Manoj Franklin

This professor has taught: CMSC798, EDSP652, ENEB353, ENEB444, ENEE244, ENEE245, ENEE303, ENEE303H, ENEE324, ENEE350, ENEE350H, ENEE446, ENEE447, ENEE646, ENPM607, ENPM609, ENPM610, ENPM615, ENPM675, ENPM676, ENPM808, ENPM818G, MSML605, MSML606

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Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Anonymous 11/25/2024	This is the worst class I have ever taken in my 3 years as a computer engineering major. The professor’s lectures are useless, the TA doesn’t know anything about the lab, and doesn’t know how to use Verilog. Additionally, we aren’t taught how to use the programming language by anyone, and the lab documents don’t provide any example code to see how to write it. Vivado is a horrendously bad software that takes more than 5 minutes to run one time (and then you realize that the code has problems, which wastes an additional 5 minutes of waiting for the slow software to compile). This class is miserable. Franklin and the TA’s were not help.
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Anonymous 11/08/2024	The single worst lab I have ever taken in my life. It is a 2 credit class that I spend on average 8-12 hours every week working on the prelab and lab assignments. The lab reports offer little to no guidance as it is confusingly written, leaving you to essentially figure it out on your own, while also allegedly being structured for people with no Verilog experience. In the latter half of the semester, the prelab assignments are the bulk of the work, often taking significantly longer than the lab assignments themselves. The professor will not respond to emails, ever. This is not entirely his fault, as the fact that one professor is in charge of a large, multi-section lab class is a ridiculous failure on the department, and shows how genuinely out of touch they are to the experience of the students, and how little student well being is a priority. A prime example of engineering academia normalizing over-working the shit out of its students with little to no reward.
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Anonymous 10/11/2024	Very clear that he does not care and puts the least amount of effort in this class, significantly less than all of the lab TAs that do most of the work. Franklin never, ever responds to emails. For some reason the most amount of work you ever have to do in this entire department are in the 2-credit courses. The pre-lab work for each lab takes hours to complete, making this feel like a class where you put way too much time into it and get little in return.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/19/2024	Truly just an "okay" professor. Reads off of the slides in lecture. The homeworks look somewhat like the exam but aren't a good indication of what to study. He said we'd have 4 homeworks but he forgot to even assign 2 homeworks and out of the 2 he did assign, he forgot to grade 1- which means that 30% of our grade was decided on by 1 homework assignment. The other 70% was on two exams, each being 35%. The exams were actually difficult with some curve balls and some horrible multiple choice. He has a small curve in the class but don't rely on it. He's an "okay" option but often in 350, the alternatives are so much worse than him that you are stuck.
Manoj Franklin ENEE446 Anonymous 06/01/2024	Definitely one of the classes of all time. Didn't learn anything from this class, but at least you pretty much can't fail. One of the reviews from 2023 covers the grading breakdown pretty well. I would like to add that the projects (assigned as HW) were pretty straightforward and didn't require any knowledge from the lectures. The lectures themselves were pretty boring, and the slides were a mess of information. We did have 1-2 practice exams from the last few semesters, which helped a bit for exam prep. Exams were not great, the high for exam 1 being ~80% and exam 2 being ~90%. If you take this class with him anyways, you'll get exactly what you signed up for.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/16/2023	So conflicted about Manoj. He is really nice, quite knowledgeable and he won't fail you. By those virtues alone, I give him 3 stars. Otherwise, a messy course with only 3 assignments in the whole semester, a midterm and a final. No coherent practice materials, messy file organization and a lack of effective exercises really made this class a slog. You will not be able to self study effectively using his materials. You must go to lecture and pay attention, which is such a chore when he shows up late to every class and his lecture cadence will put you to sleep. I also feel I didn't learn much. The other professors probably aren't any better though. So, whatever... take him, I guess.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Anonymous 10/18/2023	Franklin is worse than Wade. For starters, he didn't even show up to our first exam. Without warning, the TA administered the exam (which he didn't write, and had some confusions about himself). This is on top of being consistently late to class. The exam itself wasn't printed properly (mine was extremely messy and hard to read), was horribly ambiguous, flat-out worded incorrectly for part 2, and had egregious weighting. Each multiple choice question was worth 10% of the exam grade, with there being 4 of them. The only question on there which was designed fairly was the C to MIPS translation, which was 40% of the exam. This is compounded by the issue of overall grade weighting. 2 assignments worth 10% each, and 2 exams worth 40% each. So each multiple choice question is worth a significant part of the overall course grade. It wouldn't be such an issue if there was material to study off of. There really isn't, as the past exams don't really prepare you for the questions being asked on the current exam, and any other material is information overload. There are close to 100 slides for the important chapters, and it's simply unfeasible to properly parse it. The lectures don't help with information digestion either, which I just gave up going pretty quickly. You'd think a professor who's been around and teaching this class as long as Franklin has would have some sort of grip on how to run this class, and provide appropriate materials. Apparently not. Speaking of, for teaching a class called "Computer Organization", Franklin might have the worst ELMS file organization I've ever seen. Some folders, such as discussions and slides, contain the appropriate files, while others are just scattered randomly. There's no rhyme or reason to most things. I don't understand why this professor's ratings are as high as they are. Yeah his final grade averages are pretty high, but what is anyone supposed to get from his classes? ENEE350 has been nothing so far, and I can't forsee that changing anytime soon. I usually wait until the end of the semester to rate professors, but not administering your own exam without warning is something else.
Manoj Franklin ENEE446 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 09/05/2023	If you told me this class didn't exist and that it was literally something I hallucinated, I would probably believe you. This class had a total of 5 grades: 3 projects distributed throughout the second half of the semester totaling about 25% of the final grade, and 2 exams, 1 right after spring break and 1 the week before finals, that were worth the other 75%. I attempted to go to a few lectures, but his demeanor and the way he presents makes it so boring that I'm about to fall asleep, and during the times where I put 100% of my energy into staying awake and paying attention, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. This was within the first 2 weeks of the course as well. I eventually gave up and stopped going to class, but this apparently was the case throughout the rest of the semester according to the class GroupMe. He had maybe 2 sample exams available for each exam that were at least 10 years old, and usually only one of those had an answer key. I also don't believe he ever explicitly said what would be on each exam, considering everyone constantly seemed confused and nobody seemed to know what to study or expect. The projects were pretty useless, considering one of them was setting up the program to use for the other 2 projects, and the other 2 projects didn't seem to be relevant to what was on the slides he posted. In this class, I learned nothing, did nothing, and the only thing I got out of it was a requirement for my major. If there is another option for a class or a professor, do that instead of whatever this was.
Manoj Franklin MSML605 Expecting an A- Anonymous 08/15/2023	Don't expect to learn anything, the course content is Python101. Don't trust a word he says about what will be on the exam, every one of them has at least one "gotchya" question that, at times, requires explicit quoting from the slides (not kidding). Your best bet is to read the slides if you want, but be absolutely sure to print every single one of them out for the open-book exams, because any other notes you bring will be worthless. The only A- I received in the program, not because I lacked the conceptual knowledge, but because I didn't have the slides on-hand to quote from, and I trusted him when he said we didn't need to regurgitate them. Don't get got. Print the slides.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Anonymous 06/16/2023	Pretty solid class overall. Manoj is definitely knowledgeable about the subject and teaches you what you need to know. He uses the MIPS architecture to teach the concepts of the course, which makes things easier but also isn't very useful outside of this course. The curve is set at the beginning of the semester in the syllabus, and is reasonably forgiving. The best thing about this class was also the worst thing -- there were very few assignments. We had a midterm (40%), a non-cumulative final (40%), and two homeworks (10% each). While this meant we had very little work day to day, exams became unnecessarily stressful. Additionally, because exams were so short messing up even one multiple choice question could ruin your grade pretty easily. The exams were mostly pretty similar to previous years (especially the larger questions) but sometimes the multiple choice and shorter problems could be tricky. If you really care about getting a good grade maybe take another professor with slightly lower weighted exams.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2023	bro was 15 minutes late to our final. but giving a serious review, other than being routinely late to class, we had 2 assignments the entire semester, ta keeps cancelling discussion. this class was so chill it was honestly the best. as for class content, it is actually very interesting, franklin speaks very softly so its easy to fall asleep, but if you do stay awake he is very knowledgeable and can learn a lot.
Manoj Franklin ENEE447 Anonymous 05/17/2023	This guy literally never responds to emails and doesn't answer phone calls. He comes in late, gives a shitty unintelligible lecture and then just ghosts the entire class, leaving the TA to do the actual teaching. He also lied about giving back exams in lecture, and then proceeded to never give back our exams. I showed up at his office multiple times and he was not there 100% of the time. Also, his website hasn't been updated since 2000 and half of his course resources is about trusting in jesus your lord and savior. What a complete joke of a professor. The fact that he teaches so many courses baffles me to this day.
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/12/2022	This class just sucked in general. But it is mandatory for engineering so suck it up.
Manoj Franklin ENEE244 Anonymous 05/05/2022	The worst professor I have ever taken at this university. His lectures are filled with him talking nonsense and his exams are beyond what we learned in class. The averages are extremely low and he blames it on the questions being poorly written when it was him not being able to teach his class. The whole class a week before the exam was trying to teach themselves the material but no one could help each other because everyone else was lost. Only curved 2 points on a 25 point exam when the average was a 13/25. I wanted to learn from him and I actively paid attention during lecture but I was unable to retain any of the information he would mumble on about.
Manoj Franklin ENEE244 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/26/2022	Manoj is EXTREMELY knowledgeable. He comes into the lecture hall and doesn't pull any reference material out, just goes to the board and starts, because he just KNOWS. However, he is terrible at email. He has not replied to a single email of mine from 244 or 245. Also, do not take 244 with Manoj if you're not cool with a 25 minute final exam, out of a total of 15 points, that's worth 40% of your grade... Yes, one midterm (40%), one final (40%), and 6 homeworks (20%)
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Anonymous 05/26/2021	ENEE245 is not well-adapted to an online format in general, but Professor Franklin's lack of responsiveness makes it much more stressful. Extremely interesting content but the labs are way too long/confusing, especially as a 2-credit class. If you take Franklin for 245 then your TA will probably determine how you do. There was a severe lack of communication, with the most notable example being zero announcements about the date of the final exam except Franklin mentioning the date at the end of a single lecture two weeks beforehand.
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Anonymous 05/21/2021	This class was a ton of work and he was pretty unhelpful sometimes. Still, most people did well and you'll be fine as long as you keep up with the work, go to office hours, talk to your TA, etc. There's an exam at the end which I'm pretty sure is just designed to lower everyone's grades by a letter.
Manoj Franklin ENEE350 Expecting an A umdterpman 05/18/2021	I've taken 245 and 350 with Dr. Franklin. Both of them were online, so they probably won't translate to a real semester. I enjoyed 245 actually - I thought the labs were fair and educational (though the prelabs took SO LONG to complete). I agree with what others said about a good TA making a big difference. I also didn't go to any of the lectures - while Dr. Franklin knows his stuff, his online lecture format was reading from powerpoints, and I just could not pay any attention at all. The final at the end of the class was kind of a crapshoot - it was 10 multiple choice questions, and most of them were VERY niche questions from individual labs. The final average was like a 40% or something ridiculous, but it counts for only like 20% of the final grade so it ended up being alright. That final was still quite annoying though, and I'm sure a lot of people were frustrated with their grades afterwards if they did particularly badly (less than like a 40% would get you an A- or a B even if you did all the labs perfectly). 350 was another ballgame. Again, I could not pay any attention to his powerpoint lecture format. I watched maybe two lectures and then decided that I just couldn't pay attention anymore. Thankfully, our TA, Sidra, was amazing and helped teach us everything that we needed to know during discussions. She single-handedly saved everyone's grades. For both the midterm and the final we were given multiple practice exams, and over 50% of each exam was carbon-copy from the old tests. As a result, I (and many others) didn't attend lectures and still ended up doing well on exams just by practicing the old exams (the 3 HWs were also very relevant to the exams). I feel like this is partially due to the nature of online learning, and during a normal semester I think Franklin would be a pretty decent professor (see some of the older reviews), but online I didn't learn much in 350. Based on my impressions of this class and others, I would take Franklin over Oruc for 350, but also consider other professors if they are available.
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/25/2020	Dr. Franklin is just a really uncaring and messy professor. He cancelled lectures without notifying any of the students, he posted one practice exam from 2012 (which isn't helpful at all for the exam), and he's not good at using technology at all. Your grade in the class is also completely dependent on the TA you have.
Manoj Franklin ENEE244 Anonymous 01/14/2020	Hopefully my reign with this professor is over. I've taken ENEE324, ENEE244 and ENEE245 with him, and each class varied a lot in terms of how difficult he made it. 324 was a nightmare because it was all math and he really did not try to make the material interesting through lecture. Exams were extremely unpredictable in terms of what he could test us on; he referenced the textbook several times however the problems from the book ended up being different in terms of content compared to what was on the exam. This class will be difficult no matter who you take it with, and he will not make it any easier. However, I had a good experience with him for 244; he tried to relate the material to real world concepts as much as possible and made fair exams that covered everything he talked about in class. 245 was another nightmare though, where Verilog was barely taught in class but tested rigorously through the prelabs which is a shame because it is a very interesting class. What's even more crazy is that you are expected to know the language and associated concepts thoroughly for the exams... this was evident especially through the final exam. Overall Franklin will always be a mixed bag in terms of his exams as it is difficult to prepare for them. Expect to work super hard if you are enrolled in any of his classes.
Manoj Franklin ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/29/2019	This is one of those courses that is so needlessly made challenging and stressful by how inept the teacher is at organizing it. Manoj Franklin does not directly teach material from the textbook, most of his notes are oral (and he has a thick accent), and there is no syllabus that describes what to learn. So, there is a lot of stressful guesswork that goes into learning the curriculum. It would be completely unlearnable if not for the hardworking TF's that have learned from the previous semester what Manoj intends for us to learn.
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Expecting an A- themachine 11/17/2019	It's a shame that this class is so poorly taught and managed, because it could be a really important, fundamental class for computer engineers. The lectures are just a review of some basic ENEE244 concepts, which is a complete waste of time. It is basically assumed that you come into the class with a foundation in Verilog, a very difficult language to pick up but a crucial one to learn for anyone interested in FPGAs. If lecture was changed to just teach Verilog and the lecture were actually informative and helpful (Franklin was not a good lecturer. He was vague and hard to understand), the class might have been one of my favorites.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 soulelite 09/30/2016	His lectures are clear, and his handwriting is amazing. Only reason I did not give him 5 stars is because he doesn't give out any homework assignments, so its hard to get any practice if you don't understand the examples he does in class.
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Expecting an A+ jjjnmk 11/13/2015	To be honest, I didn't go to many lectures of 245, because I didn't think it was that necessary. The way that 245 is structured with Franklin, you can get away with just going over the slides and the prelab before your lab, because that's pretty much what Franklin does in lecture. That being said, the lectures that I did go to were pretty alright. I'm sure you've heard that he's got the most amazing handwriting in the department, which makes taking notes from him very nice. If you're thinking of taking him for 245, I'd say go for it. His labs are relatively straight forward.
Manoj Franklin Expecting an A Anonymous 09/15/2014	I rarely give professors 1 star reviews, but Franklin hit all the wrong places for me. He put in quite certainly no effort into the class and would always be late 5-15 minutes. The lecture wasn't too crucial, but it's at the very least extremely disrespectful to not be on time during allotted time. The class required almost nothing of him, and he wasn't even able to do the little it did. He NEVER responds to email and you need to track him down yourself. He seemed to have absolutely no regulation over the TAs and they all decided for themselves how they wanted to grade and how much extra credit to give, resulting in extreme discrepancies between classes. Very disrespectful and lazy man getting payed to "lecture" and do nothing.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/21/2014	Franklin is an extremely organized lecturer, which is super ironic considering he doesn't bring notes to class and his canvas is as unorganized as I've ever seen. He speaks in a clear and concise manner, answers questions effectively, and doesn't go too fast. He appears to care about students, and is reasonable. Unlike other reviewers have said, he never showed up to class late this semester, his accent is non-existent, and he is very organized. The nature of the course is very difficult, and to compensate he removed homework from the class. This is nice, obviously, because there's no homework, but quizzes and exams count for more, which is scary. Quizzes are graded extremely easily, and exams are harsh-- half of the points are multiple choice, and even if you select the correct answer you could get less than half credit if you don't explain yourself well enough. It helps my note-taking that his handwriting is so neat, and I really appreciate that he doesn't vomit information onto the board, like so many math professors I've had. I think that overall Franklin is an excellent professor. He only got 4 stars from me because his canvas is unorganized and he doesn't respond to emails.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Expecting an A+ koffe55 01/13/2014	Excellent professor. Incredibly neat and organized on the board. Lectures are somewhat slow but are very easy to follow. As long as you don't mind starting lectures ten minutes late, you'll have a great time in this class.
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2013	Beautiful handwriting.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/06/2013	Dr. Franklin was a great professor for 303. What I like about him is that he explains everything in a clear and understandable way. This was one of the few classes where I was able to understand nearly everything he says in lecture, unlike other professors who fail to communicate those material clearly. He always shows up 10 minutes late and goes through material slowly, but I felt I learned a lot from his lectures. His teaching style just "works." Exam questions appear to be variations of examples he did in class. The key to doing well on the dams is to understand the material intuitively by practicing a lot of problems. Averages tend to be in the high 60's, but it is possible to do very well if you take advantage of test bank problems. He is pretty generous on partial credit though.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Expecting an A UMDstudent2011 12/20/2012	Professor Franklin is an excellent professor for ENEE303. He's been teaching the class for well over 10 years, so as a student, you quickly realize he's the best the university has to offer when learning about Transistors. By no means is this class an easy A. You need to understand the material or else you will find yourself struggling come exam time. I found the class to be rather easy to learn. Make sure you understand Small-Signal Analysis for BJTs, MOSFETs, & Difference Amplifiers because they will be on the exam. Understanding these concepts helped separate me from other students. The class is curved initially by 3%, but as the semester goes on, you'll notice the class is curved off of where you stand against your classmates. He follows OURUMD grading distribution to the T, so use that to determine where you stand.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Expecting an A engr 10/03/2012	Best professor ever !!! I recommend taking 303 with him and any other classes available with him cuz he goes by every detail and his exams are pretty much from the homework and class notes (you can do hwk if u have ur class notes) I got a B in this class but if i wudve put in an extra effort, I wud've definately gotten an A
Manoj Franklin ENEE245 bigbabby 05/15/2012	This was his first semester teaching 245, and it shows. Lectures would consist of him basically reading the lab specification to us. About halfway into the semester, the labs go from telling you exactly what to do to telling you no information at all. The last lab was copied off of the internet, but only the useless information. The final was okay, not representative of the semester at all, but the TAs graded fairly leniently.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/27/2011	Thorough lectures, although it can be difficult to pay attention as he speaks very softly and mentions some important concepts in passing. He can be very meticulous in writing out diagrams, which makes note-copying (and catching up) much easier. He did not give pop quizzes as in previous semesters, which was a bonus. His tests were relatively straightforward and he's pretty generous with partial credit. My biggest complaint with the class was with the difficulty of the homework, which often stressed concepts we were not expected to know (and often did not cover) in lecture/exams. Still, overall, this was a pretty easy class, and Franklin was pretty great. As always, look at practice exams (helps immensely).
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Anonymous 01/28/2011	Franklin is pretty good. His lectures are extremely clear as he draws everything to quantum precision. He's pretty good at explaining stuff too. I actually wish he had given us more homework because I felt like we never really got to practice the problems enough. And I wish he wouldn't do his pop quizzes because they were pointless and tested memorization more than understanding of the concepts. But his tests are fair and they count for most of the grade, so it's pretty easy to get an A in the class.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Expecting an A whynot 01/28/2011	His lectures are awesome - if you are taking 303 with Newcomb you should try to sit in on Franklin's lectures if you can. His notes are very neat and clear. His lectures can become somewhat disorganized, but it's just because he always asks students questions and tries to pick apart what they don't know. Whether you think this is good or not is up to you. He also has pop quizzes in his lectures. They are multiple choice and count for a substantial portion of your grade. I think quiz were like 20%, HW like 10% and the rest was midterm + final. His exams are extremely hard. Prepare well, do EVERY homework, and study like mad. Show ALL your work, even on multiple choice questions, as he gives lots of partial credit if your reasoning is good.
Manoj Franklin Xin 11/25/2009	He is boring, has a thick accent, can't teach, and is a total jesus freak. The enee206 lectures are pointless to go to. You don't learn anything at all. He posts the powerpoints online so just review them at your dorm before you go to class. He is nice though.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/23/2009	AWESOME professor! For all EE students: u'll be better off taking this prof for whatever class he teaches. He has an awesome curve. First of, you have to pay attention in class for the multiple choice lecture quizzes. And you have to note that these are almost the same questions on the exams. Also, you have to go over and solve the practice exam questions since the exam questions are similar to those. Also he is a little difficult to catch for office hours. So in case you need help you have to talk to him after class. Because he takes some time before replying to emails.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 swieneck 09/09/2009	I took professor Franklin for both ENEE303 and ENEE313 and can honestly say that he has been one of the best professors I've ever had. What I like most about him is that he explains things in a very clear and understandable way. Also he is a really fair grader, and the problems you get on the test are usually the same or very similar problems to what was in the homework or in examples from the book.
Manoj Franklin ENEE303 Anonymous 08/27/2009	He is very organized on the board. He is very helpful at office hours. His exams are similar to homework and exams from last year. Overall, a great guy.