Reviews for ENEE651
| Information | Review |
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Uzi Vishkin
ENEE651 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/19/2024 |
he is very intelligent but his presentation of parallel algorithms has not changed since the 80s. this is generally fine, since professor vishkin has a great deal of original research in parallel algorithms to his name, but the limits of the course show up in the details. everything is taught out of his personal notes, which are essentially just a review of his research career presented in an order he finds suitable for education. the notes are generally detailed with references, but they have not been updated in over a decade and are frequently vague and typeset poorly. whenever possible, i found it more useful to study from professor joseph jaja's textbook (also from UMD!) as the explanations, order, and presentation of algorithms was better dry homeworks, presented weekly, were 10% of the grade in the course. these are exercises from his notes, which are often meant to "fill in blanks" that aren't explicitly spelled out. programming assignments were 25% of the grade. i liked these; you design and run programs for a parallel computer that professor vishkin designed. the programming process is very much like overlaying the work-depth model onto C. they were not particularly hard except for the last one the exams in this course were awful. he expects you to print out and bring his 100-page notes to the exam as an exam aid. you are not allowed anything except an unmarked copy of his notes. if you do not print out the 100 pages of notes and bring them to the exam, you can expect to be tripped up by some tiny detail you never expected to be important and punished harshly for it. meanwhile, the mouth-breather next to you who printed and BOUND the notes will have a great time. ask me how i know! also, the second midterm is weighted much more heavily than the first while also covering more (and more difficult) content overall, i do feel like a learned a lot about parallel algorithms in this class. but the process was pretty excruciating. it's hard to stay engaged in lecture when lecture is just professor vishkin putting his notes up on the projector and reading through them to you. it's even harder to go back home and read through those same notes to study for the exam that is built entirely around those notes. i appreciated the practical programming components of the course, but i quickly grew tired of the professor constantly singing his own praises and reminding us how important he was to the development of parallel algorithmic theory. i can think of at least two faculty from the CS department who are equally qualified to teach this course and certainly would have done a much better job |