Nathan Beard

This professor has taught: INST204

Sort By:

Information	Review
Nathan Beard INST204 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2025	Spring 2025 was his first semester teaching but I thought he did a really great job! He's nice, cares a lot about the class topics, and was helpful with our larger assignments. For the major assignments in the class (except the first one), you work in a group, so make sure you get with a good group that will carry their weight. Easy A for sure
Nathan Beard Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/16/2025	I took INST-204 spring semester of 25. The class is not difficult if you show up with a pulse and give minimal effort. If you are looking for a filler class to your schedule, this one is very manageable and not overwhelming. Ignore all the people saying "soo much reading", if you havent learned to use internet tools to summarize long documents by spring of 2025 then you have more problems than the class gives you. What IS valid that others are complaining about is the uselesness of the class. Its just a class against AI advancements in everyday life due to racism and bias in datasets. Cool to learn about, but as far as paying a few thousand to sit in the class, it definitely does not further anyone towards employment. Take that statement and apply it to your goals in college. Learned no tangible skills or resume worthy projects. When you see people say online that they "graduated college with 60k in debt and cant find a job" .... its the people who take these classes nonstop. To be fair to Professor Beard, he is a really nice person and does not seem mean in the heart at all, and the TA is cool. He never said that this class was to further your employability or tangible skills. I guess its really a UMD problem with them trying to shove racism and inequality down everyones throats, as we are in the USA at a top university with a very diverse class. Just gets tiresome after a while. I am blessed to not be financially worried about it, but I talk to people who are, and I would really be disgusted with the university if so. Im finishing with an A+, so I mean it when I say literally show up with a pulse and provide minimal effort (id like to think he did that on purpose, maybe he knows this class should be a week long?). Only giving 3 stars instead of 5 because the hardest part of the class isnt the information, its literally figuring out HOW TO PRESENT the infromation for the final. Again, not unmangeable, just dont hop in an incompetent group. This isnt the only class like this. Coming from community college, I genuinely cannot believe the low level education UMD provides while simultaneously trying to convince the people in the best country in the world that they are oppressed and (by extension, obviously shame, although that goes without saying). I am all for a class providing solutions and helping others, but I am NOT for trying to convince people paying 20+k a year that they are "oppressed" and "discriminated against" . Laughable. Whole class needs a 5 hour plane ride in any direction.
Nathan Beard INST204 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/10/2025	He's nice and all, but this class was so tedious at times. I hate to say it, but coming to class felt like a waste of time. There weren't really "lectures" or slides that he'd post to follow, it was really just listening to him talk before having us do some sort of group work for the last 15 minutes of class. There was always a warm up or exit ticket for participation credit. I felt particularly annoyed with the ambiguity of the writing assignments; he had us meet with him outside of class (since all of class time has to be dedicated to his lectures), only to score so harshly even if after approving of our drafts and ideas. It just felt so difficult to put in so much effort for the lengthy readings, audit assignments, and quizzes, only to not really feel like you're not learning anything or improving your grade. I really did wish I enjoyed this class, as the topics seemed really interesting, so I'm disappointed to not have liked going to lectures at all. A lot of it felt like busy work, including the lectures itself, and there was really no way of getting a good grade for the writing assignments unless you got lucky.
Nathan Beard Expecting a B Anonymous 05/09/2025	Unclear instruction, you are never sure how/when something is going to be graded or what is expected. TA is chill. Super tedious in-class work assignment every time. On top of that, warmup and exit ticket too and needed for participation grade.
Nathan Beard Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/09/2025	Doesn't teach well. You won't learn anything and wayyy too much hassle for a Gen-Ed. Literally ridiculous number of assignments in-class and annoying group work every time. Hand written warm-up and exit ticket in class every time.
Nathan Beard INST204 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/09/2025	Nathan is a really cool guy, he comes off really nice and honestly seems like a cool person to be friends with. However, this seems to be one of his first semesters teaching the class and it is oddly heavier then it needs to be. Weekly readings and quizzes that are not very needed + a multiple meetings with him or the TA for group projects etc. that are not as in depth as I would have wanted. I thought the topics in class were super interesting, him and his TA were super nice people, but the class just had a lot of busy work that weighed it down a bit.
Nathan Beard INST204 Anonymous 05/08/2025	I think he is alright. Classes are so boring, and attendance is graded. This class has way too much groupwork, literally every single class there was groupwork. I am fine working with people but every single class was just too much. We have 4 skip days, use them before the final project, because you probably want to come to the last few classes anyway to work with your group. There are quizzes every week that are about the readings for the week. I never read the articles and just used chatgpt for the quizzes. He also does not release the quiz grades in a timely manner. He would release the grades weeks after, and it's not like he has to grade them, it is automatically graded for him and the score is just hidden. I think his lectures were pretty boring as well. Whenever someone asked a question, he didn't answer it directly. For bigger projects, we have to meet with him and talk about it, so I wrote out some of it so he can read it in the meeting, but he refused to read it, like isn't that the point of the meeting? I was trying to ask him to read it and see what I can improve on before I write even more. His grading is annoying as well. The first writing assignment prompt was a what-if question, so I answered "if this happened, this would happen, and if this happened, this would happen," and I got 79% on the assignment. Even on the other bigger writing assignments, me and my partner followed the rubric exactly, but he still took points off. I think he will refuse to give anyone 100% on a writing assignment, even if someone earned it. One funny thing, this guy is the embodiment of a millennial, I don't think I've ever met more of a millennial than this guy. I would not take the class again, but I am expecting either an A- or an A, unless my group completely bombs on the final project.
Nathan Beard Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/08/2025	To be honest, Nathan as a professor is a cool guy, but bless his heart because this class felt like a gigantic waste of time, and he didn't do a good job at alleviating that feeling. There was an egregious number of readings, yet he didn't even read them himself. You couldn't skip class which makes total sense, but the participation was overwhelming. The TA graded super hard too. One more thing about the readings, half of them are NEVER discussed in class. They are dense and lengthy, but he doesn't clarify or implement them into class well at all. Overall, don't take this course if you don't have to. You can get an A, but you're going to have to try a little harder than a lot of other alternatives.
Nathan Beard INST204 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/08/2025	To be honest, Nathan as a professor is a cool guy, but bless his heart because this class felt like a gigantic waste of time, and he didn't do a good job at alleviating that feeling. There was an egregious number of readings, yet he didn't even read them himself. You couldn't skip class which makes total sense, but the participation was overwhelming. The TA graded super hard too.
Nathan Beard INST204 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/07/2025	Repetitive unnecessary work. Incredibly slow grading. Doesn't explain rubrics clearly and very arbitrary grading. Beware only 1 attempt on quizzes that are worth a lot of your grade. Drags class even when he has nothing to say. Tons of assigned readings even though he admitted to not reading them himself. Please brace for impact before taking this class. Make sure to never skip class, multiple participation activities live every single time all throughout class. And if you have to ask something to him, he'll just dodge the question and not give a clear answer. Overall very confusing and difficult experience would not recommend.