Christopher Metzler | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/30/2023	I totally fell the other on the lecturers it is was it is, they are recorded and posted in the elms files folder so just show initiative and review them. The professor is just busy as he is still a bit new but more importantly he is working the PhD students on research work which takes a big chunk of his time. He might take some time but he is responsive to piazza and emails alike. In terms of Assignments, the homework are really bad (very ambiguous in the writing) and have the potential to effect your grade during the semester (homework used to be weighed less in previous semesters). What's changed is there a midterm now (take home) worth 10% and you can get a B+ pretty easily on it if your careful and work hard as you will have plenty of time to do it. Biggest thing to take note of is the projects as well as the final project, you gotta do really well in it's completion like the graders are thankfully really lenient and instructed to be so but you just gotta go the extra mile to complete it. There is a pretty decent curve as well (not sure of the calculation) that you will be satisfied with (I personally am SUPER Happy with). Overall I really appreciate the logistics of final grading and have a lot of respect for Prof Metzler for trusting us and treating us like adults like Prof JMCT would. I would recommend Prof Metzler overall any other 426 professor without a shadow of a doubt regardless of anything he is the new generation and the class is in good hands and likewise I am truly grateful 🙏.
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/25/2023	He's really good at explaining things that are hard to explain in words. He records lectures which is helpful. The written homeworks are pretty tough but he's pretty fair about the amount of time given and is reasonable about extensions in some situations. The only things I wish were different about this class is I wish the recording audio was more clear, and I wish he recorded some of the math he does on the board. Some professors use a hand cam when they need to show examples on paper. It would have been really helpful if he did that, because basically if you failed to understand it during lecture time you never got another chance to hear an explanation. I also wish he used a screenrecorder to record slides as he lectures. The recordings just had terrible quality. Another problem I had was that piazza responses were pretty slow, even though the class size wasn't all that big. Usually took 1-2 days for a reply. Another problem I had with this class is that one part of the class involved some vector calc stuff (Calc 3) even though its not a prereq for this course. Maybe putting a calc 3 prereq would make class sizes too small, I don't know. But I had great difficulty wrapping my head around those parts of the course (Neural networks). That's not anyones fault but its just something to keep in mind if you want to take this class. You'll have a really good time in this class if you've taken data science, intro to ml, intro to lin alg, and calc 3. I only took intro to lin alg so I really struggled, but they don't grade too harshly. Despite the minor problems I listed, prof Metzler is such a good professor that it just outshines the issues. Lecturing a computer vision class, understanding all the concepts so well that you can break it down to students is seriously difficult so I was just grateful we got someone so capable of teaching it. The neural network project and the visual odometry project are very interesting and really shocked me that you can get a computer to do that. Very good class.
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2023	Pretty great overall. The projects are very interesting and straightforward, and there are a lot of opportunities for extra credit. He's not the most engaging lecturer as he's mostly going off of slides, but he's very helpful during office hours.
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2023	This class was a lot of different other classes packed into one. I walked in without 320, 422, and MATH401 but all of the lectures seemed to build off of these classes and combine their knowledge. Metzler teaches quite a lot of difficult math concepts (Fourier transform for filtering, back-propagation with matrix decomposition, homography matrices). However, this ended up not mattering much, since the only time that we really needed to use the difficult concepts were on the midterms. Overall, the lectures weren't really required since the projects we could use libraries that already implement the complicated functions. In the case of projects, sometimes the instructions are a bit difficult to grasp but they are quite easily searchable. This class ends up being very manageable if you start projects early, and it's overall a chill class because the reports are graded quite leniently. I think for future classes some material can be left out of the lectures as those are confusing and not always relevant/helpful but as it stands it is a well managed and pretty laid back class.
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/10/2023	Not a huge fan of the lecturing style at all and I attended almost every class. Lectures are dull. Prof just reads off the slides and doesn't seem prepared for questions. He is a lot better at answering questions on Piazza than answering them during lecture. There's a lot of conceptual material but often he refers to variables/equations/concepts as "this" or "that" while lecturing—delivery could be clearer. Grading is slow. BUT, I honestly think you could get by decently in this class without attending any lectures at all. Slides are detailed and always posted to Canvas. Grades are all based on a few homework assignments and projects with very clear grading criteria and instructions. Grading is lenient with a lot of opportunities for extra credit.
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/09/2023	Truth be told i went to this class once in person. Despite that, he’s an amazing prof w great slides & so quick to respond on Piazza. Projects are clear and take like a few days, he provides lots of resources & the material is genuinely so interesting. Great class for your seniors especially, low stress and fun learning
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/13/2021	Awesome professor. Professor was very helpful throughout the course on piazza, and the lecture slides were clear and concise. Facilitated smooth learning. Additional learning links were provided for reference. Projects had clear expectations with them, fixed rubric. Easy A class.
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/23/2021	Lectures were pretty dry--though that was to be expected. Content was very linear algebra heavy (a personal weak point), but we were warned of this ahead of time and given a small primer prior to class. Class was totally project-based and professor Metzler and the TAs were quick to assist on piazza. Ample extra credit was given as well. The class could certainly better--most classes could--but I thought professor Metzler handled it pretty well, particularly for his first semester at UMD. This content seemed particularly difficult to relay in an online environment, so I often found myself skipping lectures to watch the recordings later in order to pause and take notes.
Christopher Metzler CMSC426 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/26/2021	I had Metzler for 426 and thought the class was fine. The lectures were boring and could be confusing at times. Since there are no exams, the grades are fully dependent on the homeworks and projects. I would only recommend this class if you are pretty good with linear algebra and are willing to commit a decent amount of time for projects.

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/30/2023

I totally fell the other on the lecturers it is was it is, they are recorded and posted in the elms files folder so just show initiative and review them. The professor is just busy as he is still a bit new but more importantly he is working the PhD students on research work which takes a big chunk of his time. He might take some time but he is responsive to piazza and emails alike. In terms of Assignments, the homework are really bad (very ambiguous in the writing) and have the potential to effect your grade during the semester (homework used to be weighed less in previous semesters). What's changed is there a midterm now (take home) worth 10% and you can get a B+ pretty easily on it if your careful and work hard as you will have plenty of time to do it. Biggest thing to take note of is the projects as well as the final project, you gotta do really well in it's completion like the graders are thankfully really lenient and instructed to be so but you just gotta go the extra mile to complete it. There is a pretty decent curve as well (not sure of the calculation) that you will be satisfied with (I personally am SUPER Happy with). Overall I really appreciate the logistics of final grading and have a lot of respect for Prof Metzler for trusting us and treating us like adults like Prof JMCT would. I would recommend Prof Metzler overall any other 426 professor without a shadow of a doubt regardless of anything he is the new generation and the class is in good hands and likewise I am truly grateful 🙏.

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/25/2023

He's really good at explaining things that are hard to explain in words. He records lectures which is helpful. The written homeworks are pretty tough but he's pretty fair about the amount of time given and is reasonable about extensions in some situations. The only things I wish were different about this class is I wish the recording audio was more clear, and I wish he recorded some of the math he does on the board. Some professors use a hand cam when they need to show examples on paper. It would have been really helpful if he did that, because basically if you failed to understand it during lecture time you never got another chance to hear an explanation. I also wish he used a screenrecorder to record slides as he lectures. The recordings just had terrible quality. Another problem I had was that piazza responses were pretty slow, even though the class size wasn't all that big. Usually took 1-2 days for a reply. Another problem I had with this class is that one part of the class involved some vector calc stuff (Calc 3) even though its not a prereq for this course. Maybe putting a calc 3 prereq would make class sizes too small, I don't know. But I had great difficulty wrapping my head around those parts of the course (Neural networks). That's not anyones fault but its just something to keep in mind if you want to take this class. You'll have a really good time in this class if you've taken data science, intro to ml, intro to lin alg, and calc 3. I only took intro to lin alg so I really struggled, but they don't grade too harshly. Despite the minor problems I listed, prof Metzler is such a good professor that it just outshines the issues. Lecturing a computer vision class, understanding all the concepts so well that you can break it down to students is seriously difficult so I was just grateful we got someone so capable of teaching it. The neural network project and the visual odometry project are very interesting and really shocked me that you can get a computer to do that. Very good class.

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/21/2023

Pretty great overall. The projects are very interesting and straightforward, and there are a lot of opportunities for extra credit. He's not the most engaging lecturer as he's mostly going off of slides, but he's very helpful during office hours.

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/20/2023

This class was a lot of different other classes packed into one. I walked in without 320, 422, and MATH401 but all of the lectures seemed to build off of these classes and combine their knowledge. Metzler teaches quite a lot of difficult math concepts (Fourier transform for filtering, back-propagation with matrix decomposition, homography matrices). However, this ended up not mattering much, since the only time that we really needed to use the difficult concepts were on the midterms. Overall, the lectures weren't really required since the projects we could use libraries that already implement the complicated functions. In the case of projects, sometimes the instructions are a bit difficult to grasp but they are quite easily searchable. This class ends up being very manageable if you start projects early, and it's overall a chill class because the reports are graded quite leniently. I think for future classes some material can be left out of the lectures as those are confusing and not always relevant/helpful but as it stands it is a well managed and pretty laid back class.

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/10/2023

Not a huge fan of the lecturing style at all and I attended almost every class. Lectures are dull. Prof just reads off the slides and doesn't seem prepared for questions. He is a lot better at answering questions on Piazza than answering them during lecture. There's a lot of conceptual material but often he refers to variables/equations/concepts as "this" or "that" while lecturing—delivery could be clearer. Grading is slow. BUT, I honestly think you could get by decently in this class without attending any lectures at all. Slides are detailed and always posted to Canvas. Grades are all based on a few homework assignments and projects with very clear grading criteria and instructions. Grading is lenient with a lot of opportunities for extra credit.

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/09/2023

Truth be told i went to this class once in person. Despite that, he’s an amazing prof w great slides & so quick to respond on Piazza. Projects are clear and take like a few days, he provides lots of resources & the material is genuinely so interesting. Great class for your seniors especially, low stress and fun learning

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
07/13/2021

Awesome professor. Professor was very helpful throughout the course on piazza, and the lecture slides were clear and concise. Facilitated smooth learning. Additional learning links were provided for reference. Projects had clear expectations with them, fixed rubric. Easy A class.

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/23/2021

Lectures were pretty dry--though that was to be expected. Content was very linear algebra heavy (a personal weak point), but we were warned of this ahead of time and given a small primer prior to class. Class was totally project-based and professor Metzler and the TAs were quick to assist on piazza. Ample extra credit was given as well. The class could certainly better--most classes could--but I thought professor Metzler handled it pretty well, particularly for his first semester at UMD. This content seemed particularly difficult to relay in an online environment, so I often found myself skipping lectures to watch the recordings later in order to pause and take notes.

Christopher Metzler
CMSC426

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/26/2021

I had Metzler for 426 and thought the class was fine. The lectures were boring and could be confusing at times. Since there are no exams, the grades are fully dependent on the homeworks and projects. I would only recommend this class if you are pretty good with linear algebra and are willing to commit a decent amount of time for projects.