HGLO208 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Sarah Croco HGLO208 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/14/2025	intro: do not taking this class unless you're pretty strongly/extremely passionate about research and political/social issues, as someone who is not, this class is genuinely the most hassle, annoying, thorn in your side ever. im using this review as a reflection of both class/professor since dr. croco is the only professor that teaches it. pros: - no exams - semi-lenient on grading, class itself is on the easier side - teacher/TA are passionate about subject matter so its good/easy to talk to them if you are too - subject matters discussed in class are pretty important, semi-interesting - sometimes provided code, but this makes sense as we would use new libraries for new assignments, especially not being taught about it at all cons: - the class is so unorganized/unstructured/messy, for some reason we'll talk about assignments due in 2-3 weeks ahead of class (in discussion or lecture) while not talking about the assignments due that week/that night - large amounts of reading every other day/weekly-ish (unless you care about the subject matter or enjoy reading generally, in which this is not a con) - level of unresponsiveness or slow responsiveness to issues/questions over email - assignments are confusing with vague directions/instructions -- SOMETIMES the instructions are just not posted at all -> "details to come" - grades and/or potential feedback comes late so you'll be doing something for assignment 2 not knowing if you did it correctly for the same thing in assignment 1 - going to class is without a doubt, highkey, useless unless you're actively participating - lectures go over book readings and discuss topic matters but i personally did not care enough, you have to go anyways because of potential pop reading quizzes that ask you about that weeks' reading - also discussion, same idea but you get a grade from "section attendance/participation" and you can't call in sick without a doctor's note but discussion is just not that useful (in my opinion) either - generally wanted to quit every time there was a new coding assignment - as a CS major the coding is pretty fine but its the amount of work you need to put it in to fulfill the assignment requirements/understand the instructions - in my opinion, assignments were just kinda ridiculous in a workload/time spent type of way neutral: - R is sort of taught/put into depth, especially alongside this thing called datacamp but its just not focused/reinforced enough to feel like I can remember coding it in the future - we missed like 4-5 sessions worth of classes due to external circumstances which was actually fine, i put this in neutral because technically we're paying tuition for this course just to not get it - side note on the reading, the class goes through a wide variety/high number of books for one semester conclusion: don't take this class unless you really care, and you really liked GVPT201 and HGLO101, i had a terrible experience with this class and did not enjoy it at all
Sarah Croco HGLO208 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/17/2024	Professor Croco is a nice person who does know her field and care about her students. However, after three semesters with her it is easy to see some striking flaws in the way she structures courses and teaches. First off, every course she teaches she assigns at least eight different books. Usually only one book is actually used in the course, typically only because you have to write about it. Secondly, all of her courses are loaded up with small to medium sized assignments that annoying to do, easy to forget, and have no relevance to the material. Typically with her classes the R assignments are what actually holds any decent amount of weight on your grade. This turns any of her classes into a race to learn R rather than learning any material. Learning R is also a challenge for anyone regardless of previous experience as you must use packages that require you to learn them rather than the language. Additionally, you will not receive any concrete teaching in R beyond the bear minimum meaning that most of your time within assignments will be spent learning R from someone who knows better or from the internet/AI. Overall it is easy to obtain a good grade, you need to do the work with ok quality, but it is a lot of work.
Tristan Hightower HGLO208 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/16/2023	Cool person and very intelligent and insightful. Knows a lot about cranberries

Sarah Croco
HGLO208

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/14/2025

intro: do not taking this class unless you're pretty strongly/extremely passionate about research and political/social issues, as someone who is not, this class is genuinely the most hassle, annoying, thorn in your side ever. im using this review as a reflection of both class/professor since dr. croco is the only professor that teaches it. pros: - no exams - semi-lenient on grading, class itself is on the easier side - teacher/TA are passionate about subject matter so its good/easy to talk to them if you are too - subject matters discussed in class are pretty important, semi-interesting - sometimes provided code, but this makes sense as we would use new libraries for new assignments, especially not being taught about it at all cons: - the class is so unorganized/unstructured/messy, for some reason we'll talk about assignments due in 2-3 weeks ahead of class (in discussion or lecture) while not talking about the assignments due that week/that night - large amounts of reading every other day/weekly-ish (unless you care about the subject matter or enjoy reading generally, in which this is not a con) - level of unresponsiveness or slow responsiveness to issues/questions over email - assignments are confusing with vague directions/instructions -- SOMETIMES the instructions are just not posted at all -> "details to come" - grades and/or potential feedback comes late so you'll be doing something for assignment 2 not knowing if you did it correctly for the same thing in assignment 1 - going to class is without a doubt, highkey, useless unless you're actively participating - lectures go over book readings and discuss topic matters but i personally did not care enough, you have to go anyways because of potential pop reading quizzes that ask you about that weeks' reading - also discussion, same idea but you get a grade from "section attendance/participation" and you can't call in sick without a doctor's note but discussion is just not that useful (in my opinion) either - generally wanted to quit every time there was a new coding assignment - as a CS major the coding is pretty fine but its the amount of work you need to put it in to fulfill the assignment requirements/understand the instructions - in my opinion, assignments were just kinda ridiculous in a workload/time spent type of way neutral: - R is sort of taught/put into depth, especially alongside this thing called datacamp but its just not focused/reinforced enough to feel like I can remember coding it in the future - we missed like 4-5 sessions worth of classes due to external circumstances which was actually fine, i put this in neutral because technically we're paying tuition for this course just to not get it - side note on the reading, the class goes through a wide variety/high number of books for one semester conclusion: don't take this class unless you really care, and you really liked GVPT201 and HGLO101, i had a terrible experience with this class and did not enjoy it at all

Sarah Croco
HGLO208

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/17/2024

Professor Croco is a nice person who does know her field and care about her students. However, after three semesters with her it is easy to see some striking flaws in the way she structures courses and teaches. First off, every course she teaches she assigns at least eight different books. Usually only one book is actually used in the course, typically only because you have to write about it. Secondly, all of her courses are loaded up with small to medium sized assignments that annoying to do, easy to forget, and have no relevance to the material. Typically with her classes the R assignments are what actually holds any decent amount of weight on your grade. This turns any of her classes into a race to learn R rather than learning any material. Learning R is also a challenge for anyone regardless of previous experience as you must use packages that require you to learn them rather than the language. Additionally, you will not receive any concrete teaching in R beyond the bear minimum meaning that most of your time within assignments will be spent learning R from someone who knows better or from the internet/AI. Overall it is easy to obtain a good grade, you need to do the work with ok quality, but it is a lot of work.

Tristan Hightower
HGLO208

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/16/2023

Cool person and very intelligent and insightful. Knows a lot about cranberries

Reviews for HGLO208