| Information | Review |
|---|---|
|
James Archsmith
AREC380 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 06/28/2022 |
AREC380 is hands down the best class I have taken in my first 3 years at UMD! I have no complaints. His teaching method was very effective and really made me learn a lot. To truly do well in the class-as simple as it sounds- you have to think and not just memorize. If you don't understand a certain topic or you're just confused about how to set up your code, just email him or attend his office hours. PLUS you don't need any coding/programming experience to do well in this class. I highly recommend taking it! |
|
James Archsmith
HNUH258A Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/22/2022 |
The class itself was interesting and during the class Professor Archsmith was kind during classes. However, he grades major assignments extremely harshly and is not clear on some of the points he deducts. |
|
James Archsmith
HNUH258A Anonymous 05/17/2022 |
This class is honestly a mess. Despite claiming to be welcoming to people with zero programming experience, this course requires teaching yourself R from online coding exercises and class lectures that are not very helpful. Your grade is basically made up of 3 assignments: a fact sheet, a research paper, and a final group research poster, all of which have pretty vague instructions and questionable grading. The TA was unnecessarily harsh when grading the research paper in particular, taking off for what you didn't include instead of evaluating what you did, and your final group research poster depends heavily on whether or not you have people in your group that are actually capable at R (whether it is people who were lucky enough to be already familiar with R beforehand or the few impressive individuals who managed to become proficient at R solely through this course). Even with just a few assignments to be graded, grading was still very slow. I did not get much out of this course, and I think it needs to be revamped for it to be even remotely worthwhile. The only reason this isn't a one star review is because although he was not the most engaging professor, Dr. Archsmith did try to teach the curriculum to the best of his ability and is willing to help you. Unfortunately, his efforts weren't enough to make up for the horribly constructed course. |
|
James Archsmith
HNUH258A Anonymous 05/17/2022 |
Bad professor. He's clearly very knowledgable but he wasn't meant to teach. His lectures are incredibly boring and repeat what we learned in DataCamp for homework. No one pays attention in class and many people stop showing up entirely. The three major assignments: the fact sheet, paper, and group project, are all weighted too heavily in terms of the final grade, and rely too much on our understanding of complex climate and agricultural topics. For a class that's supposed to be teaching us how to study climate change and agriculture, he spends very little time in lecture teaching us anything other than how to code in R. University Honors as a whole struggles with poorly written curriculums and this class is a prime example. |
|
James Archsmith
AREC380 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/18/2020 |
Very chill professor. The class focuses more on principles than coding skills so it is great for people who have no experience in coding. Though the class is not easy, I am glad that I took it because it is very useful and it introduces you to the world of data science. Slides are really detailed and Professor Archsmith provides R code for every lecture, which is extremely helpful for the homework and projects. |
|
James Archsmith
AREC380 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/27/2020 |
He gives detailed power point and talks really fast but clearly each lecture. Sometimes we have problemset which is not really difficult as long as I listen to him carefully in class. His exams are more about concept and explanation. Once you review all his power points and problemset answer sheet, you could get a fine grade. He's really nice and patient when I asked questions even though some of them were really really basic and easy. |