Larry Herman

This professor has taught: CMSC102, CMSC132, CMSC132H, CMSC216, CMSC330

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Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/20/2024	Provides a lot of study material for exams, sometimes makes lecture actually engaging, and uses a really good textbook as a supplementary (technically optional, but very helpful) resource for course material. The exams are exactly like his practice material, and if you do everything he assigns (homework + discussion worksheets) the class is very easy. The projects help with understanding all of the material covered in class on a more practical level, although the project packets are verbose and the grading is harsh on style. He is very slow at grading projects, so take feedback from project 1 extremely seriously. Larry is definitely not as bad as some people make him out to be, but he is unreasonably strict about using devices in lecture and sometimes falls behind on material because he interrupts lecture to point out pedantic administrative things.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 11/20/2024	He is a very divisive professor. His class is very organized. He posts good practice material in the form of optional homeworks and practice exams. His lectures, while boring at times, are very good and full of detailed explanations of the content. He have very distinct speaking habits, to say the least. His lecture slides are very bare bones, so you will have to attend lecture and take good written notes. Pro tip - focus on things he says and writes on paper. He has graded worksheets that are graded on effort, but they are randomly distributed in lecture and discussion. Attendance in lecture is mandatory. His project are very long and thorough, which makes them significantly easier. Exams are relatively hard. Not easy, but doable with studying. My TA sucked though, which didn't help. Overall, he would not be my first choice, but not someone to intentionally avoid.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B- Anonymous 08/23/2024	I didnt mind larry, but wouldnt really recommend him either. The lectures are sooooo boring, genuinely fall asleep every time. The practice exams are key to doing well in this class, do them religiously. Projects are pretty easy. Final exam was pretty hard so start studying for that early on. Via email and stuff he is very much not flexible, id recommend office hours for questions/extensions.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/20/2024	I actually really enjoyed Larry's class, lectures could be a bit boring but if you're able to pay attention he covers the material very thoroughly so going to class will help. He gives graded worksheets which you get 100 on for showing up. Project descriptions are extremely long but the detail will help you a lot, and most projects should take you maybe 2 days max. He also offers extra credit on many projects for submitting early, which should help your grade a lot. Also, no electronics allowed in class is a little annoying but I think it actually did help me focus. I thought that his exams were pretty fair, and he gives an extremely long practice document (~20 pages) and if you work through it, there should be almost no surprises on the exam.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 06/17/2024	Cares more about his Giraffes then his students. His lectures are entertaining however. Strict grader is an understatement
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 06/11/2024	i only took herman because he was better than the other professor. the course is not bad but herman was a pain to be in a lecture with. only pro of this class: free worksheet grade worth 10% of grade. class consists of: 3 exams surprise worksheets in discussion/lecture (mostly in discussion) free 10 point of you try on them 9 projects class participation (2 times) final exam his first exam was really bad and the class average was 67. second exam was a little better and again the third was bad. the final was also hard. he put a lot of questions on end-of-semester material which threw a lot of people off. Like I said the worksheets are basically free points as long as you come to lecture. he doesn't want anyone skipping class so he uses these worksheet by giving them randomly. if you want to report an absence to make up one of the worksheets, good luck because he's really annoying about giving an excused absence. you basically use the absence website and have to wait for him to respond which he doesn't do for weeks, most likely months. his grading is a mess, most of the stuff was graded a week AFTER the final basically giving us no time to discuss our grades or see how we were doing through the semester. the lectures are very detailed which I liked but some of the time but sometimes he got so detailed and stuck on one thing. also theres no coding examples in lecture. he has slides he reads off of and writes on sometimes. he does post the slides but WITHOUT the stuff he wrote so its up to you to come to class and take notes. the TA's are awesome and honestly feel bad for them. they have to personal grade all the projects of all 500~ students because ig he doesn't want to use release test and make things simple (weird considering how much he complains about having a big course and having a hard time grading). TA's have to give the coding examples and summarize the lectures, give us ws, and go over it all in 50 minutes. projects are not terrible just challenging. all his project descriptions are 9 pages long with SO MUCH EXTRA STUFF. he does offer extra credit for some of them. the secret tests make me mad because you have write a bunch of student tests and cant even figure out if you passed or not because HE DOES NOT GRADE ANYTHING!!! overall an okay lecturer but there are no grades on time, hard exams, and make sure go to your discussion because thats the only way you'll learn. I'm really mad about my grade even though I passed the class.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/31/2024	Coming into this class I was nervous it was going to be tough given his rating, but now I can say that Larry is a great lecturer. His lectures go super in-depth and if you pay attention you will do good on exams. The first exam was tough but he adjusted accordingly. He is very strict about his procedures which at first was hard to get used to but it ended up being ok. He had random worksheets in discussion so you couldn't skip unless you had an excused absence which was very annoying. The worksheets do help a lot for the exams though. There was also a lecture participation grade where you had to answer 3-4 questions over the semester for 2% of your grade. Overall a great instructor that you can learn a ton from. Exams are fine along with projects. Don't be scared to take him.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 05/29/2024	if you have larry herman, you will spend countless hours reading paragraphs of absolutely no substance. he has quite literally mastered the art of taking 3 sentences to say something that can probably be said in 5 words what a boring ****ing class. make of that what you will.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/25/2024	I was about to give him one star but here are my thoughts from the eyes of an international student having decent amount of knowledge with programming beforehand: - Required Participation: This doesn't make sense at all in my opinion. Yes I understand it's like free 10% of your grade, but like it doesn't make any sense to make it a requirement. Especially when the class size is huge and he doesn't end up looking at the people that he should be picking on. A lecture hall is where the lecturer gets to speak and the students listen, plus it's a cs major.... and discussions exist for a reason.... - Projects: While his projects aren't bad (and yeah no release tests BUT only secret tests, and you basically get the answers in the project document about secret tests if read carefully), the styling requirements is not fun.... Keep in mind, this is an LEP requirement class, so I think those requirements should only go to classes that are computer-science classes (like anything from CMSC216 onwards), because it affects people's grade for no reason. - Exams: He promised... PROMISED that there won't be any sorting algorithm tracing questions on the final, and drumrolll.... there was indeed an entire page worth of that. I think overall his exams are not hard, and he provides sufficient amount of resources (e.g. ungraded hw assignments, exam practice doc, etc.) to help us prepare well for the exam. Now, one thing that I think is pretty harsh about his exams is the fact that it's very dense. It's very detailed and it can throw you off quite a lot. I suppose this class is great at training you to be a better programmer and coder for future career reasons, but honestly in terms of grade, say bye bye to that. I think of it like a trade-off. - No Phones: Look, we live in 2024. Things have changed, and we know it too. I am aware that there are individuals who think that not having devices in front of you can help you focus, but I think that if you know how to properly use technology (which you should because you are in college at this point), you can do so much with it to help you learn things. His policy about no phones in class doesn't make sense to me, and personally speaking, I Google and read slides as lecturers go over lessons so that it's kind of like an aid to me and I learn more in the end. It's more about how we should use technology to facilitate and better our lives, just like how OpenAI wants us to... I honestly have more to say about this professor, but here's my TLDR takeaway: Mr. Herman is very old-schooled, which makes the class quite a challenge for some (if not many) students like us to be able to get the grade we should get, rather than what his system thinks about us. Yes, you will learn quite a lot from Herman because he's very skilled and knowledgeable, but it's challenging and honestly you're better off getting another professor if you're taking 132 with him because it's just a LEP requirement course. And remember, I believe that just because you're skilled and smart, doesn't always mean that you're well off teaching someone about it (teaching itself is an ability that needs to be learned and mastered).
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2024	General idea for students taking Herman's class next semester (Using - and + to signal bad and good, = is a net nuetral) = Rigorous grading rubric on Projects, rigorous enough to where I likely averaged below the average score on each project because I was the type of student to rush projects last minute. This is less so of an issue on Herman's end and more so an issue with me, but I will say that it is possible to do projects the last day before it's late if you know exactly what you are doing. For students taking any class of Herman's, read the style guide to projects before you get hit hard by early projects. + Despite the Rigorous grading rubric on Projects, there's extra credit given on projects for only submitting once, and for submitting 2 days early on the projects worth 3.5% of your total grade, which are both 3 points of extra credit. + The project descriptions will say exactly what you need to test for on the project, if you follow with the wording of the project, you're likely to pass most, if not all of the secret tests. = Will not allow students to leave early during an exam. I know this is something a little bit petty to write about but it's something that he does in order to prevent students from leaving and talking about the exam to the next group of students. He also does have a penalty for not including important information, so just remember to write your information correctly on the front and on every odd numbered page. = Graded worksheets. This idea in general is interesting because this is something that usually occurs in Gen-Ed based classes, but he implements it here in order to encourage students to attend class and discussions. This is a coin-flip based activity as students previously have pointed out, with the spring 2024 semester having 10 graded worksheets out of 28 worksheets we did this semester. = No electronics in class, plus no recording of lectures. This is both a good and a bad thing for students. Personally speaking, I likely could of spent time writing my projects during the class time if I was allowed an electronic in class, but he does allow electronics for students with specific accommodations which allow them to have a device out. For those students, it is better to ask him and have Lecturer Herman know who you are so he won't waste time calling you out for something that you're meant to have in the class. He does waste time calling people out on having electronics out, and it's likely wasted up to maybe 1/2 to a whole lecture this semester, but I'd say the intention makes up for the wasted time. + Great organization, has structure to the class, may occasionally throw in a joke or stutter, but Herman's only human, this is something that happens to people in general. + TA's are great and are willing to help. Despite not going to any TA's office hours, the TA I had for discussion was great (I had Minsi). The discussion TA's go over the worksheets usually immediately after they are collected if it's graded, or after like half the class if not. The TA's also go over example questions which Herman writes to give students an understanding on questions which likely would have some basis on the exam. Note: Grading TA's grade projects, while the Discussion and Grading TA's grade exams. = Expect harder exams which test you on topics which you may not of studied upon. This is why TA's and their discussion help so much!, as the first two exams during Spring 2024 were on the same day as a discussion. Each exam is not a pushover and is structured similarly. There is usually multiple choice, short answer, and a writing prompt. The final had a lot more on this style, but overall, I did above average on exams because of my TA and my general knowledge of the course. Generally speaking, I barely clenched an A (I had a 92.74%) out this semester as 93% of the class passed the class this semester, so there was no curve in the class as a result. This will change as students in Fall 2024 who enter into college now need a B-, so take that into account. If you want a Lecturer who has generally strict guidelines and will have you reeling to study and do projects early, take Herman. I personally may not have fully enjoyed the class as a result, but the way he does his class should warrant higher rating than the around 3 stars that he does currently.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2024	Ok so Herman gets a bad rep, but in reality he is a very good teacher who really cares about your learning. He gives VERY good practice material for the exams, and he doesn’t give curveball questions. However, the reason I didn’t rate him 5 stars is because his grading is very slow. Somehow his tests are graded super quickly, but the majority projects aren’t graded until after the final exam, so you don’t really know where you stand in the class until the end. My advice for people taking this class is to utilize ALL of the extra credit opportunities. My grade was super close in the end and if I had slacked off on one project I would have ended with an A-.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/22/2024	Best professor I've had at UMD. People like to shit on him but I think it's just because they haven't put in enough work for his class. If you actually study you will do well. You will actually learn in this class if you pay attention. Every lecture was fulfilling because I felt like I was actually learning something. He explains things thoroughly and gives great analogies that break things down so that it's much simpler to understand. I did fall asleep in his class but that's because I'm sleep deprived and I fall asleep in all of my classes. The "pop" worksheets he gives are literally free points. You get full credit even if you get all the answers wrong or even you don't finish it. You just gotta shop to discussion/lecture. You also get extra credit on projects if you submit 2 days before the deadline and if you only make one submission (it's extremely easy to only make one submission because it's just public tests on the submission server and you already have the public tests in eclipse LOL). His project descriptions are very lengthy and detailed (he's a yapper) BUT very very useful because it's so easy to tell what the edge cases are so you'll be able to pass the secret tests. His exams are extremely fair. Even though I ate absolute dogshit on the first exam (if I did better I would've gotten an A in the class) I still thought my exam score was fair because I barely studied for it and just overestimated my knowledge. But it made me realize that I should actually try and learn how to study and also it put me into the right mindset for all of my classes and my future classes. For the rest of the exams and the final, I got above 90 because I actually put in the work. By putting in the work I literally just mean studying 1-2 days before. Cramming might not work for everyone but the point is that I'm not telling you to work yourself to the bone, just put in a little more effort. His practice problems are literal crack for the actual exam too. He also has participation points that are worth 2% of your grade. I'd say participate 3-4 times and you're good. I know this can be difficult if you have social anxiety (as do I), but to be blunt about it, nobody cares about you and they're all focused on their own participation points and trying to answer questions. Honestly, the participation points helped me pay attention in class. If I were to critique one thing it would be that he grades very very slow. It's the TAs who are grading but I think it is a result of him being kind of disorganized. After we took the final, half of our shit was still ungraded. Literally was shaking in my boots waiting for my projects to be graded. But otherwise, larry is the GOAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/22/2024	Pretty good instructor. He definitely gets a bad rep from some people due to his style of teaching, but he's a pretty decent lecturer who's generous with extra credit opportunities. He's extremely organized and does a good job explaining concepts and using analogies to help us better understand new concepts. His project descriptions were annoyingly long at first, but I grew to appreciate them because they are EXTREMELY specific; there was very little confusion on what needed to be done. The style requirements and secret tests were also annoying, but they force you to write good comments and thoroughly test your code. What I really appreciated about Larry was that he provides a TON of practice material in the form of worksheets, optional homeworks, and practice exams. His answer keys are also super descriptive as well. The only things I disliked about Larry were that he doesn't record lectures, the slides he gives are super bare bones, he basically forces you to go to lecture and discussion, his sleep-inducing monotone voice, and the fact he will stop teaching to tell a person to put their phone away in a room of 300 people at least twice per lecture. Overall, I would take Larry over Yoon, but not over someone like Nelson.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/21/2024	I cannot stress enough DO NOT TAKE THIS MAN. He is way too old to be teaching a class this size. He gives absolutely no shits about any of his students. You can’t contact him unless you go to his office hours in which the lines are horrific for. Projects are easy but he will make sure he milks every single mistake you made to take points off. Midterms were so horrendous he would give you practice exams and then put similar questions on the midterm but solved in a different way to throw you off. The final was actually the most specific questions that no one except people who have never touched grass could solve. The lectures are a waste of time and the slides he post are so vague you might as well not even look. It seems like he made this class as hard as he could just so he can weed out 50% of students. All in all he was the most condescending professor I have ever sat down with and anyone who had a good experience with him was probably a white male.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2024	Good at explaining topics and pretty funny. However, the lectures do get boring since his voice is more on the monotone side. Projects are organized (some typos that may have to be fixed within a couple of days) and his practice exams are useful for the actual exams (especially the coding sections). People usually dislike him because his rules are annoying, which can be true to some. But if you just follow them you'll be good lmao
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 05/19/2024	PROS: -Very thorough notes and exam review materials, you can study just based off his optional homeworks and lecture notes and exam review -Exams were fair and not really any trick questions or curveballs -Worksheets based on completion instead of accuracy, so as long as you try you get full points -Participation points (honestly can either be a pro or a con, but its an easy 2% boost to your grade if you just raise your hand two or three times in the entire semester) -TAs were awesome and very helpful CONS: -Lectures and discussions are not recorded and you don't know when worksheets will be given, so you have to go to as many classes as you can -Odd lecturer. I was initially going to say "boring" lecturer, but he does include some jokes and has his moments. It's more so that he has a handful of very repetitive vocal patterns or habits that genuinely put me to sleep. I don't know how he did it but I swear I was actually trained like a dog to start zoning out every time he went "uhhhh" or "weellll" -Projects were just not ever graded. They graded in bulk once around midterms right before the class drop deadline so you can get a rough estimate on whether you need to drop his class or not, and then once again after the final. Currently I'm still waiting for finals and all of my projects since March to be graded. I know this is a problem with the department as a whole, but it's still necessary to mention -Devices not allowed during lecture. Not even those tablets people have specifically for notes. He will call you out in the middle of class if he sees you with your phone or laptop or whatever out
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/17/2024	Random graded worksheets in lecture and discussion. No electronic devices in lecture. Not terrible, but by no means a great "instructor".
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/14/2024	Aura. The defining trait of instructor, lord, king, his majesty, baron, leader, and most importantly of all, friend Herman. When I first walked into his classroom, I was amazed at the vigor and passion this man demonstrates in his lectures. With his sidekick Ginny the Giraffe, I experienced 16 wonderful weeks of inheritance, data structures, recursion, concurrency lectures from this beautiful and amazing man. I now know my true calling as a data structure extraordinaire. My life has been forever changed. Thank you, Larry Herman. Real talk he's pretty good tbh. Provides good practice and more then enough resources to do well in the class as long as you actually attend lecture and discussion. His lectures are pretty boring sometimes and him randomly calling out people for using their cellphones, disrupting the flow of lecture can be very annoying but most of the time he's pretty solid. Lecture slides are also pretty good so if you miss lecture you don't have to worry about missing much.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2024	Doesn’t record lectures, has random graded worksheets that are a huge chunk of your grade on random lectures or discussion days, makes participation apart of your grade too. Boring, dry, and doesn’t curve at all. Do not take him if there are any other options.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/13/2024	Strict lecturer, very knowledgable about material and is sometimes funny. He does do everything he can to make sure his students succeed in his class. He makes a big deal about having no electronics in class. Lectures/discussions are mandatory in the sense that he gives graded worksheets (based on completion) on random discussions/lecture days. He posts homeworks, but they were optional. He doesn't post recordings of lectures, but he posts his lecture slides on canvas. His exams are hard if you do not study, but if you study the worksheets provided during discussions and the practice exam he provides, and do the homework he posts, then you will be more than fine. Projects were chill, he made like 8-9 page requirement pdfs for each project, a lot of reading but it was nice to have very elaborate requirements for projects. I would say overall this class was fine, just make sure you go to class.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/11/2024	My honest opinion on Herman is that he is a really nice guy and I honestly think that he is rated poorly here for no reason. His exams I wanna make clear are not easy but they are not hard, they are the most fair exams you will ever take here at this school. However his lectures are boring and quite frankly I have fallen asleep in them a couple times, but I think if you really want to do well in this class it is fairly simple. Go to discussion, do the worksheets, do the homwork and study the practice exams as if you do the practice exams a couple times, u can start to get a feel as how the exam will be. Also if you ever need anything just talk to him as he is really nice and wants everyone to succeed ( just don't call him professor).
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/10/2024	If you take Larry's course and you hate him, expect to hate every comp sci course you take in the future. If this is for your major and you want to make sure you know the basics, take this course and pay attention. Herman is extremely good and making sure you understand the basic concepts of programming and building off of those concepts. He knows how to connect new concepts to old ones, and drill the old concepts into your memory. I'm not sure where the people who say he is boring come from. It is the ONLY class I've ever taken where the class clapped after an explanation. He is funny, and has little skits that really do help you remember important concepts. He descriptive enough to make sense but not overly so to bore a class with proofs and theory. And he loves giraffes! He repeats information that is important to make sure you remember. If he repeats something WRITE IT DOWN. Sit in the front of class, pay attention, and it is the easiest A and possibly the most helpful class you will have in your whole degree. The exams felt extremely fair, the concepts on it were always something he mentions in class a lot, hence why you should write down what he repeats. Projects descriptions are verbose and tell you EXACTLY what to do and what he wants. Some people might hate this and think it is finicky, but I'd beg for a project description like this from a job or a later class. The things he mentions about coding style and off the wall comments you can tell come from a great deal of experience in the field, do not take his advice lightly.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	Pretty decent professor, though he says no electronics allowed during lecture, if you are using a ipad to take notes, he typically turns a blind eye. There are pop graded worksheets during discussion and lecture so make sure you go to every single one, though they are just graded off of completion. His projects are just straight up words but very descriptive of what is required. Exams are pretty fair.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	Definitely try to avoid him. His lectures are pretty boring, however bearable if you really try hard to focus. He tries to make it fun so I don't judge him for this. Like you can see from other comments, he does not provide any lecture recordings. His powerpoints are pretty much useless if you go to his class. And the important tracing details or concepts he often writes on the powerpoint, which he doesn't save and include on the uploaded version. So, you have to follow his tracing in class and write them down. His projects are extremely difficult to get 100% on. He is ridiculously strict on styles, like an empty line above each block(start of an if or for loop for example), and comment for each block. You need to add an honor pledge, name, section number and other things to each project, which is fine, but he doesn't mention it in class. He only mentioned looking at the style guide, which is an 8 page pdf. Thus the average on the first project was probably around 70%... His exams are fair to be honest. I messed up on the first. Then he made a really easy exam 2. Exam 3 is also fair, probably his regular difficulty, and the average is in the mid 80s. He barely provides any coding examples, which can be the most useful thing when you study, review or start projects. This is the worst thing I have experienced in his class. I learn from looking at code most of the time, and I believe most students do. Thus be aware of this. There are often coding examples in the textbook, but often doesn't hint you on how to start on the projects. I got an A+ in CMSC 131 barely going to class. And I believe getting an A with Larry is definitely doable. It's just going to be much harder, while you are learning the same amount as taking any other lecturers. Or his teaching style is different compared to what I'm used to.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/09/2024	Herman is the best instructor I've had in the CS department yet. Yes, exams can be tricky, but he sends out extensive preparation in the form of 15 page PDFs. If you do all of the prep and understand the lectures, you should be fine. He has many style preferences that people like to complain about, but I think they are actually good style and make you a better programmer. Project descriptions were very long, but isn't that a good thing? I thought it was. There was no room for misunderstanding and you always knew the expectations. He was also extremely organized, which I could really appreciate. If you follow his really clear directions he lays out for this class, you will have nothing to complain about. He even gives extra credit on some projects.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	Definitely try to avoid him. His lectures are pretty boring, however bearable if you really try hard to focus. He tries to make it fun so I don't juge him for this. Like you can see from other comments, he does not provided any lecture recordings. His powerpoints are pretty much useless if you go to his class. And the important tracing details or concepts he often write on the powerpoint, which he doesn't save and inlcude on the uploaded version. So, you have to follow his tracing in class and write them down. His projects are extremely diffcult to get 100% on. He is ridiculously strict on styles, like an empty line above each block(start of a if or for loop for example), and comment for each block. You need to add honor pledge, name, section number and otherthings to each project, which is fine, but he doesn't mention in class. He only mentioned to look at style guide, which is a 8 pages pdf. Thus the average on the first project was probably around a 70%... His exams are fair to be honest. I messed up on the first. Then he made a really easy exam 2. Exam 3 is also fair, probably his regular difficulty, and the average is in the mid 80s. He barely provide any coding example, which can be the most useful thing when you study, review or start projects. This is the worst thing I have experienced in his class. I learn from looking at code most of the time, and I believe most students do. Thus be aware of this. There are often coding examples in the textbook, but often doesn't hint you on how to start on the projects. I got an A+ in CMSC 131 barely going to class. And I believe getting an A with Larry is definitely doable. It's just going to be much harder, while you are learning the same amount as taking any other lecturers. Or his teaching style is different comparing to what I'm used to.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/08/2024	Horrible prof. Do not take 216 with him unless yoon is the other option. Shoutout pranav for being the worst TA in the department
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/22/2024	Pros: =Fair Exams; if you did the practice exams and review the notes, you should be set =Project descriptions are thorough and understandable, grading is very objective which means if you read the guidelines you will do well Cons: =2% of grade is on class participation but class environment is hostile. He makes attempts to be cool and make jokes, but jokes are at the expense of students including those who attempt to answer his questions. He is then baffled on why no one wants to participate. =Random in class worksheets make it so you must attend every lecture TLDR: Sarcastic and mean but course work and exams are fine.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/16/2024	He’s okay. He provides tons of practice material, so I found it pretty easy to do well on exams. Worksheets/attendance are also a free ~10% of your grade. However the class itself was pretty dumb. A more accurate name for the course would be “Intro to C Programming” because we barely had time to get into any actual “computer systems” concepts. Moreover he’s quite a boring lecturer.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/14/2024	Everyone hating on Larry (at least in 132) have a) never met him and b) majored in CS because they thought it would be an easy 100k out of college. I will say, he is an overly thorough man, but as I have taken his class, I have realized that is probably why he is such a great programmer. Thinking slowly and methodically on exams is crucial because he puts things in there that you will definitely miss if you try to speed through. If you don't try in this class then you won't get an A it is so simple. Also if you have to, pinch yourself to stay awake in lecture because they can actually be really helpful. His practice problems are nearly identical to the actual exams, and for every exam, I just repeat the practice like 5 times. I missed a total of 2 questions over 2 exams using this method. The projects take some time, but you should be able to finish in around 2 days max unless you get stuck. For the first project I didn't follow the style guide which cost me a letter grade. But, I was able to get the points back because extra credit is offered on almost every project. If you make your student tests well you should be able to pass every test (secret tests included). Coverage is a very useful tool for this and making your code efficient. Every discussion has a worksheet and it's basically a dice roll if it is graded. This is how he keeps people coming to discussion, but I always show up late and have never gotten points off. I have also skipped a couple times and gotten lucky. I used to think he was evil too but he's actually so chill. If you are someone who is actually going to study then herman will be a breeze. Also, don't do anything out of order with him. I think he has OCD so he gets really upset when people a) knock on his door a couple minutes before office hours b) don't get in the quuly. Its kinda weird but still worth because he's actually the goat.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/05/2024	He is extremely well organized and does a great job teaching the lower level CS classes. While obviously no the most interesting lecturer in the world, he does a good job presenting information in an easy to understand way. Most of the 1 star reveiws are just because he makes people put away there computers and phones during class.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/15/2024	Great professor
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 03/11/2024	Exams are really hard; not at all like the review, the professor is very monotone and boring and exams are so tricky do yourself a favor and dont take him!!
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 02/28/2024	Pros: - Great Lecturer (I don't personally think his voice is that easy to fall asleep to) and far more organized than Nelson - Gives a LOT of practice material for exams - VERY thorough when explaining concepts which I appreciate - Great project descriptions Cons: - His exams are tricky. They will be asking for very specific answers. - No lecture recordings in case you miss class (this did encourage me to go to class though so it's not all that bad) - No technology in class (Lowkey this helped me focus so much better but to each their own) - Lots of graded worksheets (you learn a lot, but there is one very week) Overall, he is a strict professor, but he definitely knows what he is talking about. If you actually want to LEARN and not get super off track every lecture (cough elias and nelson cough) Larry is the professor for you. His classes are not easy but you will absolutely learn. I personally enjoy his frankness and monotone voice because he gets straight to the point. Sometimes his jokes make me cringe, but if you can look past that, he's great!
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/28/2024	Herman is extremely boring to listen to, his projects are unreasonably difficult to get 100% in, his grading TAs will mark you off for every little detail, his tests are outrageously difficult to study for, and he does not allow electronics in class. DO NOT TAKE HIM.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/29/2024	In the eyes of an international student: Pros: Nice TAs (but waiting time during office hours could go up to several hours) Extremely detailed project description (though it could be regarded as verbose) Cons: Boring lecture, it was hard to understand what he was saying Difficult exams, tricky questions Harsh project standards (although they make you a better programmer) Sporadic in-class/discussion worksheets that are graded Conclusion: Among all the courses I have taken at UMD, I would rate this course/professor at about 1.5 to 2 stars.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/18/2024	Slow grader(most projects not graded til after the semester). Mad Boring. Only reason I did well is because I read the textbook. Lecture is required and basically just is redoing the textbook. No cellphones in lecture and he will call you out if he sees you. Discussion is also required and is equally as useless as lecture.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/30/2023	Alright instructor. Slow grading. Kinda dry and lectures are boring although it might be because the lectures are longer than 131 and 132. Really long project descriptions. Not great but not yoon.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 12/28/2023	Larry Herman is undoubtedly the worst professor I have ever encountered. I have never had a problem with any other professor, but I have many problems with Larry Herman. In his lectures he wastes so much time repeating ideas, stuttering over his words, and talking so slowly that by the time he gets 3 words out he has already lost your attention. The fact that he is able to bore everyone to death to the point that when I look around and everyone in the back is asleep is honestly pretty impressive. He not only fails to be a good teacher, but he also fails to be a decent human being. He has no interest or care for the students and treats them like objects. Despite the large class size of 600, I have witnessed many professors handle an equivalent load with less arrogance and impudence. Larry has the tendency to over complicate simple concepts. His project descriptions span an average of 10 pages containing repeated or unnecessary information and claims that tools such as the debuggers are essential, when many including myself do perfectly fine without it. His sense of entitlement is evident in the fact he designs the course as if it is the most important and only class you will be taking with little to no consideration for his students or their time. The moral of the story is unless you want a semester of pain and suffering avoid this man at all costs!
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A nmeyerov 12/28/2023	Larry is very particular about how he wants you to write the projects, so the project descriptions are very detailed and important. His lectures are somewhat boring, but you have to go to them because he has unexpected graded worksheets in lecture and discussion sections. He does teach pretty well, and his project descriptions give great hints on what the secret tests are testing and how you should write your project.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/28/2023	Larry is very particular about how he wants the projects to be done and submitted, so read the project descriptions very carefully. His practice material is very closely related to the exams, so he does provide a lot of good study material. However, he has a thing with unexpected graded worksheets in lecture and discussion sections, making going to class very important. He is also very boring but teaches the material decently well.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 12/27/2023	Pros: 1. The course is very structured and he follows the schedule to a T, but this can also be a negative thing as he DOES NOT cut any slack and sticks to the course policies 2. Projects are not very bad and the course is structured in a way where not many students can fail if they manage to pass all the exams even on the borderline (but its structured to push many students into the C to C+ range) 3. His exams are small and each question can be a hit or miss so you might lose 20 points just for overlooking a small detail or get 20 points for a simple question, which can be a positive or a negative thing depending on the person Cons: 1. Terrible professor, he does NOT know how to teach or keep students engaged (you will hear a lot of snoring) and he can come off as rude during lectures when he calls out on people using electronics 2. No proper system of communication as no email for any of the staff, you would have to attend Office Hours to clarify anythingg. 3. Does not grade projects on time and releases them at the end, so you have no idea how you're doing in the course. 4. His exams are annoying in the sense that he has a very specific way of questioning and the topics you think are going to be on the test will never be on the test, so a lot of thorough memorization is needed and there is no partial credit at all, so you have to look at his question very very carefully (this is what brought down a lot of kids because silly mistakes would take away 5-10 points at a stretch) Overall not a good professor, he just follows the course structure very adamantly and doesn't deviate from it, so if the policies work for your style of studying you're good, if not you're screwed.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/24/2023	Larry is a pretty decent professor overall. His lectures can be a bit boring, but he explains concepts fairly well and most of what you need to know is in the textbook. His projects were pretty difficult and time consuming for me, but they definitely helped me understand the material better, so I think they were worth it. Exams are fair and he provides a lot of practice questions in his study guides. Attendance in lecture and discussion is kinda required since he sometimes will have graded worksheets that all together were worth 13% of our grade, but you would get 100% for just trying on them and they give a large boost to your overall grade if you do all of them. The main complaint I have about him is how long he takes to grade things. He gave us our midterms back after maybe 2-3ish weeks, but we didn't get most of our project grades back until after the final, so it was kinda hard to know what my grade was for most of the semester which was a bit annoying. I guess if you're confident in the material it wouldn't be so bad, but the week after the final before I knew my final overall grade was pretty stressful since I didn't know where I was grade wise going into the final. Overall, Larry is a pretty good professor, but the time he takes to grade things just add even more stress to an already pretty stressful class.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/23/2023	Not implementing a curve after the final was the last straw.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2023	Most people either love or despise Herman. I myself found my opinion fluctuating throughout the semester, with him becoming more likable towards the end of the semester. His major pros are detailed project descriptions which often give you suggestions on how to start, as well as his practice homework (HW is optional and for your benefit) and exams. Out of any CS professor, his exam questions are the most fair and directly reflect the practice. Even though I set aside 216 for other finals, I found myself breezing through most of the questions, with a tough one here and there. Some of his projects are also very well-made and outshine the stuff we did in 132. However, his cons are just as important to consider. The first isn't really his fault, but it is the amount of material we have to cover in a short amount of time. I feel that he can do a better job managing his time in lectures as we were scrambling to finish everything before the final and before the holiday breaks. Secondly, most of our projects (all the ones with style) were not graded until after the final. This makes it difficult to know if we are practicing good style in our code when we haven't even received feedback from the first projects. Finally, I feel that the multiple-choice questions on exams can be graded a bit harshly at times but that's just my opinion. If you are a student who truly desires to learn the material and excel on exams, I think Herman's a good pick. However, those with other rigorous courses may struggle to balance Herman's workload.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2023	"Old school" is the best way to describe Larry, and I mean that in all the best ways. He has graded worksheets in discussion and lecture, so you must attend. He does not allow electronic devices but that is seriously not an issue if you just pay attention in lecture and takes notes. Yes, it is sometimes quite difficult to stay awake in class; that is why you ask questions and engage. Most people do not like him because his class is a lot of work compared to the earlier CS professors and they have to follow "old school" styles of learning. But, the old ways do work best. I have NEVER learned as much in 1 class as I have in Larry's class, and I without a doubt do not regret it for a second. If you want that nice easy grade, Larry is not a good option. His exams can be a little daunting but they are 90% fair (sometimes there's a question that's BS) But, if you want to be a good programmer, then Larry is the best choice. Seriously, I am such a better coder because of him. He's also pretty approachable in office hours because nobody goes to them for some reason. HOWEVER, my only gripe with him is that he can be rude sometimes in ways that are a little too much. He'll call you out if he even thinks you are using your phone in class, he has favorites so try to be one of them, he blatantly ignores some students' questions during lecture (b/c of time crunch but still), and during office hours. It's hard to explain but you'll see what I mean in lecture. TL;DR take Larry if you want to learn and be a better programmer. Just be prepared to work a little harder than normal for it (which for some reason a lot of other students have a problem with)
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/18/2023	Larry is very great. The only reason this is not a 5 star review is the excruciatingly slow grading. Larry himself is a great teacher. You will learn a lot and probably learn the most by taking 216 with Larry over other professors. 216 is a very fast paces course with a ton of content, so that will of course make the course hard. But Larry is the most organized teacher I've ever had. He makes it very clear as to what is happening and what the course procedures are. While he is kind of strange, he is a nice guy who is willing to help at the appropriate times. The bad reviews are almost exclusively from students who can't turn off their phone for 75 minutes or from students who couldn't keep up with the speed of the course. While a few of the projects were difficult and time consuming, none of the projects are really that crazy, especially if you take the time to review the slides and the example code. The project descriptions are very long and that can be frustrating, but everything you will ever need to know about the projects are in the descriptions, so you are left with very few if any questions about the requirements. The exams were difficult and heavily weighted, but he gives very long practice problems that help a lot and prepare you well. As far as teaching the material, Larry is the GOAT. Please take him as you will become a better C programmer and computer science student as a result.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2023	Larry is pretty good at lecturing but I agree as many others have said in their reviews that they can be quite boring. The grading is also quite slow. To put in into perspective the final has been done and we still have not received grades for most projects yet. This includes ones we've been assigned near the beginning of the semester.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/15/2023	Absolute worst professor/teacher I have ever had throughout all levels of education. He has an incredibly monotone voice and terrible slides that make lecture impossible. He does not allow any devices in lecture even if all you use them for is notes. He takes years to grade projects so you have no idea what your grade will be for the class until after the final, especially because so many project grades are dependent on secret tests. Also, the coding platform that we have to use is incredibly frustrating to work on since it is super laggy, normal keyboard shortcuts don't work on it, and overall just looks like something out of the 1980s. One ta also graded one of my projects wrong and gave me a 0 instead of a 90. When I went to Larry about it, he was not concerned with it at all. He told me to file an absence for the date that the project was due and write my issue in the description and he would get to it. I went up to him twice after that, including once on the last day of classes, and both times he interrupted me in the middle of my sentence and said that he would get to it. His exams are also tossups because they test you on information that is often irrelevant and something he mentioned super briefly in class. It is possible to get an A but you will hate your life.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/15/2023	Herman is an decent lecturer, but nothing special. People overexaggerate how monotone his voice is and how he puts everyone to sleep. For every 30 students, there was probably only 1 person who dozed off momentarily. Honestly don't worry too much about sleeping in his class, you'll probably be too stressed in the class to sleep. The class definitely has too much content to be covered in lecture, so he assigns you textbook chapters to read that will NOT BE COVERED IN LECTURE (looking at you chapter 9, 15, 16), which was annoying. He kept talking about how he was 2 lectures behind, which added more stress. He assigns textbook chapters to read throughout the class in general, but you can get by fine with just going to lecture and reviewing lecture notes and taking your own notes. Exams are alright, but the multiple choice requires you to review the slides in great detail. For projects, they are good practice for exam frqs and class content. However, it is two days after the final exam and 7 project grades haven't come out yet. This is including project 3, which was due over 2 and a half months ago. So when you submit a project, there is a good chance you wont see its grade until the semester is done.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/15/2023	Since he does not record, you do have to go to every lecture and discussion since surprise worksheets are given randomly. Even if you go, the lecture is boring most of the time and you can't help but fall asleep. The main issue with Larry is that nothing gets graded. Exams get graded after 2 ish weeks which is not terrible, but I am still waiting for my project 4 grade to come back and we just did the final (there are 12 total projects). No one knows their actual grade and it especially sucks if the projects are graded on style so you don't know if your style is good enough because the way style is graded seems very stingy. Exams I would say for the most part are pretty fair except for a couple of MC due to how trivial they were. Just because the exams are mostly fair, Larry is a must-take vs Yoon, you just have to sit through very boring lectures, and Larry makes you read some chapters in the textbook and does not go over any of it at all which may suck for people who do not have that learning style. Luckily the slides are shared through ELMS and there are tons of examples given to you so it's almost like you're self teaching which again may suck depending on your learning style.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 12/12/2023	Man is the master of inconveniencing you any chance he can get. He won't won't let you use electronic projects are always annoyingly vague but will spend multiple pages talking about a backstory of the project or something. Gives you a project due the week of finals. Password protects everything for some reason. And is always somehow behind on lecture content while consistently rushing during lectures. And for a guy who insists on being called a lecturer, he loves delegating important topics to the textbook only
Larry Herman Expecting a B Anonymous 12/11/2023	Outdated teaching style (textbooks and no technology) and tests you on overtly specific C functionality which is not generalizable to life outside 216. May be the better of evils depending on who else is teaching.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/10/2023	Very good lecturer, but grading is extremely slow. I enjoyed taking this class, but the fact that grades for Project #3 out of 12 are not back despite it being past the final day of lecture is absurd. Also generally just weird rules like putting passwords on PDFs and stuff. I think that he teaches well, but you certainly have to be ready to deal with oddities.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/10/2023	Fantastic teacher, great organization, fair exams. Homeworks are optional but are good practice, lots of study material for exams.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2023	Professor Herman is underrated. His lectures are really detailed, and his project descriptions are really specific about what the requirements are. He posts his lecture slides online. It's true that he doesn't allow electronics during class, and some earlier projects take a long time to grade, but I think it's because he thinks that electronics are distracting (which they can be) and he wants the projects to be graded fairly. You can definitely tell that he cares about the success of his students, and tries to cover as much as he can and with as much detail as possible during the limited time we have during the semester.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/06/2023	Larry is a wonderful teacher my Le Pookie Bear is the only 216 professor I would ever take. But seriously, he is a good teacher and gives you an extremely good grasp of his expectations before each exam. If he stresses a chapter in the textbook, you better have read it because there's a 100% chance that it's going to be on the exam. He is very fair in his grading and has a built-in extra credit system where you get points for just trying on things. However, I would have to dock points because he takes an awfully long time to grade things that aren't exams and his lectures are extremely hard to get through without dozing, don't be surprised if you start sleeping through them, but the slides are very helpful. I feel like a lot of the discontent with him is because he is abrasive, but by no means do I think the class is unfair.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 12/02/2023	Doesn’t record. Haven’t got the grade of a project from 2 months ago. Only hands tests back in discussions so have to wait longer. Doesn’t know how to teach. Cannot have computers phone any electronics in class. Hasn’t coded anything in class just looks at examples and explains them. Puts stuff on practice exam that r not even on exam. Only tests on certain sections he taught instead of all of them. Tells u to read things from book and doesn’t test u on them.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/29/2023	definitely a hit or miss professor depending on what you like in a teacher. The class material definitely felt less conceptual and more so like memorizing c and assembly syntax/functions. midterms are extremely fair and he gives a significant amount of practice in the form of practice mids, ungraded hwk, and ws. Ws requiring you to either go to class or make friends with people in earlier classes was an experience. projects were fair as well and it definitely will introduce you to sifting through bs to find what you need in the descriptions.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 11/29/2023	Larry's a pretty polarizing figure, i think he's okay at teaching, but for being a teacher he's defintely not my favorite. Pros: 1) project descriptions. The 10 page project descriptions are intimidating at first, but they're actually a blessing in disguise compared to the terribly vague 132 descriptions. Even then, I still felt like some descriptions were needlessly wordy, but you just had to sift through the filler. 2) Good practice for exams. He gives a huge practice exam as well as optional homeworks that are good for studying. Cons: 1) Even though he's pretty good at explaining topics, it doesn't change the fact that his lectures are some of the worst I've ever had to sit through. He has a super monotone voice and the topics themselves are a bore. Combine this with the fact that he bans any form of electronics and you'll have an extremely difficult time staying awake for any more then 2 minutes at a time. Also he seems to be weirdly adverse to answering any questions during class. Oh and he doesn't record lectures and the slides themselves can be very barebones at times. Great. 2) The class itself always feels incredibly behind. He's actually the slowest grader I've ever had in my life which is saying something. What makes it more frustrating is that a nearly half of a project grade can be secret tests + style. How am i supposed to know what to improve on if I literally get my grades at the end of the semester?? Also there's a lot of reading you have to do by yourself. "Mandatory" textbook readings are the most main issue I have especially cuz the textbook itself kinda sucks. There were entire chapters we would have to learn solely from the textbook and then be tested on. 3) Tests are kinda bs. The frq is fine, but the mcq is a joke. It's a bunch of random questions that show up once or twice in a lecture or notes. You'd think guessing would be a viable option, but Larry seems to disagree as you get penalized for choosing the wrong option. You can definitely do good on them, but it just felt like a memorization game more then actually understanding the material. Overall, I wouldn't recommend him, but he was the lesser of two evils between him and Yoon, who I've heard is somehow worse.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2023	This class seems to be extremely polarizing. As my first time taking him, it was initially off-putting seeing 10 page, single-spaced project descriptions with files for everything you can think of, but I can see how organized and well-structured this class is now. Everything is rather fair, expect to go to discussion and lecture to do the graded worksheets, but overall, everything in this class has some purpose that ultimately helps come exam time. Although its very by-the-books, I think it was a really enriching class despite how difficult the content is
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C- Anonymous 11/17/2023	I have never had such a difficult time with a professor in my life. How does he not let us ask questions in class, but is still unable to teach us all the content without making us learn by ourselves from the textbook. Also, I have a hard time staying awake in every class because it is so boring and not engaging at all. We can barely take notes because he flips through them so fast, so we're basically expected to stay awake and pay attention for 75 minutes. Also, we're not allowed to email him or the TA's, but every time I have gone to office hours the TAs have either been really rude or really unhelpful. I will NEVER take this man again.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/15/2023	I can see why Larry is very controversial - his teaching style is very high-school-like, he teaches out of a book a lot and his exams contain a lot of 'trivia' type questions more than stuff that might be practical coding knowledge. It's definitely a tough class, but mostly because Larry recognizes how much needs to be taught and pushes the class along quickly. However, he's incredibly organized and offers a lot of helpful resources (like practice exams, optional homeworks, and a lot of worksheets graded on participation), which I feel like a lot of students take for granted. His projects have annoyed me with how specific and descriptive they are and he requires a decent amount of reading outside of lecture to keep up, but the more I get through it the more I realize that it's out of love. Plus he wrote a program that gives X random students from our section chocolate because he bought too much for Halloween. Don't be afraid to take Larry - just don't expect to glide through like some professors in other CS classes. And at the very least, he cares about his profession and he wants you to succeed.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 10/06/2023	His grading policies can definitely be annoying, but he has the most comprehensive project descriptions out of any professors, and I actually learned the most in his class. He is also, while boring, really good at conveying new concepts and getting you to understand the 'why' behind them.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A+ andruepabloske 09/15/2023	I took Larry for 132 in Fall ‘22 and 216 in Spring ‘23. You won’t get much better than him! He gives an absolute ton of examples and practice material. Exam questions and project descriptions are extremely clear. If you submit projects early you get EC, and worksheets are a free 10-12% of your grade. Only downside is that lectures can be boring, but these are pretty dry classes for the most part so I don’t blame him (he also makes really funny jokes every once in a while, to wake you up). Take him if you can!
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/10/2023	I love Larry and I really enjoyed that everything he does is so organized and thorough. He can come off as harsh and inflexible but I think he’s actually really sweet and funny, and if you abide by his rules his class is great. He’s a really good lecturer and I really enjoyed the content of the class, even though it can come at you quite quick. I never needed to read the textbook even though he told us he wouldn’t cover the content, it felt like he did anyways. Exams are pretty hard but he gives huge practice exams that seriously cover everything you could need to know if you just do them.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/01/2023	I am glad the CS department has this amazing filter.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 08/13/2023	pretty awesome lecturer. all the reviews below are accurate. he'll make you work hard and has pretty strict rules to follow. while you'll hate him for it, you'll come out on the other end a better programmer and student. you got this
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/22/2023	Took him for 132 and 216. I liked him a lot because his teaching style meshed with my learning style well, but I see why others would dislike him. I personally think he's great. Pros: Really planned class - what he says in class and what the TAs say in discussion is what's on the exam. Answers all your questions, and well - if he brushes you off during class, wait until after class or office hours to ask again. I asked him the same question like 4 times after class because I didn't understand, and he was very willing and even said he would change what one of his slides said to stop people being confused in the future. TAs are great too, all the ones I've had experience with were really smart and willing to help. Projects are graded fairly and style is made clear. Project assignments are exceptionally clear and I was never confused on what to do past just a little information overload at times. Worksheets are a free 10% of your grade - show up, try, and you're already 1/10th of the way there, and the feedback is quick and TAs will help you understand the answers. Again - main pro for me was that he was really willing to answer questions after class. Cons: Project grades take ages to come back - really annoying at times. Exam grades are not much better, but they're a little more reasonable. Exam multiple choice is punishing - he really will ask about that one thing he mentioned that one time, then take 6 points off if you don't know it. He expects you to take notes on only what he's saying then go to the slides after class to take notes on those, but that's stupid and bad and doesn't work, and so you will have to give yourself carpal tunnel to keep up in class. He is also really not accommodating for absences, even for sickness, which sucks. Tips: Lectures and discussions are must attend - missing one when you have friends who take shitty notes is really hard. The lectures are information-packed and you must know all of it - exams are very likely to ask you about a specific topic that he mentioned that one time. If you have a slow note-taking speed, yikes, he speaks a lot and quickly and it's all informative, interesting, and on exams and projects, and he will not let you use a computer/tablet to take notes unless you are very good at hiding it and he does not notice (or you have accommodations). He will tell you to read textbook chapters (optional and required). Do read and take notes on the ones he calls required - that, or have a friend who does and lean on them for the worksheets that rely on that info (i was that friend. it was okay but also I really think that's not a very reliable method of learning and my friends rarely seemed to "get it" - I am not a teacher haha). I never read the optional ones and I was fine, but I assume that if you can't keep up notes-wise with everything he's saying in class it would be helpful. The first exam is also always worth way less than the others - I got a C- on my first 132 exam (went to it sick. do not do that.) and still finished the class with an A, although with a lot more effort than I would have usually needed to put in. Worksheets - actually try on these, they really really help you internalize material. Also they are worth a lot of your grade lmfao. When they are graded and collected, write the answers they give on a scrap sheet of paper so that you have them for later.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 06/21/2023	It blows my mind his ratings are so good. Yes, he's not as bad as Yoon, but Yoon is horrible. That does not mean Herman is a good professor. Cons: - Is very "quirky". Frankly speaking, weird. Talking to him feels a little uncomfortable at times. He gets mad if you call him professor because his title is "lecturer". - Has an old textbook from 1997. It's not that bad of a textbook, but a textbook shouldn't replace teaching and sometimes he tells you to read the textbook because he won't cover it in class. - Doesn't let you use laptops in class because they weren't a thing back in his day. Especially since he isn't recording, it makes life sm harder. - Doesn't record lectures. - Slides aren't very detailed. - Project descriptions are overly long. I get adding detail, but he repeats the same thing too many times. - Exams test heavily on random edge cases. - Paced the course very poorly so much so that we were learning brand new content 2 days before the final. - Requires you to come to office hours to discuss any absence, oftentimes waiting for over an hour in the line. - Kept trying to use Quuly, even when it kept creating issues. - Speaks in a monotone voice that puts you to sleep Pros: - Has good metaphors for explaining stuff in lecture (if you stay awake) - Very organized - Projects really help you learn content
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a W Anonymous 06/02/2023	After missing the curve in Fall 2020, I tried to retake the course in Spring 2021 with a different professor, and the day before classes started it turned into a Larry section. My mental was already full boom at this point. I knew the content it was still just the same problems again. Awful lectures, completely unapproachable, awful Office Hours, slowest grader ever, impossible exams, time-consuming projects worth little to nothing of your grade. This man made me hate anything backend related so I shuffled over to Info Sci and life is good. Literally the worst professor you could ever have. TREAT HIS CLASS LIKE THE PLAGUE AND STAY AWAY.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/29/2023	Unfortunately, he is probably the better option for this class so you have to take him but by no means is he a good teacher. He cares more about the way he does things and following his own philosophies instead of what would be best for the students. One would hope that the policies and the way the class is run would be in favor of putting the students in a position to succeed but that is not the case with this man. It takes months to get grades back (so you cant improve on projects or even know what your grade is) and he doesn't really seem to care about the students. For example, he will blatantly not answer students' questions in lecture for absolutely no reason but at the same time, spend the first 15 minutes of lecture explaining how his teaching style is the best- then he wonders why we are behind on topics. On top of that, his exams don't test your understanding of what is important but small and relatively unimportant trivia about the programming languages. The only positive is that the class is organized and structured but that holds zero value when someone cares as little about their students as he does.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/28/2023	This is just a list of thoughts, so sorry if its somewhat convoluted. The topics covered individually are not difficult at all, its just the sheer amount of content there is that may be overwhelming. Larry teaches the material very well, but he is very boring, enough to make you fall asleep (real). His project descriptions are long but helpful in covering all the secret tests as long as you read through them (I recommend using the highlighter in Adobe Acrobat). He has a somewhat built-in curve through worksheets graded for participation, but beyond that he really doesn't curve grades at all. His exams were both fair and unfair depending on your perspective. On one side everything on the exams were covered and even emphasized during lecture, but on the other side his exams probably cover not even half of the lecture content. However, considering the amount of topics in the course, this seems somewhat reasonable. Also, considering that his exam practice, homeworks, and worksheets cover the supermajority of what will be on the exam (at least this semester), I personally think his exams are mostly fair. If you took 132 with him, you would probably if not already find a pattern with his exams, enough to predict most of the content. I'd rarely went to office hours, so I don't really have much to say about them except for the fact that he implemented a new system where you have to use a web app to join a queue to get help. Overall, as long as you put in the effort you will most likely succeed in the class.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/28/2023	In terms of materials, Herman at least has you decently covered, but when it comes to the structure of the class, it feels like a mess. I had him for 132 as well, and the biggest problem that persists through his class is that grading takes absolutely forever to happen, and that you really do not have a good idea of how well you're doing because most project grades take absolutely forever to get published. Most of the grades for this class were released in the last WEEK, and the final exam grade was published TODAY. I do not know why it takes so long for grading to proceed in this class and I never know if I am doing well enough in projects because it always takes so damn long. You'll think you're at a good standing in this class because your percentage has stayed pretty consistent, but then you realize half of the class' grades aren't even published. At the very least, in terms of material, the lecture slides are okay with what you need to remember, but it can be frustrating to keep up with them because they can be very lackluster in coverage for certain topics, and it can take a hot second to remember what the slides are talking about if your notes weren't the best. They assume that you have gone to lectures and have paid proper attention (which is a fair assumption to make), but they also assume that what they cover clicked immediately with students, and it was especially difficult this semester to go back to slides because for some reason Herman decided to abandon recordings for 216 where in 132 recordings helped a lot with going back to material that I did not fully get. The slides are decent, but not always good enough to go back to review what materials you may want to go back to. Where Herman's class succeeds, there's way more that frustrated me and it comes from how his class was overall structured, and a lot of issues that he had from 132 in Fall also carried over in Spring. I'd recommend taking Herman anyway though, because out of 216 instructors (at least this last semester) he's overall the best one, but keep in mind that his class may be unreasonably frustrating due to how bad it can be at keeping up with how students do.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an F Anonymous 05/28/2023	Larry is the WORST CS professor I have ever had. His lectures are 75 minutes, incredibly boring, graded worksheets in almost every one of them, and you can't have laptops in his CS lecture. He stopped grading in the middle of the semester and at that point I had a B-. Grades dropped today 15 days after the final, and I just found I failed.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/28/2023	Good professor. Teaches the material well though I don't feel like his tests really test understanding, more how good you are at catching tricks
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ HashedString 05/28/2023	Let me preface this review by saying I think most complaints against Larry or more accurately a complaint against 216 as a class. Lectures & Discussion: Larry as an instructor is decent. His lectures are explained thoroughly and he tries to spice them up with some occasional larry humor or interactive demonstrations. (Touching and piping students :3) His slides however are relatively barebones due to him heavily explaining them with lecture. Since he doesn't record his lectures this means that skipping lectures and going through the slides is NOT a good idea. Thus attending lectures is something you should do, or at the very least get notes from another student. Discussions I felt were pretty useless, but he does have attendance worksheets for both lecture and discussion so make sure that if you skip, you know there's no worksheet. Projects: His projects are extremely well-detailed, which is both a pro and a con. He provides a clear understanding of what you need to do and how to do it, but sometimes the project descriptions are so long that you miss one or two instructions in there due to the sheer size. Overall though I think his projects are quite fair and decent to complete. Sometimes there's up to 6% extra credit for the projects too which makes it even better. Exams: His exams are.... hard to quantify in difficulty. Generally, his exams will only test you on concepts clearly discussed in class, so there are no surprises in there. However they are often very specific about small topics sometimes, so if you fail to study for 1 small niche thing you may end up with an abysmal exam grade. For example, you might have a test that only covers ~40% of what you learned in the lecture, so even if you studied the other 60% you might still do bad. Simply put, his exams cover certain things more heavily so you gotta study everything or get lucky. Additionally, extra credit on exams is pretty sparse depending on the question type. This combined makes it tough to get a high grade on the exams generally, but they are fairly decent to earn a "passing" grade. This is made especially better due to the fact that he gives extremely thorough practice tests. The question types are identical usually, but the actual exams just change up the weighting of what's covered on the exams. For example, a practice exam might be 30% about process control, but the exam might only have 10% about that and the rest be about something else. Either way, though the practice exams are VERY helpful and are ESSENTIAL in doing well on exams. Personality: This is where people often hate Larry the most. He can come off as rude or abrasive at first because he has some very strict and thorough policies required for you to meet with him, and what you can and cannot discuss. Follow these and you'll get along fine. Don't follow them and you will get thrashed. It is what it is. While definitely annoying, I rarely had to contact him for anything so I never experienced a thrashing. Be warned Overall tl;dr Larry is a good instructor with one of the most organized classes I've ever seen. The difficulty comes with tough exams so it may be hard to clinch a high grade, but passing Larry is something that you will be able to do as long as you put in the effort. The class is hard, but very studyable. For reference in my semester, the class avg was ~82% compared to the overall 216 avg of 2.45 GPA. (So a little above avg) I think Larry is a good pick, esp compared to some of the other profs.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/28/2023	He is a pretty good lecturer that teaches you everything you need to know, but the lecture slides on their own aren't informative, and the lack of recordings makes it difficult to go back and review material. This means you have to write down a lot of what he says, but he also complains when he sees people writing too much since he thinks the lecture slides are a good source for reviewing. Overall his lectures are boring and you have to listen to every word he says carefully since it may be on an exam or important for a project, this makes it kind of difficult to sit through. My biggest issue with Larry is the way he grades. They take forever to release grades and most of the time all grades aren't released until late May (they were just released today). I had a A+ throughout the entire course, but this was because he had only entered about half of the grades. By the end of the semester he entered some more grades, and my grade dropped to an B+, and now he has entered all grades, I have dropped to a C+. This is an issue because you will have no idea how good or bad you're doing throughout the course. You can't get feedback on projects quick enough in order to improve. Now, the biggest issue with this is that I DIDN'T do bad on the projects or exams. After all grades were entered except the final exam I had an B+, a score I felt showed my knowledge on the course, but after the final my grade dropped to a C+. I understand that Finals are weighted more and will have a larger affect on your grade, but this is because they are cumulative exams that test your knowledge on all topics that were taught previously and any new topics. Herman doesn't seem to know this and only really only tested us on material he had rushed through for the last couple weeks of class. This exam was much harder than the rest and the average was an D+, and the worst part is that he refuses to bump up grades, even if you are on the edge (89.5, 79.5, etc.). I would still recommend Herman though since he is your best option. The material itself is not not difficult, but instead it is annoying and tedious because of the way he grades.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/26/2023	Most likely C- because I got screwed from Midterm 2 and final exam. Had a 96% after the first midterm. Pros: -Does his best to manage a class with 600 students -Very detailed project descriptions -Very clear with objectives/intentions Cons: -Sometimes hard to hear in lecture if not sitting near or at front -Slow grading process -Lectures aren't recorded -Doesn't permit allow technology use - will call you out in class if you are using your phone/laptop/ipad (makes no sense because the students who are on their phone will just find a way to hide it).
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/22/2023	Larrys pretty funny and seems like he cares a lot about his students. He's kinda grown on me over the semester, but that could just be stockholm syndrome. Unfortunately 216 itself is just an annoying class. Projects weren't bad, but exams felt like a series of gotchas testing you on random C trivia rather than ability to understand and apply core concepts. Doing well comes down to how much time you're willing to grind memorizing random function headers and return types.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/21/2023	He knows what he's talking about. Everyone saying he over repeats himself doesn't realize that he's repeating himself because that specific piece of information isn't on the slides, is really important (and should be written down), or can be confusing if you only hear it one time. He is very thorough with his projects (some people say he writes too much, but there is only enough information to help you pass all the secret tests) which take time but you actually learn something. His class is mind numbingly boring at times, and there are (supposed to be) no phones, electronics, etc. being used during class time. Office Hours is hell as well, good luck trying to get help in less than two hours. Random graded worksheets in discussion and lecture to keep you on your toes. Provides hella exam practice but his exams are so rough, they test on such specific knowledge.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/19/2023	He wasnt as good as he was in 132. His explanations are fine as always and he gives materials but his lack of recording lectures this semester is really disadvantageous for people who like to go back and rewatch lectures to learn better. I would say the midterms were fair however the final was much harder than the practice and previous exams. That being said he will make sure to cover everything. Also his projects are very detailed but I still found myself failing some hidden test. Overall hes still good but the lecture recording needed to change. He still has the same nuances that he has had too.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/18/2023	Larry is a really good instructor. He explains concepts clearly and tries to make his lectures interesting. He does repeat some things but that is just to emphasize them. He has good examples during lectures and his discussion worksheets are helpful as well. He provides all the content you need to succeed, such as extra homework problems and long practice exams. He's very well organized, and as long as you use the material he provides you will succeed in the class.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2023	Larry's class was great. The man is a solid lecturer. Everything is organized and clear on concepts and whatnot. Unfortunately the lectures are super boring and I slept through most of them, but even so I could still get an A without much worry. The exams are fair, and fully reasonable so no real worries there if you put some studying in. The projects are also all fully reasonable and can be done relatively quickly. Larry is the man. #LiveLaughLarry #LarrBearForLife
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/16/2023	Had him for 132 and 216, and I have to say he has grown on me. He seems like a weird dude who is strict at first, but he's want you to succeed. His slides are pretty informative and he explains/draws things out well, but I'm not gonna lie his voice has put me to sleep a couple of times. For the projects - start early, look at slides, and go to OH if you need help. The exams are decently difficult but really fair - just do the very long practice test and review slides/notes. Everything about his grading is pretty fair, the only reason I didn't do the best in 132 and kinda threw at the end of 216 is totally on me.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/12/2023	Someone else commented, he makes this class way more weed out than it needs to be. Projects are hard to get started coming from someone with little coding experience. Larry being "quirky" is usually him being rude / condescending. He repeats the same spiel, sometimes for the first ten minutes of lecture, about reading the announcements paper he has on the middle projection the entire class, then complains he doesn't have enough time to teach and doesn't allow questions. I've had weird interactions with him, and the most recent time I went to his OH he asked if I wanted the door open or shut, I said shut, and he made snarky comments about it for no reason. I'm very ready to never have him as my prof again.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Agt 05/11/2023	Pros: -Well-structured course with detailed review materials provided by Larry -Challenging, but fair exams and assignments -Strong lecturer; can feel boring or repetitive at times but Larry is highly knowledgeable about his subject, and you'll definitely learn new things! -Comprehensive study guides; homework and projects accurately reflect content on exams -Larry is hard to approach & talk to (see below), but he will help and support you under proper circumstances. Cons: -Larry is a HIGHLY pedantic instructor. His course procedures are distinctly methodical, numbering multiple pages in-length and taking time to understand. Larry also rarely forgives penalties occurred as a result of course misunderstandings. -The CS department assigns 300-600 students to Larry's classes, which means that individualized help is difficult to come-by with Larry. (Granted, this is an issue which plagues most CS professors anyway) -Larry bans phones, laptops, and tablets from lecture, although Larry cannot comprehensively enforce this rule. -There IS mandatory attendance on unspecified days via a graded-worksheet system, and lectures were NOT recorded during this semester. However, worksheets are always graded for-effort (not for-correctness) and I didn't find either of these features to be too disruptive.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/11/2023	Larry is great. I have had him for 132 and 216 and I would keep taking his class if I could. I am hoping to TA with him someday. Yes, attendance is mandatory, and electronics are not allowed in lecture, but I honestly find him pretty funny in lecture in quirky, out-of-pocket ways which helps to break up the occasionally monotonous course material. I find his explanations thorough and helpful; I think if you go to lecture consistently you won't need to go to office hours for help, though doing so is definitely a pain. Exams are not easy but are definitely fair, and he provides a long set of practice questions for each exam that cover everything you need to know. I think Larry would easily have a 4/5 star rating overall but gets hate because of his no electronics policy and mandatory attendance. If either of those are dealbreakers to you, then find someone else, but otherwise, I definitely think Larry is worth taking.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A leggomyeggo 05/08/2023	Really good content and exceptional projects. Can be boring but you will learn a lot. Also has a good sense of humor. You just need to work for your grade. Would def recommend Long live Ellie the Elephant!!
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/08/2023	Larry gets a lot of shit, but let's be clear about his strengths and his issues. For starters, it is impossible to be unclear about expectations for this course -- essentially every piece of information about the course, daily updates, practice material, etc. are available from the beginning and updated very frequently. Deadlines for projects are also fair, given that you start early. Basically, if you stay on top of studying from the textbook (Reek is goated), keeping up with material, watching videos online, and doing the projects yourself, you can succeed in this course. That being said, there is a ridiculous amount of content, so it doesn't take much to fall behind. Larry's lectures and examples, while well-organized, require an immense amount of patience to stay awake in (at least after halfway through the course). He is, without mincing words, super boring. The lecture and discussion worksheets are usually very helpful, but how much you get out of them will often depend on both the quality of your TA and your resourcefulness. Ultimately, with hard work it's not impossible to succeed in this class.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 05/08/2023	Lectures: Pros: Incredibly important and dense. If you get these, you should pretty easily pass the class. Cons: Incredibly boring, and dense. A genuine struggle to listen to because of how sleepy it can sometimes be. I have ADHD so sometimes I want to just run out of the lecture hall. If you don't pay attention, you are going to hurt your grade significantly (My grade suffered a lot). It's genuinely really difficult to pay attention. Projects(Huge part of your grade): Pros: Each project comes with a file that basically tells you exactly how to do it. If you follow these, you don't need to think a whole lot about what to do. Lots of bonuses if you are diligent. Cons: Each project comes out right after the other, so it's a neverending grind. There is always barely enough time to get them done, if you slack off you will be tweaking the last few days. The projects are still pretty hard and debugging them is very pinpoint. And the TAs can be hit or miss. Exams: Pros: He gives out practice exam material that is very lengthy. Cons: Really hard, really specific details you can only get from the lecture or the textbook. Sometimes the grading is insanely harsh. I still haven't really cracked the code on how you are supposed to do well on these(I've basically failed both). The practice material is (as he says) a good metric for how much you actually know. You still need to extensively study after that. Other things to know: 1. There are a lot of attendance-based worksheets that are 11% of your grade. The TAs are pretty cutthroat with these so make sure you attend and have an excuse or two. 2. The office hour system is awful. Too many people and not enough TAs. When we switched to Quuly, I literally waited 6 hours in line before I got help. 3. Cheating in this class is basically impossible. I would not try and bullshit with someone else's code. Someone accidentally posted their code to GitHub and within 3 minutes they got emailed by the UMD CS department for cheating because apparently, Larry has a web scraping bot that checks the internet for similarity in code between submissions and the internet on at least an hourly basis. And before you say "cheating is impossible in any cs class" not it isn't. Yoon barely checked his student's code for plagiarism. 4. Larry is a fairly nice and interesting guy. He's just very strict if you don't have a good reason for not doing something.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/07/2023	Mr. Herman is a really awesome professor all things considered. I was admittedly a bit hesitant to take CMSC 132 with him due to all the bad reviews on here, but I was so pleased with the way the class was taught that I gladly signed up with him again for CMSC 216. Pros: - Hard, but fair. The test averages are Bs and Cs, but the tests are very fair. As long as you pay attention in class and take detailed notes, then you will be fine for the tests. For every test, I would review the lecture slides, my notes, the quizzes, past exams, and homeworks online. If you do this, you will get an A in the class. While the questions on the exams are tricky, you will be fine as long as you pay close attention. There are no surprises on the exams. - He wants you to do well. Even though he is hard to reach and can be terse at times, he really does want the class to do well. He gives tons of practice work through ungraded homeworks, graded projects, and huge practice exams before the real exam. - Extremely well structured. All the assignments for the entire semester are laid out very clearly on ELMS. All the projects and exams are very clear on what he wants you to answer. Cons: - Difficult to reach. He does not supply his email to the class. The only way to see him is after class or in office hours (with a mask on), which he will sometimes cancel unexpectedly. - Dry lectures. His lectures can seem very boring and dry, but they are very informative. He often repeats himself multiple times (this is when you know it will be a question on an exam) - No electronics. He does not permit phones, computers, or any electronics in class.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/06/2023	He is so boring but he can teach the material well
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/04/2023	11 projects, 2 midterms. midterms are fair but multiple choice can be tricky and grading rubrics for exams can be harsh (eg. one multiple choice was worth 7% of the entire midterm). projects are fairly straightforward. gives a lot of practice material Grading rubric for Spring 2023: Practice worksheets (11%), 11 Projects (27%), Exam #1 (11%), Exam #2 (23%), Final exam (28%)
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/03/2023	Larry provides you with basically every resource humanly possible in order to not fail his course. Unfortunately, he also expects you to use every resource possible to pass the course. While he is very detailed, this can easily lead to content overload if you're unfamiliar with Larry's teaching style. His lectures are well-organized, but he tends to over-repeat himself, the lectures can become very boring, and towards the end of the semester he'll always mention how he's behind in teaching course material. Projects are relatively easy to follow and quick to do as long as you pay attention in his lectures. His exams, on the other hand, are notoriously difficult, and if you don't have extensive knowledge of any piece of content learned so far (as well as not doing his exam practices), you are bound to fail. His system for office hours is abysmal, but that's mostly due to the number of students who need help on studying or projects. Not to say the other options for 216 are better than Larry, but if you're planning on taking any of his classes, make sure you have good time management.
Larry Herman Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/29/2023	Larry's lectures are well-planned and clear. The use of worksheets throughout the course lectures and discussions promote attendance very effectively and comfortably. Projects are assigned in a manner that complements the pace of the material covered in lecture. He is also a great guy. I am so glad I re-took 216 with Larry, because when I took it and dropped it with Yoon the delivery of the content felt chaotic and disorganized.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/29/2023	Larry's lectures are well-planned and clear. The use of worksheets throughout the course lectures and discussions promote attendance very effectively and comfortably. Projects are assigned in a manner that complements the pace of the material covered in lecture. I am so glad I re-took 216 with Larry, because when I took it and dropped it with Yoon the delivery of the content felt chaotic and disorganized.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/27/2023	He is a fine instructor and explains the topics thoroughly and well. His project descriptions are very lengthy but very descriptive, so you can easily tell what the secret tests will check, making it very easy to thoroughly test your program. However, he is incredibly boring and makes sure you do not miss any lecture or discussion because he has random graded worksheets. His exams are also not easy because his multiple choice may have multiple answers and are on random small details you had one slide on in a random lecture. It is not easy to contact him or TAs outside of class because office hours take forever, and they do not accept any emails.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/22/2023	I think Larry Herman is a great instructor. His lectures can get pretty boring, but he covers everything you'll need to know and explains it all very well. His textbook readings are long and more boring than the lectures, but they are very helpful in learning the material. He gives graded worksheets in lectures and discussions, which means attendance is required if you want a good grade, but they weren't very hard, they covered relevant material and they were only graded for completion. His projects are not easy and they take a long time, but they are doable if you pay attention in lecture and do the assigned readings. The project instructions are very, very long, but they cover everything you'll be graded on and the expectations are very clear. His exams are fair, and he gives a lot of helpful preparation and study material. This class was a lot of work, but I learned a lot from it and thought Larry did a great job.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/25/2023	Easy to fall asleep to. But other than that good professor and provides substantial practice material
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/16/2023	Worst professor I've ever had it's not even close.
Larry Herman Anonymous 03/02/2023	I LOVE THIS GUY
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an F Anonymous 02/25/2023	This dude is a literal boomer he teaches 216 using emacs only instead of vs code
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 02/02/2023	There are so many reviews about Herman's teaching and while that's great and all, I just want to share this: https://www.reddit.com/r/UMD/comments/ilwf1k/cs_department_at_umd/ And honestly, not surprised
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/30/2023	Larry receives too much hatred. He runs a very tight ship, and admittedly has a few faults that can be really annoying, but he is a really, really good teacher as long as you take the time to pay attention during his lectures and devote some time to making sure your projects are up to par. If you're looking to blow off this class or just get it out of the way, don't take it with Larry. He doesn't allow any sort of technology in his class, and that includes laptops, so all notes need to be handwritten. Larry is also 100% unreachable outside of class or office hours, but honestly, every single thing that he does, says, or writes is so unbelievably thorough that as long as you pay attention to what he provides you with, you won't need to contact him anyway.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/21/2023	Honestly wasn't that bad of a professor. His project descriptions are very thorough about what is required of you, and as long as you follow them you should be good. The final exam was definitely waaaaay harder than any of the previous exams and definitely tanked most people's grades down atleast a little bit
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- theGreat 01/19/2023	Had Larry for 132 as well so I went into this class knowing what to expect, and it was exactly what I expected. Pros: - Good lecturer - Answers all questions - Covers content well - Well organized - By the book - Old fashionedish professor that is very straight forward - Knows his stuff Cons: - Sooooo boring - Is not generous with points - Attendance is part of your grade
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A theGreat 01/19/2023	Pros: - Good lecturer - Answers all questions - Covers content well - Well organized - By the book - Old fashionedish professor that is very straight forward - Knows his stuff Cons: - Sooooo boring - Is not generous with points - Attendance is part of your grade
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B- Anonymous 01/09/2023	Herman is literally awful. DO NOT TAKE HIM. The good reviews on here are from people who have been coding for years. Herman's class will strain you to another level. His exams are AWFUL and you can study all the course material for weeks and still leave with a failing grade. He is incredibly rude and condescending and will never respect you as a person. He requires you to meet with him if you have an excused absence, which seems fine until you realize he has no ordering system so in a class of 500 students you'll likely never be able to get his attention. Same with the TA's office hours are absolute chaos. His projects are maybe his only good aspect. They are very detailed and you either know it or don't. However, his TA's will find any little thing for your code to be wrong. You'll never get a 100 unlike Pedram or Fawzi who rely on public and release tests. Herman should be your last option and even then I would suggest waiting until another professor comes available. DO NOT TAKE LARRY HERMAN. His 216 course is only doable if you really know what you are getting into.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/07/2023	Professor Herman will provide you with good resources to teach yourself the content, but he is boring and lacks basic social etiquette. His slides, practice exams, projects, and other resources are really clear and helpful. His grading is also quite lenient. It's quite an easy A if I'm being honest. However, that's where his positives end. His TAs are horrible in my experience. I'm not sure if he selected them, but if he did, he focused more on choosing TAs that would obey him rather than those who will teach well. His lectures are extremely boring. They do not help at all. He repeats everything thrice and talks incredibly slowly. He then complains about the CS department putting too much content in the course. This would've all been excused, but he gives worksheets that are graded for completion randomly in lectures, effectively making attendance mandatory. However, that's all irrelevant compared to his social etiquette. I'd strongly recommend avoiding office hours. Every time I've been to office hours, which is only when I needed to receive credit for an excused absence, he always makes me feel uncomfortable. He has many quirks. He makes a thing about calling him instructor and not professor. He doesn't let you email or message him. If you need a graded worksheet excused, you will have to go to the one office hour block he set at a reasonable time and wait over an hour to meet with him to have him excuse the absence. In short, Larry will make the learning experience very easy, but will undeniably be a pain to deal with.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/03/2023	Sometimes boring, but in my opinion he's quite funny. Good lecturer that can explain things well. Only thing that's annoying is how long the project descriptions are and how specific his requirements are. Make sure you go to lecture and discussions because they sometimes have graded coursework (which is based on completion - just make sure you're there).
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/30/2022	He’s good. He makes it tricky sometimes. Final is much harder than the rest of the course high basically tanked by grade 10%.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/28/2022	Larry's a good teacher with very fair and doable exams. A lot of people complain about his lengthy project guidelines, but I kinda liked them. He basically tells you every edge case and addresses any possible point of confusion in those directions. He's annoyingly strict about certain things (like calling him professor as opposed to instructor) and kinda came off as unapproachable, but after talking to him a couple of times during office hours I realized he means well. I would give him a higher rating if he didn't grade so slowly. The semester ended a week ago and he still hasn't graded our final exams and given us our final grades. In fact, it wasn't until this week that the majority of our project grades were put into canvas. I get that its a large class and grading projects are difficult, but I feel like this was slow for even CS.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/26/2022	He's a great teacher and explains all the concepts and algorithms really well. You basically have to go to lecture because he screws up the recordings and sometimes forgets to record the stuff he does on paper. Not having electronic devices is more of a pro than a con but you can always go to office hours and ask for permission to use it (as long as you have a decent reason). Projects are fairly easy, received almost a 100 on all of them. Exams are mostly easy, just don't screw up the programming question because it is often worth half of the exam grade (I screwed it up because I was so uncomfortable writing code on paper, hence my grade). Make sure to read/skim over the textbook because some of the information that he briefly mentioned in lecture shows up on the exam and shows up in the textbook (My friend made quizlets and they were super helpful). PRACTICE WRITING CODE ON PAPER BEFORE YOU TAKE EXAMS! Never take your phone out in class even if you're in the back (Herman has a hawk eye for phones) because he will call you out and the entire lecture hall will look at you.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/26/2022	He's a very slow teacher, but good at explaining things. If you already know what he's talking about you will be bored out of your mind. I think I fell asleep in 80% of his classes. Also he has random graded worksheets in the discussions(why is 2 discussions a week neccesary) which suck when you have discussion at 8 and it's 30 degrees outside.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2022	Larry can be boring but he is a great instructor. Everything in the class is very fair. If you have the opportunity to take him please do :)
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/24/2022	Can't deny that he's a great lecturer and he gives you all the tools (optional homework, practice worksheets, exam prep) to succeed and learn a lot. He has a lot of rules, both for assignments and being in class, that he's very strict about. Super slow grader, though - we took our final a week ago and only 4/9 projects have been graded so far.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/22/2022	Larry is alright but will make the class more of weed-out than it has to be. The project guidelines are detailed but the style requirements can be pretty stupid. The discussion sections are alright but there graded attendance worksheets are worth too much of your grade and are pretty useless and annoying. His lecture slides are alright but he never really addresses non-obvious student questions and can be a little intimidating and unkind (unintentionally or otherwise). The tests aren't terrible but there was always 1 or 2 really specific and trivia-like MC questions. He does do very well in giving large practice tests and optional HWs. Overall, he's not a bad option but he won't wow you with charisma, passion, kindness, or competency. If you're taking Larry, you'll get a dependable, bland, quality education.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2022	I liked the way he taught the class, since he taught it in a way that helped you programs run on a fundamental level, so I felt like I had a better foundation from this class than 131. However, his class was quite boring. This might not be his fault, since the material he's working with isn't exactly riveting in my opinion, but the class is not engaging and I never really wanted to go to class. He also is very strict about his policies, which are genuinely pretty antiquated (no electronics of any kind in class, etc.). I found the projects fair, but there was some material that wasn't covered in any project. If you're a cs major (which I'm not), he's likely a good professor to have since he is good at explaining how it all works, but he doesn't make it very fun.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2022	Larry is an amazing instructor and a great lecturer. All of his slides are clear with plenty of examples and are provided to you very soon after each lecture along with a recording. The topics in 132 can be confusing the first time you hear them but Larry always did an excellent job of using examples to explain them. Additionally, in every discussion section there are worksheets that are essentially graded on completion, but are SO helpful. The problems on the worksheet really help you understand the lecture material and are representative of the exam questions. When the exam comes around these worksheets alone are usually enough to help you get practice but Larry also provides a 20 page practice set with exam questions. AND on top of that there are optional homework to do to get even more practice. All of these materials have solutions that are thoroughly explained. The projects in this class were challenging but doable and the project descriptions are more than clear. There was also always enough time to complete them, and the TAs were very helpful. The class is organized and Larry keeps everyone updated regularly with his news feed. He couldn't be more clear about instructions and what's going on in class. I can't say enough great things about Larry's teaching style, if you have the opportunity you HAVE to take Larry. In addition to being a great lecturer he is also funny and this semester gave away chocolate every single class to two random people. TAKE LARRY!!!
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2022	Herman gets a lot of flack because he doesn't allow electronics in lecture, he has graded worksheets in discussion, and he is a very monotone, boring, lecturer. With that being said, the dude can teach. His notes and lectures are unbelievably thorough, and so if you can stay awake, you'll walk away with a really good understanding of the material. The projects and exams are both very fair as well. If you can get around his idiosyncrasies, he's ultimately just a really fair, thorough, instructor, which is dope. Love you Larry
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2022	This guy is the GOAT. The only people that don't like him are the ones who can't resist the urge to check their phone every 5 minutes. As long as you go to class and put the work in, you will succeed in his class. World class instructor. Would recommend.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2022	I feel like people hate Larry because of his strict no phone policy and his required discussion worksheets. However, I thought he was a great lecturer with a cute and quirky personality. He is very organized, good at explaining concepts, and gives us plenty of resources to help understand the material. His labs may seem intimidating at first because of the lengthy project guidelines, but you'll realize that it's better to have more information about the lab than less; you'll never be confused about what you have to do. As long as you attend lectures/watch the recordings, the labs are extremely fair and doable (takes 4-10 hours). He also offers 3-10 extra credit points on some labs for turning it in early. His exams are extremely easy compared to other classes and the upper quartile has consistently scored over 90. He is an amazing teacher and I would really recommend taking this course with him. The only complaint I would have is that projects take a long time to be graded, but that is probably just because of the size of the class.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2022	Larry beary is a quality instructor (not professor). Exams were very fair and reflective of course material. He puts a lot of effort into his projects and lectures. 10/10 would recommend. Quality Guy.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/08/2022	Larry’s alright at lecturing and he’s obviously knowledgeable and been teaching for a while. He sometimes goes a bit too in depth(or repeats himself 3-5 times) and quickly falls behind. I find myself falling asleep in his lectures from time to time. The content in 132 is fairly easy as long as you have a basic grasp on programming. However, I’ve found that his TAs will do anything to avoid giving a perfect score. They are petty and believe no one should get a perfect score. On all of my projects I have gotten -1% because of “lack of detailed comments.” This isn’t the case. Herman in office hours said he’d get them regraded but he has not done so. It’s an alright class and you will do well if you know the content, but don’t expect a 100% on anything.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/01/2022	I love Larry. People don’t like him because he’s hard, but I enjoyed his lectures. Yes, his tests are hard. And the material is hard, but if you READ THE TEXTBOOK and go to class, you’ll do well. The projects were fun and actually very creative. Definitely recommend taking classes with Larry.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/18/2022	Good teacher explains stuff well but doesn't u let use phone during class
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/10/2022	Like a lot of people mentioned, he has his quirks. Very strict when it comes to certain things and can be a little boring as a lecturer. However, he teaches very well. I learned so much in this class and I felt like he really wanted his students to succeed. I also had to go to his office hours a few times to discuss something unrelated to the course material and he was very nice and accommodating. His exams and grading are also very fair. Projects are fair too with mostly public tests. I would definitely take him again for another class.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/07/2022	Honestly, Larry is pretty underrated. Pretty good lecturer, can be boring at times. He's strict about masks and electronic usage, but once you learn to really focus on the lecture it doesn't make much of a difference. He can be funny and does his best to make the class interesting. The projects can be tedious but his descriptions are very good. The exams are very fair as long as you do the practice exams, worksheets, and stay on top of lectures. If you're self-motivated, I highly recommend him.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 10/31/2022	He makes me want to fall asleep in his lecture. His projects are so complicated unnecessarily when compared to other professors.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/19/2022	I took Larry in Spring 2022 fearing the worst as he had 3 stars on PlanetTerp. Honestly, he really is a prof- sorry lecturer that is an acquired taste. Some of you will absolutely hate him but I really liked him. His lectures are boring as hell but he is really good at explaining things and he seems like he just wants everyone to succeed. Sure, his pedagogy may be old-fashioned (don't use electronics, always come to class, etc) but the statistics don't lie. Those who came to his class were more likely to get an A. He cracks some really out of pocket jokes sometimes but his jokes keep you from falling asleep. If you go to his office hours he actually is a chill guy, even though he seems like a hardass in lecture. His project descriptions are super detailed and practically tell you how to do the project, which I didn't realize I'd miss so much in CMSC330. The exams were very fair in my opinion and matched the difficulty of the practice exams. The only annoying questions are the multiple choice ones that can give you negative points if you pick the wrong ones. I recommend overall and definitely don't take him for granted.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 10/19/2022	Soooooooooooooo Maryland law requires me to inform you that Larry Herman is actually a pretty decent not-professor. In all seriousness, he has his personality quirks, but I haven't found any faults in his teaching style or in his knowledge of the course material. The lecture slides cover pretty much everything you need to know and they include very helpful examples for Eclipse. Lectures are recorded and put on canvas. Projects are reasonable, his instructions are pretty long but they cover pretty much every edge case you need to consider. They are due roughly every week and a half or two weeks. I usually dedicated around 10 hours for each project, but of course this depends on its length. And he gives extra credit on a few of them if you just turn it in early. I disagree with the bottom review. I didn't do programming at all outside of class and I did fine. Of course, you should remember material from CMSC131/AP Comp Sci A/whatever, but he gives a pretty detailed review sheet and dedicates a few lectures at the beginning for this. He doesn't allow electronics in class, going so far as to point people out from across the room who he thinks are on their phone, which a lot of people don't like. He also doesn't really like it when people take notes word-for-word off the lecture slides (this is not a good way to take notes, anyway). And his lectures can put people to sleep, but at least he's funny. If you can get past these things, though, and work diligently on the projects and studying for exams, you will do well. Overall, I'd highly recommend him, especially over a professor that's confusing but nice.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/17/2022	If you asked me last semester what I would give Larry Herman, I would have said a 2. He essentially makes attending lectures mandatory because of the unannounced classwork. He is a stickler for the rules, like having KN95 mask instead of the generic blue mask (last semester when it was mandatory). He puts a password for all his attachments which is really inconvenient. His projects are probably the hardest among any other classes I have taken and the deadline is not generous (compared to other classes at least). His lectures are extremmmelllllyyyy boring. He essentially didn't curve at all last semester for like the first time because of "over-performance." He doesn't like being called a professor because of the technicalities of the word (lol). I could go on and on about him. But when you take the other CS classes, you'll start to appreciate him. The biggest issue I have with the current CS classes I take is the inconsistencies in practice content and real exam content. The cheating that goes around doesn't make things any better. In this respect, Larry Herman is tough but fair. Occasionally, yes, you'll get a question that you would not know if you strictly did the practice exam, however, this was rare and often would not take you down too much in points. Also, the amount of time he gives for his exams is more than enough. For the final, it seemed like more than half of the people finished early and left. Also, Larry rarely makes grading mistakes, at least not to the degree other professors do. For the current classes, I am taking, to put into perspective, I have to make a regrade request almost every single time. I only had to fix a mistake with him once. Admittedly, as one of the reviewers here pointed out, I have learned programming outside of the class. And if I didn't have prior experience, I probably would not be as successful in this class, or at the least, I would have had to put more effort to achieve the same result. But honestly, if you genuinely have a passion for coding, that is the only way you can possibly succeed in this major for the average person. And if you have a genuine passion for something, you should have prior experience. And even if you are just here pursuing a CS major for the bank, you gotta admit, there is no CS lecturer fairer than Larry Herman. Of course, because I mentioned his flaws with him at the beginning, I had to take a star away. I wish he was a bit more lenient in many respects than I listed above; trust me, I'm not happy that he did not curve grades at all when I took 132 with him. But when you advanced further into the CS major, you'll soon come to realize what a privilege it was to learn from a fair person and the things you complained about are minor inconveniences that even have some sense to it (for instance, he wants people to come to class so learning is more effective, hence unannounced classwork). As one person mentioned in my GroupMe recently, "You don't know what you had until it is gone." Don't take Larry Herman for granted.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a W Anonymous 09/14/2022	Do not listen to positive reviews of this professor, almost all that are positive are because they have programming experience outside of class. This professor is not worth it for those who are beginners in programming, do not be deceived into taking his class. Please sign up for another professor instead! This is from my perspective as a transfer student. I don't know why everyone says Larry is such a good professor. I took him last semester in my first semester at UMD from transferring from cc. I noticed right away that his lectures are incredibly boring and he is very rude to his students. His overall demeanor comes off very negatively and he doesn't seem friendly like other professors. His projects are insanely long and require you to know practically every word by heart if you want to do well. I would spend entire days doing projects to no avail, and when I came into the office hours I was yelled at instead of helped. His class was an absolute nightmare and was one of the hardest classes I've taken. I think the exams were the worst part by far, they were complete nonsense and there's way too much information crammed into them. Of course he's one of those professors that makes you physically write down code with a pencil and paper which doesn't make sense for a computer science class. Exams have a lot of weight to them and really have a big impact on your grade as well, and they're just too hard for what they are. This class felt like 2 or more classes crammed into one. He assigns way too much work way too quickly, so you will be coding everyday until the class ends. You likely will not have enough time for your other classes while you are taking this class, there will be so much work that you can't divert your attention anywhere else. This class made me switch out of computer science, I'm not sure about the other professors but don't take him if you want to pass and if you want to keep your sanity. Most people in my class dropped quickly and that was the right decision.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/23/2022	Honestly one of the more underrated professors in the CS department imo. His exams are very fair if you’ve covered the practice exams and the homeworks. The projects are usually not too difficult if you start early and reference the example code; the project descriptions are usually very long but I think they do a good job providing all the necessary information so I never felt like anything was too ambiguous. He uses worksheets in lectures and discussions to keep track of attendance but they’re largely graded on completion so that’s like free points to me. He has his quirks, usually strict about wearing masks and using devices in class. His lectures can also be boring at times but they were recorded so it wasn’t a big deal. Exams are usually given back promptly but we didn’t get back projects until the end of the semester. Ultimately the class structure is fair and Larry gives his students ample opportunity to pass and do good in the class. Highly recommend.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2022	I've gotta say coming into this semester I was not a huge Herman fan. 1st lecture drops all of these what seems to be outdated stupid rules with a voice that could put you to sleep in seconds, I thought he was going to be the worst. I kept coming back lecture after lecture and I gotta say even though he will bore you to sleep, he is a great lecturer. His code examples and slides are amazing resources, the projects were clear, office hours with him were great, and his occasional humor in his lectures will sometimes bring you back to life. I'd give him 5 stars if he had gotten things back on time which I'm honestly surprised he hasn't. So far it's a week and a day after the final and I only have 3/10 of my project grades in and no grade for the final. My A- is a very rough estimate since I don't know how half of my assignments went which is definitely a pretty annoying grievance if you do something incorrect on project 3 for example and continue it up until project 10. Anyways, take him if there's no other great options available. As someone who has now had both Pedram and Herman, I would say take Herman. He gives far better exams than Pedram and far better resources to prepare. He very clearly also cares for his students despite his sometimes what seems like random unhinged rules
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/17/2022	Had Herman for 132 and enjoyed him again for 216. I really just like the way he delivers the course content. It is straightforward, but he also sprinkles some humor to make the class more engaging. I thought his lecture examples were very clear and well detailed, and his exams were pretty fair. Projects were very challenging, but Herman's detailed descriptions helped quite a bit. Overall great INSTRUCTOR and def recommend.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/16/2022	I did not have good expectations of Larry coming into this course, however so far, he has been one of the best CS instructors i've learned from at UMD. One pro about him is that he provides countless of opportunities to gauge your understanding of the course material through ungraded homeworks and graded worksheets. The worksheets are graded on completion, and are given randomly during lectures and/or discussions. Another pro is that he provides extremely detailed project descriptions. He is also very kind and helpful in office hours. Highly recommend.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/16/2022	I took both 132 and 216 with Larry and he is an amazing lecturer who keeps his class engaged with jokes and fun activities. You do have to be there for every lecture/discussion because you never know when he's going to have a graded in-class worksheet but he doesn't really care if you're not paying attention as long as you don't use any electronics in class. He's also super considerate about assignments and deadlines - he gave extensions on almost all the projects and if you talked to him, then he pretty much gives you as much time as you need to finish the project. His worksheets/slides/homeworks/practice questions are a godsend when you're reviewing for an exam and his project descriptions are super useful when you're trying to come up with edge cases for secret tests (because he literally writes them out for you). One last thing - no release tests! You pass all the public tests, write some student tests if you want, and submit your project. Sometimes, if you submit 48 hours early and only use one submission to pass all the public tests, he gives you extra credit (up to 10 points depending on the project). His class isn't exactly easy but as long as you put the work in, you should do well. Expect to spend 4-6 hours a week in his class if you want to do well.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/15/2022	He is a good professor. His exams are fair and are much easier than the review guides. If you attempt all the questions on the review and spend time understanding each question's solution, you will do fine on the exams. The exam questions are typically simplified versions of study guide questions. Maybe not for the multiple-choice, that will be the same difficulty. Also, I suggest rewatching lectures and taking notes on topics you do not fill comfortable with. For the projects, use office hours and START EARLY!! If you know you usually do badly on projects, spend some time before the class starts to remake a 132 project for example in C. (Also, I highly suggest understanding the basics of malloc() before the class starts)
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/09/2022	Herman is a decent lecturer. His projects are difficult. And, he has a lot of silly rules that get annoying. Herman's teaching style is Draconianly strict. He gives you a 12 page list of directions detailing exactly how he wants you to do every little detail of an assignment. You'll do fine with Herman, but you'd probably rather take someone else. If it means anything, Herman taught CMSC216 better than CMSC132.
Larry Herman CMSC216 amazingmonkey25 05/08/2022	Larry gives a lot of practice through homeworks and worksheets. Also, his projects are thoroughly detailed, but extremely annoying to read. The thing is, Larry is extremely boring. Most people sleep throughout his class and are forced to rewatch the lectures. Also, his exams don't test you on most of the material in the class, they only test you on some very specific topics. Like for example, for the second exam in the semester, we only had one small problem on processing that we had to correct as the "test" for that unit. That was a MAJOR unit, and we didn't even have to trace any fork calls or anything. The coverage in the exams is horrendous.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a W log_n 04/22/2022	(Obligatory disclaimer: I took this course with Larry Herman in Spring 2021 when it was taught fully online. However, I currently tutor students in CMSC216 and from what they tell me, nothing is different now with in-person instruction.) As someone who studies pedagogy and is looking to be a professor, I can confidently say that Larry Herman does not know how to teach, especially in computer science. The fact that he will not allow any electronics (even for note-taking) during lectures on computer programming should tell you enough about what kind of instructor Herman is. Exams are simply excruciating. While other instructors are moving to exam formats that function more like open-note timed projects (a more realistic scenario in software development), Herman insists on the practice of writing and debugging computer software using a pencil and paper... Additionally, exams often involve questions needing a specific process not covered in the course, and the multiple choice questions are outrageously formatted and graded. During online instruction, Herman insisted on Zoom proctored exams that required invasive lockdown browsers (I love taking exams with a TA staring directly at my face 24/7. Really calms me down). Projects are mostly fair in terms of what they cover, but the administration over them is needlessly awful. Firstly, project descriptions are convoluted and unnecessarily long. This may help to uncover some edge-cases, but it takes about a day just to digest everything. Secondly and most importantly, you will be penalized if you submit too often before the deadline. No more convenient project backups or even just seeing if you're passing all public tests. Course structure and lectures are not the worst, but Herman is weirdly against answering questions during lecture and fully embracing things like ELMS and Piazza so there's that. Overall, Herman makes this course much harder than it needs to be and for absolutely no payoff whatsoever. I will say that he is understanding if you need an extension and have a valid reason, and he does at least seem to like what he covers. However, this does not change the fact that you should avoid him if you like having a good GPA.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/22/2022	(And CMSC216.) He talks fast but he goes at a slow/followable pace given how much material he has to cover each lecture. He's one of the most organized professors I've had. His project descriptions are notoriously long, but they detail the entire project so I wouldn't complain much. His practice exams are very good practice for the actual exams. He's a bit strict on rules like masks and no electronics but honestly we all need a professor to put their foot down for the students that are distracting to the rest of the class.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/24/2022	Larry can be boring but he's very great at explaining difficult concepts very clearly. He goes slow which gives you time to understand the material really well. He also gives a lot of practice for exams. and he uploads all of his presentation pdfs. His project descriptions are very detailed and cover pretty much every edge case you have to consider. He can be a bit strict about the rules but as long as you wear your mask and don't use electronics, you're fine. I would highly recommend him.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/24/2022	Larry is a good professor if you're willing to learn. His pace is slow, and he cares about you actually learning the material. He is very strict and rather boring, but he will get you the information. I recommend him if you can sit through boring lectures without using your phone and are genuinely willing to learn the content thoroughly.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/25/2021	He's ok, but I wouldn't recommend if you had other options tbh. His lectures are dull and I fell asleep a third of the time. He tries to be engaging during lecture by telling jokes and asking questions (which I appreciate), so I honestly think its his voice/how he speaks that makes me sleepy. Another thing about lecture is that he doesn't allow use of technology and will call you out if he sees you using your phone or if its on your desk. You should def still try to pay attention during lecture, especially when he's writing on paper. His project descriptions are great though. Make sure to closely read and (I recommend) take notes on project restrictions, edge cases mentioned in method descriptions, etc., especially considering how I've been told incorrect information multiple times by his TAs this semester (don't think this is a Larry issue tho). If you have to take him, I highly recommend doing all the worksheets, practice exams, and HOMEWORKS (they're optional but you will likely see questions similar to or on the material covered in them). His exams are very Larry-y, but once you get used to his exam question style, you can do well. Overall, his class is doable, but you really need to study and get familiar with his tests/worksheets if you want to succeed.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2021	When I took this class (Fall 2019), I didn't enjoy it mainly because I hate C. However, Larry is a really good intructor and does a good job of explaining concepts, even if his lectures are really dry. His teaching style may not work for everyone, which is probably why he has a lot of negative reviews, but after taking some 400 level classes with professors who don't know how to teach, I think that Larry did a great job. He can be very particular about seemingly random things, like sitting in the back row or using tech in class, but overall you can tell he cares about the class (unlike a lot of CS profs at this university). His slides are comprehensive and he gives good review materials for the exams. The only thing I didn't like was that he took attendance and had 2 participation points (which means you had to ask 2 questions or answer his questions at some point throughout the semester).
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 12/17/2021	Great instructor. Explains difficult concepts well and learned a lot of material this semester. Made computer science interesting and I look forward to taking 216 with him next semester. Also, great project descriptions. Overall, Herman is incredible and I encourage you to take him.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2021	Larry is a fairly good instructor (not professor). His lectures can be a little dry at times (somewhat unavoidable in an intro course), but he is very good at teaching you what you need to know. His project descriptions are remarkably thorough, making it fairly easy to do well on them (provided you put in the work). His exams can be a little tricky, but provided you study you ought to do well.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2021	I think Mr. Herman is a very good instructor (though he makes it very clear that he is NOT a professor; he once gave us a mini quiz at the beginning of a lecture about this)! Now, I should mention that I did have some programming background prior to the course, so I cannot say for sure what your learning experience will be like if you are new to programming besides taking CMSC131. However, I really enjoyed his teaching style. He gives plenty of examples of concepts, and he puts a significant amount of effort into making comprehensive practice exams and homework assignments so that you are well prepared for the midterms. You can also download his slides and (some) code examples after class to further examine them. He does not allow electronic devices in class, and if he catches you using one, he will not hesitate to call you out. I thought that was annoying at first, but his philosophy is that you should be actively listening to his commentary rather than writing everything down on the slides. In fact, when he sees people writing slide material in their notebooks, he won't stop them but he will interject with something like "you don't have to write this stuff down because the slides will be on ELMS later." I think that his philosophy worked well for me, but your mileage may vary of course. He is also very knowledgeable about Java and the Object-Oriented paradigm and will write notes to himself to correct unclear information in his slides or to investigate the answer to a question he was asked. The homework comes in the form of coding projects. His project descriptions are very well defined (albeit lengthy) and help reinforce the material covered in lectures. However, they are graded pretty slowly (the last four projects have not been graded yet as I write this review), but maybe that will change in the future. He also makes a good attempt to engage with his students. He frequently asks questions throughout the lecture to his students and corrects them if necessary. As a bonus, I think he genuinely wants to entertain us and be friendly. For one, he always suggested saying your name when you answered a question. During the last half of the semester, he raffled chocolate and other candy using a specialized program he made. And lastly, you can count on him to try to crack a few jokes every lecture (and even in his assignments too). Yes, they are definitely "dad jokes," but nonetheless they still made me chuckle and I appreciated it. Oh yeah and the sheep thing. He likes sheep. But apparently his favorite animal changes from semester to semester, so look forward to that I guess.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2021	Mr. Herman is a really good professor. He knows what he's talking about and he explains complicated topics extremely well during lecture, in such a way that I don't even feel the need to ask questions. He gave us so much practice with the discussion worksheets and exam prep, and it made taking the actual exam not too hard because the style was very similar. You learn the fundamentals of CS in this course and Herman is a great professor to get that knowledge from.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/14/2021	Let me begin this review by saying that Herman's teaching style is a bit of an acquired taste. If you don't think you can acquire the "taste," then you will likely not agree with the rest of this review. That said, although at times I did feel myself starting to fall asleep in class, Herman generally made lectures un-boring enough to thoroughly absorb the content. Lectures even sometimes included interesting off-color dry humor, such as casually referring to "the almighty above" whilst describing algorithm complexity. Herman's exams were generally fair, you just have to read (a fact that my expected A- shows that I can't always do). Projects were equally fair, as long as you are not scared away by an 8-page password-protected PDF as your assignment description. The complaints about grading turn-around time aren't unfounded, but it isn't as bad as some horror stories that I have heard from other instructors/professors. I am still giving Herman 5 stars because this really isn't his fault, it's the TA system's fault. Finally, I just want to say if you can bare some quirkiness in an instructor (Herman isn't a professor, he will make this abundantly clear) and possibly one too many sheep references, take Herman.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 12/13/2021	I attended 3 lectures with friend he seems like cool dude. Kinda boring though. xoxo Sheena Sheep.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/07/2021	I am a Larry enjoyer. While his lectures can sometimes be a little dry, his jokes are funny and the content is always delivered well. I found that studying from the discussion worksheets and lecture notes was the way to go, since the exams resemble the homework very closely. A lot of material gets covered quickly, so make sure to stay on top of it.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/05/2021	I think Herman is good. He seems to care and some of his jokes can be funny. I am very thankful that he records our lectures because he goes kind of fast in class and he gets mad if you take notes on the lecture instead of listening to everything he says. I would've preferred taking Pedram for 132 as I had him for 131 and I think he is more of an actual person. He is a nice guy and helped me a lot throughout last semester. Herman just kind of feels like a hermit crab to me. Hes a good teacher but I dont think hes anything special.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/29/2021	Herman was a pretty good professor honestly. His exams were really hard and and it took his TAs forever to grade anything, but he explained things well and his project descriptions, while really long and tedious, covered any edge case questions people had. Just study well and you'll be fine
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/13/2021	Took him in Spring 2021. I've seen so many negative reviews on him, but honestly, he was one of the best CS professors I've ever had. His class is extremely clear. Lectures go through all necessary content, project descriptions detail everything you need to know, and exam practice questions are really similar to what is on the exam. If you follow his direction, you will do well.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C Anonymous 07/09/2021	I found his lectures to be very clear. He is a good instructor and also quite reasonable when it comes to handling issues. The only issue I found with his class was that project descriptions were overcomplicated and unnecessarily long.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C- Anonymous 06/02/2021	Disclaimer- this review was done during online instruction so it may not be entirely accurate when it comes to in person, but please read because it can give you a general sense about who Larry is. This man is the worst professor that you could ever have. People who review 4 or 5 star must be on something or just naturally gifted at cs. Class setup: You only got to go to lecture once every 2 weeks. I even got lecture zoom links for times when I was in other classes, so I couldn’t go. The rest was watch the lecture videos which are posted roughly 8-16 hrs later. Worst experience ever, literally COULDN’T go to live lecture for a whole month. Had to schedule other classes around finding time to watch lecture videos whenever they got posted out of the blue, screwing up any relative organization of my classes. He often cuts of students asking questions and just says come to my office hours. No Piazza, cannot email him and regular office hours with TAs are a mess. Also have fun seeing your exam and project grades a month after completing them. Very hard to guess where you grade is at for 80% of the semester. Projects: First off, only public and secret. Can only submit up to I think it was 6 times before you were penalized. Have to run tests using Grace. Oh that’s another thing, the super ancient system and the way that everything is taught using emacs. Just use vscode. There should be a document floating around about how to set it up. Content wise they are fair ngl. The project descriptions are about 10 pages long so I’d say 95% of common errors and edge cases are explained. If you follow the documentation and code to covers those cases the projects will still be hard but you will be fine passing the public tests and probably some of the secret tests. DO NOT procrastinate on them. They are weighted incredibly low so they do jacksht for you grade. Exams: These are basically the do or die of this class. I think majority of averages were around 68%, with one at 56%. The way you have to answer the multiple choice which pretty much usually has more than one answer is super stupid. Let’s say there are two answers out of 5. Suppose that A & B are correct but you put down A & C and, so the points gained and lost for that question equal out to zero, so it is like you never attempted the question. You have to be super confident to get points on these because any incorrect answers will lower your grade. Don’t even try to guess on these questions because you will just hurt your grade. If that wasn’t enough there is a question at the end which takes the longest, but also in a sense is a simple you get it or you don’t. It is worth 25% of the test grade and around 3-5% of you course grade so prey that you know the answer or your grade will hurt just from that. Please avoid taking him at any cost. Then again, have heard that he is better in person.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 05/25/2021	This class will take up so much of your time, from projects to preparing for exams, there are literally no breaks. You'll seriously be tested on how well you are able to study for exams and actually look at material outside of class. If you don't understand something, there are always resources to help you, it's just a matter of making time to use them outside of lecture and discussion. This is relevant regardless of any person teaching the class. As a lecturer(don't call him professor meme), Herman can only do so much although there are some critiques of him in the other reviews that can be accurate. The class is hard, but it's not like Herman makes it harder. He explains concepts well and the worksheets and homework are a must if you really want to get a concept down. Expect the outcome of this class to be a function of how much work you put in.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/25/2021	Lectures are very dry and pedantic. He gives generally fair (though difficult) exams and a lot of practice material to go along with it, and his project descriptions are great. Grading takes absolutely forever and isn't always accurate on the first run-through, but I'm not sure how much of this is his fault specifically vs. his TAs. Absolutely refuses to answer any questions by course-mail/e-mail/some other online means like Piazza - he always expects you to attend office hours if you want to ask something, even if it is a simple clarification question.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/25/2021	These reviewers be like "I got a good grade, therefore herman is 5 stars!" If you can avoid him, avoid him, if you can't then I guess fight for your grade. He grades SLOWLY, his project descriptions are probably the only good thing about him. His lectures are useless, his slides for the lectures are incomplete and barely help. Exams are tough, projects are worth next to null in this class, despite taking days to complete. The TA's in this class were almost as bad as him, this class was an awful experience and I cannot wish this upon my worst enemies.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/21/2021	I get that his teaching style doesn't please everyone, he can be somewhat harsh and it's hard to ask questions. Still, he is a great lecturer and has a sense of humor. The exams are fair, project assignments are very clear. The grading does take forever though.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/18/2021	I really do not get all the 4 and 5 star reviews below, at most he gets a 3 star. So for starters his lectures are very dry, this may be due to online semester, I do not know completely. I may stun a lot of people by saying this but I believe his exams in terms of content are quite fair, almost all the topics are touched upon in the review guide and I was never like "oh wow i have never seen this before". Now the problem with his exams is: 1) Multiple choice questions with like e options where there are multiple answers and say you picked A and D when the Answer is A and E, you would in that case gain 0pts because when you pick a wrong option, you lose points. 2) He made us install lockdown and join a live zoom call, now I understand why he does this, but its important to note how extremely intrusive lockdown browser is 3) Every exam has a 50pt "find the error" type problem which is great if you find the error, but obviously if you cannot, there goes 50pts on a 200pt exam Now that isnt the only problem with this class. His projects have almost 1% weight in the class. For the hours of work required to finish these projects, they have almost no significance on your grade at all. Speaking of grades, he takes a century to grade exams and projects and then uses the "TA's are busy people" excuse. Like we have not received grades on projects we completed over a MONTH ago. Not to mention there is NO Piazza, so I can see how easily it is for students to fall when they do fall because their is a lack of help. The TA's also are most of the time complete and utterly useless when it comes to project help, not to mention the wait times were quite long. Herman also has this extremely weird obsession with the book for this class, like he will make you read like 40 page chapters of it and then test you content that was covered on the book. Herman himself seems like a Nice guy, he comes across as condescending a lot , he is very thorough in his project descriptions (the pdf handout for the projects are like 20 pages minimum). He however, does not understand his students very well and if their are other options for professors, i'd gravitate towards them, however, if you get herman it really isnt the end of the world and I am sure you will make it out fine.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/16/2021	People obviously have a lot of strong opinions about Herman. He definitely isn't the best, but I thought he was fine. Pros: 1. Informative lectures. He explains things pretty well. If you don't like going to lecture though, his slides are informative enough. 2. He's easy to talk to in office hours if you don't mind his sarcasm and bluntness. I didn't mind it, but I know some people might. 3. Curves pretty generously. 4. The Good Faith Attempt for every project was to just pass half the public tests, which I liked much more than how it was in 131/132. 5. He has a lot of memorable quotes lol Cons: 1. Grading takes way too long. Project and exam grades easily take over a month. 2. Exams were insane. He gives several multiple choice where you need to pick all the answers that apply. If you pick a wrong answer you lose points for that question. He also gives a debugging problem that's worth 20-25% of the exam grade, and if you can't find the bug or change it correctly then say goodbye to a good amount of points. 3. For some reason, the release date for a new project always seemed to be a day or 2 before another exam, so you're stuck studying but you also have to worry about a new project. Unless you procrastinated, I would STRONGLY advise putting off studying and trying to finish whatever new project is released before an exam. His debugging questions are usually related to whatever new topic the project covers. Overall I don't think he's a bad professor, but I can definitely see why a lot of people don't like the way he teaches.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/12/2021	• Having a good grade in a class doesn’t mean an instructor was good • Being able to manage a trash prof- oh I meant lecturer, doesn’t suddenly make them good Just had to put that out there towards the students who, in their reviews and group me’s, like to downplay just how shitty this instructor is. For one, he restricts the kind of material that you can use when completing projects, so that the only way to know the acceptable concepts you can use, is to watch is lectures, where he frequently cuts students with questions and says “come to my office hours” to pertinent questions. Managed to find alternative, clever ways to arrive at an answer during your projects? How cute, can’t use it, wasn’t covered in class. Imagine i asked you to compute the roots of a polynomials; anyone who’s taken precalc knows that there are several ways to do this, and everyone has a preference for which method to use. Imagine i told you: oh, you only have to do it one particular way, and it turned out to be the way that hasn’t clicked for you. Well tough luck This is only beneficial to students who have little programming experience, because, otherwise, you start filtering out lots of concepts you’d naturally internalized over your years of programming. Never in my life have I seen such idiotic modus operandi for a course, not even Intro to DS which is a super difficult course. His excuse? I dOnT wAnT sTudEnts to make mistakes that are hard to debug , as if students don’t already struggle with the concepts taught HIS way! This means that you can’t rely on learning from SO or YouTube, unless you can ensure that their methods of teaching, illustrating a concept or constructing an algorithm are pedantically similar to his ways. Tell me again how such a “lecturer” manages to earn the “hE’s hOneSTLy gOoD” review. Again having a good grade in the class doesn’t make the instructor a good one. The icing? You blow this fuss over projects that will end up having so little weight towards your overall grade. Can’t even skip some of them though, because GFA will give you to complete them. His excuse? We want you to make sure to understand the concepts as following topics will rely on them. Guess what? It’s possible to understand concepts and do poorly on projects, especially given the insanely long descriptions (that magnify the likelihood of Missing crucial details) and the self indulgently silly requirements. But who cares? Do as Larry says Now the tests: ah, ain’t it beautiful that the last question of every test is not only the longest, but also weight 1/4 of the overall test’s grade? Not only are the projects insanely painstaking (with little reward), but the exams are set up for you to fail. And he has the audacity to pretend to be shocked at the consistently low averages in the class The kicker? With all this perfectionism of his, he has no qualms about cancelling lectures/discussions to “go to a doctor appointment”, no qualms about making mistakes in project descriptions, no qualms about missing certain topics in lectures. Basically a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of person He is honestly the kind of person you’re sl disgusted at that not a single word or rant can describe how pointlessly despicable he is, and for no reason!
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/07/2021	This man will make you hate computer science. He will also make you hate yourself and the entire university.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/07/2021	He's honestly a pretty good lecturer, except for the fact that he seems super against people asking questions. And sometimes I don't really feel like I understand a lot of concepts until I watch the lectures over again, but that might just be me. Like people said, his project descriptions can seem super dense and overwhelming, but they're pretty helpful and I found the projects here to be easier than 132 (since you're doing a lot of basic stuff, just in C). His grading is pretty ridiculous, the first exam was returned over a month later and many projects are still ungraded even though we're coming close to the P/F deadline. He did, however, grade the last exam in about a week, so I'll give him that. His online tests are pretty ridiculous because of the brutal multiple choice (each question have multiple answers and you have to choose all) that he claims is only graded harshly because that's how ELMS says it has to. The averages on all our exams have been around 68%, I think. He does come off as rude and condescending, probably due to his voice, but he's honestly a nice guy. He does have lots of annoying policies like no emails, limiting questions in lectures, only submit projects once, etc. though. If you have him, it's definitely going to be a challenging and annoying class/semester, but there are certainly far worse teachers here.
Larry Herman Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/04/2021	I believe the way he teaches is honestly pretty good. If you actually pay attention to the lectures, do the worksheets and homework you'll succeed. The 3 stars comes from his inability to create an efficient grading system. I got my exam #1 nearly 1.5 months after I took it. We got it back the week before exam #2. The projects are even worse because they are returned out of order or not at all. The course is very large but if my CMSC250 lecture can grade 200+ proofs in 2 weeks I don't see why 200+ projects/exams can't be graded in less than 1.5 months.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/29/2021	Larry is a great teacher. He teaches concepts well and gives very detailed explanations of why it's so. However the reason why this review is a 3 star is because of the exams. They are completely unfair and do not accurately test one's learning in this course. Many questions are multi select and test over obscure one off questions rather than the high level concepts that are very well explained. The most you will learn in this class is from the projects where you get to implement the ideas that are discussed in class and in discussion. This class could be great if the exams were a bit more fair. In my opinion if Larry dropped the lowest scoring test and raised the project weight, this class would be a 4 or 5 star.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/26/2021	The way Larry formats his online classes is very unpleasant. The class is time-consuming and unforgiving. His lectures are OK, very boring but they get the job done. He is not great at answering student questions, cutting students off often, so go to office hours for help. His projects are fair, just make sure to read every sentence of the wordy document very carefully. The problem is that exams are very unforgiving and weighted very heavily compared to projects in the class. He is a slow grader. If you want to do well, make sure you pour in 110% of your effort.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C Anonymous 04/19/2021	OK lecturer but is highly pedantic and nitpicks projects/exams. Helps students as minimally as he possibly can in lectures and office hours, moreso in online than in person
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B abhimod 04/18/2021	The class can be difficult at times but if you start the projects 1-2 days after they are assigned you will be fine. Project descriptions are very long but reading every sentence is important if you want to get a good grade.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a P Anonymous 04/15/2021	Genuinely the worst professor I have ever had. His lectures are completely useless and boring to watch. The exams are completely unfair, with one small trivial question on each exam (minimal partial credit) corresponding to 3-5% of your ENTIRE grade. If I could give negative 5 stars, I certainly would. I would not recommend this class to anyone, even my worst enemy.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/05/2021	I had him this semester and was nervous but he turned out to be a really good teacher. The class is just time consuming, but he teaches the material really well because everything on the exams and projects is always covered in a clear and straightforward way in the lectures. I loved his lectures. His lectures waste 0 time and are super direct and packed with material (useful in online learning where you can just note everything he says, and use that note sheet as most of your studying). He is always very clear in his lectures to its easy to follow along. He gives tons of resources to prepare for exams (practice exams, homework and worksheets which are usually optional) and he really seems like he wants us to do well.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/11/2021	Actually the GOAT! I could see how some other people don't like him because he's very pedantic, especially with projects. However, because he's very exact, you know exactly what to do and there's "what if's" to worry about. Also, he provides tons of study material that, if you do and understand them, you will get at least a B on the exam. When taking him, the amount of work you put in correlates to the grade you receive.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/11/2021	Disclaimer: I took these courses in 2018. I'm a senior now. Herman was pretty much the epitome of a hard but fair professor. He can come off as kind of a dick and he certainly has his quirks but he is by far the fairest professor I've had in CS. His exams are pretty much identical to the practice exams and there are generally little to no trick questions involved. His project descriptions are extremely thorough and well written, which any upper classman would know is a rarity in this department. I don't know how he handled the transition to online but as an in-person professor he's my absolute favorite. If you're willing to put in the work for his class, you will do good.
Larry Herman CMSC216 hermanhater 12/31/2020	HES THE WORST, If you have him game over
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/29/2020	Not a great choice, slow grader, everything gets graded the last second. Everything is self-taught which has a change on grades. If you know everything pick him, otherwise stay away
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2020	I am so torn. I have come to really like Larry over the past two semesters with him (216 and 132), but I will admit he is 100% not for everyone. His project descriptions are legendary, and the projects were delightfully challenging. His exams can be difficult, but he'll curve accordingly. I think he is understanding of students when the students' sentiment is widespread. The discussion work is graded for participation which is such a nice change. He's quirky, and weird, but works really hard for his students. I see why he gets the bad rep (I did not like him at first, even completely after 132), but I personally have come to like him.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/10/2020	Tought in joint with Shankar. He's a knowledgeable guy as a CS teacher, but he never let students ask questions, and his lectures were so boring. There were a LOT of projects, and the PDF descriptions seemed as if he went out of his way to make them hard to interpret. The exams were hard, but I suspect that's standard across CMSC216 sections. Wouldn't recommend him to anyone. PS, Start your projects early. It often took students 1-2 days just to understand what the project was asking for.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/10/2020	He is the textbook definition of a lecturer that does it because they have to and not because they like it. If he does enjoy his job it is not reflected at all in his lectures. He frequently interrupted his students when they tried to ask simple questions and told them instead to go to office hours (which I was told were super busy). There were times where the questions were too in-depth for him to answer quickly, but often times he didn't give students a chance to ask the question. You can do well in this course, and if it was in person I feel like it would be a better experience, but he was almost harming accomodation for students rather than helping by restricting lectures to certain sections earlier in the semester and only lecturing once a day instead of 3 times a day like he was supposed to, which meant that if you had class during the time that he decided to hold lecture, you had to then accomodate another 75 minutes out of the day to watch his lecture. There are better lecturers than him.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 11/18/2020	Honestly, Herman is probably the worst professor I've ever had. He's not a bad lecturer but he's not great either, he shuts down students asking questions and has such a rigid structure to lectures is pretty annoying. Also the way he's formatted the class virtually is kinda annoying too, from requiring a password to access any files to how office hours work. I do feel like he'd be a better professor with an in person class but he hasn't made a good transition to online classes and expects too much out of students.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 11/18/2020	Honestly, Herman is probably the worst professor I've ever had. He's not a bad lecturer but he's not great either, he shuts down students asking questions and has such a rigid structure to lectures is pretty annoying. Also the way he's formatted the class virtually is kinda annoying too, from requiring a password to access any files to how office hours work. I do feel like he'd be a better professor with an in person class but he hasn't made a good transition to online classes and expects too much out of students.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/16/2020	Truly the worst professor I've had at UMD.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 11/16/2020	The worst professor I've had at UMD so far.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 11/09/2020	He does try to make lecture engaging, albeit not very successfully. It is possible to do well in this class, but be prepared to spend an obscene amount of time studying and reading from the textbook. He is not accommodating despite having an online semester and feels that only his class matters.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 10/27/2020	This professor has been THE LEAST accomodating professor during this pandemic. He assumes so much about his students. He assumes that if you aren't on top of everything 24/7, then you don't care about the class and you don't care about your grade. Although the university is telling their professors to be accommodating, his policies are still incredibly strict. He's also the most condescending professor I've ever had. Don't take a class with him if you value your mental health.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 09/15/2020	I love herman. He is arguably the best lecturer we have in the CS dept
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/23/2020	Although some of his rules may be annoying (no electronics, sitting in the front row always), he is a good lecturer. You just need to pay attention in class, write down the things he repeats, and thoroughly study for the exam. I would definitely recommend him as a teacher.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/10/2020	Great lecturer, has very reasonable exams and practice material, and INCREDIBLY CLEAR project descriptions.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 01/09/2020	Larry can be very monotonous, which may make it tough for people to pay attention, but he does try to make 216 easy to understand. He may seem unapproachable but if you go to his office hours, you will find out that he is a pretty nice guy. Overall, I would say he's not great, but good.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a W Anonymous 12/21/2019	I had him before for 132 and I hated him. I only picked him again for 216 because he was better than Shankar. Herman is completely boring once again and makes me fall asleep with his monotone voice. So I would have to go home and review his powerpoints and examples (since he doesn't record nor allow phones/laptops in class), which are extremely vague. I even read the textbook for goodness sake and was still confused in a class because there is so much information in the textbook that I don't know what he wants us to know for class. By far the worse lecturer I've had.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/18/2019	Solid lecturer. Awkward and strict about things but good guy. Attendance is important. He repeats key things in lectures a lot. Slides are kinda incomplete.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/18/2019	Go to class, do the midterm reviews and discussion worksheets to study for exams and you should be fine. Also, start early on projects so you can get an idea of what is asked of you before the stress of a deadline.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 12/18/2019	Herman may seem unapproachable, but if you understand and like his odd sense of humor then you'll have an easier time approaching him. He does talk very fast, but if he repeats something he says it's probably very important. His slides are super detailed, but reading the books and going to office hours will help fill in the gaps. I repeat, go to office hours, because you're going to need all the help you can get for his projects. The projects are tough but the descriptions are very detailed, so read those before you even touch your keyboard. As for his exams, you either know the answer or you don't, since you can't really look at one part of the exam to help you answer another part. And yes, Herman does have laser vision and will see through the tables to find you on your cellphone, so use your phone at your own risk. All in all, this class is challenging and Herman does a good job of explaining it. As a bonus, he gave out chocolate to random people for several lectures in a row. Additionally, he made his Halloween lecture about zombies, so if you want to learn more take him in the fall when lecture falls on Halloween.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/18/2019	Larry is awesome, and underrated as hell. Never had a better professor than him. Yeah, he doesn’t let you use electronics, and yeah, he doesn't let you sit in the very back. Who cares? That’s to your benefit. Larry is the best teacher I’ve had at this school. Nobody can explain concepts like him. He just makes everything make sense. His assignment descriptions are fantastic. Long, yes. But the few extra minutes it takes to read could save you hours of work compared to professors who don’t really make it clear what they want. He provides practice exams that include every single topic that could possibly be on the exam, so if there’s anything you don’t know, you now know that you should study it. Compare it to, say, Jason, whose practice exams inevitably leave something off that appeared on the real exam, and include something that isn’t on the exam, wasting everyone’s time. The point of the practice exam is to let me know what I don’t know! I don’t know that I don’t know something unless there’s a question asking me about it! Larry is underrated. The GOAT, if you ask me.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/12/2019	He is a fun and knowledgeable instructor. He tries to make jokes in class and explain things in an interesting way. He might be boring and strict on administrative stuff, but his teaching is beyond doubt fantastic.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/02/2019	Extremely harsh and unreasonable teacher. His curriculum doesn't make sense and makes time management extremely difficult. He assigns project due dates the day after exams and breaks. He focuses more on people not emailing him and not sitting in the back of the class more than he teaches. Very bland and hard to understand lecturer.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/17/2019	Really good lecturer. Some of his antics can be annoying, and his insistence that students sit close to the front of the lecture hall and not use electronic devices and that contact with TAs or instructors must be done in person were all silly or somewhat annoying, but otherwise he's great at explaining the material and his project descriptions are very clear, outlining every single edge case for students so that there isn't much of a need for a forum like Piazza. You'll have a very good understanding of the material by the end of semester. Would definitely recommend.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a C Anonymous 09/22/2019	Larry is highkey boring and unapproachable. For 80% of lectures I attended, I would fall asleep. He doesn't allow cell phones or laptops in class and will call you out every single time he sees it and then complains about how he has to rush through material. It probably adds up to like 10 mins of lecture in addition the times he tells people to not sit in the back rows like every 5 minutes. Also he doesn't record lectures which sucks because I learn better when I rewatch lectures and his posted powerpoints can be vague. I'm currently taking him for 216 and i still hate it lmao.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 09/09/2019	Herman is an okay lecturer. The main things he has going for him are that his exams are fair, and the graded worksheets are basically free real estate. The lecture slides skim important information, and his lectures are styled so that he asks questions, and the half-dead students give inaccurate answers three, four times, and he needs to clarify the whole concept again. It's inefficient. Just do CMSC132 under Nelson or Fawzi.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/20/2019	He is unapproachable and can be very rude at times. His grading scheme is very nit-picky, and he is very unforgiving. For example, if you don't write your name on every other page in an exam, you instantly lose 10% of that exam grade. In addition, he never releases how much he's curving, but if you ask him, the curve is based on your attendance to his class (he takes attendance everyday). I would advise staying away.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A+ StardustGogeta 06/09/2019	Larry is a fun and hilarious teacher, and I must recommend taking his class. His projects have very clear expectations and his tests are straightforward (with lots of review material provided). He is also extremely careful about what he says and takes the class very seriously. (He will correct himself in the next class if you let him know about a mistake he made in lecture.)
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/10/2019	Herman is a straightforward, clear instructor who makes lectures boring, yet comprehensible. He is very picky about coding style and his exams are very short, so it is easy to lose a lot of points. You can still earn a good grade if you do the exam practice and review the worksheets. Overall, he's not as bad as people say he is, but he is annoying.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a D Anonymous 01/04/2019	I had him for both 216 and 132. He's one of the best lecturers ever, but the classes are HARD. You're going to have to study a lot in order to do well in the class. For reference, I didn't pass 216 even while working a lot. Projects are only public test and secret test based, no release tests. Exams are fair, make sure you study from the practice exams and HWs often in order to do well.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2018	Larry is a solid lecturer. He is tough but extremely fair when it comes to grading.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2018	Herman is a great instructor. Sure, his policies initially can seem pedantic, but they are intended to help you learn. Herman not only knows his CS stuff very well, he also knows how to run a class so that the students learn the material effectively. He doesn't want you to use your electronics during lecture because research has shown that it impedes your learning, and from my personal experience, I found that I have been able to focus in lecture a lot better, and have followed this policy in my other classes. Additionally, he wants students to sit in the front and actively participate and answer questions because it actually helps you learn the material better. Everything he does is for a reason, and people who criticize him for these policies is not understanding the point of what he's trying do. In regards to his teaching style, I personally think he's a funny dude, and he does a really good job at explaining the material comprehensively and thoroughly. There are worksheets in discussion that you really should do, and he provides really comprehensive project guides that pretty much give you all the information you could ever need. His administrative procedures are very refined, so you should have all the information you need about that. His tests are also very fair; they follow a similar format to his practice exams but sometimes with some curveball questions, but you should be capable of answering those. If you want to succeed in his class, just pay attention in lecture, do his discussion worksheets, and start projects early. He's a great instructor, and you'll definitely get a thorough understanding of the material if you take him. Plus he's such a meme.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/19/2018	people who complain about his no phone or laptop policy should just try to take a different professor, i mean how hard is it to spend 50 -75 mins not using your phone? i personally like this policy as it helps me focus during class better. he can be strict at times, but he is overall a nice and funny guy. his lectures can get boring but that's just because the material is dry at times. his tests are EXTREMELY fair, as they are exactly like the practice exams. the projects (this semester at least) heavily relied on your ability to test your own program which is a practically skill in an actual job, but may seem annoying when doing actual projects. overall, i recommend herman for 216
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/03/2018	Herman is honestly one of the best professors ive had. I thoroughly enjoyed his class and teaching style. His tests were difficult but very fair. And his projects are so detailed, they can be very easy. His lectures are boring but like what do u expect, its a lecture... But i do learn a lot. I highly recommend just sitting there and listening. I barley took notes in this class just cuz his slides are so detailed, u dont need to. He also recommends to read chapters ahead of time which really helps. The worksheets are all similar to his tests. Its not that hard to pass, u just gotta try
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/11/2018	Teaches well and wants students to succeed but is an asshole to anyone who doesn't sit in the front. Detailed project notes but difficult tests.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/11/2018	Very mean guy. Would not recommend. I passed his course, but I hated going to lectures.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/03/2018	Although he does yell at students to move up to the front row, cites random studies that have little relevance to the class, and prevents students using their laptops and phones, Herman is overall a really good professor. Believe it or not, he does these annoying things because he cares about making students doing their best. If you genuinely care about learning the material and pay attention during the lectures, you can definitely succeed. His jokes and humor are different, but he does this to make his class as interesting as he can. Before the exams, he always posts ungraded homeworks and practice exams, and for our 3 exams, the review material was similar to the real thing. Between taking Pedram and Herman for CMSC132, I got stuck with Herman due to scheduling and was initially upset, but looking back, I am glad that I was and would take Herman over Pedram if I had to do it again.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 02/15/2018	He makes silly jokes, feels very passionately about very specific things (like sitting in the frontest row possible), but overall he's a good instructor. His project descriptions are super clear and that's fantastic.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 01/02/2018	Overall he's a pretty good professor that knows the material, however that being said the way he does tests is completely arbitrary with one having to know some minute detail that he covered for a brief time during his monotonous lectures. His projects are actually extremely well done and are very straightforward with him having a project description for each several pages long. But even if you pass all of the projects 100%, while it should give you insight into his testing methods, it does not. Herman I'd also completely unapproachable and hates being bothered for anything other than administrative reasons (which he will reiterate almost every lecture, yes really). If you had to choose between Herman and another teacher, Herman is actually a solid choice but be wary that his tests while not overtly difficult, are extremely roundabout and arbitrary.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/30/2017	Not the most entertaining professor and a bit dry but overall learned a lot during the class. The project guidelines are extremely detailed and specific which is very nice. Exams are fair.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a D+ thunderd568 12/23/2017	Nice guy but as a teacher, very ineffective. He's too by the book, doesn't explain things in a conceptual way but instead the technical way. He made CMSC 216 a painful experience for me. Tried to befriend him and he wasn't having it. I followed his advice on how I could be successful in his class and I missed the curve by half a point... He likes to cite studies that were done that show how to improve students learning and I followed every single one of them. I sat in the front row, I got to know him on a first name basis, I asked questions (and sometimes he would answer in a condescending way), and participated as much as I could with his worksheets. Find a better option.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/14/2017	Gives ample resources to study with (lengthy practice exams before every exam and the final) along with detailed solution guides. I don't think anybody could possibly write better project descriptions. They can be upwards of 10 pages long, and cover literally everything you could want to know about how to write it. I have never had any confusion in terms of not knowing how to handle a certain case in a project due to this. Exams aren't difficult if you study, but you will certainly have to know some small little details for each exam if you want to get an A or above on them. Definitely recommend Herman for 132/216/anything else he's teaching
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/30/2017	Full disclosure, I was initially biased against Herman at the start of the semester due to a few exchanges I perceived as callous and unnecessarily severe. As a few other reviewers have said, he can come off as unapproachable and abrasive. But since taking his class, it's obvious that he is a good professor that puts a lot of effort into teaching. If you pay attention in lecture, take notes, and do the readings, you will do great. Herman simply demands that you put effort into the course to get a good grade. His exams are fair if you've been taking notes and doing the readings, and projects are a non-issue if you start them early enough, and pay attention in discussion when debugging tools are covered. Essentially, attend class as expected, learn, do the readings, and you'll do fine and learn a great deal in the process. If that much effort is too much, then take another professor who may have lower standards.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2017	If someone actually gives herman a 1/5, they are in for a rude awakening as the program continues. Herman is a strong lecturer if a little dry, and has very clear project descriptions. His exams are fair and do not try to trick you, if you do well on the projects and pay attention in class you will have little trouble with them. Likely one of the best professors throughout the CS program as a whole.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/19/2017	I've found Larry to be fairly entertaining and his lectures are useful. His project descriptions are extremely in-depth, so you have to read a lot, but I think that makes them fantastic. I think his exams and quizzes are fair once you start to figure him out and what he's looking for you to know. It seems like people either love him or hate him, but I love him.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A AnnieS 12/13/2016	Very un-engaging lecturer. Lots of self-studying required. Tests and quizzes are nit-picky and unexpectedly difficult, and grading can be inconsistent and unfair at times. Projects are too time-consuming, changed at the last minute a lot of the times, and graded in a way so as to maximize the points you lose. Doesn't grade in a timely manner at all. Focuses too much on just insisting everyone stick to his banal policies and strict expectations. Unapproachable and abrasive at times.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/13/2016	DO NOT TAKE THIS MAN. Disclaimer: I understand that many like his style; he's very clear on course expectations, covers almost all content in class, and is a good programmer, conveying concepts clearly and effectively. STILL: He's boring. Beyond monotonous and un-engaging. I know that sounds like a me problem, but it's nigh impossible to focus on him for the whole 90-ish minutes, and so many times the tested material is in the small details of what he says, or the tools/materials he explains briefly - and then you find yourself playing catchup. Also - always changing project requirements, sometimes to the last day or so. He jokes that this is the only class you should worry about in your semester, but it's painfully true - projects are a pain in the ass if you don't start right away and know what you're doing each time. Tests are a little unfair - practice material either isn't sufficient or doesn't reflect the difficulty of quizzes, etc. Unapproachable AF. Lots of self-studying is required despite his teaching style. This semester they added a lot of material, and so he just kind of charged onwards, covering all these complex threading, library function, etc. concepts and making them a significant portion of the final. Don't expect any grade-related leniency, or leniency in general beyond one excused absence.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a C thunderd568_ourumd 12/08/2016	Herman is NOT my kind of professor. He is too by the book, uptight and relies on you to learn the material by reading a text book (again not my style). Personality wise he is a great guy. I would like to work WITH him some day but I have no intentions of taking him for a CS course again. His projects were fairly simple. I finished them well before they were due all the time, he always has the best TA's as well. His quizzes and exams are designed to trick you (a methodology I do not advocate) and his lectures tend to be a little dry. He uses the slides like a script. I am relying heavily on the curve just to make it out of his class. Take that for what it's worth.
Larry Herman CMSC250 Larry_Loves_All 01/18/2016
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A- Bucket_hats 12/21/2015	He's awesome, but his timing of assignments often left the class scrambling to get things done. If you can figure out how he runs his class and writes his tests, then you're good. Work hard and you'll do fine
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A lordwill753 05/06/2015	Larry Herman has his pros and cons, but overall I thought he taught the material well. PROS: -Very detailed and course oriented. Almost never goes off on tangents. -Likes to use funny analogies to explain concepts in class, which helped me remember more clearly. -Projects were fair and were more practical than the ones I did last semester for 131. -Exams were generally easy, and stuck to the practice problems he posts on ELMS. -His obsession with koalas is hilarious. CONS: -Tends to be abrasive and mean in class sometimes. God help you if he catches you with your phone more than once. -Typically doesn't fully answer questions from people in lecture because he claims he needs to rush through material, leaving people even more confused sometimes. -Not exactly the most approachable or nicest person around, which might discourage people from going to office hours. You'll learn in his course, and you'll learn a lot. But Larry isn't the nicest guy around.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/06/2015	I’ve only taken 2 comp sci classes at Maryland but I definitely learned a lot from Mr. Herman. Starting with the cons: Mr. Herman means well but seems to lack skill in social interaction (unless he is disciplining someone). He never seemed to want to look me in the eye when I tried to ask him questions before or after lecture, and talks like a robot at times. He is not the greatest lecturer: he repeats himself often and kept saying that he was "behind" for the last 5 weeks or so of the semester. During that time he didn't really ask if there were questions on the new material, but is very responsive if you go to his office hours or ask for help outside of class. Very strict about the "No laptops or electronics" policy...he kicks people out of class for texting during lecture. I think he got his count up to 20 between two of his three lecture periods when I was in 132 with him. Switching gears though, Mr. Herman is very knowledgeable about Java and the computer programming paradigm. His lecture slides are an amazing resource, sometimes better than the textbook (which, for 132, I highly recommend you get, even if you’re a Java expert, as it contains a lot of powerful concepts and goes into detail on some foggy areas beyond the 132 curriculum that are still good to know).
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/14/2014	I would like to start off by saying that Herman is not as bad as many people say. I feel that most of the low reviews he gets are from freshmen who are not prepared for the amount of work this class will take. With that being said, I will give you as honest a review of him as I can. Keep in mind that this is my second high level programming class (I'm an EE major so I already saw many of the concepts presented in this class in my 150 class) I'll start off with the bad. Herman can be kind of an asshole at times. He follows his syllabus to the letter, so if he specifies that he will only answer programming questions in office hours, HE WILL ONLY ANSWER THEM IN OFFICE HOURS. Like even for simple yes or no questions, he will only answer them during office hours which can get really annoying. His exams are another negative point. For a 100 level programming class, I felt that there were unnecessarily difficult, and this was having already seen most of these concepts in another class already. His exams are often extremely specific, sometimes testing concepts that were only vaguely mentioned during a lecture and are often unnecessary to know for practical programming purposes. With that being said, Herman is an extremely good teacher. I honestly thought he was a good lecturer, may not have been the most interesting but hey, you try and keep this stuff interesting through 5 different lectures of the same topic. If you want to be successful in this class, go to his lectures as much as possible. I would also recommend using his office hours a lot, not because he will only answer questions during them but also if you ask him a question then you will get a detailed and thorough answer that will almost surely help you. Like I said, I have seen most of the programming concepts presented in this class in a previous coding class, however, I still found his projects to be rather straight forward. If this is your first high level programming class I would suggest starting early, but you should not have difficulty completing them on time and getting a good score on the project. Overall, I would recommend Herman if you really want to learn the topics presented in 132. Yes he is an asshole, but it will be worth putting up with because you will learn a lot.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2014	People give Larry a hard time, but I don't think he's too bad. I find his expectations reasonable, and I think he does a pretty good job of teaching the material. That said, he's kind of a jerk. His classroom rules are ridiculously strict, and he wastes a solid 5-10 minutes of every class yelling at people for using cellphones in class or telling people who walk in late that they should attend later lectures. He's not a particularly approachable teacher, and even discourages asking questions because he fell behind on the course material. I feel like I'm learning a lot from Larry, but the actual classroom experience is pretty annoying. Despite my objections to the way Larry approaches his teachers, I disagree with the reviews that say that the class is too difficult or that the workload is too much. The projects give me a greater understanding of the material and the tests seemed like a good barometer of my knowledge. Not an easy class but appropriate for the subject matter.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/25/2014	At first, I really didn't like him, and I never really got over annoying things that he does such as go over administrative stuff at the start of each lecture and calling out anyone on their cell phone during class. He's not necessarily the nicest person ever, but he is an extremely smart person and does a good job explaining things. He posts 3 old exams before each midterm, and the tests are fair and not hard if you prepare for them. If you regularly attend lecture and did well in 131 you should be fine even if you get 'stuck' with Larry in 132. At the end of the day he's a smart guy and good teacher
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B watergems 08/23/2014	I had a problem with Larry Herman's lectures. (1) He lectures off slides that are sketchy and incomplete, speeds through them, often flipping before students who write really quickly can jot down notes, and refuses to post slides in advance so that students can prepare for how he speeds through them and take notes on the slides themselves. (2) He uses vague ambiguous, conceptual verbiage that doesn't convey the underlying technical specifics so that you can learn the material in a concrete way from his lecture delivery. For example, on joining concurrent threads: "A thread can wait for another one to terminate by calling join(). public final void join() returns when the thread it's called on quits" There is no specific technical information in that passage that tells you what to do or what is happening in the software. Here is the kind of specific, technical language that is more helpful, from in the tutorials on docs.oracle.com: "The join method allows one thread to wait for the completion of another. If t is a Thread object whose thread is currently executing, t.join(); causes the current thread to pause execution until its thread terminates." Yet, Herman teaches with fuzzy, untechnical language but tests to a much higher level of technical rifor than he lectures with. (3) All the students in the class who have language disabilities or communication disorders are completely swamped with trying to make sense out of his terrible lectures off sped-through slides and ambiguous language, and finding alternative instructional materials/spending days in the tutoring lab inorder to compensate sucks time that is frankly unavailable to CS students. (4) HIs tests are unreasonable to an absurd degree. He tests on variable names that are in example code that come as side downloads to his lectures. His use of variable names in such side code downloads is nonstandard. The amount of pedantic memorization he requires is excessive.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a C Anonymous 06/24/2014	Way too much work for a 4 credit 100 level class. Larry seems to forget that some of us are taking other classes. I am seriously not one to complain about work overload as I am usually pretty good at time management but good god this is another level of crazy.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/29/2014	Herman is possibly one of the worst computer science "instructors" at UMD. From day one, I came into the class not expecting much after reading most of the reviews on here and on Course Eval. Larry is one of the rudest people in the entire computer science department and always has a smug look of discontent on his face when he teaches in his monotone voice. His tests border on unfair. He gave our section a test in which the average was 15 points lower than the other sections yet he didn't curve it or even acknowledge it. He takes attendance by forcing students to sign a sheet which in the end did nothing, he punished students for asking questions which were on the "course information posted on ELMS," he talks about rules and guidelines for 20 minutes every class and then complains about not having enough time for questions. Overall, I would NOT recommend Herman and ask that you stay away, as far away from this man as possible if you want to do well in CMSC132.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A umdee 04/25/2014	Decent professor in terms of communicating the material. Most of the other reviews cover his unique style like the no electronics policy, taking attendance every lecture, and not letting students sit in the back. At first I hated his style, but later on I realized that the way he teaches drills the material into your head and forces you to pay attention. If you attend most of his lectures and sit in the front and pay attention, I guarantee you'll get an A. His exams were fairly straightforward, but the only thing I didn't like about them were the extremely specific details to which questions were asked. He would change one little obscure thing to see if you really knew your stuff. Annoying, but manageable. Overall, Herman is decent at teaching. Sure, he's not the best or most exciting professor out there, but he gets his job done provided you, the student, do your part.
Larry Herman CMSC132 titan89 02/02/2014	There is a reason larry has the worst average gpa for this class. He is a very bad teacher and your best hope is to get a good TA. Dont take him if there is another option. His exams are impossible and the average for the final was a D. He will try to trick you or put long instructions, MAKE SURE YOU READ THEM CAREFULLY. Even if you miss one detail that could make you end up with a C. Avoid this guy at all costs. He is monotone as well. People who say he is good for 216, well he should teach that class then. To the guy above me. WHATS YOUR POINT? 1) All the professors in universities teach as much or more than herman does. There no excuse for him reading off slides the whole lecture and then testing on one concept he went over for 30 seconds. He cant teach period. 2) You got a B so you have no right to say his exams arent hard or tricky and people should have done better. Why dont you try taking a good professor who can actually teach like fawzi or nelson and then compare them with herman. 3) Again you got a B. Maybe you shouldnt be in CS by your own standards. Try taking a guy who is actually interested in teaching his/her students like fawzi and nelson.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/27/2014	Here are the points against him, and I'm going to give you reasons why those things are not true, or don't matter. 1) He is boring. Yeah, YOU try teaching 9 lectures a week and tell me if you can keep all of them interesting. What are you expecting? Entertainment? He's here to teach you and it's your responsibility to learn. He's nice and is always helpful in office hours. He moves deadlines if the class says they need more time. That more than makes up for class being "boring." 2) He tries to "trick" you on exams. They're not tricks if you know what you're doing. Do you think you'll get hired anywhere if you don't know what you're doing? 3) He makes you work "too hard" for an A. People who don't like Larry are either not good at working hard or don't want to. If you don't want to, you probably shouldn't be in CS. His exams are just difficult enough that you have to study the material and understand it on a deeper level, and that's not a crime. If you want to coast through classes, you probably shouldn't be in CS.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting an A Turing 07/24/2013	Two semesters ago I took CMSC 132 with Larry Herman. I hated it. Every word that came out of his mouth filled me with aggravation and contempt. I thought he was an egotistical, straight edged jerk not to mention being completely boring and seemingly condescending to students. I was dreading the previous semester knowing that he was the only teacher for CMSC 216. As every other reviewer has mentioned he does in fact take attendance, force people to sit in the front, prohibit electronic devices during lecture, etc. He will also ask the trickiest, exception-to-the-rule questions on tests that are generally the difference between an A and a B. Some of the projects can also take a pretty good amount of time and probably average to about 20 hours or so but can be done in a lot less time with good planning/understanding. However, if you don’t know what you’re doing, he tends to not include some of the key details on his slides so you will not be able to get a lot of the practical information unless you are regularly attending lecture even though he says that the “lecture notes will be posted on line so you don’t need to take notes” which most students mistakenly interpret as “you don’t need to come to class”. Yet as the semester went on I slowly came to the realization that he was actually doing almost all of these things to the benefit of the students. As was noted in a reviewer below me noted, the no-electronic policy forces you to pay attention with the exception of an occasional text. Preventing students from sitting in the back gets them closer to the material and allows him to police for devices better. His stringency on the honesty policy is annoying on face value, but definitely one of the most annoying things are when people who have no understanding of material get credit for things other people came up with, so his strictness could be out of respect for the students that are actually doing their own work. His attendance taking is also not in the grading policy, so lack of attendance will not directly affect your grade. He claims to use it simply as a statistical study on the grades earned versus attendance, but I also suspect that he uses it for curving. For example, he will be much more likely to curve up a grade from a B+ to at least and A- if he sees that they have attended almost every lecture. Almost any time a good portion of the class is in jeopardy of missing the project deadline, he will extend it even though if the whole class wouldn’t have been remiss in their responsibilities as students and started even a few days earlier they would have been fine. He always assigns them with ample time in the first place. Ample. Also, early in the semester I discovered that I had a scheduling conflict with the final exam and he said that it wasn’t a problem and let me take it with three other people at a later date. I also missed a quiz and hadn’t notified him or the TA until the day of and he still allowed the zero to be replaced with the average of my other quiz grades. Concerning the lecture material, he is good. He is always well prepared and he always drills the important parts that you need to remember. Always. Drills. Knowing these drilled points should secure you a B in the class. To achieve an A in the class, Larry expects a mastery of the subject material. He expects an A to signify Excellence, unlike other classes where A stands for Average and anything below that stands for Stupid. Therefore, Larry is a great teacher. Anyone who argues otherwise is either too stupid to get the grade they want, or too arrogant to put in the work he requires. In short, if you are smart and willing to work, you will like him and you will do well. Or even if you don’t like him, you will at least respect him, and he will do the same for you. No question about it.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/21/2013	Despite what other reviews here say, I Larry Herman is one of the best teacher I've had in the CS major. It's fair to say that Larry can be strict and "by the book". He does forbid electronic devices during his lecture, doesn't allow students to sit in the back, and taking attendance at every lecture. If you're looking for a class to sleepwalk through, you aren't going to do well under Larry. He fully intends to educate you, whether you like it or not. For those who put in the effort, Larry will "go the extra mile" (his words) for making sure you understand the content. This desire to help students took the form of extensions on half of the projects this semester as well as providing extra TA office hours as project deadlines approached. Both in lecture and office hours, Larry could be extremely friendly (not to mention downright funny). Throughout his lectures, Larry also made it clear where he was going with the content. One never failed to understand why he was illustrating a topic. CMSC216 can be a difficult course. However, Larry makes it seem a lot easier. It was a pleasure to take the course with him. I wish he was teaching CMSC330 this fall.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 04/30/2013	STAY MILES AWAY FROM HIM. It doesn't matter how smart you are. You will get stupid points taken off because he is so nit-picky. He is the most unfair professor I have ever seen. He is so disorganized and doesn't keep his word about anything. He is the devil. I wish I could give him zero stars.
Larry Herman CMSC330 Expecting an A+ dfarias 03/02/2013	I can understand the people who really dislike him, because he can be quite harsh. However, in the end he is quite competent as a teacher, and provides good resources online through worksheets and slides. He also teaches pretty well. If you have to take him over a mediocre professor, it'll be fine as long as you use the resources available.
Larry Herman CMSC132 installgentoo 02/12/2013	The short review is as follows: Larry Herman is good at teaching but terrible at conveying his expectations. You need to understand and memorize EVERYTHING he mentions, even in passing, to excel in the class, and you need to start on programming projects much sooner rather than later because they are deceptive when you first read the description. In detail: Mr. Herman is the best lecturer I have had in the past five semesters. In addition to knowing the course material, he is typically capable of conveying it to the class. His M.O. is to lecture using PowerPoint slides, asking the class if they understand before he discusses examples. MOST of these slides are posted on Blackboard a few days later, but they often have questions without answers on them. The examples that he presents in class are always basic illustrations of the topic at hand. He also maintains the class's interest when he talks about the more pedantic aspects of OOP by seamlessly working brief, amusing comments into his lectures. On the other hand, however, I must remark that the class is heavily geared toward audial instruction. That is, the "learn by doing" aspect of the class is lacking. I was disappointed that there was little middle ground when it came to the difficulty of assignments. While the worksheets in discussion were similar in difficulty to the lecture examples, projects were significantly time-consuming. Part of this may have been because while I personally learn best by reading the book/writing code, the text for the class only discusses data structures, and not other topics covered in the class (Out of five, only the second and third projects focused predominantly on creating data structures. The first was a review of CMSC131, the fourth was about graph traversal, and the fifth was about multithreading, I/O, and connecting to the Internet). Furthermore, tests were obnoxious, in the sense that perhaps 20% of each test dealt with trivia. In the case of the final, this took the form of, "Do you happen to remember this fact about Java that I mentioned offhand halfway through the semester, and that you probably never used when you were completing the projects?" The rest of each test was either writing code or tracing a program. The grading is stringent - I recall losing 8% on the second exam because I implemented (correctly) an O(n^2) algorithm instead of an O(n log(n)) algorithm. Basically, in most cases, it does not suffice in this class to get your program to compile and function correctly; you must also write it efficiently and know other ways you could have achieved the same functionality. All in all, Mr. Herman has been my second-favorite teacher at UMD (after Prof. James Schafer of the Math department), and a few, but not all, of my complaints about the class are not his fault. I was actually signed up for Mr. Emad's section of 132 at the beginning of the semester, but I switched out immediately after sitting in on one of Mr. Herman's lectures. Best decision so far of my college career. One final note: as you progress through the class, make a condensed version of your notes to serve as a rudimentary study guide for exams. It will be very helpful.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Don't_Take_Larry 12/08/2012	DO NO GLOSS OVER THIS REVIEW BECAUSE IT'S LONG! I've been right where a lot of you are right now. I'm sure there are a lot of you reading this review to see if "Mr. Herman" (don't call him Dr or Professor) isn't terrible and you can suffer through his class. The answer is no. Look there are some cases where Larry has shown some compassion to individuals, but I haven't witnessed it. I've had him for both 216 and 330 and both classes were made more difficult just for the sake of being difficult. Project descriptions will range from about 10 to 15 pages that is mostly filler that will take you over an hour to sift through. Somehow, the descriptions still end up being vague and don't bother emailing him or asking on piazza. Instead of just giving you a simple yes or no for what is usually a simple question, you will most likely be told to look somewhere in the project description that doesn't help you, or give you an answer that is completely vague. He's just a stereotypical awkward computer science professor that's liked by some stereotypically awkward computer science kids. Some of his exam questions will focus on a topic from lecture that was covered on a single slide for five minutes in lecture. All that most of us should be trying to take from these programming classes are better programming skills. We shouldn't give two s#!t$ about some of the obscure topics that his exams can and will likely focus on. Don't expect to get any grades back for months and you may not until the end of the semester. Most likely I'm going to get a high B in his 330 class and I got the same in his 216 class the previous semester. I'm not bashing him because I'm going to get a bad grade. I'm not even bashing him because he's a terrible lecturer. I'm writing this because he should never be put in charge of a class. He can lecture fine but he is terrible in regards to every other aspect of being a professor. Anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. To sum this up with a simple comment: DON'T TAKE HERMAN! WAIT A SEMESTER TO TAKE THE CLASS!
Larry Herman CMSC216 Expecting a B- ashivkum 11/12/2012	Larry Herman is a very kind-hearted guy, as much as you think otherwise. The poor guy shattered his vertebrae last semester (for those who had him for CMSC216 Spring2012) and missed the first 3 weeks of class. He might have been a bit cross last semester, but that would be due to all that stuff he was under (medicines, etc.). I tore my ACL this semester, and I have him for CMSC330, and he was more than understanding of my plight, allowing me generous extensions on almost all the assignments that I turned in. I hated to try to push the deadlines for him, but there were times I had to. However, he is a wonderful teacher, and will answer your questions during the lecture at a specific time. When you ask a question and he says "We'll get to that", mark my words, he will "get to that". And far from being a douche or a dick, as many comments here described, Herman is doing his job as a low-level CS Professor, being harsh on the kids who are in the weed-out classes, those who think Computer Science is something easy you can BS your way through. I highly recommend this professor for future classes.
Larry Herman CMSC216 Anonymous 05/23/2012	Herman is a fine instructor. Not great, but far from the terrible instructor that some of the reviewers suggest he is. He did a good job teaching CMSC216 and didn't really rely on the slides. He doesn't get 5 stars because he's somewhat boring and can act a little harsh at times.
Larry Herman CMSC216 NotAnonymous 05/03/2012	I had him last year for a class and did poorly, and back then I would have given him one or two stars.. this semester though, he seems to have improved a lot. He definitely intelligent, and knows the coursework and material really well. He often asks questions and encourages students to participate, and his lectures are a lot more entertaining now than they were back then. However, he can be dickish and may be hard to approach, but he's far from the "useless lecher" that the other reviews make him out to be. Things to remember: 1) if you go in there expecting to hate the class because he's cocky, monotone, etc, you've pretty much just made a self-fulfilling prophecy. 2) he's not the "best teacher ever", but he's really far from the worst. 3) Call him MISTER Herman. He is not a professor, and he is not a doctor. He gets surprisingly touchy about this.
Larry Herman Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/28/2012	If you have to take a sequence course for your major that is not related to Computer Science. Do NOT take CMSC102 with Larry Herman. First off, this was his first year teach this course so he didn't know what he was doing or how to present the material. Just like the other reviews state, he start off rambling on and on about something in his life (which of course is fine if he actually presented the material in a way we were paying attention). His monotone voice will just drag you away from the lecture. The material itself is interesting, but no where near interesting presented by Herman. He just jumps everywhere and the notes he posts online aren't even what he explains in class or goes into detail about. Then when it comes to exam time, the material there were things he never went through. Btw, don't expect reviews by him for the exams. The only thing that will save your grade in this class are the 6 projects in class, just because you can't get them wrong. He doesn't grade anything, its all the TA (who you never meet). The only thing that makes you come to class are his clickers, which are irrelevant questions. There was one point where everyone complained about his way of teaching and the difficulty of the course because of how he taught, but he laughed it off and didn't address it. Just save yourself a semester of a 1hr30min class.
Larry Herman CMSC106 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2011	I read the reviews below before taking 106 with herman and was very surprised. I thought he did an excellent job teaching the course. Granted 106 is supposed to be easy so maybe that is why I thought he did a good job. I almost never had to open the textbook because all I had to do was listen to lecture and then I would have everything I needed to do the projects. He was mildly funny and kept the class engaging. To be honest if you actually go to class arrive on time and pay attention you should be able to learn from him. The projects were nit-picky, but that is because he has a program grade them to ensure accuracy (But I must say most of the projects were pretty easy for me, although many of my classmates struggled). The tests were a little more difficult just because I find it hard to write code on paper (you have to write a short program for most tests). Quizzes in discussion were announced and generally just quickly reviewing the previous two lectures would give you enough information to get ~36/40 on the quiz. Seriously if Herman is the worst lecturer in the CS department then the department must have the best lecturers on campus because he really wasn't that bad. P.S. go to class and pay attention it really helps even if you don't think it does. I also took CMSC131 with Herman: Same as above pretty much, a lot of people just have no logic and do not belong in computer programming classes (or the major). Logic cannot be taught, and if you don't have any then go away, you are annoying to the rest of us that can actually figure things out. Seriously, he does a good job, if you don't excel in his class it's not his fault, you just aren't capable of the programming logic approaches, which is okay, just change majors. For CMSC131 Do not buy the textbook, I always buy my textbooks, but the Java book is a waste of money, EVERYTHING IS ONLINE: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/index.html
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 12/04/2011	Insufferable prick.
Larry Herman CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/02/2011	Wow - these reviews are funny to read. Larry is extremely precise with the material (reason for long project descriptions, too), which makes learning what the code does really easy, and he's very clear about how he wants to be interacted with as an instructor and what he expects of you. If you keep your cell phone away, come to class and actually pay attention, and go to his office hours when you want to talk to him, he's just fine. He seemed a bit harsh on students with certain types of questions at first, but if you get used to the fact that that's just his manner and don't ask questions that he's already answered when you weren't paying attention, no big deal. He's pretty amusing as well, just has a dry sense of humor and is a little bit awkward. I would definitely take a class with him again.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 05/24/2011	Lectures: In most of his classes, he starts out by talking about something in his life (or ends up talking about it), which is fine - if I weren't paying for classes! It takes up time, and sometimes he doesn't go over as much as he wanted. He absolutely hates if someone's using a laptop or phone in class, which is understandable...but he sounds like a douchebag when he asks someone to put it away. He usually goes over his slides by reading them, and not really adding to them. If he does add to them, write it down, cause his quizzes and tests are nitpicky. He rarely writes on the board, and if he does, make sure you're in the front, cause he writes small ! Quizzes: I don't think he writes his own quizzes. The set up of the worksheets usually have nothing to do with the quizzes. Don't focus on what the worksheets are on, cause most likely, it's not gonna be on the quiz. There were only 2 times where the class knew what the quizzes were on. He doesn't even really give the TAs a heads up on anything, so the TAs are clueless until the day of the quizzes. Also, most of the time, the average on the quizzes are around 20-25 points out of 40, so don't give up... Homework & Projects: Don't ever ever turn anything in the night it's due. If the server goes down, he may or may not give an extension. Try to get all the points on the Homework, cause that will help your grade. Even though you only need to get HALF of your tests working on the projects, try to get 60-70%, cause his TAs might rule out some of the public tests that you thought you passed. Plus, going above the minimum means you'll probably be above the curve. Try to get some secret tests done, too....cause some people don't do those, and that's about 30 points. TA: Try not to get Gleneesha, cause she'll just point on the board at code and expect you to understand what it does. She doesn't really explain anything, and if she does, it's not thorough. It makes me think she doesn't know anything. Granted, I heard all TAs sucked, especially for CS, but it'd be nice to have someone who DIDN'T have to Google some answers in front of you... Books: Don't bother buying them. I bought them halfway through the semester thinking they'll help, but I have yet to actually use them. Half the class didn't buy any, and they're doing fine. He also asked the class (of those who bought them) if they were useful, and everyone said no. Don't bother.
Larry Herman Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2011	A friend of mine put it really well: He's not a bad guy. He's not trying to make his students fail. He just has an inherent, undeniable need for everything to be rigid and exact. Projects were easy. Tests were nitpicky and thus difficult. Lectures weren't difficult to follow, but were difficult to learn from, if that makes any sense. To do well in his classes you have to adapt to how he teaches. Pay a lot of attention to detail. Don't dismiss anything as something that he "probably won't test" because he probably will. Just understanding the concepts won't get you very far.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A awesomeblosom 02/21/2011	I'd taken this class before in high school, so I was decently well off. If I hadn't taken the class before, it wouldn't have gone so well. Herman is a very dry teacher, who doesn't teach very well. He knows his stuff, he just doesn't know how to convey it very well. I'd advise against taking him for higher level classes. Book is not neccessary, just look things up on the internet.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting a D Anonymous 01/26/2011	Larry Herman is THE WORST Comp. Sci. teacher I have ever had. Please stay away from him, and avoid him at all costs. He has a very monotone voice and he will put you to sleep no matter what. He is a very cocky professor and expects the worst from students. He would always expect students to answer his questions wrong, but they would say the right answer so then he would reword the question so no one would understand it. He always emphasized that the Honors class did way better than us, but the fact is that they did better because he was not teaching the Honors section. Quizzes averaged around the 50-60% in our class, and it was solely because he does not explain concepts well. If you have no choice but to take the class with him, expect a lot of self-teaching and expect a lot of stress. He assigns projects that are always half-assed and is always revising them up to the last second. He says "Umm...um...um..." a lot, and he makes awkward comments to girls. Overall, he is a very awkward person and he seems to be the only uninteresting Comp. Sci. professor. Quizzes are easy if you learn everything by yourself. Exams are graded in a strict manner so it is really hard to get a decent grade on the exams (1 midterm, and the final). Besides wasting time trying to figure out how the projection boards work, he goes off in tangents. Most of the class stopped attending his lectures, so he started taking attendance. So people went to the lectures just to sign the attendance sheet. He will call you out if you have your laptop out, if you are sitting in the very back, if you come to class late, or if you leave early. He is extremely annoying and rarely sympathizes with you (except if you are a girl).
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/17/2011	Herman is a good lecturer. I had taken AP Comp Sci AB and gotten a 5 coming into this class, so I knew a decent amount of the material beforehand. His lectures are generally well done and he knows what he is talking about. He has some weird habits though. Whenever something goes wrong he will always make up like 100 excuses as to why it's not his fault. He's kind of pompous, but class was pretty enjoyable. The quizzes were pretty easy imo, but the class averages were always terrible (25-30). Look over the past couple lecture slides before the quiz!!! The midterm and final were both very fair. Homework & Projects: Do NOT wait until the night before it's due to start. Seriously, don't. The projects and homework are all doable, but they will take serious effort on your part. You will get stuck, you will have to redesign code, you will have to use the debugger, and you will have to read all the specifications beforehand. That being said, it is possible to do well on all the projects. I got 100% on all the public tests for projects. I can't comment on how the office hours works, I never had to go to them. TA: Gleneesha was a pretty terrible TA imo. I went to most of the discussion sections, but I only learned a couple things from them. The worksheets that they give you in discussion are useless, I would just use the time to study notes and work on projects. Books: Overpriced and not needed. The internet is the only resource you need. Overall: I thought the class was pretty good. Herman has gotten some pretty awful reviews but I think a lot of them are frustrated students who didn't put enough effort in the class.
Larry Herman CMSC132 sallen429 01/13/2011	Boring... Pedantic... Out of touch with students... Laurence is a crap CS teacher and avoid him if possible. He turned me off to the field of compsci and after his class I changed my major.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 12/19/2010	Larry is easily one of the most boring professors the CS department has to offer. While some professors' tangents can be a nice break and funny...Larry's are not funny. He teaches in a way that, I think, is very hard to understand--and Java is already a very abstract concept. With less examples, and more powerpoint slides, you're almost on your own. If you end up with a crap TA...good luck.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/17/2010	So larry is NOT a bad guy at all and he is sometimes very funny in class with his jokes during lecture, but beware if you have him prepare for lots and lots of stress. The beginning of this course proved to be very easy because before the midterm exam (end of october) all we had were 2 quizzes, 1 homework, and 1 project. Note that the grading system is sooooooo stupid that if you make a mistake that doesnt even make an impact on your work, you WILL lose alot of points. So be careful and read the directions because even if you show that you understand the problem and explain it very well, you will lose full credit if you dont follow the exact directions. That is what happened to me, i lost 2 letter grades on a quiz on something that stupid even though i clearly understood the problem. After the midterm he just threw everything at us at once, all the hws, projs, and quizzes giving us barely anytime, he had to give a hw and a prog at the same time over thanksgiving because he had to fit it all before the semester is over! I had no problem with this because i knew the material already but for those who dont know the material, your pretty much screwed. Also office hrs are always packed so go early if you need help. I took ap programming in high school and i understood every single topic in the class but yet i still couldnt get an A+. The reason is because of the grading again. It is just terrible and he is very slow at getting your work back. It is december 17 and only 40% of our grades have been posted. We still havent gotten back our proj 2,3,4 and hw 2,3 back yet which is the majority of our grade. Plus the TAs do not know what they are doing. Most of the time i think im smarter than them. If you want an A or even a B you must know the topic before you take the class, or else you are pretty much screwed. I had to go into office hours many times to correct some stuff they weren't clear on. One of the secret test was written wrong for project one and i had to argue it too and i still dont know if he changed it because he hasnt updated the grades yet. All programmers know that when comparing objects you either return a negative or postive number or zero. On the stupid secret test they wrote it so that it checked to see if you did -1,1 and 0. That is wrong and i had to tell Mr. Herman. Plus the submit server doesn't work all the time so turn in your projects early. The problem with not getting our many projs and hws back is the fact that we cant go in to see Mr. Herman to see what we did wrong cuz the semester is over!! so if i find out that they graded something wrong (which is very likely) contacting and arguing will prove to be so much pain. So over all this class will be easy yet stressful for those who know the subject and a horrible nightmare for those who dont know it well. So good luck to those taking this class!! You're going to need it haha
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 12/01/2010	While it is obvious that Larry Herman knows his stuff, classes weren't all that interesting and sometimes dragged on. His examples seem almost insulting - I think he would be able to get his points across quicker if he explained concepts using graphs and diagrams rather than drawing reluctant volunteers to the front to do something for him. He isn't a terrible person, not at all, but I also wish he would answer simple questions (such as small questions about the syllabus) via email. But I think he has the right to ask that project-related questions are asked during office hours, since it takes a while to sit down with someone and debug a program. My biggest problem with him though is that he started giving the projects late, meaning that we're getting one less project than the syllabus indicated and having back to back projects. And he takes forever to put up the lecture slides! I think it'd be better to put the slides up BEFORE the lecture and then editing them after! It would make it much easier for everyone.
Larry Herman Anonymous 05/03/2010	The way this guy lectures is not a problem. If you're focused and got enough sleep, you will probably be able to follow along well enough. It's the way he operates the class that is the problem. He does not answer emails. What business does this guy have teaching in a Computer Science department when he refuses to use one of the most basic facilities of a computer: email? It's not like he doesn't know how. He sends the style scores for your project and he will sometimes actually reply just to tell you NOT to send him emails. It doesn't really make much sense. His course web site is not very helpful. The syllabus is on there with the exam dates, but if he changes them you won't know unless you go to class. And he probably will change them. He won't announce it on the page. He won't send an email about it. So if you skip a few classes you can end up missing an exam. I suppose it's somewhat clever to passively force students to go to class, but what boggles my mind is that he does update the front page with info that has nothing to do with the class like "Techfest in CSI lobby." His lecture slides are useless. Which brings me to another point about the web page - You need a password to get in. You need a password to look at his useless slides. When the semester is over, the password stops working so you can't look at projects or anything from the previous semester as a reference. He puts a half-useless web page on lock down for no good reason. His tests and quizzes are essentially designed to make you lose points. They are filled with multiple choice or short answer trick questions that you pretty much have to memorize the answers to. You are NOT going to remember everything. It's impossible unless you dedicate your entire life to every word that comes out of his mouth and every trick question that could possibly be on the test. The projects are rough and time consuming, which is understandable. But this guy makes it worse. He sometimes doesn't post a project on the submit server or the public tests until a couple of days before it's due. He also changes the due dates and details, or corrects mistakes about the project almost at the last minute. I have a feeling he is probably procrastinating and making it all up as he goes along. Teachers for other programming classes don't seem to do this. This is the only programming teacher I've had so far who constantly has this problem. He takes too long to grade stuff. He leaves the responsibility of grading everything on the TAs, and they take forever to grade the project style worth 15% of the project grade. I don't blame them. They are students. They have their own classes to worry about too. This guy could at least grade some of them to speed things up. He curves everything at the end, but he takes forever to post stuff on the grade server. You wont have any idea what your true grade is. He doesn't post the class average. If what you currently see as your grade doesn't look good, you won't be able to know whether you are failing or not until the semester is over and there's nothing more you can do about it. So all in all, it's like he wants to make sure that everyone is as stressed out and in the dark as possible. And whatever research or non-teaching activities this guy is involved in is obviously far higher on his priority list than this class. Quite frankly, this is not a good learning environment.
Larry Herman CMSC132 Anonymous 04/28/2010	Herman did not make the class enjoyable whatsoever! I slept every single class until I discovered the Diamondback crossword puzzle. He needs to show more enthusiasm and be able to effectively teach the class. Also, he wasted a lot of time pulling teeth for random questions directed at the class. There was only one person in my class who actually was able to keep his eyes awake long enough to pay attention. And that guy just happens to be the biggest computer geek I've ever seen. He literally had the projects done two days after they were released. Everyone else just quietly and miserably failed.
Larry Herman Expecting an A Anonymous 12/28/2009	Herman is an ok lecturer. As someone as said below, the material itself is very boring as you are just learning the C language, because a language is just a language, there's not really any way to make it exciting. Herman is also pretty fair in terms of the curve at the end of the semester. I had a low B according to my grades, but he ended up giving me an A. So it is definitely possible to do well in his course even if it seems like you are doing pretty bad, which it will. So you're probably wondering why I gave him 2 stars because so far my review has been ok. The reason is that he is probably the rudest teacher I have had so far in my time at CP. If you try to contact him in any way he will most likely come up with some terse, scathing reply that basically says "I hate you for contacting me. Just go away, you're wasting my time". I have heard so many stories from my friends of emails they have received from him that were completely out of line or times when they've gone to office hours and he blew them off or didn't help them at all. Also, Herman will try to make you fail at every possible chance. His quizzes and tests often have very specific questions designed to make people get the wrong answer. His project specs are almost always at least 8 pages long, all in paragraph format, just to make sure you miss some details that he can catch you on in the secret tests. For style grading, he tells the TA's that they can only take points off in increments of 2. So if you made some small mistake it's automatically at least 2 points off, not 1. The bottom line: Pros: In the end, your grade in Herman's class will probably be better than you expected since he curves a lot. Also, you will learn a lot of practical knowledge about makefiles and low level programming that will be useful in internships and you will become pretty good at C programming. Cons: You will be miserable throughout the entire semester because you will be working on 212 projects all the time, and you will get at most a C on all the quizzes, and you probably won't do as well on the tests as you do in other classes. And Herman will be there all the time, acting immature and being as rude and sneaky as possible.
Larry Herman Anonymous 12/24/2009	This professor is the worse professor I have ever had. Its great that 212 will be discontinued after spring semester. If you are in 212 for the spring semester I beg you to GET OUT. He makes it hard to do well in your class. This semester he decided to put multiple-multiple choice on the test, everyone fails the quizzes, projects build (and you have to fix the prior one for the second to work), discussions don't help, and doesn't post the statistics of the class so you dont know if your failing above or below the curve.
Larry Herman snooki 12/23/2009	Having taken the same class with him twice, I think some of the reviews here are probably out of sheer bitterness. Despite failing once and retaking the course, I really don't have any angst for the guy. The sexist remarks from other reviewers are unfounded. I'd say there's more difficulty in the material and lack of enthusiasm one can have for the material, but I wouldn't fault Larry for that. In all honesty, I think Larry was an okay lecturer. 212's material itself is pretty dry and bland (or at least low-level programming isn't that interesting to me). He really doesn't read completely off the slides, I think. I went to all of his lectures this semester vs. the previous semester and there definitely was a lot of stuff he mentioned verbally that shows up on quizzes and exams. This semester he had a no laptop in class policy which I do applaud him on. He really wants you to focus on the lectures which I'd say are pretty key to passing. Just reading the slides without going to class isn't going to work well. Oh, and be sure to actually read the textbook (unlike 131/132). It's quite helpful. The projects were pretty tough to get into. They aren't exactly interesting either. Gone are the days of the 131/132 pretty interfaces. He's very specific in his specs, and they turn out to be VERY long reads (pages of information). I find working backwards from the public tests he gives you and re-reading the sections specific to each individual functions help. And of course there's office hours which is unfortunately usually busier as the deadlines for the projects approach. The projects do consume quite a bit of time, so start early. Exams aren't too bad. He definitely asks random questions about things he might have barely touched on in class. These questions aren't worth a lot, but it is still annoying to lose those small points. This semester, he seemed to test less topics than we actually went over, which wasn't exactly a bad thing. I just wish some of the other things we learned had more purpose than just learning it for the sake of learning it. Some stuff didn't even show up in projects, for example. However, during lecture he does ask the class these random questions once in a while that nobody answers which often show up on quizzes or exams, so be alert for that. He prefers seeing you in person to ask even the simplest questions. Often you can ask him a question in lecture or via e-mail that could be answered in a sentence, but he says to come to office hours anyway. I've also heard of people who were told to come back later when they come to office hours, so he sometimes is hard to reach (allegedly, haven't witnessed it myself). The curve at the end of the semester is pretty generous though. Even getting a low 60's could possibly turn out to be a C. Of course the curve varies each semester, so your mileage may very. In all fairness, yes he's a bit rough around the edges and the material isn't exciting, but he and the class are basically the gatekeepers of you reaching the 300-level courses so learn to deal.
Larry Herman CMSC106 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/05/2009	1. Larry Herman teaches at a snail's pace. And by that, I mean an elderly snail that has trouble being mobile. This class is a non-majors CS course, so it goes slower than most CS classes. But the pace at which Larry Herman explains things is simply intolerable, even for someone who has never encountered computer programming. Yet Herman does not even teach effectively. He follows the book closely but does not present the material in an effective manner. He writes long explanatory sentences on the board but does not actually describe what they mean. 2. He loves to make the class more irritating than necessary. He doesn't care about his students at all. I found discussion useless since I program in C and Java at my job but didn't feel prepared enough to test out of 131. However since unannounced quizzes were given in discussion, so I had to go. Yet Herman forbade the TA from telling ANYONE when the quizzes were. So each student was forced to either (a) go to every single discussion where the TA (who was horrendous, by the way) mumbled insensibly for an hour or (b) try to guess when the quizzes were and attend discussion on those days. Personally, I thought professors and TAs were supposed to make learning easier, NOT harder. 3. Tests and quizzes are fair and well written. 4. Projects are fair, but he has an annoying way of saying important things during lecture. For example, due date changes announced the day before Thanksgiving break. Too bad I had a plane to catch. And he never, EVER e-mails out these important little details. He WANTS you to come to class for some obscure reason (aka feed his pride), since his lectures are useless and boring. Clearly he cares more about you coming to his lecture than about you succeeding. 5. Projects and quizzes are not returned in a timely manner. Herman doesn't seem to realize that his TA is the worst grader possible, and when told so, he takes no action on it. 6. Class website is easy to use and well-organized. The textbook is useful. 7. He is a fair grader.
Larry Herman Expecting a B Anonymous 05/21/2009	This class is terrible. He is so boring and is just so proud of what little power he has, it is disgusting. I mean, every class is boring, so you can power through that, but the disrespect that comes with this man is intolerable. A few examples of his pompous nature: 1. We talked about revising a project due date, but never actually confirmed because he does not like to give the impression that he'll listen to our concerns. He never changed the due date anywhere, because he only wants people who come to class to know. So in desperation to finally know when it is due, a student emails him asking to confirm the due date, (a simple administrative question), he responds, "We discussed this in lecture. Don't email me." Well, how about you just answer the question? 2. Deducting points from your final grade for not picking up graded materials. Honestly, who cares? This is just another power trip for him. 3. The overall requirements. I have lost 10 points for minor errors in style(1 character past the 80 limit), and different versions of the compiler from the submit server can seriously mess your grade up, but that's something you can't really control. It's hard to avoid Herman, so just prepare yourself.
Larry Herman Expecting a B Anonymous 04/01/2009	Jesus. He is quite possibly THE absolute worst and most boring professor in the history of western civilization. Reads right off the lecture slides and does not really teach that effectively to say the least. Favors girls, probably because he cannot hide his lecherous tendencies. Projects were so freaking boring but the tests were fair. As other posters said, he is the definition of being inept socially, so do not approach him during office hours. I bear no hatred towards the man, but honestly - he is quite unassuming and horrendous at managing this course. If you are a girl (hot or not) you will get an A, no questions asked. Try to take this course with another professor... taking it with Herman is the definition of FOOLISH!
Larry Herman Expecting a B Anonymous 01/12/2009	This guy is awful. Problem is, he owns 212. I went to the first 3-4 lectures, and that was it for the semester. He reads straight from his lecture slides, which are not updated anually. Quizzes for the most part were very bad because he focused on very specific issues. However, the tests weren't too bad, as they tended to cover the bulk of the material. Projects were okay except for the long project specs (14 pages +, easy to miss some of the details, and hard to get motivated to start them). Also, he updates project reqs right up until the project is due without pushing back the due date. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Larry Herman is NOT approachable. Don't bother going to his officer hours, sending him an email, or even talking to him after class. Stick with talking to the TA's. Recommendation: Avoid Larry Herman.
Larry Herman Expecting a B samolang 12/17/2008	I don't know if it is possible to make 212 interesting, but I found his class to be incredibly boring. Too boring to pay attention more than half the time. You have to memorize a lot of stuff for the tests. Most of the stuff you learn will be reused when you take 311, so I would suggest actually taking the time to learn it.
Larry Herman CMSC106 Anonymous 12/17/2008	I thought he was great. His exams were fair, no trickery, and he gave many practice questions and all his old exams. The projects weren't hard, and he was extremely approachable during office hours. If you went to class and he knew you worked hard he was willing to help with anything. Although sometimes on the boring side, he is an effective instructor and taught difficult material to us non-computer types clearly. Other posters say he is partial to girls...I am a girl, which could have been the reason for my positive experience
Larry Herman Anonymous 12/16/2008	terrible teacher and completely unapproachable. don't bother sending him emails or even asking him questions in office hours. the exams often included small details that he only mentioned once in class and was maybe on the lecture slides. the projects are revised many many times after they are posted and the secret tests, which are released after a project is due (or, a lot of times, are not released at all) are petty much impossible to pass (because the project descriptions are 15 pages long and the secret tests might test one small aspect barely mentioned in the project specs). AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!
Larry Herman CMSC250 Anonymous 08/06/2008	I second that the guy is anal. You should avoid him as much as possible ...trust me , start planning your schedule from avoiding any of his classes ... You will regret the day you decided "Oh, well, this class fit into my schedule"
Larry Herman Expecting a C Anonymous 05/27/2008	The GPA distribution doesn't really reflect the difficulty of his class. To compensate for the horrendous grades, he curves a C to around a 50%. Herman creates a sizeable portion of his tests on material he mentions in passing. The projects are often revised, many times uncomfortably close to the deadline. Unless you are either a girl or happen to personally know Herman, it is unlikely you will receive helpful information from him. Unless you nag him to death. Its not really possible to avoid his class, but I would be prepared to compensate with any of the above. Also, listen closely to his lecture slides. I hear most of the exam material is covered when nobody is listening.
Larry Herman CMSC250 Expecting a B pluralfacade 05/17/2008	He was pretty good at teaching the material. However, appraoching him outside of class is out of the question. He just does not seem to want to help people, and even gets angry when you send him emails asking about the homework. Tests and quizzes were pretty fair though.
Larry Herman CMSC250 Anonymous 02/13/2008	Herman is not a bad teacher; you will likely understand some material from lectures and take some solid knowledge away from the class. His tests were also quite fair in this class. He is, however, completely unapproachable before class, many times shrugs people off during office hours. He wouldn't even let me ask him if I could come to an earlier lecture session, because he was "too busy." He is also VERY partial to girls, often fawning and flirting.
Larry Herman Anonymous 12/25/2007	I found his projects fair, but his tests were difficult because he tests you on non-important, very subtle things about the C language. Public tests for projects were sometimes incorrect. Was not very approachable before class. Takes him forever to get graded assignments returned. His lectures are boring and monotone. I wouldn't recommend him.
Larry Herman Expecting a B Anonymous 12/12/2007	Just had Herman this semester, and he was OK...Previous poster is right about him being anal, but his class wasn't hard. The most annoying part was the projects - they were really time-consuming and he would change the specs even up to the day before the project was due. I learned a fair amount. Aced his exams, but only did average on the projects because there's no release testing and the secret tests are graded AFTER the final due date of the projects...made me miss 132 a little bit, lol.