FIRE298 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Shabnam Jabeen FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/01/2024	Do not take her FIRE stream. Does not teach and expects you to learn all about quantum by yourself (CHALLENGE: HARD)
Quira Zeidan FIRE298 Expecting an A+ sapgar 12/12/2023	Absolutely lovely human being—the content might be hard but you will get an A practically no matter what so long as you put the work in. Dr. Z is truly a sweetheart and just a really kind and intelligent human being. She clearly cares deeply about her research and her students! Highly recommend her stream (FIRE CellEX) to any upcoming FIRE198 natural sciences students.
Marissa Hartwig FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/12/2023	Great professor! I had her for both FIRE198 and FIRE298, though she's moving to the psych department so I won't talk about the fire stuff. She's super nice, and I really felt that she wanted to get to know me personally (and succeeded!). She's very inclusive and encourages everyone to do their best. No idea if this will apply in the future, but she would always bring snacks for us in lab. She's understanding if you need an extension or something similar, and she showed genuine interest in my projects, especially when I connected it to another of my interests. 100% would recommend, if there's a gap in my schedule I might even take her again despite not being a psych or psych-adjacent major.
Jaclyn Bruner FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/07/2023	i stuck with bruner for my third fire semester and i don't regret it at all! visualizing social justice is such an interesting topic and bruner really let us branch out into all of our interests. everyone's final project was soooo different and i think that shows how open she is to new / important ideas, even if our projects don't align with her projects in solving cold cases. i am staying on a PRM and i can't wait to keep working with her! if there is an assignment in the lab you don't want to do, you can literally not do it and it'll be fine lol like half the class skipped a bunch of assignments but it's no big deal. pretty much everyone else i've talked to in different fire streams isn't happy / doesn't like their stream / professor but that is so not the case with VSJ!
Thanicha Ruangmas FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/04/2023	Knowledgeable and helpful professor, very understanding too.
Thanicha Ruangmas FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/03/2023	Super nice and understanding professor. I really enjoyed my time with her in FIRE and she made sure to guide us along every step of the way. Ultimately FIRE is what you make of it and she won't hold it against you if you don't have the most time to spend on the class, but also if you put in some effort you can learn a lot from her and the course.
Robert Young FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/29/2023	Avoid at all costs. He is a tyrant in the classroom and assigns an insane amount of tedious assignments. He appears to be using fire as an opportunity for students to do his research for him without having to pay them. Unreasonable and extremely difficult to work with.
Jessica O'Hara FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/23/2022	Best professor I have had in a long time. She loves you if you participate and try to make an effort. Her class is super easy and you learn a lot of useful lab skills.
Alexandra Jones FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2022	She's such a wonderful professor, and I got to know her well over the last two semesters. She's no longer leading the cloud computing stream, but I can bet that she's an amazing choice for any other classes she's teaching.
Raymond H Tu FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/20/2022	Horrible professor. Doesn't teach anything, doesn't listen to feedback, doesn't even make FIRE a research-based experience at all. This review is kind of pointless now that Dr. Tu is leaving the university, but for the record, FIRE is a pretty fraudulent program; purely smoke and mirrors to make you think you'll be in an exclusive research program to learn cutting edge tech and AI when in reality it's just an 8 credit program with 2 free geneds aand practically zero opportunity for learning or growing.
Laura Drew FIRE298 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2021	Overall Dr.Drew is a good Professor. She is obviously someone who is very passionate about public health and research but sometimes her directions were unclear. One of my bigger problems with this stream is how little it focuses on the justice aspect of the stream as stated in the title. We did a lot of research related to public health but that connection to justice was seldom made. She was disorganized but I think a large part of it was due to how little the Professor before her was involved in the course. As 90% of the course work in this stream in group work, please make sure everyone in your group is participating or your grade will suffer. (If one person doesnt contribute to their portion of the project, you will also be impacted because of their lack of effort which sucks) . Despite the negatives I learned a lot about research and public health. Personally I really enjoyed this class and I would take it again.
Nitin Sanket FIRE298 Expecting an A tortoise7 12/14/2021	He's not a hard grader, but he will challenge you with some harder assignments. I feel this actually helped a LOT for the project my group worked on as we were able to take what we learned from these assignments to do some fairly advanced things with our project. He is also extremely knowledgeable about how to best conduct and present research. %100 would recommend this professor to anyone interested in FIRE.
Laura Drew FIRE298 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/24/2021	This was Dr. Drew's first semester teaching this course but she simply was unable to uphold the original expectations established in semester 2. As a third semester FIRE student, the significant difference in grading and teaching from semester 2 to 3 affected student performance. They say that a course is what you make of it, but in this case that is not true. The disorganization was off the walls. Lecture time was used for lecture but you would still leave class without understanding how Dr. Drew wanted you to complete an assignment. However, given that the RJPH stream is new, I hope they can get it back on track. Even then, I would not take this course again.
Yun Choi FIRE298 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/29/2021	Dr. Choi is a great professor if you want to be prepared for success later in the field of the stem. People say he's imtimidating and I think its because they are scared to ask questions that may seem dumb. I think its a combination of us not being prepared for class in general, and the fear of making a mistake. But, if you talk to a peer mentor or Dr. Choi himself you can realize they are nice people and want to help you succeed. He tries to be funny by posting science related memes. He also tries to be realistic as possible in lab training. You can tell he is very passionate about his research by how he talks and explains the research in the class. Also the content in this class can help you later down the line in advance stem classes. I recommened to take Dr. Choi's class if you are intrested in developing your professional skills as a student as well as develop a more broad knowledge for stem.
Alexandra Jones FIRE298 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/15/2021	Best professor I have had at UMD. She wants you to succeed and will always go out of her way to help you. I'm so glad I picked this stream for the FIRE program!
Molly Goodfellow FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/13/2021	Great Professor. Very chill and caring. 10/10 would recommend.
Derrick Yeo FIRE298 Anonymous 12/27/2020	Derrick continues to be one of my favorite professors. Sadly, I do not think the Autonomous Unmanned Systems stream will be continued past this semester, but hopefully he can continue to be an advisor in the FIRE department.
Cristina Risco FIRE298 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/04/2020	Very very smart person, wants to see you succeed and genuinely cares about her students. She can talk a lottt but overall a great person and professor.

Shabnam Jabeen
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/01/2024

Do not take her FIRE stream. Does not teach and expects you to learn all about quantum by yourself (CHALLENGE: HARD)

Quira Zeidan
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
sapgar
12/12/2023

Absolutely lovely human being—the content might be hard but you will get an A practically no matter what so long as you put the work in. Dr. Z is truly a sweetheart and just a really kind and intelligent human being. She clearly cares deeply about her research and her students! Highly recommend her stream (FIRE CellEX) to any upcoming FIRE198 natural sciences students.

Marissa Hartwig
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/12/2023

Great professor! I had her for both FIRE198 and FIRE298, though she's moving to the psych department so I won't talk about the fire stuff. She's super nice, and I really felt that she wanted to get to know me personally (and succeeded!). She's very inclusive and encourages everyone to do their best. No idea if this will apply in the future, but she would always bring snacks for us in lab. She's understanding if you need an extension or something similar, and she showed genuine interest in my projects, especially when I connected it to another of my interests. 100% would recommend, if there's a gap in my schedule I might even take her again despite not being a psych or psych-adjacent major.

Jaclyn Bruner
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/07/2023

i stuck with bruner for my third fire semester and i don't regret it at all! visualizing social justice is such an interesting topic and bruner really let us branch out into all of our interests. everyone's final project was soooo different and i think that shows how open she is to new / important ideas, even if our projects don't align with her projects in solving cold cases. i am staying on a PRM and i can't wait to keep working with her! if there is an assignment in the lab you don't want to do, you can literally not do it and it'll be fine lol like half the class skipped a bunch of assignments but it's no big deal. pretty much everyone else i've talked to in different fire streams isn't happy / doesn't like their stream / professor but that is so not the case with VSJ!

Thanicha Ruangmas
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/04/2023

Knowledgeable and helpful professor, very understanding too.

Thanicha Ruangmas
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/03/2023

Super nice and understanding professor. I really enjoyed my time with her in FIRE and she made sure to guide us along every step of the way. Ultimately FIRE is what you make of it and she won't hold it against you if you don't have the most time to spend on the class, but also if you put in some effort you can learn a lot from her and the course.

Robert Young
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/29/2023

Avoid at all costs. He is a tyrant in the classroom and assigns an insane amount of tedious assignments. He appears to be using fire as an opportunity for students to do his research for him without having to pay them. Unreasonable and extremely difficult to work with.

Jessica O'Hara
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/23/2022

Best professor I have had in a long time. She loves you if you participate and try to make an effort. Her class is super easy and you learn a lot of useful lab skills.

Alexandra Jones
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/22/2022

She's such a wonderful professor, and I got to know her well over the last two semesters. She's no longer leading the cloud computing stream, but I can bet that she's an amazing choice for any other classes she's teaching.

Raymond H Tu
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/20/2022

Horrible professor. Doesn't teach anything, doesn't listen to feedback, doesn't even make FIRE a research-based experience at all. This review is kind of pointless now that Dr. Tu is leaving the university, but for the record, FIRE is a pretty fraudulent program; purely smoke and mirrors to make you think you'll be in an exclusive research program to learn cutting edge tech and AI when in reality it's just an 8 credit program with 2 free geneds aand practically zero opportunity for learning or growing.

Laura Drew
FIRE298

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/17/2021

Overall Dr.Drew is a good Professor. She is obviously someone who is very passionate about public health and research but sometimes her directions were unclear. One of my bigger problems with this stream is how little it focuses on the justice aspect of the stream as stated in the title. We did a lot of research related to public health but that connection to justice was seldom made. She was disorganized but I think a large part of it was due to how little the Professor before her was involved in the course. As 90% of the course work in this stream in group work, please make sure everyone in your group is participating or your grade will suffer. (If one person doesnt contribute to their portion of the project, you will also be impacted because of their lack of effort which sucks) . Despite the negatives I learned a lot about research and public health. Personally I really enjoyed this class and I would take it again.

Nitin Sanket
FIRE298

Expecting an A
tortoise7
12/14/2021

He's not a hard grader, but he will challenge you with some harder assignments. I feel this actually helped a LOT for the project my group worked on as we were able to take what we learned from these assignments to do some fairly advanced things with our project. He is also extremely knowledgeable about how to best conduct and present research. %100 would recommend this professor to anyone interested in FIRE.

Laura Drew
FIRE298

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
11/24/2021

This was Dr. Drew's first semester teaching this course but she simply was unable to uphold the original expectations established in semester 2. As a third semester FIRE student, the significant difference in grading and teaching from semester 2 to 3 affected student performance. They say that a course is what you make of it, but in this case that is not true. The disorganization was off the walls. Lecture time was used for lecture but you would still leave class without understanding how Dr. Drew wanted you to complete an assignment. However, given that the RJPH stream is new, I hope they can get it back on track. Even then, I would not take this course again.

Yun Choi
FIRE298

Expecting an A
Anonymous
10/29/2021

Dr. Choi is a great professor if you want to be prepared for success later in the field of the stem. People say he's imtimidating and I think its because they are scared to ask questions that may seem dumb. I think its a combination of us not being prepared for class in general, and the fear of making a mistake. But, if you talk to a peer mentor or Dr. Choi himself you can realize they are nice people and want to help you succeed. He tries to be funny by posting science related memes. He also tries to be realistic as possible in lab training. You can tell he is very passionate about his research by how he talks and explains the research in the class. Also the content in this class can help you later down the line in advance stem classes. I recommened to take Dr. Choi's class if you are intrested in developing your professional skills as a student as well as develop a more broad knowledge for stem.

Alexandra Jones
FIRE298

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/15/2021

Best professor I have had at UMD. She wants you to succeed and will always go out of her way to help you. I'm so glad I picked this stream for the FIRE program!

Molly Goodfellow
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
01/13/2021

Great Professor. Very chill and caring. 10/10 would recommend.

Derrick Yeo
FIRE298

Anonymous
12/27/2020

Derrick continues to be one of my favorite professors. Sadly, I do not think the Autonomous Unmanned Systems stream will be continued past this semester, but hopefully he can continue to be an advisor in the FIRE department.

Cristina Risco
FIRE298

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/04/2020

Very very smart person, wants to see you succeed and genuinely cares about her students. She can talk a lottt but overall a great person and professor.

Reviews for FIRE298