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Jordan Boyd-Graber
CMSC470 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/10/2023 |
This class is flipped lecture which means we watch the lecture videos on our own, and go into class to ask questions for one of the classes for the week. The other class for the week (not listed on testudo as a class/discussion time) is a workshop where we do an assignment on that week's lecture content. The content of the course is ok. It's all pertinent to the subject, and is realistic for students to learn at this level. However, the logistics for this class and it's assignments were some of the worst I've ever taken at CS at Maryland. This professor does not teach, and it feels like he does not care about this class at all. He was not present at the midterm to answer questions, and when we asked the TA's questions at the midterm, they said "Let me ask the Professor" and then the professor would not respond, so the TA's did their best in answering our questions for the midterm. Every homework assignment released with bugs, meaning if you wanted to start the homework early, you'd have to post on piazza about the bug, wait for the TA's to fix it, and then start again. Every homework assignment had extremally vague instructions and grading criteria spawning many questions on the piazza. These questions were often answered by complete non answers, or "you should know this". Might I add that the in person question sessions were not recorded, so if you could not remember what a TA/Professor said during class, there was no way to get that answer. So, if they answered a piazza question in class, you're just left hoping another student will answer it for you. In completing the homeworks, many of the lecture videos were wholly unhelpful as well. The videos are not substantial enough to teach the content to a level needed to complete the homeworks in my opinion. To complete them, I would go back to reference the lecture videos, only to realize he spent maybe a sentence or two on implementation details we need for the homework, and the rest of the video introing why this technique is important in history, or why it fell out of favor. All in all, the class felt lazy, sloppy, and an absolute nuisance to complete assignments. I strongly recommend against taking CMSC470 with this professor. |
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Jordan Boyd-Graber
CMSC470 Anonymous 12/21/2021 |
Dr BG was extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the material. His lectures were pretty hard to follow but he made it very easy to ask questions and gave alternative sources to learn materials. His homework’s were very fair and helped with my overall understanding of the course material. The exams were extremely difficult and the average was low but he curves accordingly. Overall I had a positive experience in Dr Boyd-Graber’s NLP class. |