Information | Review |
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Hal Daume
CMSC421 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/12/2023 |
The class is straightforward, and Hal explains things decently enough. He brings up nice analogies and tends to focus on things that matter more. The midterm exam was exactly like the study guide. However, the HWs were vague and often had grading mistakes. The piazza also wasn't very active. In my opinion, this is a somewhat easy 400-level class, and Hal simply keeps it that way. |
Hal Daume
CMSC421 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/30/2023 |
Hal is a very engaging lecturer. He moves around a lot, does a decent number of examples, and always pauses to let students try problems before giving the answer. The whole course follows http://ai.berkeley.edu/. The project descriptions are a bit vague but not very difficult. Sometimes the curriculum feels a bit dated, and Hal does a decent job adding in footnotes about how you should approach something in practice. Unfortunately, Hal is way too busy to be teaching this class. He almost never checks Piazza, so the only time to ask questions is in the 5 minutes before or after class (or in his OH, but I had another class at that time). The TAs are not super helpful because they do not seem to prepare the material or follow along with the course. The homeworks often have under-specified or mistaken questions. Luckily, this usually results in almost everyone getting points back. The exams aren't too hard, especially if you do the practice ones. Unfortunately, they are very computational rather than conceptual. Basically, the course was pretty interesting, but logistically, it is a bit of a mess. I will say we had Tianyi Zhou as a sub one day when Hal was out. I can't speak to his logistics, but Hal is much more engaging and clear, and he goes at a more reasonable pace. Professor Zhou didn't really pause for questions. |
Hal Daume
CMSC422 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/18/2016 |
Unfortunately, Hal was disappointing. At first, he seemed like he'd put a tremendous amount of effort into the class and that we would learn a lot. After the first 3 weeks though, he stopped putting any effort, and taught extremely poorly. We barely covered any material, and he made the final trivial. I wouldn't recommend him for anyone who wants to learn: though he does make the class very very easy (16% extra credit absolute). |
Hal Daume
CMSC421 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2012 |
Hal is a good professor. He gives very interesting projects for AI based on the Pacman game. These are actually kind of fun to do. The HW is a little too easy I'd say, and doesn't necessarily clarify the concepts from class. But at least it doesn't take long. The exams are pretty fair and not too hard. Hal's lectures are a bit tough to follow and he isn't the best at explaining concepts, but he will go over good examples and try his best to explain if you are not understanding. Overall though, Hal is a really cool professor, and he cares about his students. |