Gorjan Alagic | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Gorjan Alagic CMSC456 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/27/2025	Pros: - Goes slowly during lecture, stops frequently to ask for questions, explains content very clearly (much more helpful than textbook imo, but the textbook is also good to read) - Posts lecture notes and lecture recordings online - Great TA; go to OH! - Making a comeback is doable; I got 50%'s on two homeworks and still got an A; make sure you go to OH, watch (and maybe rewatch) lectures and read lecture notes, and really understand how to do the HW problems - Final mostly consisted of problems from the midterm and the homeworks Cons: - No easy homework problems. Every homework problem was quite difficult; it's like running a marathon without having ever run a 5K - No practice exams - HW counts for 40% of your grade, final counts for 30%
Gorjan Alagic CMSC456 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2025	Amazing professor. First time in college I got a math course where concepts were explained and intuition was built up rather than just being given definitions and theorems and examples and proofs. He really builds up the concepts and the homeworks are very good at having us prove things that we use later - this meant that there wasn't much to study because It's a rigorous proof-based math class so any low-star reviewers don't realize they need to put in more effort if this is not their strong suit (as it wasn't mine). If you're working really hard and still not getting the grade you want then you have to go to office hours to figure out what YOU'RE doing wrong (in fact Gorjan suggests you email him about this too). I did well because I went to office hours every or multiple times a week to find that I was doing the homework wrong and getting hints and spending time in a homework group with my peers. I eventually got the hang of it. The first homework took me like 12 hours but after that not that long. Most homeworks are <5 questions. I also had a pretty strong background in classical cryptography, which is only the first week of class, but it made things less overwhelming. Would definitely recommend a homework/study group but also spend time by yourself on the homework. Would recommend participating in class. This is a VERY fascinating course and he has very good lectures, very good at making you think for yourself when answering questions, and everything is very fair. Textbook is not required but helpful to review the content a second time and learn about a few other things. I recommend reading the textbook AFTER the lecture on that topic because he explains things much more plainly than the textbook (for me doing it in reverse would mean I just kind of forget the content of the textbook, or I needlessly take notes on everything in the textbook and then the lecture would be kind of useless). He doesn't grant extensions but that's to be fair. No one is entitled to a curve. No one is entitled to an extension. No one is entitled to a homework drop. Great course and great professor!
Gorjan Alagic CMSC456 Expecting a P Anonymous 05/13/2020	i mean, the course content is just hard in general. but i had trouble paying attention in lecture, i mostly self taught from the book, with guidance from the lecture slides. i will admit the lecture slides are good. i took this class during the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to online learning was very smooth. homeworks can be hard but they aren't like 451 hard, and it's "possible" to do it in one day. work with other people...coming up with certain proof ideas can be hard on your own.
Gorjan Alagic CMSC456 Expecting a B Anonymous 02/26/2020	Wouldn't recommend, his lecture slides are terrible for someone trying to learn the course content. I've skipped class the past few weeks now and have been learning the same content from elsewhere online because they are explained in easier terms, without all the confusing notation. His teaching style is fairly decent though, as he speaks clearly and reiterates a lot of the content to try to help you understand.

Gorjan Alagic
CMSC456

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/27/2025

Pros: - Goes slowly during lecture, stops frequently to ask for questions, explains content very clearly (much more helpful than textbook imo, but the textbook is also good to read) - Posts lecture notes and lecture recordings online - Great TA; go to OH! - Making a comeback is doable; I got 50%'s on two homeworks and still got an A; make sure you go to OH, watch (and maybe rewatch) lectures and read lecture notes, and really understand how to do the HW problems - Final mostly consisted of problems from the midterm and the homeworks Cons: - No easy homework problems. Every homework problem was quite difficult; it's like running a marathon without having ever run a 5K - No practice exams - HW counts for 40% of your grade, final counts for 30%

Gorjan Alagic
CMSC456

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/15/2025

Amazing professor. First time in college I got a math course where concepts were explained and intuition was built up rather than just being given definitions and theorems and examples and proofs. He really builds up the concepts and the homeworks are very good at having us prove things that we use later - this meant that there wasn't much to study because It's a rigorous proof-based math class so any low-star reviewers don't realize they need to put in more effort if this is not their strong suit (as it wasn't mine). If you're working really hard and still not getting the grade you want then you have to go to office hours to figure out what YOU'RE doing wrong (in fact Gorjan suggests you email him about this too). I did well because I went to office hours every or multiple times a week to find that I was doing the homework wrong and getting hints and spending time in a homework group with my peers. I eventually got the hang of it. The first homework took me like 12 hours but after that not that long. Most homeworks are <5 questions. I also had a pretty strong background in classical cryptography, which is only the first week of class, but it made things less overwhelming. Would definitely recommend a homework/study group but also spend time by yourself on the homework. Would recommend participating in class. This is a VERY fascinating course and he has very good lectures, very good at making you think for yourself when answering questions, and everything is very fair. Textbook is not required but helpful to review the content a second time and learn about a few other things. I recommend reading the textbook AFTER the lecture on that topic because he explains things much more plainly than the textbook (for me doing it in reverse would mean I just kind of forget the content of the textbook, or I needlessly take notes on everything in the textbook and then the lecture would be kind of useless). He doesn't grant extensions but that's to be fair. No one is entitled to a curve. No one is entitled to an extension. No one is entitled to a homework drop. Great course and great professor!

Gorjan Alagic
CMSC456

Expecting a P
Anonymous
05/13/2020

i mean, the course content is just hard in general. but i had trouble paying attention in lecture, i mostly self taught from the book, with guidance from the lecture slides. i will admit the lecture slides are good. i took this class during the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to online learning was very smooth. homeworks can be hard but they aren't like 451 hard, and it's "possible" to do it in one day. work with other people...coming up with certain proof ideas can be hard on your own.

Gorjan Alagic
CMSC456

Expecting a B
Anonymous
02/26/2020

Wouldn't recommend, his lecture slides are terrible for someone trying to learn the course content. I've skipped class the past few weeks now and have been learning the same content from elsewhere online because they are explained in easier terms, without all the confusing notation. His teaching style is fairly decent though, as he speaks clearly and reiterates a lot of the content to try to help you understand.