Daniel Gottesman | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/23/2023	Nice professor but lectures were proof-heavy and went into detail about every topic. He also did not do a good job of connecting the topics. Exams were open notes which helped. Problem sets were very hard, but doable, and don't have to get all of them right to get 100% (could work on them with other people). There were 2 python problem sets. He curved a lot at the end. C- was a 55
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/15/2023	Not recommended at all, man. Never prepare before the class, just read slides.
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/07/2023	Even though I complained a lot about the class at first, It turned out to not be so bad. His lectures are pretty dry and I ended up skipping most of them, but the lecture slides/textbook were enough to get me through the problem sets and midterm. Each problem set is out of 120 points, for a total of 1200 points in the category, but only 1000 of those points are counted. You could get 20 points off of every problem set and still get 100% overall, which helps a lot because the problem sets are fairly difficult. The exams work the same way, and are open note and open book. We've only had one programming assignment (in Python) so far which is disappointing. If you have strong math skills (especially with proofs) and are willing to put in the time then this class won't be too difficult. If 250 and 351 were a struggle for you, I would not take this class.
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/28/2022	To be completely honest everyone on here is being too harsh and is failing to understand that this is a 400 level math class. Of course it’s going to be hard. Sure it’s going to even harder with a professor who has never taught the class before, but when the class is curved an entire letter grade at the end how can you complain. Professor Gottesman increased the quality of his slides significantly as the semester progressed and took class feedback seriously- something most professors don’t do.
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/23/2022	Class was very hard and lecture pace is difficult to follow along, however he did end up being very generous with the curve.
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Anonymous 12/19/2022	His teaching style is exactly what he did in videos on youtube. To be more exact, his lecture is more like giving a seminar talk as opposed to teaching a class. He doesn't write when he explains something in the class. So, it is extremely difficult to follow the arguments, especially, when there are proofs and mathematical concepts involved. He treats us like experts and he doesn't review mathematical concepts that are not parts of the course's prerequisites. He expects us to already known the materials. Many students get lost but most of them did not drop the class b/c they believe in a generous curve. His exams tend to favor mathematical theories that are used in cryptography. He said "no pain no gain", hey Daniel that thought is out of date! You need to make your student enjoying your class and still gain.
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Anonymous 12/15/2022	Anybody but this guy especially if its CMSC456, just wait another semester until an actual good prof is scheduled to teach this class. I came in excited to learn about Cryptography and I'm leaving hoping that I never have to do any Cryptography for the rest of my life
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Anonymous 12/15/2022	Do not take Gottesman for this class unless you want a semester of the teacher trying to prevent you from getting good scores on Homeworks and Exams. The way he drops your best homework grade and increases the homework difficulty when students are actually able to figure out the problems is mind boggling. This guy is extremely against any computer science in his class and actually baits students to try and use Python on the Homework, only to tell them after the fact that it's really impossible to solve the problem with Python so they just get the question wrong.
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Anonymous 12/14/2022	The course is hard but some of the teaching decisions have just made it significantly harder, the grading policy is baffling (dropping the highest and lowest grades???) and then increasing the problem difficulty when people did well on a week's homework, we got practice problems for the midterm/final and then when we asked to have an answer key for them he said no???
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Anonymous 12/01/2022	The reviews posted by other people are honestly very disrespectful. This class is definitley very challenging, but these personal attacks are honestly ridiculous. Not fair at all to call your professor a 'clown' or whatever. As one of many hoping for a curve in this class, maybe blatant disrespect aint the way to go.
Daniel Gottesman MATH456 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/01/2022	this class hard man
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Anonymous 10/26/2022	This guy teaches undergrads as if they were PhD students. He has no clue what he’s doing. This guy will spend 80% of review for midterm going over something that won’t be on the midterm, but when we ask for examples of problems we need to be able to do, that’s “not a good use of class time”. He won’t even use the doc cams because he personally doesn’t like them. Do yourself a favor and steer clear of this clown.
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 terpsCompSci1 10/17/2022	This teacher is extremely poor at teaching.
Daniel Gottesman CMSC456 Anonymous 10/17/2022	I'll be adding to this review by the end of the semester with more details, but please anyone who is thinking about signing up for a class with this guy... just DON'T. He teaches at his own pace without worrying about the students, every lecture is basically him going on and on just listening to the sound of his own voice. Students have made multiple Piazza suggestions about how to improve his lectures to be more understandable and he pretty much blatantly ignores them. We have a week to do each homework and when the class was able to solve all the problems on HW3, he was surprised and said that isn't normal, so he'll make sure to increase the difficulty in the future HWs this semester ??. To prepare for our midterm he won't give us answers to practice questions and his advice is to "read the textbook" to prepare for the exam. Especially if you are a CS major this guy is not for you, he teaches class like he has never heard of computer science and only cares about math and physics concepts.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/23/2023

Nice professor but lectures were proof-heavy and went into detail about every topic. He also did not do a good job of connecting the topics. Exams were open notes which helped. Problem sets were very hard, but doable, and don't have to get all of them right to get 100% (could work on them with other people). There were 2 python problem sets. He curved a lot at the end. C- was a 55

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/15/2023

Not recommended at all, man. Never prepare before the class, just read slides.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/07/2023

Even though I complained a lot about the class at first, It turned out to not be so bad. His lectures are pretty dry and I ended up skipping most of them, but the lecture slides/textbook were enough to get me through the problem sets and midterm. Each problem set is out of 120 points, for a total of 1200 points in the category, but only 1000 of those points are counted. You could get 20 points off of every problem set and still get 100% overall, which helps a lot because the problem sets are fairly difficult. The exams work the same way, and are open note and open book. We've only had one programming assignment (in Python) so far which is disappointing. If you have strong math skills (especially with proofs) and are willing to put in the time then this class won't be too difficult. If 250 and 351 were a struggle for you, I would not take this class.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/28/2022

To be completely honest everyone on here is being too harsh and is failing to understand that this is a 400 level math class. Of course it’s going to be hard. Sure it’s going to even harder with a professor who has never taught the class before, but when the class is curved an entire letter grade at the end how can you complain. Professor Gottesman increased the quality of his slides significantly as the semester progressed and took class feedback seriously- something most professors don’t do.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/23/2022

Class was very hard and lecture pace is difficult to follow along, however he did end up being very generous with the curve.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Anonymous
12/19/2022

His teaching style is exactly what he did in videos on youtube. To be more exact, his lecture is more like giving a seminar talk as opposed to teaching a class. He doesn't write when he explains something in the class. So, it is extremely difficult to follow the arguments, especially, when there are proofs and mathematical concepts involved. He treats us like experts and he doesn't review mathematical concepts that are not parts of the course's prerequisites. He expects us to already known the materials. Many students get lost but most of them did not drop the class b/c they believe in a generous curve. His exams tend to favor mathematical theories that are used in cryptography. He said "no pain no gain", hey Daniel that thought is out of date! You need to make your student enjoying your class and still gain.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Anonymous
12/15/2022

Anybody but this guy especially if its CMSC456, just wait another semester until an actual good prof is scheduled to teach this class. I came in excited to learn about Cryptography and I'm leaving hoping that I never have to do any Cryptography for the rest of my life

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Anonymous
12/15/2022

Do not take Gottesman for this class unless you want a semester of the teacher trying to prevent you from getting good scores on Homeworks and Exams. The way he drops your best homework grade and increases the homework difficulty when students are actually able to figure out the problems is mind boggling. This guy is extremely against any computer science in his class and actually baits students to try and use Python on the Homework, only to tell them after the fact that it's really impossible to solve the problem with Python so they just get the question wrong.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Anonymous
12/14/2022

The course is hard but some of the teaching decisions have just made it significantly harder, the grading policy is baffling (dropping the highest and lowest grades???) and then increasing the problem difficulty when people did well on a week's homework, we got practice problems for the midterm/final and then when we asked to have an answer key for them he said no???

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Anonymous
12/01/2022

The reviews posted by other people are honestly very disrespectful. This class is definitley very challenging, but these personal attacks are honestly ridiculous. Not fair at all to call your professor a 'clown' or whatever. As one of many hoping for a curve in this class, maybe blatant disrespect aint the way to go.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Anonymous
10/26/2022

This guy teaches undergrads as if they were PhD students. He has no clue what he’s doing. This guy will spend 80% of review for midterm going over something that won’t be on the midterm, but when we ask for examples of problems we need to be able to do, that’s “not a good use of class time”. He won’t even use the doc cams because he personally doesn’t like them. Do yourself a favor and steer clear of this clown.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

terpsCompSci1
10/17/2022

This teacher is extremely poor at teaching.

Daniel Gottesman
CMSC456

Anonymous
10/17/2022

I'll be adding to this review by the end of the semester with more details, but please anyone who is thinking about signing up for a class with this guy... just DON'T. He teaches at his own pace without worrying about the students, every lecture is basically him going on and on just listening to the sound of his own voice. Students have made multiple Piazza suggestions about how to improve his lectures to be more understandable and he pretty much blatantly ignores them. We have a week to do each homework and when the class was able to solve all the problems on HW3, he was surprised and said that isn't normal, so he'll make sure to increase the difficulty in the future HWs this semester ??. To prepare for our midterm he won't give us answers to practice questions and his advice is to "read the textbook" to prepare for the exam. Especially if you are a CS major this guy is not for you, he teaches class like he has never heard of computer science and only cares about math and physics concepts.