FIRE198 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Kristina Kramarczuk FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/26/2024	dr. k used to be a middle school teacher and i think that somewhat shows in her personality, which i know some people didn't like but i personally didn't mind. she's really kind and helpful and her grading is very straightforward, so if you're interested in her stream's topic, definitely try to join it!
Shabnam Jabeen FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/22/2024	i don’t think we did too much in class, but she’s a very helpful professor and very nice and accommodating overall. the computing assignments she gave us were interesting and helped me learn more about qiskit and how to use colab.
Catherine Spirito FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/17/2024	Dr.Spirito is not only a great professor/lab coordinator, but she's also a very kind and understanding person. Her entire lab and class for FIRE (molecular diagnostics) is clearly set out and she provides you with enough time to complete each assignment. She also is not a harsh grader, basically giving all students an A as long as they submit all the work, and is very lenient with extensions. The PRMs for this course are also great and very personable, and are always available to help. If you have the option to take this course with Dr.Spirito please do you won't regret it.
Shannon Hilton FIRE198 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/10/2024	She is new to UMD, but she's honestly one of my favorite teachers. She genuinely seems to care about her students (brought us muffins on the last day of class), her labs & assignments are fair, her grading is not at all harsh, and she is very understanding about situations such as absences or group issues.
Danielle Niu FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/07/2024	Dr. Niu is so great, would definitely recommend for any FIRE course. She teaches project greenhouse, and is very knowledgable and passionate about the subject.
Cherisse Hall FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/02/2024	I think that Dr. Hall is a great lecturer, however over the semester we had some issues with the lab. When you register for the class you are given a 50 minute lecture once a week, however what they don't tell you is that they expect you to put 6 hours per week in the lab outside of class time. This becomes an issue because if the times when the lab is open aren't conducive with your schedule, it's hard to make time to go. This semester we also had a lot of issues with ordering certain reagents on time for them to be used in the research, Dr. Hall was very understanding about us not being able to finish certain protocols because of this but it was still a bit annoying to have to wait. I will say that this class is almost entirely a group project that spans an entire year so I would put in a lot of effort to make relationships with your group members because you have to work with them for a long time.
Cherisse Hall FIRE198 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/31/2024	I'm leaving this review here since I'm in the FIRE stream that Dr. Hall runs, Bacterial Pathogenesis. However, she was away on maternity leave for most of the semester when I took this class. In her absence, the lecture part of this class was taught by Dr. Weiner and Dr. Zeidan. But the lab is way more important than lecture, so it shouldn't matter that much. This class is not hard at all, but it is deceivingly time consuming. When you sign up for this class on Testudo, you only see a 1-hour lecture once a week. What they don't tell you is that you're required to a spend an extra 3-5 hours a week in the lab. That means that in terms of time commitment, this class is at least as much as an entire lab session. Some weeks, it might end up being like two whole 3-hour labs! You have to plan to go to the lab whenever its open, but you aren't told the hours until 2 weeks into class. So if your schedule and the lab's schedule don't fit together, you're in trouble. If you're taking a lot of credits, or you're taking a hard class where you have to do lots of studying on your own time, you will struggle to get stuff done because of how much time this class eats up.
Cherisse Hall FIRE198 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/31/2024	Dr. Hall was away on maternity leave for most of the semester, but I'm in the FIRE stream that she is in charge of, so I decided it would still be best to leave my review for this class here. Most of the reviews for this class just say its easy, and dont get me wrong, it is. As long as you turn in all your assignments on time, you'll get full credit. And the TAs are relatively forgiving about giving extensions even if you don't. But all that said, be aware that this class is absurdly time consuming even if its easy. It requires you to spend anywhere from 3-5 hours a week in lab, plus another hour for the lecture. That makes it more than a full lab period in terms of time commitment. Some weeks it might even end up being like 2 full lab periods! So if you take this class in a semester where you're taking a lot of other credits, or you're taking any hard classes that require a lot of studying on your own time (or in my case, both; big mistake), you might find yourself struggling to get things done because of this class. Be warned.
Shannon Hilton FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/15/2024	She's very nice and gives a very manageable amount of work.
Patrick McGurrin FIRE198 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/06/2023	good
Cherisse Hall FIRE198 Expecting an A- Anonymous 09/03/2023	Nice Person and decently helpful when in lab. However, she waited until the end of the semester to grade most of the assignments in class, including our final lab report which significantly lowered my grade. In general the stream is what you make of it, but Dr. Hall, despite being a very nice person, is a terrible grader.
Jaclyn Bruner FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2023	She is, without a doubt, the kindest and most understanding professor I have ever had in my life. this woman is a GEM. in visualizing social justice she tried to teach us about public memory concepts which were pretty difficult to grasp but she really engaged us and understood that this new material would be difficult for us. after i had to submit assignments late for personal issues, she told me that it didn't matter to her that the work was late, what mattered was that it was turned in. and some people may say that she sounds like an easy prof to take advantage of, and in theory yes, but the thing is that no one really wants to take advantage of her because we respect her and want her to be proud of our work. if you are in fire and considering the VSJ stream, i heavily recommend it b/c even tho this was bruner's first semester with the program and i'm sure some things will change for the future as she settles in, she is an incredible person to know. and i guess she teaches comms too lol i'd probably take anything she teaches. JB 4EVER!
Patrick McGurrin FIRE198 Anonymous 03/29/2023	Not that great. Not clear with expectations or feedback.
Thanicha Ruangmas FIRE198 Expecting an A filthyitalian 05/11/2022	Professor Ruangmas is super intelligent and knowledgeable on course material. Having a lab to work on coding is super helpful and I'm glad that they exist. CODING IS HARD! But, you will get through it.
Sharon Colvin FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/24/2022	Sharon is by far the best professor at UMD! Please take her class its the best one ever, is super informative, and is so well-planned out.
Raymond H Tu FIRE198 Anonymous 03/10/2022	DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE!!!! Each week you have to copy down his code on his slides, and while this may seem easy, there is ALWAYS MANY mistakes in his slides. It is so frustrating debugging his code when you have zero clue what is going on in his code. This class takes me more effort than both CMSC132 and CMSC250 combined. Do yourself a favor and take Autonomous Unmanned Systems.
Azieb Kidanu FIRE198 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/24/2021	The workload was adequate for this course and graded generously. Class time was reserved for education on public health concepts (like SPHL100 content). That being said, it was kind of redundant for PHS majors so you could get away with not attending lecture. However, you were not expected to complete any work outside of class time. All assignments were made to be completed during class in teams.
Catherine Spirito FIRE198 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2021	Great professor and really understanding and caring for her students. The MD stream can be challenging but she makes sure to give students enough resources to really understand the research we are pursuing.
Alexandra Jones FIRE198 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/04/2021	Professor Jones is great. She is super understanding, I had to miss class due to being sick a few times with no problems. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Cloud Computing stream, even with it being online. It's been challenging but I have learned a lot.
Benjamin Huffman FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/29/2021	Global Development and Design is an interesting stream as it discusses the SDGs and how we can solve issues under that. I know a lot of kids in this stream had no other choice cause their original choice had no more spots. But I chose this stream cause I thought it'd be interesting and sort of covers social issues. (most people in this stream are govt/politic majors) (Background: had him for FIRE120 and I was in the marketing + outreach module and govt accountability seminar group) -First half of semester, super easy, few assignments and they were very easy -One downside: After spring break, it was a HUGE mess. So you get assigned to 1 module and 1 seminar group (it's weird to explain what these are but once you're in them for 2 weeks you'll get it). Once we were put into our 2 groups they dumped a huge load of work and gave us short deadlines. It was especially confusing when no one knew the difference at the time. It just disorganized and very overwhelming. -I will say the second half of the semester is very collaboratively and HAVE to work with your groups to get assignments done. I kinda enjoyed it though. I really enjoyed the module and seminar topics. -Also I guess ur mentor for your groups could affect how you enjoy this course. My PRM Maddy was so great and supportive and very much organized so that definitely was a plus. I would recommend this stream for sure. Especially if want to learn about human interaction, global development, marketing, and stuff along those lines, this is definitely the stream for you. Also would say that even if this is your last choice there's so many elements in this stream that sort of has other elements that other streams have. Like I know one group has to code and my group had to make graphics. So it has a wide range of appeals.
Derrick Yeo FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/09/2020	Awesome guy. Really chill and friendly. Take him if you can!
Derrick Yeo FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/19/2020	Great professor. Class is super laid-back and I would highly recommend his research stream to anyone interested.
Jonathan Goodson FIRE198 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/18/2020	Dr. Goodson is probably the most considerate professor you'll ever have. You can tell that he genuinely wants you to succeed. Plus, he's super approachable outside of class, and he's more than ready to give you an extension if you're having trouble with an assignment. Definitely choose the Transcriptomics of Disease stream if you're interested in computational biology.
Kyungjin Yoo FIRE198 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/02/2020	I have not experienced any of the things mentioned in the other review. Sometimes he doesn't make expectations clear and he can be a little bit intimidating at first but he's chill and will pretty much give you 100% as long as you do what you're supposed to. I have not been frustrated with him at all.

Kristina Kramarczuk
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/26/2024

dr. k used to be a middle school teacher and i think that somewhat shows in her personality, which i know some people didn't like but i personally didn't mind. she's really kind and helpful and her grading is very straightforward, so if you're interested in her stream's topic, definitely try to join it!

Shabnam Jabeen
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/22/2024

i don’t think we did too much in class, but she’s a very helpful professor and very nice and accommodating overall. the computing assignments she gave us were interesting and helped me learn more about qiskit and how to use colab.

Catherine Spirito
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/17/2024

Dr.Spirito is not only a great professor/lab coordinator, but she's also a very kind and understanding person. Her entire lab and class for FIRE (molecular diagnostics) is clearly set out and she provides you with enough time to complete each assignment. She also is not a harsh grader, basically giving all students an A as long as they submit all the work, and is very lenient with extensions. The PRMs for this course are also great and very personable, and are always available to help. If you have the option to take this course with Dr.Spirito please do you won't regret it.

Shannon Hilton
FIRE198

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/10/2024

She is new to UMD, but she's honestly one of my favorite teachers. She genuinely seems to care about her students (brought us muffins on the last day of class), her labs & assignments are fair, her grading is not at all harsh, and she is very understanding about situations such as absences or group issues.

Danielle Niu
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/07/2024

Dr. Niu is so great, would definitely recommend for any FIRE course. She teaches project greenhouse, and is very knowledgable and passionate about the subject.

Cherisse Hall
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/02/2024

I think that Dr. Hall is a great lecturer, however over the semester we had some issues with the lab. When you register for the class you are given a 50 minute lecture once a week, however what they don't tell you is that they expect you to put 6 hours per week in the lab outside of class time. This becomes an issue because if the times when the lab is open aren't conducive with your schedule, it's hard to make time to go. This semester we also had a lot of issues with ordering certain reagents on time for them to be used in the research, Dr. Hall was very understanding about us not being able to finish certain protocols because of this but it was still a bit annoying to have to wait. I will say that this class is almost entirely a group project that spans an entire year so I would put in a lot of effort to make relationships with your group members because you have to work with them for a long time.

Cherisse Hall
FIRE198

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
03/31/2024

I'm leaving this review here since I'm in the FIRE stream that Dr. Hall runs, Bacterial Pathogenesis. However, she was away on maternity leave for most of the semester when I took this class. In her absence, the lecture part of this class was taught by Dr. Weiner and Dr. Zeidan. But the lab is way more important than lecture, so it shouldn't matter that much. This class is not hard at all, but it is deceivingly time consuming. When you sign up for this class on Testudo, you only see a 1-hour lecture once a week. What they don't tell you is that you're required to a spend an extra 3-5 hours a week in the lab. That means that in terms of time commitment, this class is at least as much as an entire lab session. Some weeks, it might end up being like two whole 3-hour labs! You have to plan to go to the lab whenever its open, but you aren't told the hours until 2 weeks into class. So if your schedule and the lab's schedule don't fit together, you're in trouble. If you're taking a lot of credits, or you're taking a hard class where you have to do lots of studying on your own time, you will struggle to get stuff done because of how much time this class eats up.

Cherisse Hall
FIRE198

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
03/31/2024

Dr. Hall was away on maternity leave for most of the semester, but I'm in the FIRE stream that she is in charge of, so I decided it would still be best to leave my review for this class here. Most of the reviews for this class just say its easy, and dont get me wrong, it is. As long as you turn in all your assignments on time, you'll get full credit. And the TAs are relatively forgiving about giving extensions even if you don't. But all that said, be aware that this class is absurdly time consuming even if its easy. It requires you to spend anywhere from 3-5 hours a week in lab, plus another hour for the lecture. That makes it more than a full lab period in terms of time commitment. Some weeks it might even end up being like 2 full lab periods! So if you take this class in a semester where you're taking a lot of other credits, or you're taking any hard classes that require a lot of studying on your own time (or in my case, both; big mistake), you might find yourself struggling to get things done because of this class. Be warned.

Shannon Hilton
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
03/15/2024

She's very nice and gives a very manageable amount of work.

Patrick McGurrin
FIRE198

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/06/2023

good

Cherisse Hall
FIRE198

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
09/03/2023

Nice Person and decently helpful when in lab. However, she waited until the end of the semester to grade most of the assignments in class, including our final lab report which significantly lowered my grade. In general the stream is what you make of it, but Dr. Hall, despite being a very nice person, is a terrible grader.

Jaclyn Bruner
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/09/2023

She is, without a doubt, the kindest and most understanding professor I have ever had in my life. this woman is a GEM. in visualizing social justice she tried to teach us about public memory concepts which were pretty difficult to grasp but she really engaged us and understood that this new material would be difficult for us. after i had to submit assignments late for personal issues, she told me that it didn't matter to her that the work was late, what mattered was that it was turned in. and some people may say that she sounds like an easy prof to take advantage of, and in theory yes, but the thing is that no one really wants to take advantage of her because we respect her and want her to be proud of our work. if you are in fire and considering the VSJ stream, i heavily recommend it b/c even tho this was bruner's first semester with the program and i'm sure some things will change for the future as she settles in, she is an incredible person to know. and i guess she teaches comms too lol i'd probably take anything she teaches. JB 4EVER!

Patrick McGurrin
FIRE198

Anonymous
03/29/2023

Not that great. Not clear with expectations or feedback.

Thanicha Ruangmas
FIRE198

Expecting an A
filthyitalian
05/11/2022

Professor Ruangmas is super intelligent and knowledgeable on course material. Having a lab to work on coding is super helpful and I'm glad that they exist. CODING IS HARD! But, you will get through it.

Sharon Colvin
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/24/2022

Sharon is by far the best professor at UMD! Please take her class its the best one ever, is super informative, and is so well-planned out.

Raymond H Tu
FIRE198

Anonymous
03/10/2022

DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE!!!! Each week you have to copy down his code on his slides, and while this may seem easy, there is ALWAYS MANY mistakes in his slides. It is so frustrating debugging his code when you have zero clue what is going on in his code. This class takes me more effort than both CMSC132 and CMSC250 combined. Do yourself a favor and take Autonomous Unmanned Systems.

Azieb Kidanu
FIRE198

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/24/2021

The workload was adequate for this course and graded generously. Class time was reserved for education on public health concepts (like SPHL100 content). That being said, it was kind of redundant for PHS majors so you could get away with not attending lecture. However, you were not expected to complete any work outside of class time. All assignments were made to be completed during class in teams.

Catherine Spirito
FIRE198

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/22/2021

Great professor and really understanding and caring for her students. The MD stream can be challenging but she makes sure to give students enough resources to really understand the research we are pursuing.

Alexandra Jones
FIRE198

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/04/2021

Professor Jones is great. She is super understanding, I had to miss class due to being sick a few times with no problems. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Cloud Computing stream, even with it being online. It's been challenging but I have learned a lot.

Benjamin Huffman
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/29/2021

Global Development and Design is an interesting stream as it discusses the SDGs and how we can solve issues under that. I know a lot of kids in this stream had no other choice cause their original choice had no more spots. But I chose this stream cause I thought it'd be interesting and sort of covers social issues. (most people in this stream are govt/politic majors) (Background: had him for FIRE120 and I was in the marketing + outreach module and govt accountability seminar group) -First half of semester, super easy, few assignments and they were very easy -One downside: After spring break, it was a HUGE mess. So you get assigned to 1 module and 1 seminar group (it's weird to explain what these are but once you're in them for 2 weeks you'll get it). Once we were put into our 2 groups they dumped a huge load of work and gave us short deadlines. It was especially confusing when no one knew the difference at the time. It just disorganized and very overwhelming. -I will say the second half of the semester is very collaboratively and HAVE to work with your groups to get assignments done. I kinda enjoyed it though. I really enjoyed the module and seminar topics. -Also I guess ur mentor for your groups could affect how you enjoy this course. My PRM Maddy was so great and supportive and very much organized so that definitely was a plus. I would recommend this stream for sure. Especially if want to learn about human interaction, global development, marketing, and stuff along those lines, this is definitely the stream for you. Also would say that even if this is your last choice there's so many elements in this stream that sort of has other elements that other streams have. Like I know one group has to code and my group had to make graphics. So it has a wide range of appeals.

Derrick Yeo
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/09/2020

Awesome guy. Really chill and friendly. Take him if you can!

Derrick Yeo
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/19/2020

Great professor. Class is super laid-back and I would highly recommend his research stream to anyone interested.

Jonathan Goodson
FIRE198

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/18/2020

Dr. Goodson is probably the most considerate professor you'll ever have. You can tell that he genuinely wants you to succeed. Plus, he's super approachable outside of class, and he's more than ready to give you an extension if you're having trouble with an assignment. Definitely choose the Transcriptomics of Disease stream if you're interested in computational biology.

Kyungjin Yoo
FIRE198

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/02/2020

I have not experienced any of the things mentioned in the other review. Sometimes he doesn't make expectations clear and he can be a little bit intimidating at first but he's chill and will pretty much give you 100% as long as you do what you're supposed to. I have not been frustrated with him at all.

Reviews for FIRE198