INST447 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia INST447 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/12/2023	This class was pretty bad. The professor is very nice, but the way the material is taught is not easy to understand at all. We were taught one thing in class but the programming assignments and labs were way harder and sometimes made zero sense. I didn't think this class would be bad at all, I had a lot of hope but it's stressed me a lot this semester, by far my most stressful class.
Nekabari Sigalo INST447 Anonymous 11/21/2023	Professor is super open to students, all work is reasonable and covered in lecture videos.
Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia INST447 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/06/2023	Avoid this professor. Very knowledgeable about what he teaches, but this class is all over the place. For the assignments, he uses autograder, and for almost every assignment, there has been a mistake on his side with errors regarding the correct answer. The instructional team has had to constantly push back due dates because of mistakes or just not releasing the assignment until 2 or 3 days before the due date. Mind you, this is a technical course and with that comes assignments that may take a few days to figure out. However, the errors regarding the auto grader and instructions in the assignments makes this class very confusing. I've taken other technical courses in this program, and this is by far one of the worst experiences I've had. Due dates are also very weird, with assignments being due at 11:59AM, but for me that's a minor inconvenience compared to the bigger problems with this course. Choose another professor.
Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia INST447 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/18/2023	Would not recommend. I'm usually not the type to complain about professors but this class is not well taught at all. His auto grader assignments has errors and his due date time is jank. On top of all of that, his test covers content that the hw didn't even cover yet. I'm not exaggerating, hw 4 was not even due until the day after the test, yet he tested us on content that's covered in hw 5.
Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia INST447 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/03/2023	sucks, uses autograder for assignments but his solutions aren't correct so he has to send out 3 announcements to tell you how to specifically overcome his idiosyncratic errors and vague solutions by adding specific lines of code and so you can arrive at his erroneous solution
Donal Heidenblad INST447 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/12/2023	Really a down to earth guy, happy to help you with what ever you need help with. Lectures are not always the most informative but if you ask questions he is more then happy to help you. Assignments tell you exactly what is required of you and quick to respond to emails.
Nekabari Sigalo INST447 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/03/2023	Easy course. Felt like taking INST126 but with more work with pandas. No challenges were met doing activities because she gives you most of the coding framework for you to modify for assignments. Learned some things about data science but didn't earn much of a learning impact as this course gives you. I used INST course projects as a way to place them into my portfolio for may employers, but I have so say the work we were given wasn't portfolio worthy or even as work heavy as work I've done in 314. Definitely feels like I'm taking a 200-300 level course.
Nekabari Sigalo INST447 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/10/2022	Her pre-recorded video lectures are very helpful. I feel like I have learned a lot from her class so far. Labs, quizzes, and programming assignments are reasonable. I have never felt like there are concept she hasn't explained that are needed on the assignments, but YMMV. Exams have also been fair. Grading does take a while which is quite irritating, although I feel like this is how most of my classes are. She provides her powerpoints which is very helpful for quizzes and exams. Did I mention everything is open note? It's wonderful.
Nekabari Sigalo INST447 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/06/2022	Gives little to no feedback on your work, draws out lectures and takes up multiple videos and hours worth of your time to explain information that could be done in minutes. Expects you to do things her way when there are often multiple ways to solve a problem, you can get points taken off for something like that. She also does this really annoying thing where her assignments will repeat questions the exact same way with different variable names; so you're learning nothing more than you did the first three times you did it, it just takes more time. The class itself isn't hard, but she often doesn't explain concepts that are required on labs and assignments so you have to figure it out on your own. She also takes 2-3 weeks to grade assignments (and doesn't give actual feedback); when you have a class where the content builds on previous material you can get stuff in one week's content wrong and continue to build on that without realizing. Class content is useful, but you'd be better off learning it yourself/from some online sources.
Nekabari Sigalo INST447 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/05/2021	one of my favorite professors in the iSchool, took her for 408F as well, she is a great professor. is concise and clear in her lectures, and is willing to help her students if needed.

Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia
INST447

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/12/2023

This class was pretty bad. The professor is very nice, but the way the material is taught is not easy to understand at all. We were taught one thing in class but the programming assignments and labs were way harder and sometimes made zero sense. I didn't think this class would be bad at all, I had a lot of hope but it's stressed me a lot this semester, by far my most stressful class.

Nekabari Sigalo
INST447

Anonymous
11/21/2023

Professor is super open to students, all work is reasonable and covered in lecture videos.

Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia
INST447

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/06/2023

Avoid this professor. Very knowledgeable about what he teaches, but this class is all over the place. For the assignments, he uses autograder, and for almost every assignment, there has been a mistake on his side with errors regarding the correct answer. The instructional team has had to constantly push back due dates because of mistakes or just not releasing the assignment until 2 or 3 days before the due date. Mind you, this is a technical course and with that comes assignments that may take a few days to figure out. However, the errors regarding the auto grader and instructions in the assignments makes this class very confusing. I've taken other technical courses in this program, and this is by far one of the worst experiences I've had. Due dates are also very weird, with assignments being due at 11:59AM, but for me that's a minor inconvenience compared to the bigger problems with this course. Choose another professor.

Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia
INST447

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
10/18/2023

Would not recommend. I'm usually not the type to complain about professors but this class is not well taught at all. His auto grader assignments has errors and his due date time is jank. On top of all of that, his test covers content that the hw didn't even cover yet. I'm not exaggerating, hw 4 was not even due until the day after the test, yet he tested us on content that's covered in hw 5.

Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia
INST447

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
10/03/2023

sucks, uses autograder for assignments but his solutions aren't correct so he has to send out 3 announcements to tell you how to specifically overcome his idiosyncratic errors and vague solutions by adding specific lines of code and so you can arrive at his erroneous solution

Donal Heidenblad
INST447

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/12/2023

Really a down to earth guy, happy to help you with what ever you need help with. Lectures are not always the most informative but if you ask questions he is more then happy to help you. Assignments tell you exactly what is required of you and quick to respond to emails.

Nekabari Sigalo
INST447

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/03/2023

Easy course. Felt like taking INST126 but with more work with pandas. No challenges were met doing activities because she gives you most of the coding framework for you to modify for assignments. Learned some things about data science but didn't earn much of a learning impact as this course gives you. I used INST course projects as a way to place them into my portfolio for may employers, but I have so say the work we were given wasn't portfolio worthy or even as work heavy as work I've done in 314. Definitely feels like I'm taking a 200-300 level course.

Nekabari Sigalo
INST447

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/10/2022

Her pre-recorded video lectures are very helpful. I feel like I have learned a lot from her class so far. Labs, quizzes, and programming assignments are reasonable. I have never felt like there are concept she hasn't explained that are needed on the assignments, but YMMV. Exams have also been fair. Grading does take a while which is quite irritating, although I feel like this is how most of my classes are. She provides her powerpoints which is very helpful for quizzes and exams. Did I mention everything is open note? It's wonderful.

Nekabari Sigalo
INST447

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
03/06/2022

Gives little to no feedback on your work, draws out lectures and takes up multiple videos and hours worth of your time to explain information that could be done in minutes. Expects you to do things her way when there are often multiple ways to solve a problem, you can get points taken off for something like that. She also does this really annoying thing where her assignments will repeat questions the exact same way with different variable names; so you're learning nothing more than you did the first three times you did it, it just takes more time. The class itself isn't hard, but she often doesn't explain concepts that are required on labs and assignments so you have to figure it out on your own. She also takes 2-3 weeks to grade assignments (and doesn't give actual feedback); when you have a class where the content builds on previous material you can get stuff in one week's content wrong and continue to build on that without realizing. Class content is useful, but you'd be better off learning it yourself/from some online sources.

Nekabari Sigalo
INST447

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/05/2021

one of my favorite professors in the iSchool, took her for 408F as well, she is a great professor. is concise and clear in her lectures, and is willing to help her students if needed.

Reviews for INST447