Michael Hicks

This professor has taught: CMSC330, CMSC388A, CMSC388B, CMSC388I, CMSC388Y, CMSC388Z, CMSC389N, CMSC396H, CMSC433, CMSC631, CMSC798, CMSC838G

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Information	Review
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Expecting a P Anonymous 07/28/2021	Dr. Hicks is nice enough but lectures too quickly IMHO. Maybe he was different before COVID tho. The TA's however are amazing, especially Shilpa, and got me through projects, quizzes, and exams. Projects are difficult but not too bad if you start early. My advice, watch the discussion videos
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2021	Hicks lectures very quickly, but is willing to field every question. Project expectations and due dates were clear and fair, although some of them could be quite time consuming. Exams were easy enough and from lecture, and quizzes were announced and were challenging.
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Anonymous 04/06/2021	The class is pretty chill, but I have a feeling he lectures way too quickly to try and cover alot of material.
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Anonymous 03/04/2021	His lecture is boring, and you wouldn't understand anything. Anwar Mamat is way better
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/11/2018	Great lecturer - he's very clear and easy to understand. He wants the best for his students. If you reach out to him when the workload is unreasonable, he will try to adjust the coursework/scores accordingly to help his students succeed. However, do not expect him to help you if you are slacking.
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/19/2018	Lecture: Prof. Hicks uses slides mostly as an outline, and occasionally uses the whiteboard as well. In some cases he edits a slide temporarily for examples. He's really helpful in clarifying concepts to those who ask. As of spring 2018, Prolog is being replaced by Rust in 330. I believe Dr. Hicks had a major role in this decision, and for that I'm bumping this to 5 stars. While I didn't find the material too challenging or interesting, going to lecture did not feel like a chore at all.
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Expecting an A zaqu413 05/16/2013	Lecture: Dr. Hicks rarely used the lecture slides, but posted them online. Most of lecture was going over the concepts and answering questions, he likes questions. Projects: We had 5 projects, 2 with Ruby, 2 with Ocaml and 1 using Prolog. Overall they were pretty difficult, except for the first project, it wasn't very hard, but was very long. You really need to start the projects within a couple days of them being due, the concepts are more theoretical in this class, in 131/132/216 everything was fairly straightforward. Discussion: We had 5 quizzes (announced) and they were generally on the easy side, just testing basic knowledge of what was going on during lecture. I had Richard Johnson as my TA, he was very helpful. No discussion programming projects. Exams: We had one exam on Ruby/NFA/DFA/Regex/CFG and maybe some other stuff. This exam was pretty straightforward and easy. The second midterm was on Ocaml/Operational Sematics/Multithreading, this exam was pretty hard. The final was a little easier than the second exam.
Michael Hicks CMSC433 Expecting an A collegeguy752 04/28/2011	Great professor, excellent teaching style and attitude. Very helpful with in class examples and study guides for exams.
Michael Hicks CMSC433 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/02/2011	Hicks is a nice person and a very reasonable professor who knows his stuff.
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Expecting an A collegeguy367 07/07/2010	Professor Hicks is, in my opinion, one of the best professors the computer science department has to offer. He is interactive and engaging with students by focusing more on sample code and examples generated in class rather than simply reading off the lecture slides. He even makes the boring material seem interesting. Also, he is very receptive to his students and will try to answer most questions in class, or will come back the next lecture with a solution to a question. Hicks focuses his material around student needs rather then curriculum requirements. I really enjoyed his CMSC330 class, and though it was very difficult, in my opinion, his teaching style was very effective and helpful. I will definitely be taking other classes with this professor including CMSC433. Highly Recommended!!
Michael Hicks CMSC330 Anonymous 04/15/2010	Professor Hicks spends the lecture showing examples of code (which he generates during lecture) of what he tries to teach, while also posting lecture slides (which he doesn't really use in class). Ultimately, I found this style really helpful. It promotes attendance and understanding because you get to see the concepts in action if you attend class, but you also have the slides to refer back to. I enjoyed Hicks as a professor and plan to have him as a professor again.