CMSC427 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Roger Eastman CMSC427 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/23/2024	I like Reastman as a person, he's knowledgable about the subject and has clear experience in the area, and he's pretty nice and likes to joke around in class too, but man is he a hassle to take as a professor. There have been a lot of issues with the administrative aspects and assignments of the class, all small things by themselves but add up to be pretty significant. Here's some of the things that happened: - The syllabus had outdated information - Most if not all of the homeworks and labs had their due date postponed because we were behind on class content. - Instructions and questions on the hws and labs had typos and straight missing information and unfinished sentences that made doing the assignments more difficult than it needed to be. - About 6 weeks before the end of the semester, Reastman said we had a project without a due date to be submitted before the end of the semester. He showed us the assignment page in class but never made the assignment public, and the pdf was nowhere to be found on ELMS. We never heard anything else about that project. - Continuing off that last point, he would forget to post important resources in the modules and a lot of the piazza posts were asking him to post them. Sometimes he would post the solutions to assignments/practice exams, but the assignment pdf and solution pdf would have different questions on them. - Grades took a while to get back, and the TAs would release homework grades before they were done being graded, so often times you would get a notification saying you got a 10/50 on your homework when only 20% of the questions were actually graded. In the end they always had the right grade but the first time it happened there was a bit of panic. All of these things were easy to manage though, it was just more frustrating than anything else. The class itself was very interesting and if you look past the errors in the labs and homeworks, they aligned pretty closely to what we were learning in class. The exams were a bit tough but he provides past and practice exams that are very very similar to what he has for the exams, and he makes it clear what content can and won't be on the exam. If you want to learn more about computer graphics and you don't mind having a bit of a chaotic class, I would recommend Reastman.
Roger Eastman CMSC427 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/11/2024	I agree with the people that say he can be a bit scatterbrained. I had some grading issues with some of my homework and it took him a long while to regrade, and he would also say that we'd review something in the next lecture but didn't. But I haven't really found that this impacted the class itself. It was a relatively easy class overall, and I would also say that it was a fun class in some regard because you learn some applications of the mathematics behind computer graphics. If you like video games, this class might be for you. Professor Eastman himself is super nice and clearly passionate about the subject. It's a class in which you can learn a lot without much head-banging.
Roger Eastman CMSC427 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2022	Dr. Eastman is a great guy and a good professor. He will take the time to make sure you understand concepts if you ask about them. For 427 in particular, if you do whats asked of you in the projects, its very possible to get a 100% on all of them. Because projects are 45% of your grade, doing so gives you a solid foundation for getting an A in the course. However, the course was a little bit ungrounded, and sometimes his lectures meandered. He pulled most of the lab starter code from online instead of making it himself, and sometimes the project descriptions and homeworks were unclear and contained typos. Overall its a manageable course if you manage your time well and brush up on your linear algebra. Eastman in general is very reasonable and cares about his students, but he's a little scatterbrained sometimes.
David Mount CMSC427 Expecting an A zaqu413 12/17/2013	Really enjoyed his lectures. He knows this stuff really well and can explain ANYTHING. Projects: We had 3 projects, the first and last were pretty hard. You should definitely start early on these graphics projects because most of the time the language you use (OpenGL with C++) won't tell you what mistake you made, it will just produce a blank image. I had a lot of fun working on these projects. HW: We were supposed to have 2 homeworks, but it was reduced to one because of project difficulty. The homework was like mini-projects and some linear algebra stuff. While I am on that topic I would like to say that you really should have a basic understanding of linear algebra to understand how things work in this course. It won't matter much for projects, but it will matter for exams and just being able to understand how OpenGL works. Exams: 1 Midterm, 1 Final. He gives about 10 practice problems in preparation for the exams and if you can get through those you'll be in pretty good shape. The final had some trickier problems than the midterm (the final really tests your in depth knowledge of graphics combined with linear algebra). Lecture Notes: He posts awesome lecture notes online. You can pretty much just read these, but there are places in the lecture notes where he puts things like "Can you think of why this is true?" or "What would happen if we used a cone instead of a sphere?". We always discuss these questions in class and they seem to have a habit of showing up on homework or exams.
David Mount CMSC427 Expecting an A- random 12/24/2010	Dave Mount is a really good professor simply because of two things: he knows graphics well, and he is exceptional at teaching. While there are many professors in CS dept who know their stuff, most suck at teaching. Mount, on the other hand, takes a lot of pain to make sure people understand the concepts. And the best part was that he did entire class on white-board. Graphics can be a hard class to teach on the board because it involves so many 3D drawings and stuff, but Mount stuck to doing everything on the board, and that just made his lectures very effective. There are legends about his lecture notes -- other professors like Meesh use his notes for their classes. We had great lecture notes for this class that included everything he went over in class. Yet, it was still useful to come to class because his teaching style meant that you needed to do very little preparation for the tests. There were four projects, which did a good job covering most of the important topics we discussed in class. The project difficulty level was about medium. His final was harder than the midterm, but neither was long. This class is great fun in general, and it was quite an experience with Dr. Mount. Strongly recommended!
David Jacobs CMSC427 Expecting an A Andrei 12/16/2007	Good professor, definitely knows his material. Goes a bit fast, so if you can't keep up, definitely ask questions - he likes questions.

Roger Eastman
CMSC427

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/23/2024

I like Reastman as a person, he's knowledgable about the subject and has clear experience in the area, and he's pretty nice and likes to joke around in class too, but man is he a hassle to take as a professor. There have been a lot of issues with the administrative aspects and assignments of the class, all small things by themselves but add up to be pretty significant. Here's some of the things that happened: - The syllabus had outdated information - Most if not all of the homeworks and labs had their due date postponed because we were behind on class content. - Instructions and questions on the hws and labs had typos and straight missing information and unfinished sentences that made doing the assignments more difficult than it needed to be. - About 6 weeks before the end of the semester, Reastman said we had a project without a due date to be submitted before the end of the semester. He showed us the assignment page in class but never made the assignment public, and the pdf was nowhere to be found on ELMS. We never heard anything else about that project. - Continuing off that last point, he would forget to post important resources in the modules and a lot of the piazza posts were asking him to post them. Sometimes he would post the solutions to assignments/practice exams, but the assignment pdf and solution pdf would have different questions on them. - Grades took a while to get back, and the TAs would release homework grades before they were done being graded, so often times you would get a notification saying you got a 10/50 on your homework when only 20% of the questions were actually graded. In the end they always had the right grade but the first time it happened there was a bit of panic. All of these things were easy to manage though, it was just more frustrating than anything else. The class itself was very interesting and if you look past the errors in the labs and homeworks, they aligned pretty closely to what we were learning in class. The exams were a bit tough but he provides past and practice exams that are very very similar to what he has for the exams, and he makes it clear what content can and won't be on the exam. If you want to learn more about computer graphics and you don't mind having a bit of a chaotic class, I would recommend Reastman.

Roger Eastman
CMSC427

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/11/2024

I agree with the people that say he can be a bit scatterbrained. I had some grading issues with some of my homework and it took him a long while to regrade, and he would also say that we'd review something in the next lecture but didn't. But I haven't really found that this impacted the class itself. It was a relatively easy class overall, and I would also say that it was a fun class in some regard because you learn some applications of the mathematics behind computer graphics. If you like video games, this class might be for you. Professor Eastman himself is super nice and clearly passionate about the subject. It's a class in which you can learn a lot without much head-banging.

Roger Eastman
CMSC427

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/24/2022

Dr. Eastman is a great guy and a good professor. He will take the time to make sure you understand concepts if you ask about them. For 427 in particular, if you do whats asked of you in the projects, its very possible to get a 100% on all of them. Because projects are 45% of your grade, doing so gives you a solid foundation for getting an A in the course. However, the course was a little bit ungrounded, and sometimes his lectures meandered. He pulled most of the lab starter code from online instead of making it himself, and sometimes the project descriptions and homeworks were unclear and contained typos. Overall its a manageable course if you manage your time well and brush up on your linear algebra. Eastman in general is very reasonable and cares about his students, but he's a little scatterbrained sometimes.

David Mount
CMSC427

Expecting an A
zaqu413
12/17/2013

Really enjoyed his lectures. He knows this stuff really well and can explain ANYTHING. Projects: We had 3 projects, the first and last were pretty hard. You should definitely start early on these graphics projects because most of the time the language you use (OpenGL with C++) won't tell you what mistake you made, it will just produce a blank image. I had a lot of fun working on these projects. HW: We were supposed to have 2 homeworks, but it was reduced to one because of project difficulty. The homework was like mini-projects and some linear algebra stuff. While I am on that topic I would like to say that you really should have a basic understanding of linear algebra to understand how things work in this course. It won't matter much for projects, but it will matter for exams and just being able to understand how OpenGL works. Exams: 1 Midterm, 1 Final. He gives about 10 practice problems in preparation for the exams and if you can get through those you'll be in pretty good shape. The final had some trickier problems than the midterm (the final really tests your in depth knowledge of graphics combined with linear algebra). Lecture Notes: He posts awesome lecture notes online. You can pretty much just read these, but there are places in the lecture notes where he puts things like "Can you think of why this is true?" or "What would happen if we used a cone instead of a sphere?". We always discuss these questions in class and they seem to have a habit of showing up on homework or exams.

David Mount
CMSC427

Expecting an A-
random
12/24/2010

Dave Mount is a really good professor simply because of two things: he knows graphics well, and he is exceptional at teaching. While there are many professors in CS dept who know their stuff, most suck at teaching. Mount, on the other hand, takes a lot of pain to make sure people understand the concepts. And the best part was that he did entire class on white-board. Graphics can be a hard class to teach on the board because it involves so many 3D drawings and stuff, but Mount stuck to doing everything on the board, and that just made his lectures very effective. There are legends about his lecture notes -- other professors like Meesh use his notes for their classes. We had great lecture notes for this class that included everything he went over in class. Yet, it was still useful to come to class because his teaching style meant that you needed to do very little preparation for the tests. There were four projects, which did a good job covering most of the important topics we discussed in class. The project difficulty level was about medium. His final was harder than the midterm, but neither was long. This class is great fun in general, and it was quite an experience with Dr. Mount. Strongly recommended!

David Jacobs
CMSC427

Expecting an A
Andrei
12/16/2007

Good professor, definitely knows his material. Goes a bit fast, so if you can't keep up, definitely ask questions - he likes questions.

Reviews for CMSC427