Michael Kleiss | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Michael Kleiss ARCH462 Anonymous 12/05/2025	If I could give Kleiss a 0 star rating I would. He is easily the worst professor I've ever had during my time at UMD. He has an absurd attendance policy going against multiple university policies. And changes assignments whenever he feels like it. We were given a course calendar at the beginning of the semester, which he doesn't follow and he constantly changes due dates. He assigned everyone the PCI project.. when it was optional to students in the past, for this course. Kleiss wastes class time on random guest lecturers, and we learn nothing valuable. Every lecture he gives, you better take good notes and not ever lose focus because his slides on canvas have strictly photos and maybe 5 words. It is a shame that many students like myself pay so much money for a required course only to receive poor quality education at an institution with good reputation. If the university wishes to keep its prestige I'd suggest they get rid of him. Oh and he won't post grades all semester long, and if you ask your assigned TA apparently they cant give you more than one grade ... how is one supposed to plan and know their standing? Lastly, as I wrap up my semster he is introducing a NEW PROJECT next week... and JUST posted a few grades from early in the semester (September). UMD DO BETTER.
Michael Kleiss ARCH462 Anonymous 12/03/2025	Just a God awful class. The class is completely disorganized and at times, difficult to follow. Lecture slides consist of bullet points and images, so be ready to write down everything that comes out of his mouth. Those slides will serve you absolutely no good when it comes time to take the vague exams they assign. They also do not grade anything. We were assigned three assignments consisting of a Brick Scavenger Hunt, Truchet Patterns, a Precast Concrete Design Competition, and a third project that he has yet to assign us yet. All of this has yet to be graded by a single TA. Also, regarding the design competition hosted by the Precast Concrete Institute, it was launched all the way back on June 7th, yet he decided to assign it to us on October 31st, less than a week before applications closed. Absolutely absurd. It left us with less than three weeks to complete two whole boards for a theoretical student-living hub. We had also spent less than 2 classes ACTUALLY learning about precast concrete, then he’ll bring in guests who lecture us as if we’re proficient in this kind of stuff. He’ll also mention projects in the beginning of the semester and wait until there’s less than 5 weeks remaining to actually assign them. TLDR; Kleiss is a fraud
Michael Kleiss ARCH462 Anonymous 12/01/2025	The worst class in the entire world. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable for ARCH students. Kleiss is so unorganized and practically makes things up as he goes. There is no course syllabus assigned on the first day of class, and that's when I knew this was going to be rough. He assigned one halfway through the semester, and it wasn't even accurate. He assigned the only three projects of the entire course during the last month of the semester and practically made them all due at the same exact time. Exams are practically gibberish. You will do badly no matter how much you study; I learned that the hard way. Just focus on your other classes at this point because this one is a lost cause. I didn't know what grade to expect going into it, and I surely don't know what the outcome is going to be. If he makes the precast competition mandatory again next year, good luck.
Michael Kleiss ARCH462 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/29/2025	This man is the worst professor I've had at umd. He doesn't communicate with his TA's, let alone his students. He doesn't listen to his students and frequently changes the instructions of the exams or the projects without any heads up. His projects are beyond ridiculous (aka making us bring a brick to class) and then ended the semester by making us model a frame for a precedent. However, he told groups all different directions, his TA's did not help whatsoever, and forced us to bring the very large model to class, not acknowledge it, then force us to bring the model to the next class again. He is the most unorganized professor I've ever had. Now I have him for ARCH464 and he is back and worse than ever. His absence policy is straight bs and goes against multiple university policies. His lectures are the EXACT same as they were in 462 and is testing us on the content again. I understand a review of the past material to refresh but not teaching us anything new and just testing us on 462 content is just ridiculous. Overall, avoid this man like the plague, he is not worth the semester long frustration.
Michael Kleiss ARCH462 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/28/2024	I had a pretty good experience with Dr. Kleiss. His lectures are somewhat boring and are in bullet point format or pictures. Make sure to take notes more on what he’s saying instead of doing the bare minimum of bullet points. The exam were somewhat easy, the first exam had extra credit but the other 2 didn’t. Each question was always worth 5 pts so one question wrong brought your grade down significantly. But of all 3 exams I got a 90, 85, 85 so it wasn’t too too bad. The one thing I will say I didn’t like was that at the beginning of the year syllabus he said that all the exams would be open note, open google, etc. but 2 days before our first exam he changed that. Also he never had a material list in the syllabus. So for example on Tuesday he would tell us to bring in materials for class on Thursday. I was able to get them but for those less fortunate who maybe don’t have access to a store near them or mom that could bring them just keep this in mind. Thankfully I also had some of me leftover materials from arch 200 which we used for the finals project. Overall good experience and would take this class again.

Michael Kleiss
ARCH462

Anonymous
12/05/2025

If I could give Kleiss a 0 star rating I would. He is easily the worst professor I've ever had during my time at UMD. He has an absurd attendance policy going against multiple university policies. And changes assignments whenever he feels like it. We were given a course calendar at the beginning of the semester, which he doesn't follow and he constantly changes due dates. He assigned everyone the PCI project.. when it was optional to students in the past, for this course. Kleiss wastes class time on random guest lecturers, and we learn nothing valuable. Every lecture he gives, you better take good notes and not ever lose focus because his slides on canvas have strictly photos and maybe 5 words. It is a shame that many students like myself pay so much money for a required course only to receive poor quality education at an institution with good reputation. If the university wishes to keep its prestige I'd suggest they get rid of him. Oh and he won't post grades all semester long, and if you ask your assigned TA apparently they cant give you more than one grade ... how is one supposed to plan and know their standing? Lastly, as I wrap up my semster he is introducing a NEW PROJECT next week... and JUST posted a few grades from early in the semester (September). UMD DO BETTER.

Michael Kleiss
ARCH462

Anonymous
12/03/2025

Just a God awful class. The class is completely disorganized and at times, difficult to follow. Lecture slides consist of bullet points and images, so be ready to write down everything that comes out of his mouth. Those slides will serve you absolutely no good when it comes time to take the vague exams they assign. They also do not grade anything. We were assigned three assignments consisting of a Brick Scavenger Hunt, Truchet Patterns, a Precast Concrete Design Competition, and a third project that he has yet to assign us yet. All of this has yet to be graded by a single TA. Also, regarding the design competition hosted by the Precast Concrete Institute, it was launched all the way back on June 7th, yet he decided to assign it to us on October 31st, less than a week before applications closed. Absolutely absurd. It left us with less than three weeks to complete two whole boards for a theoretical student-living hub. We had also spent less than 2 classes ACTUALLY learning about precast concrete, then he’ll bring in guests who lecture us as if we’re proficient in this kind of stuff. He’ll also mention projects in the beginning of the semester and wait until there’s less than 5 weeks remaining to actually assign them. TLDR; Kleiss is a fraud

Michael Kleiss
ARCH462

Anonymous
12/01/2025

The worst class in the entire world. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable for ARCH students. Kleiss is so unorganized and practically makes things up as he goes. There is no course syllabus assigned on the first day of class, and that's when I knew this was going to be rough. He assigned one halfway through the semester, and it wasn't even accurate. He assigned the only three projects of the entire course during the last month of the semester and practically made them all due at the same exact time. Exams are practically gibberish. You will do badly no matter how much you study; I learned that the hard way. Just focus on your other classes at this point because this one is a lost cause. I didn't know what grade to expect going into it, and I surely don't know what the outcome is going to be. If he makes the precast competition mandatory again next year, good luck.

Michael Kleiss
ARCH462

Expecting an A
Anonymous
09/29/2025

This man is the worst professor I've had at umd. He doesn't communicate with his TA's, let alone his students. He doesn't listen to his students and frequently changes the instructions of the exams or the projects without any heads up. His projects are beyond ridiculous (aka making us bring a brick to class) and then ended the semester by making us model a frame for a precedent. However, he told groups all different directions, his TA's did not help whatsoever, and forced us to bring the very large model to class, not acknowledge it, then force us to bring the model to the next class again. He is the most unorganized professor I've ever had. Now I have him for ARCH464 and he is back and worse than ever. His absence policy is straight bs and goes against multiple university policies. His lectures are the EXACT same as they were in 462 and is testing us on the content again. I understand a review of the past material to refresh but not teaching us anything new and just testing us on 462 content is just ridiculous. Overall, avoid this man like the plague, he is not worth the semester long frustration.

Michael Kleiss
ARCH462

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/28/2024

I had a pretty good experience with Dr. Kleiss. His lectures are somewhat boring and are in bullet point format or pictures. Make sure to take notes more on what he’s saying instead of doing the bare minimum of bullet points. The exam were somewhat easy, the first exam had extra credit but the other 2 didn’t. Each question was always worth 5 pts so one question wrong brought your grade down significantly. But of all 3 exams I got a 90, 85, 85 so it wasn’t too too bad. The one thing I will say I didn’t like was that at the beginning of the year syllabus he said that all the exams would be open note, open google, etc. but 2 days before our first exam he changed that. Also he never had a material list in the syllabus. So for example on Tuesday he would tell us to bring in materials for class on Thursday. I was able to get them but for those less fortunate who maybe don’t have access to a store near them or mom that could bring them just keep this in mind. Thankfully I also had some of me leftover materials from arch 200 which we used for the finals project. Overall good experience and would take this class again.