ENEE350 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Anonymous 10/20/2024	The lectures are not very helpful as he would go on random tangents. Another engineering professor who is out of touch because they are so knowledgeable on the topic that they no longer understand how it feels to learn these concepts for the first time. Course material is very dense, and at one point starts talking about code in C++ despite the fact that this department teaches only C.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/19/2024	Truly just an "okay" professor. Reads off of the slides in lecture. The homeworks look somewhat like the exam but aren't a good indication of what to study. He said we'd have 4 homeworks but he forgot to even assign 2 homeworks and out of the 2 he did assign, he forgot to grade 1- which means that 30% of our grade was decided on by 1 homework assignment. The other 70% was on two exams, each being 35%. The exams were actually difficult with some curve balls and some horrible multiple choice. He has a small curve in the class but don't rely on it. He's an "okay" option but often in 350, the alternatives are so much worse than him that you are stuck.
Cunxi Yu ENEE350 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/05/2024	Cunxi is a really nice guy who is passionate about the material he teaches. However, his lectures are impossible to learn from. He blazes through his slides and scribbles random notes on the board, most times not even erasing what was on the board from the previous class. His exams are heavily reliant on pure memorization as he requires replication of drawings of complicated datapath diagrams, which are usually in the slides he briefly goes over. There are also very little review materials for the exams, so it usually feels like you're going in blind. The homework assignments were thoughtful and helpful in learning the material; however, knowing the material only helped so much if you didn't memorize his slides verbatim. There's also a final project in addition to the final exam, which seemed a bit extra, at first, but ended up being a nice grade boost (if done correctly) and a cool way to use the material learned in this class in a real application. The only complaint about the project is that it is assigned during finals week, so finding time to complete it in the midst of other exams is a little rough.
Cunxi Yu ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2024	Great professor. Very passionate with teaching the contents and nice to communicate. The course can be further improved though (first time teaching I think).
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/16/2024	The exams in this class are ridiculous. There is too much content to memorize, and the actual exam is always worse than the practice. Additionally, for multiple homework assignments, the information needed to complete them was not taught in class, nor were we given resources to complete them unless the TA provided a practice problem or two during discussion. Barua also showed up ~10 minutes late to every lecture, and ~15 minutes late to the exams (always with Taco Bell in hand). Then he would continue lecturing up to 5 minutes after class had ended. He was not respectful of our time. Lectures are not engaging and are quite boring. 350 is hard class in general, but Barua made it harder than it had to be. Take someone else if you can.
Cunxi Yu ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/13/2024	The exams and homework's have high averages, so take him if your grade is your priority (which it probably should be). His lectures are terrible, he regularly says things and then backtracks. Any "examples" he uses are so far beyond the simple concepts he's trying to actually teach that they aren't helpful to learn the material at all. Also, he scheduled the final for the Wednesday in the last week of classes, then on top of that had a final project due during finals week, one he very poorly explained.
Cunxi Yu ENEE350 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/10/2024	Dr. Yu is nice and he definitely cared about the learning of his students, but seeing as it was his first semester teaching for the university, there are some major issues with his course which must be addressed. 1.) Better communication over office hours. It's acceptable for an instructor to be late for - or miss office hours entirely - from time-to-time. However, these scheduling changes must ALWAYS be communicated in online announcement prior to the office hours. This semester, it was not uncommon for students to arrive to office hours to be greeted with a locked door. One possible change could be asking for students to email the instructor ahead of time prior to each office hours visit. This way, the attendance of both the student and the instructor can be guaranteed. Simply missing 20-100% of the office hours session, however, is disrespectful of students' time. 2.) Exam study material. The overwhelming majority of instructors at this university release sample exams AND/OR study guides in order to denote what will be covered on upcoming exams. Such study material is the best method for a student to gauge his/her own understanding of the curriculum. The simple directive to gloss through a 60-page PowerPoint does not constitute effective study material, no matter how trivial the subject might seem to the instructor. The easiest solution to this issue would be to release Exams 1, 2, and 3 (along with accompanying answers) for next semester students to study on. Exams should not be reused year-after-year anyway; the more study material, the better. 3.) Homework load. This may seem like an unusual critique, but the volume of homework in this class was stunning low - to the point where some students would feel disengaged with what was being taught in-class. As amenable as it may be for weeks to pass without assignments due, there needs to be rigorous homework assigned for every element of the curriculum tested on exams in order to guide students on what they must review. 4.) Question / Answer structure of Homeworks and Exams. Students would sometimes be confused over what to write - or how to write - their responses to questions asked on homeworks and exams. This can be remediated with the use of answer boxes and exam study material (see feedback 2). For an example on what exams are well-structured, see Justin's CMSC351 exams here: https://www.coursehero.com/file/225088096/Exam3-Justin-Tue-Exampdf/
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	I cannot put into words how much I disliked the required software (Code-A-Peel) that he wrote. This software is straight out of 1995, written in the shittiest java you have ever seen. Many of his exam questions are of the form "how do you use the made up computer on the software I wrote". I did not write or learn a single bit of industry grade assembly code. He did not communicate with his TAs, which honestly is sometimes the worst thing a professor can do. I wish I had not taken Oruc.
Cunxi Yu ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/29/2024	Yu is a good professor in terms of explaining things in lecture, but the assignments and homework feel kind of bare bones and ever so slightly disconnected from the course. It feels like we discuss a lot of concepts in class related to the field of computer architecture design but then in terms of the technical concepts we have to apply there is much less to be talked about. Really most of what we learned was how to code in assembly and just a handful of equations, even the homework and exam questions are a lot of conceptual written responses. At times, the course can feel more like a gened discussing computer architecture rather than a technical ECE course, especially in the first two weeks. Yu is at least very fair with grading, very generous with giving bonus points, and the assignments are clear and straightforward and we almost always discuss directly what we do on them in class almost 1 to 1. He is also just a generally nice guy and a pretty engaging lecturer if you can understand his accent.
Cunxi Yu ENEE350 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/06/2024	Nice guy but impossible to learn from
Cunxi Yu ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/01/2024	Very good professor. Passionate about what he teaches and uses real world examples.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/16/2023	So conflicted about Manoj. He is really nice, quite knowledgeable and he won't fail you. By those virtues alone, I give him 3 stars. Otherwise, a messy course with only 3 assignments in the whole semester, a midterm and a final. No coherent practice materials, messy file organization and a lack of effective exercises really made this class a slog. You will not be able to self study effectively using his materials. You must go to lecture and pay attention, which is such a chore when he shows up late to every class and his lecture cadence will put you to sleep. I also feel I didn't learn much. The other professors probably aren't any better though. So, whatever... take him, I guess.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Anonymous 10/18/2023	Franklin is worse than Wade. For starters, he didn't even show up to our first exam. Without warning, the TA administered the exam (which he didn't write, and had some confusions about himself). This is on top of being consistently late to class. The exam itself wasn't printed properly (mine was extremely messy and hard to read), was horribly ambiguous, flat-out worded incorrectly for part 2, and had egregious weighting. Each multiple choice question was worth 10% of the exam grade, with there being 4 of them. The only question on there which was designed fairly was the C to MIPS translation, which was 40% of the exam. This is compounded by the issue of overall grade weighting. 2 assignments worth 10% each, and 2 exams worth 40% each. So each multiple choice question is worth a significant part of the overall course grade. It wouldn't be such an issue if there was material to study off of. There really isn't, as the past exams don't really prepare you for the questions being asked on the current exam, and any other material is information overload. There are close to 100 slides for the important chapters, and it's simply unfeasible to properly parse it. The lectures don't help with information digestion either, which I just gave up going pretty quickly. You'd think a professor who's been around and teaching this class as long as Franklin has would have some sort of grip on how to run this class, and provide appropriate materials. Apparently not. Speaking of, for teaching a class called "Computer Organization", Franklin might have the worst ELMS file organization I've ever seen. Some folders, such as discussions and slides, contain the appropriate files, while others are just scattered randomly. There's no rhyme or reason to most things. I don't understand why this professor's ratings are as high as they are. Yeah his final grade averages are pretty high, but what is anyone supposed to get from his classes? ENEE350 has been nothing so far, and I can't forsee that changing anytime soon. I usually wait until the end of the semester to rate professors, but not administering your own exam without warning is something else.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Anonymous 06/16/2023	Pretty solid class overall. Manoj is definitely knowledgeable about the subject and teaches you what you need to know. He uses the MIPS architecture to teach the concepts of the course, which makes things easier but also isn't very useful outside of this course. The curve is set at the beginning of the semester in the syllabus, and is reasonably forgiving. The best thing about this class was also the worst thing -- there were very few assignments. We had a midterm (40%), a non-cumulative final (40%), and two homeworks (10% each). While this meant we had very little work day to day, exams became unnecessarily stressful. Additionally, because exams were so short messing up even one multiple choice question could ruin your grade pretty easily. The exams were mostly pretty similar to previous years (especially the larger questions) but sometimes the multiple choice and shorter problems could be tricky. If you really care about getting a good grade maybe take another professor with slightly lower weighted exams.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/25/2023	Oruc is not a very good professor, and his class is rather disorganized. Starting off with lectures, his lectures are not very helpful. Oruc ran lectures both in-person and online through Zoom, and because of this latter option being available, he decided to move class online at random points throughout the semester. We spent about half of our semester online and half in-person. For his in-person lectures, you will only be able to hear him if you sit in the front two rows. He mutters and drones about his own programming interfaces and is overall not very engaging. Online, you are actually able to hear him, but he has no consideration for note-takers. He has very bad handwriting and would scroll through his notes at an incredibly fast pace, so it was difficult to take notes; also, the notes he would release after class were pretty unreadable at times. The supplemental lecture slides online were made over 10 years ago. His homeworks were kinda vague but easy, and our TA was able to clear up expectations on what to submit. We only had one midterm during the semester. We got to bring in a cheat sheet, and it made a seemingly tough exam really easy; the average was around 86%. The final, on the other hand, was rough and poorly designed. It was 25 multiple choice questions of random trivia from throughout the semester with the 5th option for most questions being "all of the above" or "none of the above." Even with a cheat sheet, the average was in the upper 60's with the high being an 88%. It's such a shame that this course is so disappointing; I really enjoyed some of the topics in the course, but Oruc doesn't really make any of them very enjoyable.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2023	bro was 15 minutes late to our final. but giving a serious review, other than being routinely late to class, we had 2 assignments the entire semester, ta keeps cancelling discussion. this class was so chill it was honestly the best. as for class content, it is actually very interesting, franklin speaks very softly so its easy to fall asleep, but if you do stay awake he is very knowledgeable and can learn a lot.
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Expecting a B- Anonymous 01/09/2023	Just a note, ENEE350 is my least ENEE course I have every taken content wise, so I will try to be mindful of that in my review. Barua was a good lecturer and is very passionate about the course, although the other reviews are true about his attitude and lateness to class. He is very direct which can come off as rude, but he genuinely wants the best for each of his students. The homeworks however were very frustrating, as they are not very relevant to the lectures and ended up feeling like a guessing game from the information from the slides. The exams were also very challenging. His lectures, while informative, never covered any type of example problems, which made the course much harder than necessary. Office hours were helpful, but you need to make sure you at least attempted the homework before hand and come with questions, and in addition he will never tell you anything close to the answers, he will just go over the necessary information and MAYBE the process. It is also worth noting that he teaches Assembly itself which is more beneficial compared to some of the other professors who teach their own coding languages imo.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/12/2022	It was an interesting class, but the lectures are very disorganized and do not help a lot. He also uses us to beta test his code or use his code for a lot which is kind of confusing, but I feel like I learned a decent amount.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/25/2022	Cool guy, but yet another ECE professor that's well past caring about educating students. One can compare his lectures over the years and see how he's increasingly prioritizing having his students beta-test his learning software over teaching a structured course. To be even more depressed, look at other university's courses and see what well-organized, mistake-free, and clearly delivered material looks like. Average on midterm was a 60, entirely due to poorly designed time constraints. Hopefully one day ECE courses at UMD won't be full of old profs teaching increasingly disorganized material from 2008 following no educational principles whatsoever who pretend their course structures aren't abject failures by having outrageous curves breathes, but I can't see that happening any time soon. If you're somehow reading this deciding whether to go to umd for ece, go to a university program that cares about actually educating undergrads. Waste of time.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting a P Anonymous 05/24/2022	Oruc is very nice and easygoing. His homework are straightforward, but the lectures do not help out much. The class structure is a little lazy.
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 02/09/2022	Yikes. This class turned out to be such a huge headache. Meanwhile, peers that were taking 350 at the same time but with a different professor were straight up coasting. As the previous comments mentioned, his lectures are very interesting and he is a good professor. The main problem was his exams were beyond the material he taught and he lacked compassion for students. The exam style was harsh and studying for this class really took away from time I should have spent on other classes. If you are EE major, stay away. trust.
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Anonymous 01/23/2022	He's great! I found lectures pretty entertaining. Homeworks sometimes make you think a bit but never that hard. The final was tough but he curved appropriately. Yes he does tend to come late to class but honestly it's fine, gives you a few minutes to chill and we always got through all the material anyway.
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Anonymous 01/14/2022	Probably one of the most unprofessional instructors I've ever had. He was always several minutes late for class, answered phone calls during lectures and let his phone ring during exams, and failed to treat students with respect when they asked or answered questions. The homework and exams usually were tangentially related to lecture, requiring you to think critically about a "shortcut" needed to solve the question, which was pretty difficult under time pressure unless you knew it right away. Additionally, most of the topics asked about on homework or on exams were not discussed during lecture, and only scratched the surface if they were taught. As an EE major, I had very little previous knowledge on computer organization coming into the course, so Barua's lack of explanation and his assumptions that students knew everything already made this class much more difficult than it should be. However, I will say that his lectures were enjoyable. He is a very intelligent man, clearly has passion for computer organization and compilers, and uses many analogies to explain topics, which were useful. You success in this class will depend on your TA and asking questions during discussion. Barua views this course as an opportunity to lecture on computers, not so much explain the material for students to understand. Lectures scratch the surface, and homework and exams require complex assumptions without any prior exposure to similar questions.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 09/21/2021	Awesome teacher for ENEE350 since he wrote his own program to simulate machine code and assembly, and assigned those for homework. You get to learn a lot since you get to see how the machine works and what changes step by step in the simulation. The lectures are also recorded online so you can always look at those. Taking off a star because his test contains materials not taught in class. You can do perfectly on the homework but pretty bad on the test.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting a P Anonymous 07/28/2021	Dr Oruc is a nice person but not the greatest professor. He rambles during class and his homework assignments are confusing and time consuming. TA was rude and unhelpful.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Expecting an A umdterpman 05/18/2021	I've taken 245 and 350 with Dr. Franklin. Both of them were online, so they probably won't translate to a real semester. I enjoyed 245 actually - I thought the labs were fair and educational (though the prelabs took SO LONG to complete). I agree with what others said about a good TA making a big difference. I also didn't go to any of the lectures - while Dr. Franklin knows his stuff, his online lecture format was reading from powerpoints, and I just could not pay any attention at all. The final at the end of the class was kind of a crapshoot - it was 10 multiple choice questions, and most of them were VERY niche questions from individual labs. The final average was like a 40% or something ridiculous, but it counts for only like 20% of the final grade so it ended up being alright. That final was still quite annoying though, and I'm sure a lot of people were frustrated with their grades afterwards if they did particularly badly (less than like a 40% would get you an A- or a B even if you did all the labs perfectly). 350 was another ballgame. Again, I could not pay any attention to his powerpoint lecture format. I watched maybe two lectures and then decided that I just couldn't pay attention anymore. Thankfully, our TA, Sidra, was amazing and helped teach us everything that we needed to know during discussions. She single-handedly saved everyone's grades. For both the midterm and the final we were given multiple practice exams, and over 50% of each exam was carbon-copy from the old tests. As a result, I (and many others) didn't attend lectures and still ended up doing well on exams just by practicing the old exams (the 3 HWs were also very relevant to the exams). I feel like this is partially due to the nature of online learning, and during a normal semester I think Franklin would be a pretty decent professor (see some of the older reviews), but online I didn't learn much in 350. Based on my impressions of this class and others, I would take Franklin over Oruc for 350, but also consider other professors if they are available.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/01/2021	Personality-wise, Oruc's a kind person for sure. This semester we had the pandemic so he moved the due date back for like half of the assignments. His lectures are useful, but he a glosses over important background information when doing examples (especially vesp early on). That being said, a lot of what I learned this semester came from the TA's who were pretty amazing.
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/25/2020	Dr. Barua is an extremely uncaring and unmotivated professor who comes off as unprofessional. I don't know if it's because of the switch to a completely online format, but he does not respond to emails, posts lectures and assignments only a few days before they're due, and is either eating or yawning or both in all of his lecture videos.
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Anonymous 12/23/2019	Rajeev Barua is a good lecturer but a bad professor. Pros: =>easy grader (depends on TA since I don't think he graded any of the papers) =>Good lectures (need to go to every class since the assigned book doesn't really help in studying, and 90% of what he asked in the exam were from his lectures). =>average of the class was around 80% in all the exams ( idk how though, I personally didn't too great) Cons: =>not punctual (always 5 mins late to the class) =>really bad and small handwriting (had to sit in the front of the class to make sure I don't miss anything he writes since he doesn't post his notes on elms ). =>straight up disses the students if they get the answer wrong during the lecture. =>gave only 2 or 3 days to finish homework. Most of the time, he assigns the homework a week before but tells you the martial in it is not covered, and there is no way to finish the homework early. Also, he gave the last homework, which was due on the day of the final exam. format of the class: 7 homework (2 coding and 5 problem solving), 2 midterms (covered the lecture notes), 1 final (cumulative) overall this class wasn't bad, but it definitely felt hectic because of the lack of understanding this professor had for his students.
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/21/2019	Solid professor, much, much easier course than if taken with other professors. Virtually 0 workload or stress involved.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/21/2019	STUDY THE OLD TEST! ONLY WAY TO GET BY! IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL FAIL! CLASS WILL PUT YOU TO SLEEP! AVOID AT ALL COST!
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/10/2019	Silio is a terrible at teaching, rude to his students, and does not give reasonable study material. From the first day of class, he assumes that all of his students are familiar with the specific example machines' architecture and layout, and any questions are regarded with exasperated and inadequate answers. It appears as if he can't fathom that something may be confusing or explained improperly. The material he covers is often inadequate to answer homework questions, and the required text does not do much to help in that regard. Many times, it will be impossible to decipher what a question is exactly looking for simply due to poor phrasing. The material in the class is interesting, and if you want to enjoy it I would recommend taking anyone other than Silio.
Ankur Srivastava ENEE350 Anonymous 07/23/2019	Took it over the summer. Excellent professor. His lectures are clear, and make sense if you really pay attention. Exams, I thought were decent if you paid attention in class, and knew what was up. Along with being good at teaching, he was quite funny, and enjoyable to listen to. Would recommend definitely.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/23/2018	Im not exactly sure how useful Dr. Orucs class is in the real world, since a lot of the material is stuff he wrote. His explanations can sometimes be unclear but luckily he posts lecture slides as well as the lecture videos so you can listen to it multiple times until you understand it. Midterm was average, final was difficult. Curve of around 6% at the end.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/23/2015	This class will be frustrating. For the first few weeks of the semester I guessed my way through the homework, turning it in, and learned how to do it the next day from my TA. His lectures are very long and drawn out and I had trouble learning anything from him. I passed this class by getting my hands on his previous tests and homework solutions. His exams are very similar to previous semesters and was not surprised by the exam when I showed up. The prgoramming assignments are the most difficult. He slightly changes a few of these so that you can't just copy and paste the assignments from previous semesters. If you get them working 100% he will curve your grade, so I relied on my TA for assistance to get them working. He grades extremely fast but gives little partial credit.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/17/2015	Don't take him unless you already know how to do assembly. He's hard to learn from and I have not learned how to code at all this semester. If you do end up having him make sure you hand in all the programs WORKING. You have until the last day of the semester to hand them in otherwise your grade will not be curved. He replaces your lowest midterm grade with your final grade if you get a higher score. Try to show up to class occasionally he remembers who shows up. If you plan on memorizing his past exams, remember that the final is not on IEEE
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a C ashivkum 05/17/2013	Even though I got a low grade in this course, the guy is fair. Very fair. His exams are up, free to viewing, and exams are usually very similar to those online. Fast grader; usually done within a few hours. Might be dull during lecture, but when you go to office hours, you see a personality in this guy. He teaches you, shows passion, talks about things in industry, and is actually a very interesting guy. I got a bad grade because he gives like ZERO partial credit on exams, but that's my fault, not his. Do the programming projects and turn them in before the end of the semester, and he curves your grade (regardless of how the rest of the class is doing). I'm sure that I passed this semester because of that...
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2012	If you've had Silio before, you know what to expect. Two exams and a final account for 90% of your grade, and the final can overwrite one of the other exams. Exams are similar to previous years so check the testbank. However, the testbank alone will not get you through this course like you might be used to. He gives 4 programming assignments during the semester (one of which is a program he writes and you just analyze.) The programs themselves are worth only 4% of your grade and are a lot of work, so most people chose not to do them. HOWEVER, if you do not do the programs, he will not curve your grade. You will also not know how to do large portions of the second exam and final. You must get all 4 programs 100% working to get any credit for them, but you can turn them in up until basically the last day of the course so that you can still guarantee yourself a curve. The only way to do well on the final is to do the programs and know what you're doing. He also creates a few big sets of notes for some of the more important topics, minimizing how much of the book you have to read. The microarchitecture notes, which you get within the first few weeks, are your most important resource for the class. Read them, have the diagrams and instruction set out while you're programming, and you'll learn everything just fine. You also get most of the diagrams and tables on the exams. A large portion of the class did not do the programming assignments, and they as a whole did not do well in the class. If you don't do any of them, you're almost assured a C or lower.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/13/2012	He is totally unfair. Let me give you an ex, no3 on exam 1 got 85 and 63 on exam 2 and 89 on final. So final score was 86/100. As the person didn't submit programming assignments the grade should not be curved as he told the class .so 86 is a B. But he gave an A which is unfair to other students. Exams are similar to previous exams. So not bad but a bit unfair.
Rajeev Barua ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/27/2011	Had Prof. Barua for both 244 and 350, and the experience was very much similar in both. The only difference for 350 was that he did not go over concrete examples of the concepts he explained in lecture, which he reserved largely for discussions. Homework assignments were fair and straightforward, and exams generally were not terribly difficult, although select problems could get a bit tricky. Past exams are a must to get a look at the kind of questions he can ask.
Ankur Srivastava ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2011	Srivastava is great! He is a very interesting dude and always has cool anecdotes to add to the class. The bottom line though, is that he is just a solid teacher. You will learn the most important material from him as he cuts out all the stupid stuff that Oruc does. Homeworks are kind of annoying, but fairly straightforward and he doesn't give very many of them. Exams are tough, but fair.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/08/2010	Oruc is a really great guy and is very nice and personable. I really don't like programming at all, but ive had a little more experience that some other EEs i think writing C (even though id rather cut off a foot than program something) so i guess i have a little bit of an advantage. not a whole lot though. none of the material is all that terribly difficult, and the class really doesn't have a particularly heavy workload. the second half of the class isn't really as relevant to electrical engineering as it is to computer engineering so its hard to stay motivated i guess you could say. i would with out a doubt take oruc again.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/29/2009	...If you are taking this class as EE, and Umer is the TA for this class ->TAKE IT. ....If not, you might want to consider other options ...In any case, good luck ! ... I think Dr Oruc is a great professor, but it's somewhat difficult understand the subject he is teaching.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Anonymous 12/05/2009	Uruc caters to computer engineers who have some familiarity with this material. For those who are EE beware unless you have an awesome TA such as Umer. Otherwise this professor is way past his prime and fails to communicate well with the stuents
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Anonymous 04/12/2009	He's among the best prof's I ever had. He actually cares about his students. It's a pity though that he uses vesp and a little programming that most of us actually hate. But either way, he's the best. Hands down.
Yavuz Oruc ENEE350 Anonymous 01/22/2009	Good teacher. He puts a lot of effort into making sure his students understand material during lecture. Also his homework assignments are not very difficult.
Ankur Srivastava ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2008	He's one of the best professors I've ever had, you should definitely take him for 350.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/25/2008	I took 244 and 350 with him. Pretty much, he is a terrible lecturer, and cannot teach worth anything. However, he will give you homeworks and tests in such a way that if you are not proficient in the material, you will fail. He gives very little partial credit, and his exams are more of an exercise in precision than creativity. What I mean by that is, he will give you some 7 problems and if you have to stop and think about any of them, chances are you are not going to do well on the test.
Ankur Srivastava ENEE350 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/12/2007	He's a cool guy...Always kept class kinda fun and interesting. But he is serious about the class learning his stuff. Pretty tough - the average on the first exam was a 40% - but he was fair and curved accordingly. I would def recommend him over Silio ANYDAY...

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Anonymous
10/20/2024

The lectures are not very helpful as he would go on random tangents. Another engineering professor who is out of touch because they are so knowledgeable on the topic that they no longer understand how it feels to learn these concepts for the first time. Course material is very dense, and at one point starts talking about code in C++ despite the fact that this department teaches only C.

Manoj Franklin
ENEE350

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
07/19/2024

Truly just an "okay" professor. Reads off of the slides in lecture. The homeworks look somewhat like the exam but aren't a good indication of what to study. He said we'd have 4 homeworks but he forgot to even assign 2 homeworks and out of the 2 he did assign, he forgot to grade 1- which means that 30% of our grade was decided on by 1 homework assignment. The other 70% was on two exams, each being 35%. The exams were actually difficult with some curve balls and some horrible multiple choice. He has a small curve in the class but don't rely on it. He's an "okay" option but often in 350, the alternatives are so much worse than him that you are stuck.

Cunxi Yu
ENEE350

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/05/2024

Cunxi is a really nice guy who is passionate about the material he teaches. However, his lectures are impossible to learn from. He blazes through his slides and scribbles random notes on the board, most times not even erasing what was on the board from the previous class. His exams are heavily reliant on pure memorization as he requires replication of drawings of complicated datapath diagrams, which are usually in the slides he briefly goes over. There are also very little review materials for the exams, so it usually feels like you're going in blind. The homework assignments were thoughtful and helpful in learning the material; however, knowing the material only helped so much if you didn't memorize his slides verbatim. There's also a final project in addition to the final exam, which seemed a bit extra, at first, but ended up being a nice grade boost (if done correctly) and a cool way to use the material learned in this class in a real application. The only complaint about the project is that it is assigned during finals week, so finding time to complete it in the midst of other exams is a little rough.

Cunxi Yu
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/23/2024

Great professor. Very passionate with teaching the contents and nice to communicate. The course can be further improved though (first time teaching I think).

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/16/2024

The exams in this class are ridiculous. There is too much content to memorize, and the actual exam is always worse than the practice. Additionally, for multiple homework assignments, the information needed to complete them was not taught in class, nor were we given resources to complete them unless the TA provided a practice problem or two during discussion. Barua also showed up ~10 minutes late to every lecture, and ~15 minutes late to the exams (always with Taco Bell in hand). Then he would continue lecturing up to 5 minutes after class had ended. He was not respectful of our time. Lectures are not engaging and are quite boring. 350 is hard class in general, but Barua made it harder than it had to be. Take someone else if you can.

Cunxi Yu
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/13/2024

The exams and homework's have high averages, so take him if your grade is your priority (which it probably should be). His lectures are terrible, he regularly says things and then backtracks. Any "examples" he uses are so far beyond the simple concepts he's trying to actually teach that they aren't helpful to learn the material at all. Also, he scheduled the final for the Wednesday in the last week of classes, then on top of that had a final project due during finals week, one he very poorly explained.

Cunxi Yu
ENEE350

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/10/2024

Dr. Yu is nice and he definitely cared about the learning of his students, but seeing as it was his first semester teaching for the university, there are some major issues with his course which must be addressed. 1.) Better communication over office hours. It's acceptable for an instructor to be late for - or miss office hours entirely - from time-to-time. However, these scheduling changes must ALWAYS be communicated in online announcement prior to the office hours. This semester, it was not uncommon for students to arrive to office hours to be greeted with a locked door. One possible change could be asking for students to email the instructor ahead of time prior to each office hours visit. This way, the attendance of both the student and the instructor can be guaranteed. Simply missing 20-100% of the office hours session, however, is disrespectful of students' time. 2.) Exam study material. The overwhelming majority of instructors at this university release sample exams AND/OR study guides in order to denote what will be covered on upcoming exams. Such study material is the best method for a student to gauge his/her own understanding of the curriculum. The simple directive to gloss through a 60-page PowerPoint does not constitute effective study material, no matter how trivial the subject might seem to the instructor. The easiest solution to this issue would be to release Exams 1, 2, and 3 (along with accompanying answers) for next semester students to study on. Exams should not be reused year-after-year anyway; the more study material, the better. 3.) Homework load. This may seem like an unusual critique, but the volume of homework in this class was stunning low - to the point where some students would feel disengaged with what was being taught in-class. As amenable as it may be for weeks to pass without assignments due, there needs to be rigorous homework assigned for every element of the curriculum tested on exams in order to guide students on what they must review. 4.) Question / Answer structure of Homeworks and Exams. Students would sometimes be confused over what to write - or how to write - their responses to questions asked on homeworks and exams. This can be remediated with the use of answer boxes and exam study material (see feedback 2). For an example on what exams are well-structured, see Justin's CMSC351 exams here: https://www.coursehero.com/file/225088096/Exam3-Justin-Tue-Exampdf/

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/09/2024

I cannot put into words how much I disliked the required software (Code-A-Peel) that he wrote. This software is straight out of 1995, written in the shittiest java you have ever seen. Many of his exam questions are of the form "how do you use the made up computer on the software I wrote". I did not write or learn a single bit of industry grade assembly code. He did not communicate with his TAs, which honestly is sometimes the worst thing a professor can do. I wish I had not taken Oruc.

Cunxi Yu
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/29/2024

Yu is a good professor in terms of explaining things in lecture, but the assignments and homework feel kind of bare bones and ever so slightly disconnected from the course. It feels like we discuss a lot of concepts in class related to the field of computer architecture design but then in terms of the technical concepts we have to apply there is much less to be talked about. Really most of what we learned was how to code in assembly and just a handful of equations, even the homework and exam questions are a lot of conceptual written responses. At times, the course can feel more like a gened discussing computer architecture rather than a technical ECE course, especially in the first two weeks. Yu is at least very fair with grading, very generous with giving bonus points, and the assignments are clear and straightforward and we almost always discuss directly what we do on them in class almost 1 to 1. He is also just a generally nice guy and a pretty engaging lecturer if you can understand his accent.

Cunxi Yu
ENEE350

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/06/2024

Nice guy but impossible to learn from

Cunxi Yu
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/01/2024

Very good professor. Passionate about what he teaches and uses real world examples.

Manoj Franklin
ENEE350

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/16/2023

So conflicted about Manoj. He is really nice, quite knowledgeable and he won't fail you. By those virtues alone, I give him 3 stars. Otherwise, a messy course with only 3 assignments in the whole semester, a midterm and a final. No coherent practice materials, messy file organization and a lack of effective exercises really made this class a slog. You will not be able to self study effectively using his materials. You must go to lecture and pay attention, which is such a chore when he shows up late to every class and his lecture cadence will put you to sleep. I also feel I didn't learn much. The other professors probably aren't any better though. So, whatever... take him, I guess.

Manoj Franklin
ENEE350

Anonymous
10/18/2023

Franklin is worse than Wade. For starters, he didn't even show up to our first exam. Without warning, the TA administered the exam (which he didn't write, and had some confusions about himself). This is on top of being consistently late to class. The exam itself wasn't printed properly (mine was extremely messy and hard to read), was horribly ambiguous, flat-out worded incorrectly for part 2, and had egregious weighting. Each multiple choice question was worth 10% of the exam grade, with there being 4 of them. The only question on there which was designed fairly was the C to MIPS translation, which was 40% of the exam. This is compounded by the issue of overall grade weighting. 2 assignments worth 10% each, and 2 exams worth 40% each. So each multiple choice question is worth a significant part of the overall course grade. It wouldn't be such an issue if there was material to study off of. There really isn't, as the past exams don't really prepare you for the questions being asked on the current exam, and any other material is information overload. There are close to 100 slides for the important chapters, and it's simply unfeasible to properly parse it. The lectures don't help with information digestion either, which I just gave up going pretty quickly. You'd think a professor who's been around and teaching this class as long as Franklin has would have some sort of grip on how to run this class, and provide appropriate materials. Apparently not. Speaking of, for teaching a class called "Computer Organization", Franklin might have the worst ELMS file organization I've ever seen. Some folders, such as discussions and slides, contain the appropriate files, while others are just scattered randomly. There's no rhyme or reason to most things. I don't understand why this professor's ratings are as high as they are. Yeah his final grade averages are pretty high, but what is anyone supposed to get from his classes? ENEE350 has been nothing so far, and I can't forsee that changing anytime soon. I usually wait until the end of the semester to rate professors, but not administering your own exam without warning is something else.

Manoj Franklin
ENEE350

Anonymous
06/16/2023

Pretty solid class overall. Manoj is definitely knowledgeable about the subject and teaches you what you need to know. He uses the MIPS architecture to teach the concepts of the course, which makes things easier but also isn't very useful outside of this course. The curve is set at the beginning of the semester in the syllabus, and is reasonably forgiving. The best thing about this class was also the worst thing -- there were very few assignments. We had a midterm (40%), a non-cumulative final (40%), and two homeworks (10% each). While this meant we had very little work day to day, exams became unnecessarily stressful. Additionally, because exams were so short messing up even one multiple choice question could ruin your grade pretty easily. The exams were mostly pretty similar to previous years (especially the larger questions) but sometimes the multiple choice and shorter problems could be tricky. If you really care about getting a good grade maybe take another professor with slightly lower weighted exams.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/25/2023

Oruc is not a very good professor, and his class is rather disorganized. Starting off with lectures, his lectures are not very helpful. Oruc ran lectures both in-person and online through Zoom, and because of this latter option being available, he decided to move class online at random points throughout the semester. We spent about half of our semester online and half in-person. For his in-person lectures, you will only be able to hear him if you sit in the front two rows. He mutters and drones about his own programming interfaces and is overall not very engaging. Online, you are actually able to hear him, but he has no consideration for note-takers. He has very bad handwriting and would scroll through his notes at an incredibly fast pace, so it was difficult to take notes; also, the notes he would release after class were pretty unreadable at times. The supplemental lecture slides online were made over 10 years ago. His homeworks were kinda vague but easy, and our TA was able to clear up expectations on what to submit. We only had one midterm during the semester. We got to bring in a cheat sheet, and it made a seemingly tough exam really easy; the average was around 86%. The final, on the other hand, was rough and poorly designed. It was 25 multiple choice questions of random trivia from throughout the semester with the 5th option for most questions being "all of the above" or "none of the above." Even with a cheat sheet, the average was in the upper 60's with the high being an 88%. It's such a shame that this course is so disappointing; I really enjoyed some of the topics in the course, but Oruc doesn't really make any of them very enjoyable.

Manoj Franklin
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/20/2023

bro was 15 minutes late to our final. but giving a serious review, other than being routinely late to class, we had 2 assignments the entire semester, ta keeps cancelling discussion. this class was so chill it was honestly the best. as for class content, it is actually very interesting, franklin speaks very softly so its easy to fall asleep, but if you do stay awake he is very knowledgeable and can learn a lot.

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
01/09/2023

Just a note, ENEE350 is my least ENEE course I have every taken content wise, so I will try to be mindful of that in my review. Barua was a good lecturer and is very passionate about the course, although the other reviews are true about his attitude and lateness to class. He is very direct which can come off as rude, but he genuinely wants the best for each of his students. The homeworks however were very frustrating, as they are not very relevant to the lectures and ended up feeling like a guessing game from the information from the slides. The exams were also very challenging. His lectures, while informative, never covered any type of example problems, which made the course much harder than necessary. Office hours were helpful, but you need to make sure you at least attempted the homework before hand and come with questions, and in addition he will never tell you anything close to the answers, he will just go over the necessary information and MAYBE the process. It is also worth noting that he teaches Assembly itself which is more beneficial compared to some of the other professors who teach their own coding languages imo.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/12/2022

It was an interesting class, but the lectures are very disorganized and do not help a lot. He also uses us to beta test his code or use his code for a lot which is kind of confusing, but I feel like I learned a decent amount.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/25/2022

Cool guy, but yet another ECE professor that's well past caring about educating students. One can compare his lectures over the years and see how he's increasingly prioritizing having his students beta-test his learning software over teaching a structured course. To be even more depressed, look at other university's courses and see what well-organized, mistake-free, and clearly delivered material looks like. Average on midterm was a 60, entirely due to poorly designed time constraints. Hopefully one day ECE courses at UMD won't be full of old profs teaching increasingly disorganized material from 2008 following no educational principles whatsoever who pretend their course structures aren't abject failures by having outrageous curves *breathes*, but I can't see that happening any time soon. If you're somehow reading this deciding whether to go to umd for ece, go to a university program that cares about actually educating undergrads. Waste of time.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting a P
Anonymous
05/24/2022

Oruc is very nice and easygoing. His homework are straightforward, but the lectures do not help out much. The class structure is a little lazy.

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
02/09/2022

Yikes. This class turned out to be such a huge headache. Meanwhile, peers that were taking 350 at the same time but with a different professor were straight up coasting. As the previous comments mentioned, his lectures are very interesting and he is a good professor. The main problem was his exams were beyond the material he taught and he lacked compassion for students. The exam style was harsh and studying for this class really took away from time I should have spent on other classes. If you are EE major, stay away. trust.

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Anonymous
01/23/2022

He's great! I found lectures pretty entertaining. Homeworks sometimes make you think a bit but never that hard. The final was tough but he curved appropriately. Yes he does tend to come late to class but honestly it's fine, gives you a few minutes to chill and we always got through all the material anyway.

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Anonymous
01/14/2022

Probably one of the most unprofessional instructors I've ever had. He was always several minutes late for class, answered phone calls during lectures and let his phone ring during exams, and failed to treat students with respect when they asked or answered questions. The homework and exams usually were tangentially related to lecture, requiring you to think critically about a "shortcut" needed to solve the question, which was pretty difficult under time pressure unless you knew it right away. Additionally, most of the topics asked about on homework or on exams were not discussed during lecture, and only scratched the surface if they were taught. As an EE major, I had very little previous knowledge on computer organization coming into the course, so Barua's lack of explanation and his assumptions that students knew everything already made this class much more difficult than it should be. However, I will say that his lectures were enjoyable. He is a very intelligent man, clearly has passion for computer organization and compilers, and uses many analogies to explain topics, which were useful. You success in this class will depend on your TA and asking questions during discussion. Barua views this course as an opportunity to lecture on computers, not so much explain the material for students to understand. Lectures scratch the surface, and homework and exams require complex assumptions without any prior exposure to similar questions.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
09/21/2021

Awesome teacher for ENEE350 since he wrote his own program to simulate machine code and assembly, and assigned those for homework. You get to learn a lot since you get to see how the machine works and what changes step by step in the simulation. The lectures are also recorded online so you can always look at those. Taking off a star because his test contains materials not taught in class. You can do perfectly on the homework but pretty bad on the test.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting a P
Anonymous
07/28/2021

Dr Oruc is a nice person but not the greatest professor. He rambles during class and his homework assignments are confusing and time consuming. TA was rude and unhelpful.

Manoj Franklin
ENEE350

Expecting an A
umdterpman
05/18/2021

I've taken 245 and 350 with Dr. Franklin. Both of them were online, so they probably won't translate to a real semester. I enjoyed 245 actually - I thought the labs were fair and educational (though the prelabs took SO LONG to complete). I agree with what others said about a good TA making a big difference. I also didn't go to any of the lectures - while Dr. Franklin knows his stuff, his online lecture format was reading from powerpoints, and I just could not pay any attention at all. The final at the end of the class was kind of a crapshoot - it was 10 multiple choice questions, and most of them were VERY niche questions from individual labs. The final average was like a 40% or something ridiculous, but it counts for only like 20% of the final grade so it ended up being alright. That final was still quite annoying though, and I'm sure a lot of people were frustrated with their grades afterwards if they did particularly badly (less than like a 40% would get you an A- or a B even if you did all the labs perfectly). 350 was another ballgame. Again, I could not pay any attention to his powerpoint lecture format. I watched maybe two lectures and then decided that I just couldn't pay attention anymore. Thankfully, our TA, Sidra, was amazing and helped teach us everything that we needed to know during discussions. She single-handedly saved everyone's grades. For both the midterm and the final we were given multiple practice exams, and over 50% of each exam was carbon-copy from the old tests. As a result, I (and many others) didn't attend lectures and still ended up doing well on exams just by practicing the old exams (the 3 HWs were also very relevant to the exams). I feel like this is partially due to the nature of online learning, and during a normal semester I think Franklin would be a pretty decent professor (see some of the older reviews), but online I didn't learn much in 350. Based on my impressions of this class and others, I would take Franklin over Oruc for 350, but also consider other professors if they are available.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/01/2021

Personality-wise, Oruc's a kind person for sure. This semester we had the pandemic so he moved the due date back for like half of the assignments. His lectures are useful, but he a glosses over important background information when doing examples (especially vesp early on). That being said, a lot of what I learned this semester came from the TA's who were pretty amazing.

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/25/2020

Dr. Barua is an extremely uncaring and unmotivated professor who comes off as unprofessional. I don't know if it's because of the switch to a completely online format, but he does not respond to emails, posts lectures and assignments only a few days before they're due, and is either eating or yawning or both in all of his lecture videos.

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Anonymous
12/23/2019

Rajeev Barua is a good lecturer but a bad professor. Pros: =>easy grader (depends on TA since I don't think he graded any of the papers) =>Good lectures (need to go to every class since the assigned book doesn't really help in studying, and 90% of what he asked in the exam were from his lectures). =>average of the class was around 80% in all the exams ( idk how though, I personally didn't too great) Cons: =>not punctual (always 5 mins late to the class) =>really bad and small handwriting (had to sit in the front of the class to make sure I don't miss anything he writes since he doesn't post his notes on elms ). =>straight up disses the students if they get the answer wrong during the lecture. =>gave only 2 or 3 days to finish homework. Most of the time, he assigns the homework a week before but tells you the martial in it is not covered, and there is no way to finish the homework early. Also, he gave the last homework, which was due on the day of the final exam. format of the class: 7 homework (2 coding and 5 problem solving), 2 midterms (covered the lecture notes), 1 final (cumulative) overall this class wasn't bad, but it definitely felt hectic because of the lack of understanding this professor had for his students.

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/21/2019

Solid professor, much, much easier course than if taken with other professors. Virtually 0 workload or stress involved.

Charles Silio
ENEE350

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/21/2019

STUDY THE OLD TEST! ONLY WAY TO GET BY! IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL FAIL! CLASS WILL PUT YOU TO SLEEP! AVOID AT ALL COST!

Charles Silio
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/10/2019

Silio is a terrible at teaching, rude to his students, and does not give reasonable study material. From the first day of class, he assumes that all of his students are familiar with the specific example machines' architecture and layout, and any questions are regarded with exasperated and inadequate answers. It appears as if he can't fathom that something may be confusing or explained improperly. The material he covers is often inadequate to answer homework questions, and the required text does not do much to help in that regard. Many times, it will be impossible to decipher what a question is exactly looking for simply due to poor phrasing. The material in the class is interesting, and if you want to enjoy it I would recommend taking anyone other than Silio.

Ankur Srivastava
ENEE350

Anonymous
07/23/2019

Took it over the summer. Excellent professor. His lectures are clear, and make sense if you really pay attention. Exams, I thought were decent if you paid attention in class, and knew what was up. Along with being good at teaching, he was quite funny, and enjoyable to listen to. Would recommend definitely.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/23/2018

Im not exactly sure how useful Dr. Orucs class is in the real world, since a lot of the material is stuff he wrote. His explanations can sometimes be unclear but luckily he posts lecture slides as well as the lecture videos so you can listen to it multiple times until you understand it. Midterm was average, final was difficult. Curve of around 6% at the end.

Charles Silio
ENEE350

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/23/2015

This class will be frustrating. For the first few weeks of the semester I guessed my way through the homework, turning it in, and learned how to do it the next day from my TA. His lectures are very long and drawn out and I had trouble learning anything from him. I passed this class by getting my hands on his previous tests and homework solutions. His exams are very similar to previous semesters and was not surprised by the exam when I showed up. The prgoramming assignments are the most difficult. He slightly changes a few of these so that you can't just copy and paste the assignments from previous semesters. If you get them working 100% he will curve your grade, so I relied on my TA for assistance to get them working. He grades extremely fast but gives little partial credit.

Charles Silio
ENEE350

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/17/2015

Don't take him unless you already know how to do assembly. He's hard to learn from and I have not learned how to code at all this semester. If you do end up having him make sure you hand in all the programs WORKING. You have until the last day of the semester to hand them in otherwise your grade will not be curved. He replaces your lowest midterm grade with your final grade if you get a higher score. Try to show up to class occasionally he remembers who shows up. If you plan on memorizing his past exams, remember that the final is not on IEEE

Charles Silio
ENEE350

Expecting a C
ashivkum
05/17/2013

Even though I got a low grade in this course, the guy is fair. Very fair. His exams are up, free to viewing, and exams are usually very similar to those online. Fast grader; usually done within a few hours. Might be dull during lecture, but when you go to office hours, you see a personality in this guy. He teaches you, shows passion, talks about things in industry, and is actually a very interesting guy. I got a bad grade because he gives like ZERO partial credit on exams, but that's my fault, not his. Do the programming projects and turn them in before the end of the semester, and he curves your grade (regardless of how the rest of the class is doing). I'm sure that I passed this semester because of that...

Charles Silio
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/16/2012

If you've had Silio before, you know what to expect. Two exams and a final account for 90% of your grade, and the final can overwrite one of the other exams. Exams are similar to previous years so check the testbank. However, the testbank alone will not get you through this course like you might be used to. He gives 4 programming assignments during the semester (one of which is a program he writes and you just analyze.) The programs themselves are worth only 4% of your grade and are a lot of work, so most people chose not to do them. HOWEVER, if you do not do the programs, he will not curve your grade. You will also not know how to do large portions of the second exam and final. You must get all 4 programs 100% working to get any credit for them, but you can turn them in up until basically the last day of the course so that you can still guarantee yourself a curve. The only way to do well on the final is to do the programs and know what you're doing. He also creates a few big sets of notes for some of the more important topics, minimizing how much of the book you have to read. The microarchitecture notes, which you get within the first few weeks, are your most important resource for the class. Read them, have the diagrams and instruction set out while you're programming, and you'll learn everything just fine. You also get most of the diagrams and tables on the exams. A large portion of the class did not do the programming assignments, and they as a whole did not do well in the class. If you don't do any of them, you're almost assured a C or lower.

Charles Silio
ENEE350

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/13/2012

He is totally unfair. Let me give you an ex, no3 on exam 1 got 85 and 63 on exam 2 and 89 on final. So final score was 86/100. As the person didn't submit programming assignments the grade should not be curved as he told the class .so 86 is a B. But he gave an A which is unfair to other students. Exams are similar to previous exams. So not bad but a bit unfair.

Rajeev Barua
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/27/2011

Had Prof. Barua for both 244 and 350, and the experience was very much similar in both. The only difference for 350 was that he did not go over concrete examples of the concepts he explained in lecture, which he reserved largely for discussions. Homework assignments were fair and straightforward, and exams generally were not terribly difficult, although select problems could get a bit tricky. Past exams are a must to get a look at the kind of questions he can ask.

Ankur Srivastava
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/21/2011

Srivastava is great! He is a very interesting dude and always has cool anecdotes to add to the class. The bottom line though, is that he is just a solid teacher. You will learn the most important material from him as he cuts out all the stupid stuff that Oruc does. Homeworks are kind of annoying, but fairly straightforward and he doesn't give very many of them. Exams are tough, but fair.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/08/2010

Oruc is a really great guy and is very nice and personable. I really don't like programming at all, but ive had a little more experience that some other EEs i think writing C (even though id rather cut off a foot than program something) so i guess i have a little bit of an advantage. not a whole lot though. none of the material is all that terribly difficult, and the class really doesn't have a particularly heavy workload. the second half of the class isn't really as relevant to electrical engineering as it is to computer engineering so its hard to stay motivated i guess you could say. i would with out a doubt take oruc again.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/29/2009

...If you are taking this class as EE, and Umer is the TA for this class ->TAKE IT. ....If not, you might want to consider other options ...In any case, good luck ! ... I think Dr Oruc is a great professor, but it's somewhat difficult understand the subject he is teaching.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Anonymous
12/05/2009

Uruc caters to computer engineers who have some familiarity with this material. For those who are EE beware unless you have an awesome TA such as Umer. Otherwise this professor is way past his prime and fails to communicate well with the stuents

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Anonymous
04/12/2009

He's among the best prof's I ever had. He actually cares about his students. It's a pity though that he uses vesp and a little programming that most of us actually hate. But either way, he's the best. Hands down.

Yavuz Oruc
ENEE350

Anonymous
01/22/2009

Good teacher. He puts a lot of effort into making sure his students understand material during lecture. Also his homework assignments are not very difficult.

Ankur Srivastava
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/19/2008

He's one of the best professors I've ever had, you should definitely take him for 350.

Charles Silio
ENEE350

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/25/2008

I took 244 and 350 with him. Pretty much, he is a terrible lecturer, and cannot teach worth anything. However, he will give you homeworks and tests in such a way that if you are not proficient in the material, you will fail. He gives very little partial credit, and his exams are more of an exercise in precision than creativity. What I mean by that is, he will give you some 7 problems and if you have to stop and think about any of them, chances are you are not going to do well on the test.

Ankur Srivastava
ENEE350

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/12/2007

He's a cool guy...Always kept class kinda fun and interesting. But he is serious about the class learning his stuff. Pretty tough - the average on the first exam was a 40% - but he was fair and curved accordingly. I would def recommend him over Silio ANYDAY...

Reviews for ENEE350