| Information | Review |
|---|---|
|
Richard La
ENEE322 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/12/2026 |
Despite the previous reviews of Dr. La, I would highly reccomend taking him for 322/323. His lecture slides are very content heavy, but he still reserves plenty of time for questions, as well as a full week for review before the final and a review session before each midterm. He also posts his lecture slides, but that hinges on students coming to class (which is a fair ask- you will almost certainly succeed if you go to lectures). To encourage attendance in the second half of the semester, he did two pop quizzes to add up to 10 points to your final exam grade. Office hours were immensely helpful, both in person and virtual, and really helped to reinforce the content from class and understanding the homework problems. Homework got more manageable in the semester because of concepts being reinforced, it really is just the first few that take a while to wrap your head around. There were 8 homework assignments, along with a 9th optional one to prepare for the final. His TA does the grading, but she was pretty fair of a grader. All problems came directly from the textbook, which is from an MIT professor, and there's many YT videos doing the problems. Exams were great. Both midterms had an opportunity for extra credit, and the TA also graded them so again, pretty lenient in grading. We also were allowed 1 side of a regular paper as a formula sheet for midterms, and a full page for the final. The homework and sample midterms did help in preparing for the exams. The content does build upon itself so going back over old content is pretty important. Overall, I had a great experience in this class. I think La has become a better lecturer as time has gone on, and I feel confident when I say if you put in the work for this class (about 6-9 hours including 3 hours of lecture), you will be able to succeed and get an A. |
|
Richard La
ENEE436 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/30/2025 |
Very course dependent of course, but no need to fear professor La for ENEE436, if he's teaching it again. I believe it was different last semester and Ulukus in the coming semester. Machine learning is so broad that it'll be up to the teacher and semester to determine what actually gets covered, but you've basically got a bunch of algorithms for 1) simplifying data and 2) classifying or clustering it. We stayed pretty general in lecture, analyzing what different methods do. Pretty easy to get lost, so I needed to reread stuff a lot, but in the end no need to stress over majority of the details. Exams and homeworks had us do the little bit of computations that humans can actually do (e.g. linear regression is cool, but it doesn't fit into an exam period or even a homework. But verifying a perceptron for a few datapoints does). Pros: - So he's actually a really nice guy but quite shy. Talked to him many times in office hours and after class, and he has lots of interesting things to say and will take care of you with whatever problems you have. Will even explain tangentially related concepts, which of course come up in 436 when we just skim a topic. - Massive drops to grade cutoffs, with a couple different extra credit opportunities. Exam averages are on the low side, but people do get 100s. 20% HW, 20% Group project, 25% Midterm, 35% Final, 5% extra credit personal project - Content was pretty interesting. ML is weird in that you have three things you can spend time on: coding, concepts, or computation. We got to see some code in class and do a little substitution coding in homeworks (take code that works, and show you know what it's doing by taking a new dataset and changing the code so it runs on the new dataset properly). Lectures were mostly for concepts (what is this method, why is it good, why is it bad); we had a little bit of explanation to do on assignments, mainly on the group project. Computation was the other half of the homeworks and much of the exams. Cons: - Yes, he's not the most interesting lecturer ever. But he does have the occasional funny joke. Accent is a little tough at times, but you can always ask for clarification. - Exams could potentially be difficult in the sense that you (probably) have previously seen similar problems to the ones you see on the exam, but if you didn't fully get it or didn't review it (whoops), it's just unlikely that you'll be able to solve it and there's only 4 problems per exam. One midterm, one final. Final has practice problems given to you. - Went after the students a little bit. I was one of ~15 out of 40 people who consistently went to lecture. In order to boost attendance, he stopped posting slides halfway through. The slides are the entire body of the class since it's a pick-and-choose kind of class, so fortunately we eventually convinced him to do pop quizzes instead of not posting the official notes of the class, but it was hectic for a few weeks. Overall, you should be good to take La for at least ENEE436 if not other undergraduate classes (I think he's more involved with signals and 322). I was afraid we were gonna be hung out to dry as so often happens with our favorite ENEE professors, but my experience was not like that. Workload ended up not being that bad either. It sure is a different feeling from the 200s and 300s where you're cranking out tons of problems all day long. Anyways, take, and fear not, but do work hard. |
|
Richard La
ENEE436 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2025 |
I don’t agree with the negative reviews for Professor La. He is a good lecturer, and while his lectures are often over complicated, he tries to make sure his students understand the broad concepts behind all the different ML models. He would often tell us that we only need to have a general understanding of the models, and that was certainly reflected in his homeworks and exams. Overall, I feel like I have a really solid understanding of ML from this course. The course is not easy, but Professor La provides all the material, slides, examples, etc. to be successful in this course. I would highly recommend Professor La and would certainly take another course with him. |
|
Richard La
ENEE322 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/23/2025 |
Lectures were easy to follow and explained the content well, homework and exams were fair. Late office hours on zoom were very convenient. |
|
Richard La
MSML604 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 10/27/2025 |
he's clearly very knowledgeable but is a bad lecturer and definitely not approachable if you have questions. if you want to learn the material properly with clear examples, there is a full youtube course from IIT KANPUR which teaches the concepts in a more concise and understandable manner. Wish i found it on the first day - this prof lacks empathy. |
|
Richard La
ENEE290 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/19/2025 |
He posts slides, normally watching youtube videos helped me more. Ask the ta's for the practice problems as they can be helpful for exams. Exams generally do not allow calculators, so expect simple computations and really just testing basic skills. Questions normally are reasonable and exams are graded fairly. The projects are graded leniently and come with decent instruction. |
|
Richard La
ENEE290 Anonymous 12/10/2024 |
Dr. La is a very nice person and a very knowledgeable instructor who goes out of his way to help students when they need it. Unfortunately, his lectures are difficult to follow as he moves quickly through complex equations and explains concepts using examples that are often more confusing than the concepts themselves. ENEE290 itself is also fairly difficult class, covering almost two classes of content in one semester, with the curriculum jumping somewhat abruptly from Differential Equations to Linear Algebra back to Differential Equations. La's exams are hard but have questions similar to the practice exams provided from past years. Homework is assigned about weekly and is graded very generously by the TAs. There are several MATLAB projects that are very challenging and require significant time to complete. La's version of the class is on a massive curve where an 80% is an A, but you will have to work hard for that grade. |
|
Richard La
ENEE469O Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2024 |
I took 324 and 469O with Dr. La. I think some of these comments are unfair. He is a great teacher if you make an effort and communicate with him at class/in office hours throughout the course of the semester. I'll admit, 324 with him was really difficult, but honestly that's because the content is pretty difficult regardless of who you take. The homework was really tough, but I felt as though it prepared you for the exams. For the seniors out there: take 469O with La if it's being offered. This is a really interesting class where you get to learn fundamental machine learning basics and how to implement them in MATLAB/Python. He's waaayyy more chill with his 400 level classes because he appreciates that you are likely a graduating senior. There were several weeks I was overwhelmed, and I asked him if I could turn in the homework a day late, and he would just move the due date for the whole class to the end of the week. He gave me an extra weekend for the final project when I told him I was overwhelmed with final exams. The exams were tough, but he was pretty lenient with grading them. All in all, great guy. Tough, but fair. Offers an interesting 400 level elective. |
|
Richard La
MSML604 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024 |
Professor Richard, who looks slightly vicious, is a lovely person who is highly knowledgeable in optimization, linear algebra, calculus, and probability theory. You may sometimes see him telling jokes with no expression during the lecture, and he is very patient with every student when you ask questions during office hours, class breaks, and class. However, I admit that some course concepts are hard to comprehend at first glance. Still, after reviewing the in-class material and combining it with the external video associated with that particular concept, the difficulty of the homework should be acceptable. As for the midterm and final, he will provide some review material and the review section. If you follow the pattern of the review materials, combined with some additional practice in linear algebra, both exams are good to go. Furthermore, for the final project, I recommend consolidating the topic and working on the solution as soon as possible; it may take longer than you expected. Professor Richard has the best mathematic expertise I have ever encountered at the University of Maryland. Eventually, he will automatically and dynamically adjust the grade scope according to the entire class's performance, so do not worry too much. As the final reminder, he will review the concept of linear algebra in optimization during the first several lectures; if you are not familiar with the relative concept, please try to catch it, which will make the rest of the lecture manageable. |
|
Richard La
ENEE324 Anonymous 12/20/2023 |
This professor is what they call a “gatekeeper”. He takes simple concepts and explains them in over complicated ways. You’ll have to work hard to even survive in his class… Many like the idea that he’s curves heavy, but this doesn’t mean he makes things easier... I recommend avoiding this professor at all cost. |
|
Richard La
ENEE290 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/05/2023 |
This was the first semester of ENEE290 and it went pretty well. It covered basic Differential Equations while also going into Linear Algebra. I will say, La did a lot of derivations in his lectures, just to end up on a formula that you didn't really need the derivation for. La definitely cared about our grades and would always ask to see if we were understanding the material. MATLAB's weren't that hard and the TA was always helpful. Homeworks were fair and not too complicated. The two midterms were very fair and not too challenging. I will say the final had a lot to do and it was hard to get everything done in time, but the class was pre-curved and an 80% was an A. I don't know what future semesters of this class will be like, but he first semester went pretty well and I think it was a bit easier than the MATH246 alternative and we learned all the fundamentals that we needed to. |
|
Richard La
ENEE322 Anonymous 02/02/2022 |
Professor La is by all means a nice person who knows the subject material quite well. With that said, he was inadequate at teaching the material in a manner that was conducive to learning. 90% of your grade relies on two midterms and a final, the latter of which is worth 40%. As others have stated, the tests are stressful and difficult. For the final exam, we were not provided any study material nor given any supportive direction on the types of questions to expect. In addition, our only review session was cancelled; leaving students substantially unprepared and stressed. I had dedicated a great deal of time to review as much material as possible since my other exam grades were not great, but without a proper focus I wound up doing poorly. Overall, I did not find Professor La’s conduct regarding an exam worth 40% of our grade to be appropriate; the structure of the class, grading methods, and lack of content-accessibility all contributed to an awful learning experience. |
|
Richard La
ENEE322H Anonymous 01/03/2022 |
Let me begin by saying 322 is likely the most difficult EE course, in my opinion. It's a tough class and requires a lot of computational knowledge. That being said, La didn't do a great job of making the material accessible. Lectures made sense and things clicked. However, exams and homework often seemed to be a lot more involved than the examples given in lectures. Very low exam averages (40s or so), but there is a large curve of the overall grade. I have no issue with his teaching style, but his assignments are stressful to do, especially under a time crunch. He also did leave the class in the dark toward the end of the course in regards to the final grade, final exam preparation, etc., which I don't think helps perceptions of him. |
|
Richard La
ENEE222 Anonymous 12/26/2021 |
Not a very good lecturer. Gives students little in study resources, especially for the final, which is most of the grade. Stressful. |
|
Richard La
ENEE322 Anonymous 12/24/2021 |
Instead of seeing how poorly his students do and changing his teaching style to better their education, he fails them and smiles. |
|
Richard La
ENEE322 Anonymous 12/24/2021 |
The majority of his class will get Cs or lower, and there's a clear reason. Though 322 is one of the hardest EE courses, Richard La makes no attempt whatsoever to make the subject matter feasible. Wish I had never taken this professor, he caused the entire class unnecessary stress the entire semester, and the end of semester curve does in no way compensate for the terrible exams. |
|
Richard La
MSML604 Expecting an A- msml_nerd 05/21/2021 |
He had to handle a difficult topic for a class which was honestly not smart (including me). He tried his best, but it wasnt easy because of the online lectures. Class averages were pretty low throughout, but he curved generously in the end. |
|
Richard La
ENEE322 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/17/2021 |
He is decent at lecturing and is definitely really good at the stuff that he teaches. His exam averages were pretty low (around 40) so they are kind of difficult, but nothing too bad. |
|
Richard La
ENEE322H Expecting a B Anonymous 12/07/2015 |
Dr. La is a pretty good professor. He teaches pretty well and sets a pretty large curve for the class, which he usually ends up lowering. The curve started at an 80% for an A, which was then lowered to a 75%. His tests can be hard, but from what I've heard of other 322 classes, all of the tests are hard. He tells you that he will only assign homework every other week with around 4 problems on them, but he has consistently been giving us homework every week with 6-8 problems on it, which are very time consuming. Also, for the first two midterms he gave us homeworks which covered material that was going to be on the test and set the due date to after the midterm, which meant we didn't have the solutions to study from. Overall I'd say Dr. La is a good backup to Papamarcou if you can't get him. |