Samantha McDonald

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Samantha McDonald INST104 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/13/2026	Very easy class as long as you come to her lectures. Having a class that has in class assignments each lecture can be a pain but they are generally completion passed and the main grade in the class. A couple big projects which require some time but again straightforward and very manageable.
Samantha McDonald INST104 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/07/2025	Format: No exams or midterms, instead have 3 big design projects (multimedia usually) One reading check due every Friday. Multiple choice and open-ended. Readings are ridiculously long, tho. Still, the HW never took me more than an hour for each. In-class assignments every lecture that are worth a decent chunk of your grade. In short, class is easy, sometimes annoying though, but as far as electives go, it doesn't get much better than this. She tries to make it as enjoyable as possible as well. If you have any interest in design or just like designing things, (like slideshows or posters or anything rlly) you'll find the class kind of fun. Since there's no exams, the lectures are practically pointless to pay attention to, unfortunately, and the only reason people go to lectures is to do the in-class assignments, which can sometimes be a lot of work. Only con is that she loves group work, which makes zero sense since its a LECTURE class with 150 ppl or something, so some of the in-class assignments that require working as a group can be rlly annoying. Find like two or three ppl u like and sit with them for the whole semester to make this easy. Also readings r super long but u can skim through them and still ace the hw assignments.
Samantha McDonald INST104 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/03/2025	The class is relatively easy. However, there are weekly quizzes with hellishly long readings, attendance is mandatory with class activities every time, but no tests or homework. There are 3 big projects that serve as the midterms and final, the grading was pretty harsh, but you can rack up points through the participation points every class. Recommended for people interested in UX design.
Samantha McDonald INST104 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/18/2025	I absolutely loved this class. If you’re into UX design or interaction design in general, she dives into what a designer really does beyond just making things look good. She genuinely gets you to start asking questions about the functionality and purpose behind things. She talks about different fields of design and explains them really well, in my opinion. The projects are cool, and the readings are definitely long, but you will definetely learn. Take this class if you want to really get your design thinking going.
Samantha McDonald Expecting an A Anonymous 11/18/2025	I absolutely loved this class. If you’re into UX design or interaction design in general, she dives into what a designer really does beyond just making things look good. She genuinely gets you to start asking questions about the functionality and purpose behind things. She talks about different fields of design and explains them really well, in my opinion. The projects are cool, and the readings are definitely long, but you will def learn. Take this class if you want to really get your design thinking going.
Samantha McDonald INST104 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/17/2025	One of the best professors I have had at UMD. The projects are very fairly graded. At the beginning she gave a lot of reading but made them a lot less after taking advice from our class. Showing up is mandatory but its not hard to do good in this class.
Samantha McDonald INST104 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/12/2025	She has no exams which is nice, but she has weekly quizzes that have insanely long readings or videos to watch. Expect around 70-100 pages a week of material that won't ever be used that much.
Samantha McDonald INST104 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/01/2025	It's nice to not have exams and have the class only be a project based class, but the amount of reading you have to do for the quizzes is way too much for a 100 level intro class.