great friends who struggle with you. The bad thing is, this class essentially simulates a small pond environment, in which basically you are trapped in a class where 80% of the kids are geniuses and if you aren't a genius you constantly feel stupid. The honors homeworks are honestly hit or miss. Most of the time they include a mini/short coding project in which you could code in whatever language you wanted using whatever packages and etc you wanted (I used Java), these can get time consuming, but are usually much shorter than the regular homeworks. Note: Make sure you do your homework cause its like 30% of the grade and it really does come clutch in the gradebook. And also the homework is graded for accuracy so you do need to work hard on it, and it is great to have a study group to compare answers with. Now the exams. So in this semester what Gasarch did was he would often have a take home part and a non take home part. The take home part would be like 25-30 pts of the final and would usually take a long time to do. The timed part of the final would be 2 hours, and he would say they were open note and open internet (though the internet wouldn't really help). The exams were quite easy in comparison to the homework problems, however if you tripped up on a problem, you tend to fall. On the first midterm i got a 90 while the second i got a 70. Now as for Gasarch himself. This man is a straight up genius, which means if you aren't a genius, you will get lost often and quite fast in his words. He loves to crack jokes and be sarcastic which is a plus, but sometimes he is a straight up "not nice guy". If you give a wrong answer, he is the type of person to laugh at you, or lecture you about "guessing" (even though most of the class only answers by guesses) - happened to one of my friends, he is scarred for life now. I was once in a one on one zoom call with him talking about some problems and he was straight up being extremely rude to me and aggressive for almost no reason at all (maybe bad mood idk). He also 100% plays favorites so get on his good side. He goes at supersonic speed in his lectures, and doesn't do many practice problems so it is not fun trying to figure out what is even going on in the homework problems. In class we did a bunch of topics from his life's research, most notably, Muffin Mathematics, while memorable, can be quite tedious. The TA for this class was honestly a saving grace and she helped us in so many ways (Thank you Emily). This class is definitely Hard, not impossible but definitely Hard. There will be times where you question why you took the honors section instead of the regular section - this happened to me a lot. But in the end of the class, Gasarch ended up giving an extremely generous curve (allegedly the TA had to convince him to give a curve) in which 85% curved to an A, 77-B,70-B-,60-C, no one got lower. So I guess in the end, the honors section of this class is definitely challenging, however, you may actually end up with a higher grade than what you could have gotten in the regular section of this course and I definitely loved the small class size. Gasarch loves math, this course is not a CS course, it is a math course, he flies by the material and is definitely not the best at explaining advanced concepts (not to mention almost all his slides have like a million typos) for simple minds. If you are a math prodigy or are good with this stuff then you will cruise easily, if you aren't then this class will be a fight, but I definitely would take the honors section of this class again.
Emily Kaplitz CMSC250H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2021	She was the TA for CMSC250H and was honestly the best. She is a very kind person who truly does care a lot about her students. One of the best things about her is she understands everyone and their situations. She will schedule office hours with you outside of the office hour window if you are struggling. She will try and find any way to give you back points on exams and homeworks. She also is a very strong instructor and explains a lot of details in a very concise and simplistic fashion. You will not regret taking a class with her
William Gasarch CMSC250H Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/07/2021	AVOID. Unless you have SIGNIFICANT coding experience (I'm talking years of doing interview level coding in python NOT java), do not do this to yourself. He is a very smart guy and the content is very interesting but 70% of the class was his own personal math theorems, and the rest of the class was speeding or skipping over major curriculum content. We would cover 3 important topics in one lecture. Each homework was full of errors or misunderstandings and would take at least 15 hours (not exaggerating) and that was if you finally could figure it out. We got lucky with the TA supporting us and keeping things fair, but otherwise he should not be allowed to teach any course before CMSC330/351. He is a funny and interesting guy however. The course would have been fine if he hadn't gone so fast and if the class in general had more comp-sci experience beforehand.
Clyde Kruskal CMSC250H Expecting an A- autonym 05/24/2012	It's very important to accept that Kruskal simply operates on a different wavelength from the average person. He's a true mathematician in the sense that he experiences life abstractly and disregards some aspects of interaction in favor of maintaining his flow of reasoning. The honors section was an intimate and fun experience, and I can see how Kruskal might be more difficult in a large lecture, or with students who are less enthusiastic or willing/able to follow the material. So I highly recommend the honors class for the abstract-thinker. The assessments and graded assignments are the same, but you get to spend half the time solving logical puzzles.
William Gasarch CMSC250H Expecting an A OtG 03/21/2012	I did not enjoy this class, but I imagine that mostly stemmed from my dislike of the subject matter and my resentment for having to take the class. Gasarch is very enthusiastic and engaging (if you're willing to be engaged). If you're into math, definitely take him. If you're not, he's liable to get pretty grating by the end of the semester.
Clyde Kruskal CMSC250H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2008	Dr. Kruskal is awesome. He is an excellent instructor and he presents the material in his own way (which many people may not like). He is a mathematician and he loves math. For the most part in 250H we did not cover ANY of the material that we needed to cover (we had to read everything from the book) However, we spent the time doing special projects that were so much fun and interesting that it was worth having to read the book for the actual course material. The projects were not graded but you get to argue with and against Dr. Kruskal and he is so much fun to argue with. Overall, Dr. Kruskal is really passionate about his math and he is very funny. (He is a little bit forgetful and rarely answers to emails, but he's just awesome!)
William Gasarch CMSC250H Expecting an A Anonymous 11/30/2007	Gasarch is an incredible professor, with the ability to make a subject that I already had some familiarity with still more interesting. His explanations of complex ideas and topics are very accessible, and his own knowledge of the subject is similarly impressive. Given the speed with which he can explain a topic, we also had time to delve into some of Gasarch's own research, making the course a lot of fun. Further, he will make sure every student is on track without slowing down the class, and in general makes going to class one of the more enjoyable parts of my day.