INST314 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Matthew Patrick INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/06/2024	Very organized and nice professor. He responds to emails pretty fast and is willing to help students. The homework was straightforward and example code helps a lot. Not too much work for a summer class, definitely take 314 with him.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/02/2024	If you show up to the class, pay attention, and ask when confused you will do just fine. However this course may be the most unorganized course I’ve ever taken. You never know where you stand grading takes absolutely forever, and she didn’t even grade 2 of our midterm projects. Just the final project which ended up being 40% of the grade. The final was very easy tho everything was in the modules or easily searchable. She provides almost all the code for the homework just wants you to understand and interpret the results. In conclusion, class isn’t very difficult but organization, lack of clear instructions and lack of grading made it a pain
Samantha Kemper INST314 Anonymous 05/28/2024	Nice professor, but lectures are very long with not much interactive features and seems like she is just talking at you. Takes forever to grade things, and project are not graded until after the semester has ended and grades have already been due.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2024	She is nice and overall has a positive demeanor for the class. She extends deadlines when requested and will try and not stress out student. One of the biggest issues was the grading. She does not grade projects in a timely manner(march projects not graded even during finals (may)). That sucks because you do not get feedback until the course ends. Lectures are pretty boring, but they contain good information. Discussions are mandatory as she will make you sign in after class.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/16/2024	She's nice and understanding. But that's about the extent of the positives. Lectures weren't helpful, projects took forever and often were left ungraded for extensive periods. She's also hyper-political and expresses her political views in almost every class which is quite annoying for people who don't agree with her views. Nice lady, rough experience.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/18/2024	Despite various reviews, I didn't find her class enjoyable. The simplicity of terms was often overcomplicated, leading to a lack of attendance from students who found it rather boring. Be prepared for extensive side reading as understanding class concepts might be challenging. While she grades at a mediocre level, it's worth noting that email responses are rare, and final grades for the semester were released quite late and the grades for some assignments were never released.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/10/2024	We didn't get our final grades back till 1 month after the semester ended. We didn't even get 2 of our midterm project grades so only the final project grade decided almost all of our class grade. The funny thing is she doesn't even tell you where you made a mistake for the final. It's like she gave some random grades because she is too lazy to grade.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/03/2024	Yeah, so I will start by saying I made the mistake of choosing this professor's class. She does not grade any of the midterm project or final project for that matter so you will never know your true grade. This also affects your learning as you have no idea whether what you did in midterm projects was true or not. She still didn't grade a project that was due Oct 16 and today is Jan 3. The Semester ended long ago and the winter semester started and I still don't know my 2 midterm project grades. She released grades for the final project on Jan 1-2 but there is no explanation on why I lost points so it seems like she gave a bunch of random grades to students and called it a day.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/30/2023	She is a very nice person and you can tell that she cares about her students with the amount of help she provides. She makes sure the learning space is comfortable for all students. The only thing is that it took FOREVER to get things graded in this class. I'm not sure if she is the one doing the grading however, it is about to be January and we still have not gotten our final grades for the course yet. Our first project has yet to be inputted into the grade book either.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2023	Overall, Sami is a good professor and cares about students' success. In particular, I liked how she would provide most of the code for the hws instead of expecting students to figure it all out by themselves as most students haven't used R (the programming language) before. Sami also provides ample time during and outside class to help students with assignments. Most of the hws and midterms will involve doing data analysis with R. The reason I gave Sami 4 stars instead of 5 is that at the time of this review, not a single midterm project grade has been posted (and midterms are worth 45% percent of the total course grade!).
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/21/2023	Smantha is knowledgeable, but regardless transmitting knowledge is not a gift every teacher has. Most of her lectures were really booring and most students never attended( Am not too sure what the other reviews are saying). Regardless in her class be ready to do alot of side reading!. Also, her grading isn't harsh but she never responds to emails.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023	This class is a bit boring at times if you aren't super into statistics but Sami does everything to make this class easier for her students. For our semester she kept getting sick so she was super accommodating because of that, she made assignments easier when applicable. She cares more about students knowing when and how to use statistics rather than their ability to write code in R, so if you aren't great at writing code in R, she is the professor to take for this course because she prioritizes students demonstrating they understand stats rather than getting all the code perfectly right.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2023	Sami is a pretty good professor. You can tell she is very passionate about the class and wants her students to succeed. She is always down to answer questions that her students have about the coursework and she used to stress that you can also just talk to her about anything if need be (it could be something personal and doesn't have to be about the class or coursework). The only reason why I didn't give a five star is because the grades for assignments took a really long time to come out. I'm not sure if she was the one grading the assignments or if it was her TA's but, sometimes the grade for an assignment would come out a whole month after it was due. Overall, she is a solid lecturer, very kind, very helpful, and wants her students to succeed. I recommend you take her for INST314.
Scott Jackson INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2023	Had 5 assignments all semester none in the last 3 months. I think he had too many classes and kinda went a wall and gave no assignments past week 6. It probably will not be like this for the next semesters but it was very easy.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/10/2023	Very passionate teacher and very well knowledgable about stats. Is very understanding and very helpful with coding and the homework. TA's were alright but I would just go straight to the professor if possible. Grades take a very long time to get put in. Fair and honest. Lecture was ok, pay attention tho cause the stuff she says will be helpful on hw and not always on the slides.
Samantha Kemper INST314 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/21/2023	Samantha was always open to questions about the class and stayed for after hours. Course was challenging but she was always there to help. Overall great experience
Matthew Patrick INST314 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 07/07/2023	well-organized professor and not too much work. was a perfect class for my summer
Hernisa Kacorri INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/11/2023	Professor Kacorri was a great professor. She made sure to clarify her lectures so everyone understood the lesson. The class consist of weekly problems and data camps as the homework with a group project with different parts and three different exams. Other than that the class was pretty smooth, make sure to get into a good group and you'll be fine.
Babak Fotouhi INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/26/2023	Overall this professor is ok and you are most likely gonna get an A as long as you do the work. However, he didn't begin to post any real work until weeks into the semester and then begins to dogpile them near the end. It would be better if he spread them out and kept them relevant to the week's lectures instead of having them all cumulative. Also, assignments are graded very late whereas assignments from weeks ago haven't been graded. There are no exams just R exercises, hw and quizzes (This semester was online and async and discussion was optional so it might be different in person)
Aditya Patkar INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/04/2023	He was very helpful. The course is difficult for someone with no programming background as you have to work with R programming language for multiple assignments. He summarized the lectures and uploaded his notes to canvas which helped a lot. During office hours, he would break down the problems into smaller chunks and explain the coding process well. He was swift at replying to emails. Overall very helpful.
Matthew Patrick INST314 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/25/2023	he gave us example code for each lab which had the exact code we needed for the labs. so it was really easy, but i learned nothing.
Mark Frame INST314 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/22/2023	Good person, but easily one of the worst professors I've had at UMD. This class was crazy difficult and I had to put in hours of work a day at times.
Matthew Patrick INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/25/2022	Mainly gave lab based assignments until the midterm which was lecture heavy. Lecture slides lacked context and explanation.
Babak Fotouhi INST314 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/07/2022	Supposedly this is one of the more challenging courses for Info Sci, but take my word and take it online with this Professor. He may be a little hard to understand sometimes on recorded lecturers but offers lots of extra credit and has been responsive to student feedback when instructions/lectures were unclear by extending deadlines or providing in depth tutorials for R studios. I’m expecting over a 100%.
Eric Newburger INST314 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/05/2022	He is passionate about the subject however his organization for this course is poor. His instructions on exams and the final project are confusing and unclear. Overall I would suggest avoiding the headache of having him as a professor in this class.
Eric Newburger INST314 Anonymous 11/15/2022	The worst exams you will ever take. Good luck
Eric Newburger INST314 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/07/2022	Newburger is very energetic and seems to be genuinely interested in the content he teaches but expects you to basically know what hes talking about before you walk in the door. Hes one of those no electronics in class professors but then teaches code on the board. Assignments, labs, and lectures are not thought out, often have errors in them. He has to allow a redo on midterms due to the class average being too low. Organizationally class is awful, TA's are of little help as well and grading is slow. Be prepared to do a lot of googling r code,
Babak Fotouhi INST314 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/10/2022	Babak’s lectures are very basic. The guy is brilliant though. Some of the concepts he taught were in some of my interview questions. He has great potential to be an amazing lecturer. He’s certainly one of the smartest professors I’ve had. The TA had pretty bad grammar so at times I’d get questions wrong simply because they made no sense.
Hernisa Kacorri INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/08/2022	Lovely professor. She teaches very well, exams are reasonable with a few easy "gift" questions thrown in. She also is giving a 9.4% extra credit assignment this semester which is absolutely crazy for extra credit. The group project is not hard IF you choose a topic where you don't rely on surveys or observing people. Ask for help when you need it, Dr. Kacorri and the TAs are very helpful.
Eric Newburger INST314 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/28/2022	Professor Eric is a Very passionate professor during lectures and office hours, who is constantly patient and assisting students. Please feel free to contact him if you encounter any questions about the assignment or other in-class activities. Additionally, he will post the necessary code for R in the PPT in facilitating students to complete their homework and project.
Eric Newburger INST314 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/02/2022	Very nice, and passionate professor. Gives plenty of opportunities for students to re-do assignments and do extra credit. Lectures can sometimes get boring but try his hardest to make them informative. He doesn't really teach too much R, so you will have to self-learn that which isn't that hard to do. Sometimes the assignments are not very clear, but the professor is responsive to questions via email/office hours and the generic statistical testings can be easily found on youtube.
Abdirisak Mohamed INST314 Anonymous 12/20/2021	I would definitely never take this again. This professor barely communicated with his students, only had a few harshly graded homeworks and projects, and rarely responded to student requests. This professor copy and pasted instructional videos from another professor, thus none of the projects and homeworks entirely lined up with the videos. Moreover, the instructions on these various homeworks and projects were vague and often times written poorly. It seems as though this professor did not even watch the videos of the other professor that he posted, thus making all of the students suffer. r u n
Mark Frame INST314 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/09/2021	A fantastic professor. Not necessarily because he teaches the course really well, but because of how chill he is. He is super lenient -- doesn't take away many points and sometimes even gives back points for the labs and quizzes. I think this was his first semester teaching INST314 and it was in the summer, so he may change in the future, but as of now I highly recommend him.
Lori Perine INST314 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 07/06/2021	The class was full of lectures on basic stat concepts and how to use R. There aren't many workloads. My main problem with her teaching is that she made each concept way too hard to understand; plus, she's monotoned voice made it extra hard to watch her lectures. I had to rewatch some of her lectures to understand simple concepts. I basically had a better understanding of different concepts by watching YouTube videos. Her quizzes were alright; however, her tests were very difficult. However, she did provide a lot of extra credit opportunities.
Lori Perine INST314 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/23/2021	Do you want to hate your life? Then take this professor; She is an absolute nightmare to interact with, and berated students "infront" of the whole class for asking simple questions. She CONSISTENTLY posted lecture material super late into the week that we were supposed to be learning it (I.E. Wed/Thurs), and often times grouped together several hours of videos and expected us to watch it within an unreasonable amount of time. The quizzes were reflective of material we learned, but the tests seemed to be much more complex than needed--And she doesn't curve, even when the class averages were around ~60-68% each test. She uses honorlock for the quizzes and tests, but openly says we're allowed to Google anything we want. Do NOT take her.
Lori Perine INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/23/2021	The class started out with a lot of lectures and assignments which was hard to keep up with since it was posted 1 day before the discussion. After spring break, the workload stopped for 3 weeks. The organization of the class is weird since it is a review AP Stats/ Stat 100 with R coding. I didn't learn as much about R as I did SQL in INST327, or Python in INST326. The online environment was hostile and she takes complaints personally. Overall, it was unorganized and I would take a different professor if I could retake this class.
Lori Perine INST314 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/15/2021	Makes simple concepts WAY too hard. She doesn't care about students and makes online tests insanely hard for no reason. If you have any other option DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS
Lori Perine INST314 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 04/05/2021	Too much workload for the amount of credits this class gives. Extremely rude on the first day of class because people were being a bit quiet. The wording for some of her stuff is confusing and grades extremely rough.
Lori Perine INST314 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/04/2021	Loads and loads work. INST314 with her should be 4 credits. The class itself should focus on the higher-level statistics and there should be an R lab. She expects you to do work each day for the class. She needs to scale work down and focus on making sure the activities are interactive rather than lecture-based. Teaches the class all about R but then quizzes/exams on Stats. So jumbled
Aditya Ravindra Bhat INST314 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/23/2021	Highly recommend this professor because he cares for his students and tries to ask what could be improved in order to help students out. PowerPoints are super helpful and attending his office hours are even more helpful to passing this class!
Aditya Ravindra Bhat INST314 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/30/2020	Excellent instructor. During the online UMD sessions, he gave interesting and yet challenging projects. Some were a bit more difficult than others, but he helps so much during office hours! PLEASE attend his office hours! He wants to help and is great at doing so! He knows his concepts in R very well and can help you understand various concepts or problems that you may be stuck on. As someone who originally sucked major butt in R, his class was able to help me understand various functions and how the language is interpreted and it resulted in me getting an A+ for this fall semester. Highly recommend!
Eric Newburger INST314 Anonymous 11/21/2020	Should be more clear, but really cares about the students and making sure they learn
Shawn Janzen INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2019	Very good professor, if you want to learn you should definitely take him. Professor Janzen is very knowledgeable, competent, and easy to approach after class or during office hours. He offered us 5% extra credit that was reasonable to obtain and the workload is fair for the class.
Shawn Janzen INST314 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2018	Best goddamn professor at UMD. Want to actually learn? Choose him! He's VERY competent about statistics and will answer your questions you have. Always available during office hours and on the discussions page on ELMS. Amazing lectures! Also offers 10.5% of EC through various different assignments and what not. He also posts everything on ELMS.
Yla Tausczik INST314 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/03/2018	Great professor. More than willing to help students in need. Highly recommend

Matthew Patrick
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/06/2024

Very organized and nice professor. He responds to emails pretty fast and is willing to help students. The homework was straightforward and example code helps a lot. Not too much work for a summer class, definitely take 314 with him.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/02/2024

If you show up to the class, pay attention, and ask when confused you will do just fine. However this course may be the most unorganized course I’ve ever taken. You never know where you stand grading takes absolutely forever, and she didn’t even grade 2 of our midterm projects. Just the final project which ended up being 40% of the grade. The final was very easy tho everything was in the modules or easily searchable. She provides almost all the code for the homework just wants you to understand and interpret the results. In conclusion, class isn’t very difficult but organization, lack of clear instructions and lack of grading made it a pain

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Anonymous
05/28/2024

Nice professor, but lectures are very long with not much interactive features and seems like she is just talking at you. Takes forever to grade things, and project are not graded until after the semester has ended and grades have already been due.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/18/2024

She is nice and overall has a positive demeanor for the class. She extends deadlines when requested and will try and not stress out student. One of the biggest issues was the grading. She does not grade projects in a timely manner(march projects not graded even during finals (may)). That sucks because you do not get feedback until the course ends. Lectures are pretty boring, but they contain good information. Discussions are mandatory as she will make you sign in after class.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/16/2024

She's nice and understanding. But that's about the extent of the positives. Lectures weren't helpful, projects took forever and often were left ungraded for extensive periods. She's also hyper-political and expresses her political views in almost every class which is quite annoying for people who don't agree with her views. Nice lady, rough experience.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting a B
Anonymous
01/18/2024

Despite various reviews, I didn't find her class enjoyable. The simplicity of terms was often overcomplicated, leading to a lack of attendance from students who found it rather boring. Be prepared for extensive side reading as understanding class concepts might be challenging. While she grades at a mediocre level, it's worth noting that email responses are rare, and final grades for the semester were released quite late and the grades for some assignments were never released.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/10/2024

We didn't get our final grades back till 1 month after the semester ended. We didn't even get 2 of our midterm project grades so only the final project grade decided almost all of our class grade. The funny thing is she doesn't even tell you where you made a mistake for the final. It's like she gave some random grades because she is too lazy to grade.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
01/03/2024

Yeah, so I will start by saying I made the mistake of choosing this professor's class. She does not grade any of the midterm project or final project for that matter so you will never know your true grade. This also affects your learning as you have no idea whether what you did in midterm projects was true or not. She still didn't grade a project that was due Oct 16 and today is Jan 3. The Semester ended long ago and the winter semester started and I still don't know my 2 midterm project grades. She released grades for the final project on Jan 1-2 but there is no explanation on why I lost points so it seems like she gave a bunch of random grades to students and called it a day.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/30/2023

She is a very nice person and you can tell that she cares about her students with the amount of help she provides. She makes sure the learning space is comfortable for all students. The only thing is that it took FOREVER to get things graded in this class. I'm not sure if she is the one doing the grading however, it is about to be January and we still have not gotten our final grades for the course yet. Our first project has yet to be inputted into the grade book either.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/24/2023

Overall, Sami is a good professor and cares about students' success. In particular, I liked how she would provide most of the code for the hws instead of expecting students to figure it all out by themselves as most students haven't used R (the programming language) before. Sami also provides ample time during and outside class to help students with assignments. Most of the hws and midterms will involve doing data analysis with R. The reason I gave Sami 4 stars instead of 5 is that at the time of this review, not a single midterm project grade has been posted (and midterms are worth 45% percent of the total course grade!).

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/21/2023

Smantha is knowledgeable, but regardless transmitting knowledge is not a gift every teacher has. Most of her lectures were really booring and most students never attended( Am not too sure what the other reviews are saying). Regardless in her class be ready to do alot of side reading!. Also, her grading isn't harsh but she never responds to emails.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/20/2023

This class is a bit boring at times if you aren't super into statistics but Sami does everything to make this class easier for her students. For our semester she kept getting sick so she was super accommodating because of that, she made assignments easier when applicable. She cares more about students knowing when and how to use statistics rather than their ability to write code in R, so if you aren't great at writing code in R, she is the professor to take for this course because she prioritizes students demonstrating they understand stats rather than getting all the code perfectly right.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/11/2023

Sami is a pretty good professor. You can tell she is very passionate about the class and wants her students to succeed. She is always down to answer questions that her students have about the coursework and she used to stress that you can also just talk to her about anything if need be (it could be something personal and doesn't have to be about the class or coursework). The only reason why I didn't give a five star is because the grades for assignments took a really long time to come out. I'm not sure if she was the one grading the assignments or if it was her TA's but, sometimes the grade for an assignment would come out a whole month after it was due. Overall, she is a solid lecturer, very kind, very helpful, and wants her students to succeed. I recommend you take her for INST314.

Scott Jackson
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/08/2023

Had 5 assignments all semester none in the last 3 months. I think he had too many classes and kinda went a wall and gave no assignments past week 6. It probably will not be like this for the next semesters but it was very easy.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/10/2023

Very passionate teacher and very well knowledgable about stats. Is very understanding and very helpful with coding and the homework. TA's were alright but I would just go straight to the professor if possible. Grades take a very long time to get put in. Fair and honest. Lecture was ok, pay attention tho cause the stuff she says will be helpful on hw and not always on the slides.

Samantha Kemper
INST314

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
10/21/2023

Samantha was always open to questions about the class and stayed for after hours. Course was challenging but she was always there to help. Overall great experience

Matthew Patrick
INST314

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
07/07/2023

well-organized professor and not too much work. was a perfect class for my summer

Hernisa Kacorri
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/11/2023

Professor Kacorri was a great professor. She made sure to clarify her lectures so everyone understood the lesson. The class consist of weekly problems and data camps as the homework with a group project with different parts and three different exams. Other than that the class was pretty smooth, make sure to get into a good group and you'll be fine.

Babak Fotouhi
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/26/2023

Overall this professor is ok and you are most likely gonna get an A as long as you do the work. However, he didn't begin to post any real work until weeks into the semester and then begins to dogpile them near the end. It would be better if he spread them out and kept them relevant to the week's lectures instead of having them all cumulative. Also, assignments are graded very late whereas assignments from weeks ago haven't been graded. There are no exams just R exercises, hw and quizzes (This semester was online and async and discussion was optional so it might be different in person)

Aditya Patkar
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/04/2023

He was very helpful. The course is difficult for someone with no programming background as you have to work with R programming language for multiple assignments. He summarized the lectures and uploaded his notes to canvas which helped a lot. During office hours, he would break down the problems into smaller chunks and explain the coding process well. He was swift at replying to emails. Overall very helpful.

Matthew Patrick
INST314

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
02/25/2023

he gave us example code for each lab which had the exact code we needed for the labs. so it was really easy, but i learned nothing.

Mark Frame
INST314

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
02/22/2023

Good person, but easily one of the worst professors I've had at UMD. This class was crazy difficult and I had to put in hours of work a day at times.

Matthew Patrick
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/25/2022

Mainly gave lab based assignments until the midterm which was lecture heavy. Lecture slides lacked context and explanation.

Babak Fotouhi
INST314

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/07/2022

Supposedly this is one of the more challenging courses for Info Sci, but take my word and take it online with this Professor. He may be a little hard to understand sometimes on recorded lecturers but offers lots of extra credit and has been responsive to student feedback when instructions/lectures were unclear by extending deadlines or providing in depth tutorials for R studios. I’m expecting over a 100%.

Eric Newburger
INST314

Expecting a C
Anonymous
12/05/2022

He is passionate about the subject however his organization for this course is poor. His instructions on exams and the final project are confusing and unclear. Overall I would suggest avoiding the headache of having him as a professor in this class.

Eric Newburger
INST314

Anonymous
11/15/2022

The worst exams you will ever take. Good luck

Eric Newburger
INST314

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
11/07/2022

Newburger is very energetic and seems to be genuinely interested in the content he teaches but expects you to basically know what hes talking about before you walk in the door. Hes one of those no electronics in class professors but then teaches code on the board. Assignments, labs, and lectures are not thought out, often have errors in them. He has to allow a redo on midterms due to the class average being too low. Organizationally class is awful, TA's are of little help as well and grading is slow. Be prepared to do a lot of googling r code,

Babak Fotouhi
INST314

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/10/2022

Babak’s lectures are very basic. The guy is brilliant though. Some of the concepts he taught were in some of my interview questions. He has great potential to be an amazing lecturer. He’s certainly one of the smartest professors I’ve had. The TA had pretty bad grammar so at times I’d get questions wrong simply because they made no sense.

Hernisa Kacorri
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/08/2022

Lovely professor. She teaches very well, exams are reasonable with a few easy "gift" questions thrown in. She also is giving a 9.4% extra credit assignment this semester which is absolutely crazy for extra credit. The group project is not hard IF you choose a topic where you don't rely on surveys or observing people. Ask for help when you need it, Dr. Kacorri and the TAs are very helpful.

Eric Newburger
INST314

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
02/28/2022

Professor Eric is a Very passionate professor during lectures and office hours, who is constantly patient and assisting students. Please feel free to contact him if you encounter any questions about the assignment or other in-class activities. Additionally, he will post the necessary code for R in the PPT in facilitating students to complete their homework and project.

Eric Newburger
INST314

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
01/02/2022

Very nice, and passionate professor. Gives plenty of opportunities for students to re-do assignments and do extra credit. Lectures can sometimes get boring but try his hardest to make them informative. He doesn't really teach too much R, so you will have to self-learn that which isn't that hard to do. Sometimes the assignments are not very clear, but the professor is responsive to questions via email/office hours and the generic statistical testings can be easily found on youtube.

Abdirisak Mohamed
INST314

Anonymous
12/20/2021

I would definitely never take this again. This professor barely communicated with his students, only had a few harshly graded homeworks and projects, and rarely responded to student requests. This professor copy and pasted instructional videos from another professor, thus none of the projects and homeworks entirely lined up with the videos. Moreover, the instructions on these various homeworks and projects were vague and often times written poorly. It seems as though this professor did not even watch the videos of the other professor that he posted, thus making all of the students suffer. r u n

Mark Frame
INST314

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
07/09/2021

A fantastic professor. Not necessarily because he teaches the course really well, but because of how chill he is. He is super lenient -- doesn't take away many points and sometimes even gives back points for the labs and quizzes. I think this was his first semester teaching INST314 and it was in the summer, so he may change in the future, but as of now I highly recommend him.

Lori Perine
INST314

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
07/06/2021

The class was full of lectures on basic stat concepts and how to use R. There aren't many workloads. My main problem with her teaching is that she made each concept way too hard to understand; plus, she's monotoned voice made it extra hard to watch her lectures. I had to rewatch some of her lectures to understand simple concepts. I basically had a better understanding of different concepts by watching YouTube videos. Her quizzes were alright; however, her tests were very difficult. However, she did provide a lot of extra credit opportunities.

Lori Perine
INST314

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/23/2021

Do you want to hate your life? Then take this professor; She is an absolute nightmare to interact with, and berated students "infront" of the whole class for asking simple questions. She CONSISTENTLY posted lecture material super late into the week that we were supposed to be learning it (I.E. Wed/Thurs), and often times grouped together several hours of videos and expected us to watch it within an unreasonable amount of time. The quizzes were reflective of material we learned, but the tests seemed to be much more complex than needed--And she doesn't curve, even when the class averages were around ~60-68% each test. She uses honorlock for the quizzes and tests, but openly says we're allowed to Google anything we want. Do NOT take her.

Lori Perine
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/23/2021

The class started out with a lot of lectures and assignments which was hard to keep up with since it was posted 1 day before the discussion. After spring break, the workload stopped for 3 weeks. The organization of the class is weird since it is a review AP Stats/ Stat 100 with R coding. I didn't learn as much about R as I did SQL in INST327, or Python in INST326. The online environment was hostile and she takes complaints personally. Overall, it was unorganized and I would take a different professor if I could retake this class.

Lori Perine
INST314

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/15/2021

Makes simple concepts WAY too hard. She doesn't care about students and makes online tests insanely hard for no reason. If you have any other option DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS

Lori Perine
INST314

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
04/05/2021

Too much workload for the amount of credits this class gives. Extremely rude on the first day of class because people were being a bit quiet. The wording for some of her stuff is confusing and grades extremely rough.

Lori Perine
INST314

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
04/04/2021

Loads and loads work. INST314 with her should be 4 credits. The class itself should focus on the higher-level statistics and there should be an R lab. She expects you to do work each day for the class. She needs to scale work down and focus on making sure the activities are interactive rather than lecture-based. Teaches the class all about R but then quizzes/exams on Stats. So jumbled

Aditya Ravindra Bhat
INST314

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
03/23/2021

Highly recommend this professor because he cares for his students and tries to ask what could be improved in order to help students out. PowerPoints are super helpful and attending his office hours are even more helpful to passing this class!

Aditya Ravindra Bhat
INST314

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/30/2020

Excellent instructor. During the online UMD sessions, he gave interesting and yet challenging projects. Some were a bit more difficult than others, but he helps so much during office hours! PLEASE attend his office hours! He wants to help and is great at doing so! He knows his concepts in R very well and can help you understand various concepts or problems that you may be stuck on. As someone who originally sucked major butt in R, his class was able to help me understand various functions and how the language is interpreted and it resulted in me getting an A+ for this fall semester. Highly recommend!

Eric Newburger
INST314

Anonymous
11/21/2020

Should be more clear, but really cares about the students and making sure they learn

Shawn Janzen
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/22/2019

Very good professor, if you want to learn you should definitely take him. Professor Janzen is very knowledgeable, competent, and easy to approach after class or during office hours. He offered us 5% extra credit that was reasonable to obtain and the workload is fair for the class.

Shawn Janzen
INST314

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/22/2018

Best goddamn professor at UMD. Want to actually learn? Choose him! He's VERY competent about statistics and will answer your questions you have. Always available during office hours and on the discussions page on ELMS. Amazing lectures! Also offers 10.5% of EC through various different assignments and what not. He also posts everything on ELMS.

Yla Tausczik
INST314

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/03/2018

Great professor. More than willing to help students in need. Highly recommend

Reviews for INST314