Gabriel Cruz | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/12/2025	If you're not already advanced in Python or ready to completely teach yourself, I wouldn’t recommend taking this professor. It felt like he didn’t really care whether students were learning or not, and the TAs were honestly more helpful—they were the ones actually explaining things and answering questions when we needed help. The course structure was also kind of confusing; every week in discussion, you’re paired with a different person to do a coding exercise, which is very awkward especially for those who are struggling in the course where one person ends up just doing the entire exercise. The homework is also complicated to the point where it is ridiculous, although he does give ALOT of time to complete them. My biggest issue was with how the final project was handled. In the very first lecture, the professor clearly said it would be broken into parts and that we’d get plenty of time to work on it during discussion sessions—but that only happened once, during the last discussion of the semester. If you really want to learn Python and not just get through the course, I’d suggest looking for a different professor.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/09/2025	I didn't learn much from Cruz. The two quizzes, while not worth much of your overall grade, each had an average of about 55%. Everything else I want to say has already been said in other reviews. All in all, don't take this professor!
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/07/2025	I feel like he relies way too much on his TA's for the class and doesn't really care for the class at all. You pretty much have to self-learn everything which is pretty hard if you don't have much experience with coding.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/04/2025	I'm glad other students said they were able to receive help or timely feedback, however, I was not as lucky. It took gabriel 2 weeks to respond to an email regarding a documented absence, and 11 days to respond to the same exact thing on slack. Meaning he responded to me twice, after already addressing the issue late. He does not care about his students, to the point he will forget what you emailed him about and even your name. Hence why his email told me and I paraphrase "this is fine" then his slack message asked me for documentation, which I provided over the email. My name on my email and slack are the same, along with providing my UID. He simply is too absent or preoccupied with other stuff to care.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/24/2025	Professor Cruz isn't what everyone really says. For one, they say he doesn't respond to emails when he tells the class that his most preferred method of communication is Slack... I've seen him answer questions directly through slacks in an instant. Anyways, I came into this class also having prior programming skills in java. This class is going to be fast paced and up to you to learn a chuck of it. However, that is just the nature of coding anyways. Majority of people will use AI to help them which is why they aren't doing good. I also think auto graders are unit test made by the semester's TA's to also get them to be interactive in the course, so I don't personally have a problem with it. I think the in-person lectures are very useful and helpful and the modules online are only helpful to reference syntax, nothing more. People are mad because they have to put actual effort into a class (and I am an awful coder). No exams, quizzes were easy because the TA's did study sessions that directly reflect what is going to be on the quiz. Should be noted there was 2 quizzes only and are a smaller percentage on your grade in comparison to HW assignments. The one bad thing I want to say is that sometimes the TA's and Professor's communication to each other is kind of messy, I know life happens but if you just try to be in the loop and do your work, it will not be as bad as everyone says it is.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/22/2025	His lectures are absolutely pointless. He shows no passion or care for the subject. He has not responded to a single one of my emails. do not take this professor. his TA's are also not the most helpful, plus his autograders are incorrect and broken half the time.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/10/2025	The autograders are always broken so you do not even know if you got part of the assignment correct. Along with this, if you email him about it he most likely will not respond. I've had multiple occasions where both he and his TAs do not respond to emails. The lectures are worthless along with the slides so expect to learn everything on your own. Take another teacher for your own sanity.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/23/2025	Gabriel is a graduate of this program, so expect of him what you expect of your fellow students.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting a B- Anonymous 03/17/2025	The worst professor you can take for 326, he takes forever to respond back to emails, and is very incompetent. This class is intense and just an absolute joke. Plus, his autograders half of the time is incorrect which gets very annoying and his lectures are very useless and pointless, anyways the point of this is if you aren't good at coding in python and actually want to learn it don't take this wack professor. I regret taking him and wished I had dropped this class from him and switched to a better professor when I had the chance.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/28/2025	Just took his first quiz for 326. This professor does not care about this class at all. His quizzes were riddled with errors and TAs were explicitly told to not help us even regarding test errors. do not take this professor.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/06/2025	This dude is incompetent, his lectures aren't worth attending and all his homework end up with bugged auto graders. He is slow to respond to emails or slack(1+ weeks) and when he does respond they are full of typos and punctuation errors, sometimes completely unreadable. Most of his online homework assignments you will never get a full score unless you reach out to him or a TA personally because they never work. Overall this class is a hassle and would never recommend you take with this professor, a joke of a class.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/06/2025	I have noticed people who do poorly in the course are the same people who use AI on all their homework and have gone through the entire INST degree program with just "getting by." Tons of material that is properly covered, is there when you need him, stays after class, or asks you to walk with him if you have questions and answers questions in a timely manner, he has a full-time software engineering job on top of teaching but I never felt once like that got in the way.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2024	Tries to act like he's professional, yet consistently posts sloppy autograders late. Had to email him for half of the homework autograders because they were either incorrect (i.e. my code was correct but was failing the autograder for whatever reason) and/or posted days, even weeks after the assignment was posted on Canvas. Had to wait almost a week for a response from him so ended up going through the TA anyway. I find it ironic that a professor who is so strict about people not turning in things late constantly posts things and responds to emails late himself. As for the content, I'm fine with self-teaching so I didn't go to any lectures, so I can't speak about the quality of those. Not the worst professor in the world, but would recommend avoiding if possible.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 11/21/2024	not accommodating
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2023	He's ok. No exams so that's a nice thing. You have weekly exercises during discussion and there's 4 big homework assignments. He says he will help, but he's usually busy, so you got to rely on the TAs. Lectures are not mandatory but they're also not helpful, so you have to teach yourself a good portion of the content.
Gabriel Cruz Anonymous 12/11/2023	He's a good professor and knows what he's talking about but loves to go on irrelevant tangents about his job.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 09/28/2023	Excellent professor. He goes over all the content; if you ask questions, he will answer. People are just salty because they haven't programmed or aren't trying to in the future, so they are shocked that they had to be engaged just a bit to get an A.
Gabriel Cruz INST326 Expecting a B- Anonymous 06/15/2022	If you are as good as a professor at Python, take this course. The professor never tells us anything related. You'll have to find everything on the Internet. It will also inform you of the assignment through a link to the MIT professor's lecture. If we understand and understand that, we'll be sitting at MIT. TA also doesn't know what the task is about. When you ask a question, you say, "Uh……" for half an hour. If you're really confident in Python, go for it!

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/12/2025

If you're not already advanced in Python or ready to completely teach yourself, I wouldn’t recommend taking this professor. It felt like he didn’t really care whether students were learning or not, and the TAs were honestly more helpful—they were the ones actually explaining things and answering questions when we needed help. The course structure was also kind of confusing; every week in discussion, you’re paired with a different person to do a coding exercise, which is very awkward especially for those who are struggling in the course where one person ends up just doing the entire exercise. The homework is also complicated to the point where it is ridiculous, although he does give ALOT of time to complete them. My biggest issue was with how the final project was handled. In the very first lecture, the professor clearly said it would be broken into parts and that we’d get plenty of time to work on it during discussion sessions—but that only happened once, during the last discussion of the semester. If you really want to learn Python and not just get through the course, I’d suggest looking for a different professor.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/09/2025

I didn't learn much from Cruz. The two quizzes, while not worth much of your overall grade, each had an average of about 55%. Everything else I want to say has already been said in other reviews. All in all, don't take this professor!

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/07/2025

I feel like he relies way too much on his TA's for the class and doesn't really care for the class at all. You pretty much have to self-learn everything which is pretty hard if you don't have much experience with coding.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/04/2025

I'm glad other students said they were able to receive help or timely feedback, however, I was not as lucky. It took gabriel 2 weeks to respond to an email regarding a documented absence, and 11 days to respond to the same exact thing on slack. Meaning he responded to me twice, after already addressing the issue late. He does not care about his students, to the point he will forget what you emailed him about and even your name. Hence why his email told me and I paraphrase "this is fine" then his slack message asked me for documentation, which I provided over the email. My name on my email and slack are the same, along with providing my UID. He simply is too absent or preoccupied with other stuff to care.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/24/2025

Professor Cruz isn't what everyone really says. For one, they say he doesn't respond to emails when he tells the class that his most preferred method of communication is Slack... I've seen him answer questions directly through slacks in an instant. Anyways, I came into this class also having prior programming skills in java. This class is going to be fast paced and up to you to learn a chuck of it. However, that is just the nature of coding anyways. Majority of people will use AI to help them which is why they aren't doing good. I also think auto graders are unit test made by the semester's TA's to also get them to be interactive in the course, so I don't personally have a problem with it. I think the in-person lectures are very useful and helpful and the modules online are only helpful to reference syntax, nothing more. People are mad because they have to put actual effort into a class (and I am an awful coder). No exams, quizzes were easy because the TA's did study sessions that directly reflect what is going to be on the quiz. Should be noted there was 2 quizzes only and are a smaller percentage on your grade in comparison to HW assignments. The one bad thing I want to say is that sometimes the TA's and Professor's communication to each other is kind of messy, I know life happens but if you just try to be in the loop and do your work, it will not be as bad as everyone says it is.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
04/22/2025

His lectures are absolutely pointless. He shows no passion or care for the subject. He has not responded to a single one of my emails. do not take this professor. his TA's are also not the most helpful, plus his autograders are incorrect and broken half the time.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/10/2025

The autograders are always broken so you do not even know if you got part of the assignment correct. Along with this, if you email him about it he most likely will not respond. I've had multiple occasions where both he and his TAs do not respond to emails. The lectures are worthless along with the slides so expect to learn everything on your own. Take another teacher for your own sanity.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
03/23/2025

Gabriel is a graduate of this program, so expect of him what you expect of your fellow students.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
03/17/2025

The worst professor you can take for 326, he takes forever to respond back to emails, and is very incompetent. This class is intense and just an absolute joke. Plus, his autograders half of the time is incorrect which gets very annoying and his lectures are very useless and pointless, anyways the point of this is if you aren't good at coding in python and actually want to learn it don't take this wack professor. I regret taking him and wished I had dropped this class from him and switched to a better professor when I had the chance.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
02/28/2025

Just took his first quiz for 326. This professor does not care about this class at all. His quizzes were riddled with errors and TAs were explicitly told to not help us even regarding test errors. do not take this professor.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
02/06/2025

This dude is incompetent, his lectures aren't worth attending and all his homework end up with bugged auto graders. He is slow to respond to emails or slack(1+ weeks) and when he does respond they are full of typos and punctuation errors, sometimes completely unreadable. Most of his online homework assignments you will never get a full score unless you reach out to him or a TA personally because they never work. Overall this class is a hassle and would never recommend you take with this professor, a joke of a class.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/06/2025

I have noticed people who do poorly in the course are the same people who use AI on all their homework and have gone through the entire INST degree program with just "getting by." Tons of material that is properly covered, is there when you need him, stays after class, or asks you to walk with him if you have questions and answers questions in a timely manner, he has a full-time software engineering job on top of teaching but I never felt once like that got in the way.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/04/2024

Tries to act like he's professional, yet consistently posts sloppy autograders late. Had to email him for half of the homework autograders because they were either incorrect (i.e. my code was correct but was failing the autograder for whatever reason) and/or posted days, even weeks after the assignment was posted on Canvas. Had to wait almost a week for a response from him so ended up going through the TA anyway. I find it ironic that a professor who is so strict about people not turning in things late constantly posts things and responds to emails late himself. As for the content, I'm fine with self-teaching so I didn't go to any lectures, so I can't speak about the quality of those. Not the worst professor in the world, but would recommend avoiding if possible.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting a D+
Anonymous
11/21/2024

not accommodating

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/14/2023

He's ok. No exams so that's a nice thing. You have weekly exercises during discussion and there's 4 big homework assignments. He says he will help, but he's usually busy, so you got to rely on the TAs. Lectures are not mandatory but they're also not helpful, so you have to teach yourself a good portion of the content.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
09/28/2023

Excellent professor. He goes over all the content; if you ask questions, he will answer. People are just salty because they haven't programmed or aren't trying to in the future, so they are shocked that they had to be engaged just a bit to get an A.

Gabriel Cruz
INST326

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
06/15/2022

If you are as good as a professor at Python, take this course. The professor never tells us anything related. You'll have to find everything on the Internet. It will also inform you of the assignment through a link to the MIT professor's lecture. If we understand and understand that, we'll be sitting at MIT. TA also doesn't know what the task is about. When you ask a question, you say, "Uh……" for half an hour. If you're really confident in Python, go for it!