Reviews for INST327

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Devanshi Shah INST327 Expecting an A+ PassionateStudent 02/06/2024	I enjoyed the content of the class but you can get that with Professor Duffy. Please do so if you can. I have gone to Prof Duffy in-person class just to understand the material better. I passed the class with an A+ because of Duffy. Mrs. Shah's structure is HORRENDOUS. She doesn't do anything about the students who expect you to do all the work. She sends out emails addressing complaints and says that she will reach out to them but NOTHING CHANGES and they can slack off and still pass. We have mandatory meetings with the TAs and this is where you have a check-in on the status of your project. Her TAs do all the work for her and she reads Duffy's slides word for word. The two good reviews are because they didn't have to deal with bad teammates on top of the unnecessary confusion and stress. You will mostly be teaching yourself or seeking for guidance the whole semester.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/29/2023	Professor Duffy is a pleasant lecturer. The class as a whole was a headache. The semester-long group project was very unpleasant.
Iskander Lou INST327 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2023	Overall, this was a fair class. Be prepared to teach yourself mySQL to complete the assignments since you won't learn much from lectures. Labs are free points if you attend the discussion. Make sure to start the assignments (especially the parts of the semester-long group project early) so that you can ask for help.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/20/2023	The course was co-taught between Duffy and Diker. Duffy did the recorded lectures for our section and Diker did the in-person lectures. Personally I found this course to be quite hard and apparently this is an unpopular opinion but I thought 326 was better than 327. The lecture vids were really hard for me to watch, I would often get bored and couldn't follow along with what was happening. The lecture vids and understanding the material are the hardest part of the course but the in-person labs and discussion board posts are basically easy grade boosters to help balance out the difficulty.
Iskander Lou INST327 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2023	He's chill, but his lectures are boring. However, he provides a lot of online resources and videos, so you can still ace this class by learning material that way. TAs were helpful, especially for the semester-long group final project.
Devanshi Shah INST327 Expecting a B- Anonymous 10/24/2023	If you guys ever plan on taking INST327 this semester, I’m begging you for the love of God, DO NOT take this professor if you want your grades to not drop. The professor literally copies Prof. Duffy’s videos and reads off the screen word for word. She never actually meaningfully engages with the content And the TAs are something else. They don’t respond to emails and hardly help others because they are busy with their own midterms…funny because when I asked for an extension because of an upcoming midterm, a TA said that it wasn’t a good excuse. So you can choose not to respond because of your midterms but our work isn’t an excuse for extensions? Talk about double standards And they don’t know how to organize a class. The syllabus says one date for an assignment, the ELMS page says another. HOW DO YOU NOT UPDATE A SYLLABUS?! They mess up due dates for assignments, causing undue stress for myself and other students. The labs, quizzes, and discussions are easy As. But the homework assignments are extremely difficult. They are already complex and then the professor and TAs ignore or hardly respond to questions for help on the assignments. Then they have the nerve to grade assignments harshly. They took off 15 points just for using an exact WHERE condition just because it wasn’t an allowed structure? Why take off points for an effective code. And these assignments are 25% of your grade. Besides, they poorly teach and don’t guide students well and then have the nerve to grade harshly when they get something wrong. All in all, poor teaching, lack of guidance, disorganization, and difficult assignments from hell are messing up the class. Don’t take this professor! If she’s the only one available for INST327 this semester, then please take it another semester.
Devanshi Shah INST327 Anonymous 10/06/2023	Absolutely HORRIBLE Professor. This professor seems to be a grad student that doesn't have much experience in teaching. Which would be fine if she actually put in the effort to make the class enjoyable. She just reads off of Pamela Duffy's script, uses her slides + video quizzes etc. The class is not about learning as none of the TAs care about your grade and neither does the professor. They do everything incorrectly from assigning due dates, quiz questions and labs. They offer no assistance in assignment questions and most of the time don't even know themselves what the assignment is about. Just take the class with Pamela Duffy you'll be 100% better off.
Iskander Lou INST327 Anonymous 09/24/2023	PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. HE DOES NOT TEACH. HE BARELY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON. PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF THE PAIN.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/05/2023	Professor Duffy is so sweet and she makes her class as simple as possible. She provides tons of resources and you can tell she wants her students to do well. She is also very understanding if you are having any issues. I took this class online over the summer and it was very manageable.
Iskander Lou INST327 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/24/2023	This class was one of the most painful classes that I have taken. Iskandor's lectures are more focused on trying to be your friend since he's a grad student than actually teaching. Most of the lecture is disorganized which makes the assignments more difficult to navigate. Most of the learning I did was with the AMPs and the TAs than his lectures. I would say to skip lectures but next semester, they will require attendance which is very frustrating since it's normally a waste of time. Also, there are so many group projects and they are incredibly painful since peer reviews have never deducted significantly to change behaviors, only if they do NO work, not significantly less. Overall, a painful requirement, but again I got an A so it's not that bad.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/23/2023	She is a very knowledgeable and considerate professor. I agree with others responses that we have a lot of busy work. However, its there to compensate for the harder assignments/project work. As long as you have a capable group, you'll be fine with the semester long project. The TA's are available and reliable.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A Naruto 05/16/2023	Good teachers and gives extension. I don't like the sjw articles we have to read.
Iskander Lou INST327 Expecting an A Naruto 05/16/2023	Good teachers, watch the videos and actually try and learn sql. Constantly gives extensions on assignments. I would recommend for your group project to pick people good at sql,. Try and master normalization, erd diagrams, and data importing. Starts the big assignments early and go to office hours for help.
Vedat Diker INST327 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/02/2023	Dr. Diker was a great professor. He was more than willing to help his students and was always available when needed. He is also a fair grader.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 09/09/2022	She is the most caring professor I have ever met. Although I admit that her lectures could be somewhat useless because of the large number of knowledge you can get only from the elms pages, the more you interact with her, the more love you will have for her. Most assignments are easy, even if you meet any problem you can quickly solve it during office hours. The only hard part of this course is that sometimes you have to deal with shitty teammates.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2021	i literally love her she is so caring and takes her time to help you understand. Definitely take a class you need with her if possible.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/11/2021	Class was easy if programming comes easily to you. The group project was irritating at times, but that was because of flaky group members. Otherwise good course, easy online quizzes, and no exams.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Anonymous 11/21/2020	Great professor
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/23/2019	Excellent professor! Highly recommend!
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2019	Duffy is a good teacher who cares about her students, and gives very fair (and open book) assessments and assignments. Databases can be a pretty dry subject but Duffy does her best to make the course interesting, and it is one of the most useful courses in the major.
Pamela Duffy INST327 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2019	She's great. Very helpful. Makes sure you understand the material instead of just knowing what to do. Very lab centered class
Vedat Diker INST327 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/17/2018	Isn't a great lecturer but is very helpful to students. Also a pretty lenient grader.