Michelle Hugue

This professor has taught: CMSC250, CMSC411, CMSC420, CMSC798

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Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/19/2024	I took Meesh's class in 2003, and TA'd for 420 twice. You can blame me for the XML input the projects still use today. Meesh was the best 400 level professor I had. I learned more in her class than any other at UMD.
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Anonymous 03/14/2022	Stay away unless you are only choosing her class for the semester.
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/12/2022	This lady is very rude and condescending to her students who are simply trying to ask questions. Her attitude made it an environment that was difficult to learn- or want to learn for that matter. I did well in the class, only because I worked hard; she was not a good resource whatsoever!! Exams were absurd and incredibly long.
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Anonymous 02/20/2022	She doesn't teach anything. She simply uses other teachers lectures and YouTube videos. Her exams are INSANELY long (20 pages) and take insanely long to actually complete. If I had the decision to go back in time, even if other professors didn't have space, I would choose another class to completely stay clear of this professor.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/23/2021	Life was made difficult and inconvenient by the 20-page examinations issued over the course of the semester. Resources were lacking and the professor would post videos that were sometimes not even in English. You think the class is synchronous as it is listed like that, well think again its asynchronous, does not have actual lectures just bootlegged youtube videos. You won't learn, you'll probably pass though.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Anonymous 11/22/2021	If you are trying to take any class with this prof, you are making the biggest mistake of your life. To simply put it, 1: you waste your time 2: you waste your money(tuition) 3: you learn nothing whatsoever 4: you will stress out trying to do a 20-page long exam(6 of them) without being thought anything. Computer architecture(CMSC411) is good for computer science students, however, if it comes to taking it with this professor, you are better of noting taking this course. THE WORST PROFESSOR EVER EXISTED.
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/22/2021	The course structure is confusing but she did check Piazza quite often. The exams are long but are graded leniently. Projects are pretty straightforward (mostly because of Mount's lecture note).
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/18/2021	Simple put, a terrible professor. I regretted taking this class with her - worst decision I ever made. Don't be like me because even if you get a good grade, you will literally have no free time and not learn a single thing.
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2021	Meesh doesn't teach. Simple as that. You're on your own to learn the material for this course. It's not hard to get an A because the grading for the exams is so weird (as long as you write something down, you'll get at least 1 point for a problem) and the projects are pretty easy. But if you have the option to take literally anyone else, do it.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/26/2021	Avoid taking this course with Meesh at all costs. You won't learn a single thing and you will waste your precious time doing 20+ page long exams multiple times per month. Even Yoon is a better option than this professor. Stay clear! Not taking 411 at all is better than 411 with Meesh.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/08/2021	Horrible. Absolutely horrible. No idea how the department still has her on staff, given the abysmal experiences in her classes.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/06/2021	Worst professor I've ever had. She literally doesn't teach at all!!! If you have any thoughts of taking a class with her, you should look at the tons of 1 star reviews below this to show how terrible of an instructor she was. DO NOT TAKE HER.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/04/2021	Taking this class with Meesh was an incredibly disappointing experience. I knew going in that it wasn't supposed to be a hard class and that it could be a bit disorganized, and those things are both fair enough. This class had a LOT of work - six exams, of which only one was dropped, which gave an exam pretty much every other week. Each of them were about 20 pages, and finding the information was difficult. Grading took forever as well, so it was hard to know how you were doing in the course.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/31/2020	Complete joke of a class. There are no lectures, just links to youtube videos from other random sources online. There is no communication with students. The tests are painfully long and the questions are sometimes pure nonsense. They are also filled with typos (including due dates because they are copied and pasted from previous semesters) that won't be addressed for days if at all. Anyone on here giving above a 1 star is just happy to pass the class with minimal effort, but as someone who also wanted to learn a little bit this was a complete waste of my time and tuition. I was warned all of this before taking the class but ignored it all because I wanted an easy passing grade, and here I am writing the only review I have ever felt the need to write. If you want to learn computer architecture I recommend doing it on your own, you will be much more successful that way.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/14/2020	Completely fails to teach anything- uses other universities lecture slides and gives exam questions which have nothing to do with the provided notes.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/13/2020	Terrible. I don't care that I got a decent grade. What's the point if I did not learn anything? I don't even know what Prof. Hugue looks or even sounds like. All of the class materials uploaded for the course were from a Youtube Channel "Prof. Dr. Ben H. Juurlink" or random websites that contained somewhat "relevant" information. Even the slides she uploads are not hers! The "short" semester tests are anything but short -- the tests got progressively longer, starting from 12 pages to 23 pages (really?!). Would never recommend this class to anyone that wants to actually learn something.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/13/2020	This semester we had 6 "short" exams that ranged from 12-22 pages long each. Class materials were given to us via youtube links. She also was too lazy to fix mistakes in the exams and material she gave us. Overall, not too hard to get a good grade, but the tests do take a considerable amount of time.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2020	This course should have been foundational to my computer science learning but the way the course was executed was below average. The grading policy was changed from the syllabus after the she discovered the one on the syllabus was not an accurate reflection of our scores (it would curve us down). Worksheets used for learning had answer keys with several mistakes. There were no concrete course materials to rely on as each week we were sent links (some of which didn't work) and those links did not help very much with the worksheets or tests. I'd say we were actually taught nothing through this course and that the process of doing the exams (which were open note and internet) was the only way a student could learn and students would have to google their own resources because the given class resources were hardly helpful aside from SOME of the worksheet answer keys (which as I mentioned earlier were poorly explained examples and contained several inaccuracies). Her responses to genuine questions on piazza were rather defensive which made many students not want to ask her questions. The tests determined 90% of our grades were so long-- I spent over 24 hours working on the last test and at least 12 hours on all the other ones (there were 6 short tests that were all 12+ pages). I guess I could summarize the course in that it wasn't necessarily hard but it required students to go far above what they needed to. It felt like she was not the professor of this course and that we did not have a professor at all.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/13/2020	6 exams, each like 20 pages, no lectures (actually zero), just YouTube videos and stolen slides.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Anonymous 12/13/2020	If you want to waste your time doing a bunch of 15+ page exams filled with typos, this is your professor.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/13/2020	She is not good at all. Like please, don't take her if you don't have to. You will not learn much at all. My knowledge of comp arch is very scattered because of this "self teaching" approach, and with no real structured lectures or anything it makes it hard since there's a lot of seemingly conflicting information. Speaking of conflicting information, her notes/worksheet answers are just straight up incorrect sometimes. Overall, a very disorganized course, and if you want to learn something you should probably take it with a different professor. I don't really know why she still teaches.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2020	Do not ever take a class with her if you value your time or sanity even the slightest bit. I would say "this is by far the worst professor I have ever had," but she doesn't really even qualify as a "professor" in any real sense of the word. There's no lecture, and she gives 30-page exams based on material she never taught, riddled with typos and logic errors because they are never proofread, usually with massive sections plagiarized from other courses at other universities. The exams take hours to complete, if you want an A then be prepared to spend well over 80 hours doing independent research to complete them through the semester. Also be prepared to be yelled at if you ask a reasonable question on Piazza, if she deigns to answer at all.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/09/2020	The absolute worst professor I have ever had for any course. Unbearably long exams, horrible communication skills with her students, questions on exams that make no sense, "short" semester exams being 22 pages (we had 6 exams). She is not a professor. She simply writes exams and grades them, that is it. The TAs do nothing, she does not lecture, and she is rude as hell in piazza responses. Avoid her and this class. Take it if you want an easy A, though it may cost you your sanity
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/04/2020	This is the first time that 411 was taught fully online from start to finish and..... It was not a fun time at all. Friends of mine said this was a relatively easy class because you just go to lecture and take the 2 exams. But this class is online. From the beginning, Dr.Hugue posts weekly short worksheets with the answers, youtube videos by another professor at a different university, 5-10 pages from the textbook that won't help you on the exam at all, quizzes that are very vague and don't really cover the material on the exam, and with a cherry on top, doesn't lecture at all. Within the first week many students including myself had asked her how we were supposed to study for the exams, and many students including myself either were told to look at the given course material, or never received a response. There were 6 "short tests" (In reality they were 6 part tests with 1 being 20 multiple choice questions and the other 5 were 8-15 open response questions with a sentence or more each). She only grades the 5 highest tests too. I will at least say that the course material does help you to answer 3-5 questions on the exam. But that leaves pretty much 90% of the exam to be answered by googling questions for 8-12 hours in order to get a B on each test. I have to assume that if she would just hold lectures that it wouldn't be this bad, but since she either doesn't know how to do remote lectures or make lecture videos, your pretty much left to google all the answers for the tests. On the bright side you can pass the class with a 55% because that is her cut off for a C-.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Anonymous 12/04/2020	We took a poll on piazza: Do you feel that the class materials adequately prepare you for the exams? Out of the 75 votes, 95% said No and 5% said Yes. We then asked for some instructor commentary on the post after it closed. It has been 1 month now and we still have not received a response.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/03/2020	Meesh is an awful teacher. I went in knowing that the class was at least a little disorganized, but it was beyond that. Grading was slow, the tests (6 of them) were all about 20 pages long and take home over three days, and the questions were always somewhere between confusing and trivia. Course materials weren't much better, and piazza responses to fair questions were rude, if they were answered at all. I don't recommend you take any class with Meesh.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B- Anonymous 11/22/2020	Don't take this class unless your a fan of 20 page exams full of poorly taught information that take literal days to complete.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/08/2020	She is not a teacher but a photocopier, or this class should be "How to use search engines" but not "Computer Systems Architecture". She just gives out tons of youtube links and that will be the class. No lecture! You have no idea what the test will be on. We post a poll on piazza and 95% of students agree that the class material is not enough to take the test. IF you are good at GOOGLE, then choose her!
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Anonymous 10/29/2020	Awesome teacher all around. Overall great class.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2020	Pros: * prof answers questions on piazza * prof provides good practice problems * easy to get an A in the class (or at least very difficult to fail) because there's five different grading methods (your final grade in the class is max of all five possible final grades) and you will get at least one point for each question that is answered on an exam (ie you can only get a zero for a question if you leave it completely blank). * class is curved Con: * in lieu of lectures, the prof provides several links to mostly relevant material so this course is purely self-taught
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a P Anonymous 05/15/2020	Meesh is an enigma. This was the first semester that 411 was fully taught online. We weren't able to learn anything in the first week of classes because she didn't know how to hyperlink her files in ELMS. All Piazza questions were answered vaguely and in long mistyped formats that usually included her having conversations with herself before arriving at an "answer" which was usually copied and pasted from the syllabus (which was also confusing and vague). She had weekly worksheet assignments that you would submit on Gradescope. All her weekly "lectures" were readings from the book and YouTube videos. She never actually lectured or recorded herself lecturing and when students asked about this and if she could lecture she would respond with a very long and confusing post ultimately saying that she didn't think it was necessary and we should use our skills as students to use our resources (YouTube) to teach ourselves. If you actually watch the YouTube videos, you will learn something. I found it interesting and actually learned a bit but there was no real use for it as the exams were almost copy and paste from her practice exam and the weekly worksheets. However, you won't have enough time to finish the exams because they are 30 pages long. She doesn't expect anyone to finish the exam and grades it based on the highest score. She also drops an exam including the final. You won't fail this class, but you might not learn from it and more than likely will be confused and get a headache if you actually have questions for her. I spent a solid 4 weeks not knowing what was going on and I'm pretty sure she didn't know what was going on either.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/13/2020	Meesh is not a teacher. Meesh is a course coordinator. She sends students on a scavenger hunt looking for course material and then expects them to complete massive exam packets as if we learned enough from her to be able to complete even a portion of them. Instead of providing recorded lectures or even lecture notes, she links to other professors' lectures (I don't think she got permission), and random articles that are completely irrelevant to the questions she asks on examinations. She is very lazy and refuses to answer small questions because she answered them before, and you have to find them on her out of date ELMS pages. When I asked her a question about how things were being handled due to the move online (COVID-19), she gave an extremely rude response, giving the excuse that these things should be obvious when they are clearly not. Just the worst experience I have ever had in a class at Maryland. In fact its not a class, its paying close to 2000$ for the right to take exams.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/12/2019	Perfect professor to take if you want to simply pass the class. I studied 3 days before both midterms and did perfectly fine. The exams are very long and you aren't expected to finish them. However, you should attempt to write something for every single question because you will get partial credit as long as it's not blank. The class is online now so you are given a ton of readings/videos and one homework to turn in each week. I never read any articles or watched any videos. The homeworks are graded for completion and are worth 5% of your grade. To study, simply read over the answers to the homeworks. As long as you know a little bit of the material, you should be completely fine. To pass, you need a 55%, which is incredibly easy to achieve.
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/17/2018	this class is hard as hell. She doesn't come to class. So all of the lectures were on google hangout. Really struggled in class
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/17/2018	You will not learn anything by taking this class. Past exams saved my life.
Michelle Hugue Expecting an A Andrei 11/11/2017	Great professor. Don't let the stories bother you, you actually learn a lot. Somehow.
Michelle Hugue Expecting an A mike 11/11/2017	One of the most interesting professors I have had at Maryland. She knows the material well and she cares a lot about how her students do, both in the class and in life. However, she often goes off on tangents and talks about her personal life. Some people like this and some hate it. Her tests are very strange; she gives you extremely long tests that almost no one finishes and curves them insanely. For example, about a 60% is an A. So as long as you focus on what you know, and know most of the material, you'll do fine. There are also a lot of pretty fun projects.
Michelle Hugue Expecting a B- tomriddle 11/11/2017	Pretty interesting person but that is about it. You will not learn anything from her... you will have to learn it on your own. This isn't so much a bad thing, but it makes you feel like you waste going to class. Half of her class time is spent telling stories while the other half is spent with her somewhat teaching the material. Tests are extremely long and hard... she curves the test using a bell curve pretty much. Projects are interesting but she isn't very helpful if you need help, use the TAs. Quizzes are very easy but do not prepare you well for her exams. One more thing: read the instructions on her assignments and exams, and answer every possible question you can on the exam (she gives some partial credit for somewhat sensible answers)!
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/18/2016	Meesh... I have no idea how I feel about her as a professor and whether or not I recommend her for 420. Pros - You may not have to attend a single class besides exams - She gives out project extensions always - She genuinely cares about her students and about you succeeding - The exams are really fair - since they cover a lot of material you are bound to do well unless you don't know anything at all - She calculates your grade a bunch of different ways and picks the best one - If you do well on the first two parts of the project and both midterms you can skip the third part of the project as well as the final and still get a good grade Cons - The project is pretty hard and time consuming - You won't learn that much from going to lectures due to her ADD/Dislexia. Wish she recorded her lectures because she actually is really good at it when she's lecturing and not telling stories - You won't learn that much about data structures if you take it with her Overall, it depends if you like teaching yourself everything or if you like learning by going to lectures. I prefer the latter and think I may have been happier if I took the course with someone else. I will say that Meesh is an awesome person and with a few small modifications I think she could improve the class. It wasn't necessarily hard but it definitely wasn't easy either. You'll have to put in considerable work (at least on the project) to do well
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Anonymous 05/22/2015	She is responsible to her students and is always willing to help. The project was ambitious but interesting! Design a Google Map by yourself!
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting an A Click 08/02/2014	Ok first let me say I am graduating right now and I am currently working for Google and I took Meesh for my CMSC 411(fall 2013) and 420 (summer 2014). On my job interview( for Google) the interviewer asked me about how did i do in Meesh classes? I am just telling that to let you know guys she is really famous. Yea she has ADD and she is talking about her life during the class but trust me all of the material she is covering are going to help you a loooooooot. Yes her Exam are really long and long and long but there are lots of materials that you know about them and you can get points for that. trust me take her class go to the lectures and study the materials she is giving to you! (Also there are some links like UNIX tutorial which I found it really useful take advantage of those too in your free time. If you are not working hard and dont try to teach yourself trust me you dont have any place in computer science world
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting an A+ zaqu413 08/14/2013	Lecture: So Meesh has ADD and at first you might think "Why bother coming to lecture since she just goes off on random tangents all the time?" Well you should go to lecture because: 1) I actually learned a lot during lecture, not sure how, but I learned, the ADD moments might have actually kept me somewhat engaged and 2) the ADD (at least for my semester) seemed to start off terrible and get better as the semester progressed. Projects: So you are essentially writing MapQuest (well a low key version anyway). The project is broken into 3 parts and builds on itself throughout the semester. You really need to do well on the first part so that you have a good idea of what is going on, people who slacked on Part I were at a great disadvantage for Parts II and III. The project will take a lot of time, but won't be particularly difficult so long as you do the readings and understand the data structures you are creating. I can't stress this enough: THE PROJECT WILL TAKE UP A LOT OF TIME!!! Exams: If you read the other reviews you will notice that her exams are really really long. Use this to your advantage, if you don't understand a question just skip it, there is no point wasting time trying to decipher a question. I would also suggest never asking questions during the exam, it takes too much time and you could be answering questions you know the answer to instead of waiting for an explanation from the TAs or Meesh. Don't worry, she curves like crazy, I had something like a 78% and got an A. Book: Meesh posts a lot of stuff on her website. Use those resources, they are very helpful. Do the readings, they will really help you understand the intricacies of the data structures (and sometimes provide pseudocode). Misc: I took the summer version of the course, which had the projects shortened slightly, but topic coverage was the same. I also worked 20 hours a week at my job while taking this course and managed an A (although I spent almost all my non-work/non-class time working on the projects).
Michelle Hugue CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/12/2013	This professor does not teach,she uses years worth of material stored and maintained by TA's in lieu of teaching. Time is spent performing administrative tasks in class, telling stories, cancelling class, and talking about how much she "cares." The truth is she doesn't care because students are walking away from her class thinking they have a good understanding of the concepts taught. With a general bit of knowledge and the heavy curving on the tests you would have a tough time failing tests even if you tried. Don't waste your time with this professor if you want to be successful in the field, use your time with professors like Dave Mount or Samir Khuller.
Michelle Hugue CMSC250 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/26/2012	This class was one of the more boring/frustrating ones that I have taken here at UMD. It seemed like the curriculum we covered was just all over the place, and I didnt feel like I learned much at all from this class. The graduate teaching assistants for this class were not good at all; they didnt care very much about the students and were horrible at grading exams. A lot of people found 5-10 points worth of mistakes on each of the exams, in addition to the fact that many of the points awarded were subject to the grader's own opinion, rather than actually getting a right/wrong answer. As for Dr. Hugue, most of the stuff mentioned below is true. She is pretty crazy, which can make the class funny at times but will also annoy you to no end if you actually are confused about something and want to learn the material. In lecture it seemed as though she just went over random topics with no real sense of organization or purpose. I had to teach myself everything for the assignments and exams. She is a really nice person who will listen to you after class and respond promptly to email. If I had to choose over again Id take this class with Perlis, because I learned more from him the one time I was in his lecture than I did all year in Dr. Hugue's lecture.
Michelle Hugue CMSC250 bigbabby 12/20/2011	Hugue...oh boy. I thought the subject matter of 250 was pretty boring to begin with, and Hugue didn't change my mind. Lectures start off with a TA teaching for the first few minutes, then Hugue going over slides mixed in with random stories about her life. Homework is easy, about 20 minutes a week, and quizzes are just as easy, as long as you've done the homework and stayed semi-conscious in lecture. Tests are okay, alot of partial credit, which is great if you mess up on a proof. Hugue isn't great but compared to the other professors I'd prefer her. From what I hear the other 250 professors are like Hugue minus the stories in lecture, and that's the only thing keeping me from falling into comas during lecture. Also, she's much nicer than the other professors. She wants the class to do well and promises to curve/give partial credit/etc. if it will help the class.
Michelle Hugue CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2011	She's just not a good teacher. I'll agree she's a very understanding person and I like her exam style, but we should have gotten way more out of 351 than we did. I didn't enroll in 351 to hear Meesh talk about random stories from her life for the entire class. It's great when professors can provide relevant anecdotes to the material that they're teaching, but Meesh just provided anecdotes about whatever happened to pop into her strange mind at the time. At least the class is really easy though. I mean we only had 4 hws and one small project, which just goes to show you how little we learned.
Michelle Hugue CMSC351 Expecting an A+ xenonscreams 05/16/2011	This was my second time having Meesh. She is complicated. I'm a firm believer that a professor is not defined purely by his or her lecture skills, and since she's not your average professor, I have to break this down a little. Lectures: Tough to follow. If you learn purely through lectures, you might want to avoid her classes. Exams: Long, but fair. She does not penalize you very much for missing small details. Just don't ever get caught up on one problem. If it takes you too long, skip it. Homework and projects: Also pretty fair. She doesn't seem to believe in secret tests. She isn't as forgiving about stupid mistakes on homework as she is on exams. Accommodations: Seriously amazing. Is your life hard? Do you have other things going on? Do you mess up sometimes, and does that one bad day sometimes ruin your entire grade for a class? Congratulations, Meesh acknowledges that you are human! That test you took half-asleep and sick and stressed beyond belief? Dropped. That homework you couldn't do because you had so much going on outside of this class? Dropped. That day you have two projects due and two homework assignments due and two exams? Meesh is the professor who will give you an extension. Disabilities: If you have any sort of disability it is really nice to have a professor who understands. Meesh will be the first person to realize that you're not stupid; your brain just works differently.
Michelle Hugue CMSC351 Expecting an A SchrodingersCat 03/08/2011	really guys! I am puzzled, how could anyone give Meesh 5 stars?? Granted her "lectures" can be entertaining but you don't learn anything. She just sits on her fat ass and tells you stories. Her rare efforts to actually teach result in a tirade of nonsense. The only times I've learned anything in her class are when the TA took over. She often comes to class late, and occasionally even misses the entire class. She doesn't even write up her own notes. I am a math, physics, and cs major and in all my classes I've learned one thing - that the CS department needs to do an overhaul of their professors. And the first thing they should do is fire Dr. Hugue.
Michelle Hugue Expecting a D Anonymous 12/23/2010	She doesn't teach anything. She just sends an email before every midterm listing what you're supposed to have taught yourself. And she isn't that generous with partial credit. I got zero points on one page even though I showed work. Just saying. I'm not one to go to office hours just to buddy up with a teacher. I just don't have time or heart for that. So I can tell you that she actually doesn't give a damn about you unless do that. Won't even answer your emails. Anyway, I read the book, did my best on the labs, and still failed. Just another perspective. Thanks for reading.
Michelle Hugue chunkymunkey 11/06/2010	Dr. Hugue, like any other professor will not 'hold your hand' through the coursework. You'll be expected to study the course material and apply it in projects and tests. However, unlike most professors, Dr. Hugue spends most of the class period telling stories about former students who now work for big software companies (google, microsoft, etc) and other irrelevant information. My advice is to go to class for the quizzes but not to expect anything out of her.
Michelle Hugue Expecting an A Anonymous 05/24/2010	It's funny how many times people can say this, but be forewarned: Meesh does not teach you by holding your hand in lecture. You are expected to gasp read the friendly book! Now I know this is crazy for us computer science majors, and some of us get frustrated initially by Meesh's style. But know this: Meesh does have your best interests in mind. If you like your predictable, vanilla boring professor don't take Meesh. If you want an adventure and can motivate yourself to learn the material on your own with pointers from an instructor -- go for Meesh.
Michelle Hugue Anonymous 05/18/2010	Meesh doesn't teach much, but she cares about students. Tests are long but not too hard, and OMG at the partial credits she gave. Imagine a 3 point true false question, its funny that you could get 1 point for getting the wrong answer...
Michelle Hugue Expecting a B tecrun19 03/08/2010	I have had Meesh for 3 classes CMSC311, CMSC351 and CMSC420. Yeah that's right 3! And if she taught any others I would take them. First to address the complaints from people 1) She doesn't teach - Oh god she doesn't stand in front and read from the slides THE HORROR. She actually teaches you to learn on your own. She doesn't leave you totally helpless. She gives you all the resources you will ever need and tells you what to look at and what you need to know. She even sends out emails before a test or quiz telling you what you need to study. Also if you didn't talk about it in class it wont be on the test, simple as that. 2) She is crazy - If you are taking a computer science class with Meesh then you are in a major with a lot of crazy people, deal with it. Besides it makes the class more interesting. 3) Her exams are looooong - Her average 311 exam is about 1.4 times the length of what it would normally be to finish in a normal amount of time. This is actually to your advantage because say her test is out of 200 points originally and you got a 120. What she does is let you keep that 120 but adjusts the total to say 130 and now you have an A+. She has adjusted the totals to a point where some people get above 100% and they get to keep that grade. Her long exams also allow you to answer what you know. Don't know anything on page 2 of the exam? Skip it, you have 18 other pages to possibly answer a question. Other positives 1) Her TA's - because many students love Meesh they will come back to TA for her. She usually knows these students very well. This means they are the best TA's in computer science. I'm talking about nice people you can talk to and they can generate the implementation for an entire PR quadtree in their heads (420 structure) 2) Her Grading - PARTIAL CREDIT, omg the level of partial credit is amazing. I have gotten points for writing totally wrong answers that other teachers would give a 0 for. This goes for projects and almost anything else as well. If you have three tests she also drops the lowest one (this also applies to HW's and quizzes) 3) The projects - They are real world things you might actually do once you get out of school. Designing structures, reverse engineering programs, efficiency of different searches. Actual useful things; not the theory stuff that some teachers try to put in their class. She knows her stuff and loves teaching, and loves her students. Best teacher I will have at UMD
Michelle Hugue MATH220 Anonymous 12/07/2009	Terrible. She may be a nice lady but shes a nervous wreck half the time and I just could not deal with her, so I switched teachers. Do not take her class.
Michelle Hugue MATH220 Expecting an A umdcupcakes 12/03/2009	Meesh is an awesome woman with a great personality. Take her Math220 class if you've already taken calculus or you are good at learning on your own. Though I attended every class, only 50 people would show up on average out of 150 students. Meesh says she has ADD and dyslexia, which I believe from listening to her lectures. It was almost impossible to learn from her notes, so I did a lot of outside studying which wasn't difficult. She really does care about her students and enjoys making us laugh and making us happy. I would recommend her for those who have taken calc before and have a good basis for learning more.
Michelle Hugue MATH220 Expecting a B cgut117 12/01/2009	She is an extremely nice woman and wants her students to do well BUT!!!!! she is the worst math teacher I have ever had. If you're good at teaching yourself math than this is a good class for you. She claims to have ADD and be Dyslexic. She really doesn't teach, she is all over the board, and I really don't have clear notes from the class. She tells funny stories and is really nice. She wants her students to do well, she drops a lot of quizzes and homeworks. However, I would have been able to do much better with a different teacher. I got to the point where after the second exam i started going to different lectures because hers were useless. She has the potential to be a good teacher, but definitely not for math.
Michelle Hugue CMSC411 FatJesus 08/19/2009	Read all the posts below. She is fun, knowledgeable, cares about her students, and works with you if you don't understand certain concepts. Her teaching style isn't for everyone, but I find you can extrapolate your compatibility with her from the prior reviews. Bottom line is: SHE CARES. She wants you to succeed and she'll fight tooth and nail for her students. This review isn't nearly as long or as passionate as it should be, but I think the others get it across nicely.
Michelle Hugue Expecting an A- blackshellbowser 05/26/2009	The things that people get scared of with Meesh is: 1). She doesn't teach 2). Her exams 3). She's crazy 1). She does get sidetracked often with stories, most of which have some life-meaning to them (other times she's just being silly). Yet don't think you won't get ANYTHING out of her. She does know the material but you are expected to learn most of it from the book. If you go to class she'll help you. Oh, and don't be intimidated by her snide-ness. Most of the time it's not because of you! 2). Her exams...midterm was about 25 pages of questions and final was about 35 pages. Yes it's painful. However she follows her format of easy questions first, hard questions last. Her exams are two packets, one of which she grades herself. She reads everything you write, so always write something for her questions! The only way to get a zero on a question is if you don't answer it! The point of the exams is to show what you know and she often asks the same question in different ways, so there's lots of opportunities to get points for knowing your bits :) She is referred to as the queen of partial credit. Oh and she curves...usually a 60% is an A on her exams. 3). Yes she's crazy...but she cares for her students. I promise that. Misc: The book is helpful. Often problems on quizzes and exams come right from the book's problems! The labs (projects) are pretty cool IMO. Sometimes they can be downright frustrating, but Meesh and the TAs keep that in mind. All in all Meesh is a professor who wants her students to do well in the field. She gives great advice and knows a lot of people who work in Google, Microsoft, etc. You can never get screwed over by Meesh in terms of grades.
Michelle Hugue Expecting an A MADgood 05/22/2009	I agree with everyone here, in that she cares about her students and wants them to do well. I would like to give a good review, but unfortunately I'm unable to delude myself enough to do so. Her lectures usually comprised of the following : 10-30 minutes of content, 30-50 minutes of unrelated stories, 15 minutes talking about her teaching philosophy. The content was explained relatively well. However questions usually resulted in mockery (although not in mean way). The unrelated stories were really not useful in any way for me and I'm surprised that other people here took something away from them. She seemed hell bent on divulging every last bit of personal information about herself and others, almost always unprompted. On several occasions she made the entire class pretty uncomfortable with her stories. The part of the lectures which I disliked the most was when she talked about her teaching style. Her philosophy is based on the idea that not everyone learns the same way. While this is a valid point, her solution was essentially to all but eliminate the lecture aspect of the course. Her goal was to shift more of the learning responsibility onto the individual. However, she mostly succeeded in wasting the time of those who went to lecture and in stripping the students of a valuable resource (a teacher!). It especially bothered me how often she would bash the teaching methods of other (specific) profs and glorify those of her own, during the time when she should actually be teaching!! That said, I loved the projects (labs) for this course. The quizzes were pretty fair. The tests were rather difficult and long, and I'm not really sure how I feel about them. Could have been be a great class if the teacher had actually made use of the lecture time.
Michelle Hugue agardner 05/01/2009	As a number of reviewers have pointed out, much of her lectures seem to be spent on stories about her life or her former students. Yet I found myself learning the required material from the lectures too, all the while enjoying the stories along the way. While at times lectures may seem 'wasted', her teaching style worked well for me in the end. I got along well with her as a professor, and I enjoyed going to class. I also found myself paying more attention to her lectures (be it during stories or actual teaching moments) than I did other professors, which probably contributed to being able to learn more from her than others. Beyond her lectures, she was hands down the most helpful professor I have had, both within class/office hours and outside of these times, when she is easily accessible through a number of means. Her replies are always speedy and helpful, and you can tell that she truly does care about her students. While her style of teaching may not be a good fit for everyone, she is easily one of the best professors I have had at this University.
Michelle Hugue Anonymous 05/26/2008	Projects aren't too tough - 4 throughout the semester. Quizzes and exams aren't difficult, but they require you to think fast and to write fast. If you're a careful test-taker and like to look over your work numerous times, then you'll have a difficult time adjusting to her exams because they are huge packets. To maximize your chances of doing well, you need to spam the exams as much as possible as she gives plenty of partial credit - don't waste time checking over your answers and attempt every single page. Didn't learn much from lectures - learned most of the material from the book or doing her/TA's worksheets. She's a nice person who wants you to do well, and she's very fair.
Michelle Hugue Expecting a C pluralfacade 05/17/2008	You will not learn anything from her lectures, except about her personal life and former students who now work for Google and Microsoft. She uses CMU's slides, CMU's textbook, and her TAs write the projects. However, she really does want her students to do well and she's really fair with grading. Unfortunately, for slow, careful test-takers such as myself, her extremely long tests and quizzes are hell.
Michelle Hugue Expecting a B bbygyrl123 12/22/2007	One of the few teachers in the department that really cares about her students. She will do far more for you in class and out just to make sure you are generally doing well. Her stories are hilarious and her lectures are entertaining. Awesome teacher!
Michelle Hugue intrusion 12/16/2007	Unorthodox but very worthwhile teacher--I learned a ton. You will have to read the textbook sometimes, but the lectures are not as wasteful as they may seem. I personally feel that I learn better when I have a rapport with the professor, which is easy to do with Dr. Hugue. Strongly recommended.
Michelle Hugue Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2007	Meesh is a great professor. She keeps class interesting, she keeps class entertaining, and most of all, she manages to teach the material (as a previous reviewer said, "somehow.") Yes, a lot of the class will be spent on jokes and her personal life. But in the end, you will learn more than with 75% of the other professors, and you will actually like going to class. Also, her exams are very long. If you're a fast test taker, then this is fine. If you're not that fast, then this might be a little scary, but they're not too bad (they are very sharply curved.)
Michelle Hugue Expecting an A unitar 12/04/2007	Michelle Hugue is one of my favorite teachers at the University of Maryland so far, and is, along with Nelson Padua-Perez, probably tied for my favorite computer science teacher. By keeping class entertaining, in a way that only she could, "Meesh" has taught me, and the rest of the class, an enormous amount about low level programming, without most of us even realizing it happened. Additionally, she has been very responsive every time I talked to her after class. She never ceases to amuse and is always enlightening. Have fun!