Nelson Padua-Perez

This professor has taught: CMSC106, CMSC122, CMSC131, CMSC132, CMSC132H, CMSC133, CMSC198R, CMSC216, CMSC330, CMSC335, CMSC389J, CMSC389K, CMSC389N, CMSC389P, INFM603, INFM743

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Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/20/2024	Super nice guy, but spends about 1/3 of lecture time going on tangents or joking with students. I just stopped going to class after the first week (he posts recordings) and watched the recordings on 1.5x. Exams were almost always copy pasted from one of the previous exams (which he gives you) and felt absurdly easy compared to other classes I've taken. Projects were also very fair, just start early and the workload isn't bad. I would highly recommend taking Nelson for 216 if you are able.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 09/10/2024	Nelson is knowledgeable and teaches the material decently but he is unprofessional. He often distracts from the material and embarrasses students, like calling out a student for her insulin pump beeping. He shouldn't have to make jokes at the expense of a student to engage his class because not every student is comfortable being put on blast in front of the whole class. This behavior discourages students from coming to class and creates an uncomfortable environment for those that he picks on and students that have to watch. He does grade fairly and records lectures which is nice. He seems to care about students a lot but continues to act rudely towards them.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/19/2024	Great teacher that only wants the best for his students. Content can be tricky but a lot of his resources can help you succeed. Just make sure you do well throughout the class as his final can be tricky. Overall great teacher
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/16/2024	didnt go to a single lecture, didnt watch a single recording, spammed the practice exam 2 days before each exam, got a B. My only complaint is that the final didn't have a practice and also the assembly stuff was kinda annoying. not even any real complaints
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a C- Anonymous 08/08/2024	I took Nelson over the summer of 2024, and to be honest, you'll pass if you study his previous exams and you submit your projects on time. You can learn off the slides but personally I didn't get much help from them. A lenient grader (except the final) and he's very anal about academic integrity. If you're having trouble balancing things or struggling with grades, talk to him, he's very understanding. Also he has a fun personally so he likes to joke and laugh a lot. If you're going to take 216, take it with Nelson.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/07/2024	I think Nelson is hands-down the best introductory computer-science teacher in the department. He does a great job at welcoming people, motivating people, making the class engaging with his students, cares for each and every student above and beyond, etc. He is very open to receiving feedback and input into how he runs the class. Very honorable as well, as he doesn't tolerate cheating and gives students the grade they deserve in the class, regardless of his opinion of a certain student. His tests are extremely fair and what he covers in lecture will be on the tests. Class is extremely relatable to the tests and he is super knowledgeable about programming and the real world of computer science. He promotes fairness, equality, and hard work while going out of his way to help people form groups within and outside of the class, so people feel connected in a world of disconnected computer-scientists. 100% Take him if you get the chance.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/05/2024	Since I already had experience with web programming, this was one of the easiest CS classes I've ever taken. Nelson doesn't require attendance, so I showed up only for the midterms. He provides many resources to use when studying so you're never unprepared. One neat thing about the final project is it's up to you to design and implement it.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/02/2024	Quite literally the goat in almost every way possible. I had a FAR easier time in this class compared to Herman's 132 (not that Herman is bad, I personally love him but he definitely runs a tough class.) Provides far more exam practice then you will ever need and the content is very easy to manage, especially if you take it in the summer like I did. Exam 3 was almost the exact same as the practice given, so as long as you spend 5 or so hours practicing per exam you should do good. He's also incredibly nice and approachable, and apart from sometimes getting sidetracked in lectures there really isn't anything bad I can say about him.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/31/2024	In terms of difficulty, Nelson's 216 is a joke. Provides 10+ years of practice exams and all midterms are basically recycled, to the point where content on these exams honestly felt unfairly easy. Projects felt pretty fair, as long as you space your work out there shouldn't really be a problem. My biggest problem with Nelson was his lectures, it felt like he often got sidetracked and I stopped going in person after a week because I felt like I was getting nothing out of class. What helped a lot was his past recorded videos, these are much more concise and cut out all of the tangents from his in person lectures.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 07/29/2024	CMSC216 with this professor was easy not hard at all
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/11/2024	Lowkey kind of hard and fast pace but Nelson is very kind and will offers a lot of support and help. Would definitely reccommend taking this over the summer if you have a lot going on during the school year. I also would not reccommend doing 216 and 250 together. Take 216 over the summer if you can.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/11/2024	Amazing. He is so nice and understanding and I built a really strong foundation in Java in his class. This is a great intro class where you'll learn a lot but won't feel overwhelmed.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 07/01/2024	It was a fine class. Content is not difficult but his exams can be tricky. The good thing is his exams are similar to practice (structure wise). I think some of the point distributions were unfair though. The big change I noticed from his other classes and this is the powerpoints are very bland. There wasn't really enough content on them to answer questions. So it forces you to watch the lectures or go to class (obviously most choose to watch lectures). That being said I think if you learn content from the practices and project you can set yourself up for at least a decent grade.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a C- Anonymous 06/01/2024	To echo my other review of Nelson, he makes you feel welcomed in a room of hundreds. The course content of 132 is so so important as principles of CS, and he instructs in an engaging fashion. Start your projects early, as always ;)
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 06/01/2024	Love Nelson, makes you feel welcomed even in a room of 300 students. His explanations and examples are adaptive and dynamic. He's great!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/29/2024	This class was chill but it’s pretty useless. It’s missing key elements that are useful in modern web development such as typescript, react, and relational databases. The class material is dated to like 2015 at best. Expected much more for the $$$ we are paying in tuition.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/29/2024	Nelson is a good teacher and very funny. he cares about the content a lot. This class is very fun and very useful for getting started with JavaScript and web development. Would definitely recommend. That being said, exam 1 was kind of a mess because it was not like the sample exams even though he said it would be. The rest of the exams and projects were straightforward. Definitely take him and this class, just expect to put some work into it if you want an A.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/28/2024	Nelson is a pretty good professor and a nice guy. He likes to joke around in lectures and can waste a lot of time when he gets distracted, but he (usually) gets through the content he needs to cover and will always provide recordings to cover what he doesn't get to in lecture. Some people find him getting off-topic distracting, but it actually helped me pay attention since I also get distracted often and his jokes are a nice brain break. Nelson's an active poster on the course Piazza and is extremely transparent about things like grading and exam content. Exams are extremely reasonable and Nelson provides plenty of practice materials and is extremely clear on what they will cover. Projects/exercises aren't unreasonable. For reference, I found the projects to be less convoluted than projects from Fawzi's CMSC 132, but the instructions are more confusing and unclear. Ultimately they aren't terribly difficult, just start early and ask him clarifying questions if you get confused.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ homework420 05/27/2024	Nelson Definitely Made 216 a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. The class is grade is comprised of 36% Project Grade, 4% Quizzes, and 46% Exams, and 14% Final Exam. Originally I thought the Exams were going to be the most difficult part of the course, but the averages on them were all 90% or above if I recall correctly. The projects took a long time usually but doable in like 3 days, I always made sure to start them early and always ended with at least 2 days of extra time before the project was due. The lectures themselves are usually fun but honestly if you want to learn the content just watch the past semester video he posts, cause in lecture it felt like we went through like 40 minutes worth of content in a 75 minute lecture. If you're taking CMSC216 with Nelson, focus a lot on the projects, which if you truly understand them, will prepare you quite well for the coding questions (which is usually most of the points on the exam), this is especially true for the assembly project. Then a week before the exam start doing 1-3 past exams (which he gives you). If you do this you will probably get at least a 95 on each exam. Overall, my gripes with the class are that the lectures sometimes had a bit too many side tangents which made them fun, but always made it feel like we were behind on content.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/26/2024	nelson's style of teaching for 216 is definitely a bit of a hit or miss; his in-person lectures are fairly disorganized and mostly him getting distracted every two minutes, but his online videos from other the summer are a lot more concise and informative. his projects are definitely tough and his descriptions are a little all over the place, but i don't think they're unreasonable -- you just need to start early and go to ta office hours. the only thing is that he also assigns exercises, which are like mini-projects meant to introduce a topic, and the window for exercises and projects overlap pretty heavily so if you procrastinate, it can become very stressful. his exams are generally very similar to all of the practice exams he gave, which means they were generally straightforward if you studied. all in all, i'd say nelson's class is one where you have to be very proactive in (making sure to start projects and exercises early, and making sure to study his old exams thoroughly), but i personally found it to be a really fun and enjoyable class where i definitely learned a lot
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/23/2024	Great professor and great personality. His lectures are extremely engaging and I can confidently say that you will most likely laugh at least once in every lecture. We only had a single quiz (worth 4%) the entire semester. The quiz was also a guaranteed 100% as all you needed to know was how to use a few debugging tools. We had 3 midterms and all were extremely easy as they were pretty similar to the practice exams that he gave. His projects are not too difficult, however you will find that they might take awhile to complete (especially the assembly project). My only complaint is that sometimes projects and exercises have 2 deadlines, so you have to fulfill the first deadline by passing the first few public tests. Overall though, best 216 professor you can choose.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/21/2024	He was terrible for 131,just skims through all his code examples without much explanation
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/21/2024	Not the best teacher,he gave sample papers for exam 1 and asked major coding question(near 70 points) from other exam.Just goes through code examples,very hard to understand his teaching plus not very funny jokes during class.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/21/2024	I’m a bit conflicted about what exact rating I should leave here, as having Nelson as my professor was a pretty conflicting experience. Nelson is genuinely a really funny lecturer and cracks a lot of jokes to keep the class lighthearted, but when you actually want to focus in class, it starts to become pretty distracting and honestly sometimes even frustrating. Constantly in the middle of lecturing he’ll go on long unrelated tangents, or single out and start talking to random students in the auditorium, which can be irritating when you want to learn. Especially coming straight out of Fawzi’s 50-minute fast-paced no-laptops non-recorded lectures for 132 (which all helped me focus), staying focused in Nelson’s class was a lost cause. He ended up also posting his old pre-recorded lectures that had none of these tangents on Panopto, and they were what I (and a lot of people in this class) primarily learned the material from. That being said, he really is a nice guy, and he does like getting to know his students. If you need an extension or a make-up, he’ll absolutely give it to you without much need for proof which really helped me out a couple times when I needed it. And, for each midterm, he provides you with all of the previous exams (and their answer keys) from the previous semesters, which make the actual exams super easy since they’re really similar. I’d say Kauffman is probably the better 216 professor (if that’s the choice you’re making), but even though Nelson’s lectures were often disorganized, it was still a pretty fun and easy time.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/20/2024	super chill course, especially for senior year :) only downsides sometimes were exams having coding content from other exams (ex. exam1 having the content from previous exam2s, exam2 having content from previous exam3s), but all the topics on exams were always outlined and stuff so it was fair in that regard. not bad at all and would 100% recommend!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024	Liked this class because I really learned a lot stuff from it. His exam materials were all included in his bullet points for exam topics, which I thought was fair. Project were fun and easy as well, and the final project was a very interesting one to me personally. Nelson, overall, is a pretty good lecturer, he is very funny, kind, and he cares about his students a lot. I recommend everyone take this class.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a B FozzyBear1 05/19/2024	I thought Nelson was great for 216. His exams are the same as the practice ones he provides. While he gets frequently distracted during lectures, he provided lectures from previous semesters where he wasn't distracted, and I found them really helpful. No pop quizzes during discussion! The projects were tough, but the projects are tough for 216 no matter who you take.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2024	His exam materials are all included in his bullet points for exam topics, which I thought was fair. The class was fun and chill, and projects were fair and easy. He also removed the last project just so we could have more time to do the final project/study.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2024	TLDR: Really nice person, what you think of him as a teacher depends on how you like your lectures taught Nelson's a really nice person overall. He's a chill and funny (sometimes) guy and genuinely cares about his students. Unfortunately, his goofiness bleeds into lectures a lot and often it makes lectures more unproductive than it should be. A joke here and there during an long lecture is welcome, but he consistently gets sidetracked with random shenanigans. There have been times where he stopped the entire lecture to call someone out for yawning and then starting a bit about getting them coffee. He also calls out anyone who looks like they're not taking notes/coding on their devices and stops class to ask them what they're watching. If you like having this type of humor in lecture (which some people do since most people went to lectures even though it was recorded), then Nelson's perfect. Otherwise, see who the alternative professors are.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/16/2024	You should either attend lectures or watch recordings if you want to learn. It is actually a pretty useful class. Youll learn a lot about web development. I was taking 20 credits so I barely focused on this class. I just took it for some filler cs in my schedule. If you try even a little bit, you can easily get an A. Exams are basically the same as sample exams, just make sure you review and actually understand everything on the sample exam. The projects are pretty easy as well. There is no final exam, just a final group project.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/14/2024	I was genuinely so excited to take this course with Nelson, after hearing so many positive things about him. Man I was so dissapointed. I could not really sit through an entire lecture of his, he gets too distracted and his lecturing style feels kind of disorganized. I learn best by handwriting notes but his lectures make it nearly impossible to handwrite any notes, since it's mainly him going through code and running it. He also expects us to watch past semester lecture recordings prior to class, which I frankly do not have time for. I have specified lecture time for the purpose of learning, not reviewing something I already watched. I also HATED the projects he gave us!! They were described in such an awful way and were frustrating in that very important details would be written in small font after a long listed bullet points. The instructions were not straightforward at all and especially the assembly project was so insane. A lot of people were caught cheating on the assembly project because of how insanely difficult it was, and I can't blame them for desperately finding the code for it, because from what we learned from him, the project was way too advanced for that. I found out that nelson and yoon share similar projects. No wonder they were so awful. People say his exams are easy and make up for everything else. They really weren't easy, you still needed to study pretty hard, but they were FAIR exams. But they in no way "Make Up" for every other flow. While nelson is a genuinely nice person and is very accomodating to extensions and makeups, I would say definitely take Christopher Kauffman.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/14/2024	Terribly organized class. You learn nothing. Not fun.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A fawzibear123 05/13/2024	He is a genuinely funny guy, the class is like a standup comedy session. On the other hand, going to lectures isn't the most useful for learning course content. Despite this, his exams are quite easy and people generally do well if you review the practice exams one or two days before. He also likes to drop life lessons on us which is more enjoyable than assembly ! Also pretty understanding for extensions and posts plenty of lecture videos, in which he is more serious than IRL lectures, if you actually like learning.He is the cornerstone of UMD cs. you should take him for the experience :D
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/09/2024	Nelson is a great professor and makes 216 very straightforward. First and foremost, his lectures are a waste of time. Most of what he says is funny and not really helpful but most of the time in lecture he just goes through examples and explains them. If you don't want to go to class, don't. I went to maybe 5 this semester and have a 94 currently. His slides are straightforward and the amount of practice material he provides for exams is unheard of. Most exams he gives at least 5 previous exams, not only that, his exams are very similar to the provided practices. There aren't curveball questions but that doesn't mean his exams are extremely easy. If you complete like 3 or 4 practice exams you should be set though. One issue I have with Nelson is his project descriptions, they can be veryyyyy vague at times and can lead you to implement something completely useless because of a single word in his description. However, he makes up for this with responsive TAs and Piazza. Most of the mistakes I made through his descriptions were because of my lack of thoroughness; be sure to read it all the way through before you start. TLDR: Funny guy, useless lectures, very self-studiable content, easy A if you put in the work, better than most other 216 profs
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/07/2024	Nelson is very fun professor. He makes lectures entertaining which is good, but it is also his downfall in teaching. He likes to ramble a lot so we will be behind on content by the end of class. One lecture is about 25% actual learning and the 75% him making jokes and telling stories. I appreciate that he tries to make lectures fun, but in the end you have to teach yourself everything. Additionally, if he does not get through a topic during class he will post videos that you need to watch. He will sometimes go over the material covered in the videos, but barely. His projects are fairly easy and if you ask him for more release tokens he will give it to you. His exams are also fair and he give A LOT of practice which is really good. Something that I did not like in his class was that he would call people out for either being on their phone or simply leaving to go to the bathroom. It made the lectures very uncomfortable to attend. Every time I attended lecture I was scared that I was going to get called out (even though I wasn't doing anything wrong) which made me dread going to lecture.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC133 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/02/2024	Had 133 with Nelson. 133 is basically the same as 131 but with a smaller class (around 20 people) which was helpful for questions. At the beginning of the semester you start somewhat ahead (skip intro stuff like what classes, fields, methods are), and you may be one project ahead than 131, but in the end you take the same exams. We took the same exact exams, in the same exam rooms as 131 with all the other 131 students but they just direct you to hand your exam to a specific TA at the end. Worth it to take 133 just for the smaller class size, definitely take it if you got a 4 on AP CS A
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/24/2024	This man is the GOAT. He is the best CS Professor at UMD. He tries his absolute hardest to make sure that you pass his class. The projects are kind of hard and the TAs are harsh on style but other than that this was the best experience I have had with a CS course. Nelson's lectures are entertaining but he also records them so no need to show up for lectures. Before exams, he posts all of his previous exams, and the exams are exactly like his previous exams. If you know how to do the previous exams you will do fine on the actual exam. The topics in 216 are hard but Nelson does such a great job. Try your hardest to take at least one course with this man.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/19/2024	Overall, Nelson is an incredible teacher. He knows what he is talking about, and is very forgiving when it comes to extensions. He tells you there is no such thing as a "dumb question" in his class, and will help you if you advocate for yourself (we got 80 release tokens on the most recent exercise). The one warning I have is that you should be prepared to do a great deal of work out of class. He posts the lecture slides and videos about a week in advance, and asks you to watch the videos and look over the slides before arriving in class. That being said, he records his lectures, so there is no issue with skipping.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/17/2024	I agree with everything the review below said. Lectures are disorganized, often over half jokes or random tangents (istg he normally covers like 20 min or less from his published videos in one 1hr 15 lecture). I moved him from 2 to 3 stars though since 1) I feel like personally when he does explain things/watching his videos, it does make a lot of sense, 2) exams aren’t necessarily easy but you can do quite well on them after practice exams that he publishes since he pretty much copies the question then changes the names, and 3) the projects do suck but I don’t feel like quite as bad as the below review made them out to be. (I spent about 6 hours avg including office hour time for a week and a half project)
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting a C- Anonymous 04/11/2024	His class is extremity disorganized and a lacks clarity regarding exam content. Despite the absence of guidance on exam topics and the withholding of practice exams, students are left to navigate a frustrating academic experience devoid of support. For exam 1, the main coding question had content from Exam 3. He misguided all of his students.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 03/30/2024	So first off I have to say, Nelson is a genuinely funny and kind and caring person. He is very understanding of your circumstances and is ready to give you a make up or extension whenever you need it without asking for much proof or reason. I was personally super excited to have him for 216 since it has been a while since he taught the course in a normal fall/spring semester. I have realized I made a big mistake of taking him when I realized how his class is all over the place and gets way overly distracted. I appreciate the jokes, but it gets to be too much when I am just trying to learn the content. Like I genuinely haven't ever learned anything from his lectures whenever I go to them. I only learn from watching his summer lectures, in which he explains things better and more seriously. He expects us to watch videos from his lectures back in the summer, and then expects us to come into class somewhat knowing the material and lectures are more like a review session, which I really don't like, because I will sit in lecture for 75 minutes unable to concentrate because he will either talk about something I have no idea about, or go on a tangent about love lives idk. Like personally I do not have the time to watch entire lectures from previous semesters on top of lectures we have in person with all my other classes. Now let me get into the real reason why he's only getting 2 stars....HIS PROJECTS. Oh...my...god, the descriptions are so bad and confusing, and his third project genuinely made me want to cry. Not only does he assign projects, he also assigns exercises, which are like mini projects every week. So we generally have an exercise and a whole project in the same week. And the projects aren't even cool creative projects, they are just plain way too complicated not well described projects. I had heard that Yoon has similar projects to nelson which goes to show how awful they are. People say his main selling point is how easy his exams are, and while so far they weren't bad, they didn't feel easy enough for me to justify all of the other flaws. Please do yourself a favor and take Kauffman for 216.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/28/2024	The class is easy and Nelson is a great lecturer, he makes it very fun. However, you can't talk in class or he will call you out so if you want to do that then just watch his lecture videos.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/24/2024	Chill and funny professor that is very on top of things and regularly posts announcements / updates on piazza. He tends to make a lot of jokes and keep the lectures light-hearted so if you are struggling his lectures may distract you. Other than that I found that the TAs were very active on piazza so you could always posts questions there or go to their office hours.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Anonymous 01/20/2024	Nelson is simply incredible. He is very chill, kind, and funny, all while being a great instructor. His exams (very fair), projects, and lectures are the best!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A akl2025 01/11/2024	Nelson is a friendly professor for sure. He recorded lectures and posted slides so in-person lectures were optional. Midterms are fairly easy, and you can easy earn a A/B by practicing the old exams. The projects are easy as well. I'd definitely recommend it for students who want to learn web development.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/05/2024	Nelson is a very nice guy, and just as everyone else said at times he is genuinely entertaining. Unfortunately this is basically where the pros end. I have to say Nelson as a teacher/lecturer is very poor. He constantly goes on tangents where he will start shit with someone in the class (usually jokingly), or explain how he has "Nothing but respect for nurses" for over 5 minutes (this is a real anecdote). Nelson will also explain things using superficial analogies, like stating that the "new" keyword is like a nurse, which is fine as a sort of mnemonic, but the issue is he never actually explains how many Java things actually function beyond that. After about the third week I didn't attend any more lectures and strictly watched lecture videos recorded by Pedram, another professor who co-taught this course with him. I have to say, Pedram did a much better job explaining things in detail and I found his lectures much more informative. Besides that basically all projects, quizzes, and exams were extremely fair in the class, and the only possible issue if you understand the subject is the time constraint on the exams. I think overall you should only take Nelson over Pedram if you really understand the material well and want to be entertained in his class. If you don't know anything about programming, and want to seriously understand the material, I really think you should start with Pedram, as he will give you a much better foundation in the information.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/01/2024	Nelson is as awesome as always. Take this course over all the other electives. You actually learn a good amount and become competent in website building at the end.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/28/2023	Super nice professor who's very fair in his exams and projects. He's also hilarious and makes lectures entertaining.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2023	Love this guy! Nelson = GOAT
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/23/2023	Very understanding professor and gives practice exams. I slacked off but if you work hard enough then it is an easy A. Def recommend him. Hes very funny and his lectures are engaging.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ frankMiller 12/21/2023	I took CMSC335: Introduction to Javascript with Nelson over Fall 2023 as a CS elective. You MUST take this course. It is actually useful and sometimes even fun. Nelson is of course, classic Nelson. Please also take this course alongside TWO other CS classes because the workload for this course is negligible. It is easily balanced on top of taking CMSC330 and CMSC351, for example. Records lectures, nobody shows up to class, I personally never watched the lectures but I did fine. Nelson was terrible for CMSC131 (kind of expected because he does not like the subject so much and finds it boring, something to "just pay the bills") but he was great for CMSC216 and CMSC335 (both of which he likes), I cannot recommend him enough.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2023	Definitely my favorite professor from my first semester! Personality-wise, he's great -- Nelson is kind, has a sense of humor, does his best to answer questions, and clearly cares about his students. Lectures and discussions are recorded, and attendance is optional. He's always happy to talk in office hours and before/after lectures. The projects are generally not that challenging, and the instructions are always clear. The exams are fair; they all come with a ton of practice material; do a few past exams and you'll be just fine. All in all, not a tough professor and he's very responsive to student concerns. My TA was ass, but he generally hires good ones. As for actually learning: the slides and coding examples he gives are great and basically all you need to understand the content and succeed. And if that isn't enough, he links you to a lot of other resources in the class website. However, keep in mind that in his lectures, he spends a lot of time just goofing around and cracking jokes. An example of this is when he scrolled through memes in Piazza for like 20 minutes one time. To be honest, those were the only times I actually paid attention, so I can't really speak on his lecturing ability lmao Bottom line - when people register, his sections fill up first for a reason.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/20/2023	incredibly understanding lecturer who cares about his students, but the problem is that his lectures just feel like a complete waste of time. it's pretty much 40% lecture, 50% him cracking jokes, 10% other downtime, and while he is incredibly funny, it does get old by the end of the semester. other helpful notes: -final was incredibly easy -projects are very easy to follow, accompanied with PDFs that basically hold your hand the whole way -a lot of his TAs tend to be bad for whatever reason; you do not need to attend discussions anyway -lectures are very digestible in the recorded format because you can skip through all the wasted time. albeit, you may find it easier learning some (not all) concepts yourself I'm giving 4 stars but think of this as a 3.5/5
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/16/2023	Overall, Nelson is a great professor that is willing to help his students. It is also fairly easy to get extensions on projects if you have a valid excuse or reschedule an exam or quiz if you were absent. Nelson also gives out plenty of practice exams and quizzes to help you prepare for the real exams/quizzes. However, for those with NO CODING EXPERIENCE who signed up for this course who want to recieve an A, I would suggest learning the basics of Java before the class starts in order to feel less stressed in the class. Also, even if you believe that the project will be light, start doing the project ASAP to alleviate stress.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B+ ysnim 12/15/2023	Nelson is a great professor. Cracks lots of jokes during lectures and keeps it casual but still teaches and explains the concepts well. Gives you a little breaks during the lecture to ask questions or talk to your seatmates. All the lectures and discussions are recorded (and there's no graded work during discussions) so you don't even have to go to class if you feel like you have a solid enough grasp on the concepts through watching the recordings, and TAs are almost always holding office hours either virtually or in person if you do need extra help. Projects near the end of the semester came with a LOT of direction -- like, 400 slide powerpoints with exactly what the projects expected to see, which can be overwhelming at first but they help a lot. Projects are fair and exams are too. The only downside is Nelson likes to tease his students and call them out randomly during lecture, noticing if they've changed seats since last lecture or maybe they're talking or doing something else instead of paying attention, which is funny if you never get called on because he plays it off lightheartedly as a joke each time, but stressful if you have anxiety about things like that. Easily avoided if you just watch the recordings or don't make yourself stand out during lecture though.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/15/2023	Nelson is a great professor. I like how he keeps the class engaged by telling jokes throughout his lecture. I also like how he gives out practice exams that prepare us well for all of the exams in the class. He's also pretty receptive when it comes to extenuating circumstances, and you will not have a hard time getting extensions. However, if you are a rising freshman and have NEVER CODED BEFORE, my suggestion would be to at least learn a bit of Java before going into this class during the summer or winter break depending on when your next semester starts. Even learning the very basics of Java before starting the class can make your life much easier down the line. If your goal in the class is to get an A or A+, I would strongly suggest doing this.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/15/2023	This class was phenomenal! Genuinely the most enjoyable CMSC course you can take at UMD. Projects are very manageable, exams are quite easy if you run through study guides, and you do not have to attend class at all! If you make an effort to soak in the course material, you will learn a ton of applicable skills and it's an easy resume booster, you learn a lot of tools in such a short time. (I suggest working on the final project alone or doing something grand so you can put it on your resume, I did a personal portfolio as my final)
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 12/11/2023	Nelson made this class easy and enjoyable for me. I had an AMAZING semester this Fall and I truly appreciate all the things Nelson has done for us. He has made a work environment where everyone belongs and there are a lot of great TAs and review sessions and practice material for everything so you will eventually learn everything super easily! His classes and sessions are very well structured and also the fact that he takes into consideration everything. So when it's a peak of a semester he wouldn't bother you with gaining out a hard exam or stressing you with taking quizzes. And also the projects he gives are not always hard with no purpose. He makes some projects easy to help you learn the course material and I would say don't worry about them if you have learned the course material well. If you are unable to do the projects don't panic and go look for answers online or from your friend because that won't help you in the exam. Try understanding where you are going wrong and then try to learn it and do it yourself. When you feel like you have learned then that's it! You know that subject very well since it's very similar to what you'll see in exams and honestly exams are way easier than projects so if you write them yourself and know projects well you know everything! Also based on the difficulty of the projects some of them were only based on the public test or release test results and there were no secret tests or style or student test regulations on them. I think it helped a lot and was absolutely very considerable of Nelson! He also has an amazing personality and I really enjoy learning from his experiences and trying them! He is one of the BEST PROFESSORS I HAVE EVER HAD !!!!!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2023	I honestly think that these reviews hype him up a little too much. He is actually a pretty annoying lecturer as he never stays on topic and he might talk about random stuff for 60% of the class and would only teach the other 40%. He is too unfocused and it makes lectures so hard to go to. But his exams and quizzes are pretty fair.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 12/08/2023	probably one of the most genuine professors at the school, and the most genuine teacher ive had in my entire academic career. he's simply a great character who just wants to see his students succeed, both in the class and outside of it. the class itself was really well organized, the projects were well explained, the TA's were helpful, and the tests were fair. the only slight downside i felt was that i think nelson isn't the best lecturer in terms of explaining his ideas, but the code examples he reviewed were always helpful and he records lectures anyway if you need to revisit a topic. nelson is also very understanding if you need extensions. great guy, well structured and fair class, theres not much more you could ask for. definitely recommend.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/06/2023	Amazing professor. Really cares about his students and wants them to do well. He makes lectures really funny while simultaneously teaching the material. His teaching style definitely doesn't work for everyone but I learned a lot from him.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/06/2023	If you like a professor who makes a lot of jokes and talks with the students in lecture a lot, you'll probably like Nelson. He's funny and nice, but I found it pretty annoying how he'd stop lecture every five minutes to talk about something unrelated or tell us to talk to our neighbors. I stopped going to lecture and just used the slides he posts because the material isn't difficult. I had no Java experience but this class was pretty easy. The projects aren't too bad, just start them kinda early and make sure you know when they're due (they sometimes have smaller parts due earlier than the rest of the project) so that doesn't catch you by surprise. The exams are harder imo, but they're usually pretty similar to the practice exams he gives you. Also super lax about extensions for projects and exams, I got extensions for two projects and two exams.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/06/2023	An amazing instructor who truly makes an effort to take an interest in his students' learning and lives. The content is reviewed multiple times in class and then applied to enjoyable projects so you learn the content well. Exams are extremely manageable with multiple practice tests to work from. I plan to take any class that I can with him in the future.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/05/2023	While I was scared to go into this class, even with 2 years of programming knowledge from high school, Nelson helped me feel so much better about CS as a whole and I've learned far more about programming in this semester then I did in those 2 years. He's a great lecturer and super approachable, although he does stop frequently during class to make jokes which can throw your focus off sometimes. I would still highly recommend taking him though.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/03/2023	my favorite teacher! he keeps the class light and cracks lots of jokes but is great at teaching the material. really easy quizzes, tests, and projects but you still learn a lot. definitely recommend him!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/28/2023	Great class! Good if you want an introduction to Web Development. Also good if you need an extra CS class that's not too difficult or time-consuming. Lectures are optional and if you skip them you'll be fine because the material is all online. The exams were easy and the projects were easy also and not too time-consuming.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 11/24/2023	I took this class over the summer along with 250 and it was manageable. If you don't have any internship then you can take both classes. Nelson makes this class very easy. He is a very good professor and records his lectures. Projects are fairly easy and same thing with exams. I barely put any effort into this class, that's why I got a C+, otherwise, an A is very doable. Highly recommend him.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/22/2023	Nelson is fantastic! He makes an effort to learn names of people despite his lectures being huge. He is funny and cares about students well being. He is also very responsive to student complaints. For example, if he sensed that people were behind on a project he would give us extra release tokens or an extension. He records lectures and gives comprehensive exam review guides.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/20/2023	DO NOT TAKE NELSON IF YOU HAVE NEVER CODED BEFORE. I feel like he is a very FUNNY professor, but as someone who has never taken a CS course before, he is IMPOSSIBLE to follow. He jumps from different concepts very quickly, and this, paired with him making a joke every 2 minutes, makes it really tough to fully understand the concepts if you're actually trying to learn. I think something people don't tell you is MOST of the people in 131 have taken AP Comp Sci in high school but just didn't do well enough on the exam to test out of 131, so they at least have some basic understanding of coding. Therefore they enjoy the jokes he makes class since they have seen most of the material before and don't need to really sit down and think about new concepts. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a fun break from classes if you have a background in coding! However, if you've never done coding before, you will surely struggle. I would've MUCH rather taken Pedram as his lecture style is very straight forward.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/16/2023	Nelson is an absolute gem of a professor. He explains everything very clearly/eloquently, goes over lots of examples in lecture, and makes content digestable and engaging. He has a passion for CS and teaching that comes across in his teaching method, which includes good humor and 1 minute respites to talk to the person next to you about content (if you don't understand smth or if you got lost during lecture). He also posts the lecture recordings (godsent)! He manages to make the course very engaging. Additionally, he's genuinely a really nice person. I had an accident that really uprooted my semester, but Nelson was very understanding and accommodating. He understands that students are people too and life happens. If you have the opportunity to take a class with Nelson, do it. You won't regret it one bit I promise. Singlehandedly one of the best professors at UMD. Additionally, the TAs for CMSC131 are all very kind and helpful (thank you Fatima, Gavin, and Henna)
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 09/30/2023	The best CS prof that I ever had
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/29/2023	Ngl if you don't already know java it is hard to learn from him. He's a really nice guy, but class time is mainly spent just joking around. I personally already knew Java, but I can see how if I didn't have any experience coding beforehand I would struggle in the class. Still a really nice and funny guy tho, class assignments overall pretty easy.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/29/2023	Nelson is the goat. Best computer science teacher especially when breaking into computer science and wanting to become interested int he field. He makes it interesting and informative. I love you
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/25/2023	Nelson is an absolute gem of a professor. He is truly passionate about CS and wants all of us to succeed. In high school, I didn't really enjoy CS that much, but coming to UMD and taking Java with Nelson was one of the best decisions I could have possibly made. I am very grateful to have had him for all of the CS introductory courses - 131, 132 and 216. Absolutely do take Nelson, especially if you have just entered UMD and are starting with 131.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/05/2023	I was debating giving Nelson 4 or 5 stars, because if there's one drawback to him, the class isn't really as comprehensive as other professors from what I've heard. For example, Larry and Yoon teach assembly with MIPS, whereas we get AVR. I don't know MIPS much at all, but for one it has an explicit frame pointer unlike AVR, and I believe they have to learn about stack frames right off the bat, whereas we learned it as a subtopic during the last week. I still don't know how frame pointers work in assembly, as we really didn't go over it at all, but I could probably learn fairly quickly by the time I take ENEE350 next semester. It's still a whole lot better doing AVR assembly than going into ENEE350 blind like most EE's do. Honestly though, that's a minor nitpick compared to the benefits it gives. For one, Nelson's exams aren't hard in the slightest. They're like Pedram's, but much easier. The averages for the three semester exams ranged from 87-91%. For the most part, they're pretty fair in not testing crap no one cares about, and when it does pop up on occasion, it's not worth a whole lot of the exam. Most of the weight are in the coding questions, and they are pretty easy. If that's not enough, Nelson gives us so much review material. For exams 1 and 2, he gave us material dating back to 2014. For exam 3, he gave us a ton of process worksheets and quizzes. The final review material was a bit lacking, as nothing really covered threads all that well, but that's minor if you could understand exercise 6 and actually watched the lecture videos at the end. Even then, the final was only worth 10% of the grade, so if you did well on everything else it's nothing to worry about. The exercises and projects were kinda neat, but it was kinda back to back to back on that front. Just, please work on them early. If you get stuck, especially if you can't go to in-person office hours, virtual office hours were pretty crowded this summer by the project due dates, so go early. You may lose some secret test points here and there as I did, but if your implementation is mostly correct, it shouldn't be a big issue regarding your overall course grade, granted you do well on the exams. If you do take this course over the summer and want to do it mostly asynchronously, as Nelson set up another section just for this, just please don't try and take advantage of Nelson. It will not work. Piazza was kind of a nightmare this summer, and part of that was due to requests like "can the lowest project be dropped," despite the grading scheme being clearly laid out in the syllabus at the start of the semester. Nelson laid out from the beginning of the semester that this is a very demanding course, and he cannot grant extensions for arbitrary reasons (he is very lenient about extensions and whatnot when it comes to genuine issues unrelated to workload). Unless you have plenty of experience in C and assembly, you will likely struggle at some point in the course, so start things early. Even worse, do not attempt to cross Nelson by cheating. He is not lenient at all about academic dishonesty, and he will request an XF if he has any proof of someone cheating. He has the terms laid out in the syllabus like just about every CS professor. If you can pick things up semi-quickly, and you don't flood yourself with other responsibilities, you will have a good time in this course. Nelson said at the beginning that if you do your part, there's a good chance you'll get an A in his class. It's certainly doable to take this alongside either another class or a job/internship, but just know that the class doesn't slow down because you're doing that. Overall, with some of the horror stories I've heard about 216 (particularly with Yoon), this class was nothing like that. It was exceedingly fair in my opinion, and Nelson genuinely wanted us to succeed.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 07/30/2023	Pros: -He is extremely friendly -His exams are easy as they have similar if not the same question from some of the previous exams (which he gives you access to) -There are a lot of review materials to study -He records the lectures so you don't have to attend -His TAs are very helpful -You have Piazza as a resource to ask questions Cons: -I took it in the summer so there was a class every day so if you missed a class you were automatically behind -Some of the projects were very hard so you must start early -There are no breaks in the class as soon an assignment is due the next one is released -There is no curve, however, you shouldn't need it -Some of the project and exercise descriptions were confusing, especially the last project and exercise Overall, most of the cons are not Nelson's fault, but the course structure comes with the professor. If you have the option to take you should take him. TLDR he is the GOAT and I stan Nelson and you will too once you take him!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/25/2023	I am so grateful for this man. He is truly the people's teacher.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/18/2023	In 216 he's an actual God he makes the class super manageable and explains concepts really well. Even though he jokes around like he usually does he has extra time to explain everything. He also posts videos of him explaining things with zero jokes. If you're going to take 216 nelson is the man and will carry you success it's worth it taking it in the summer just because he's teaching. If you want an A and learn everything take nelson if you want to barely pass and come away with nothing take the other choices for 216.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/20/2023	I had CMSC133, CMSC132, and CMSC216 with Nelson. He basically taught me how to code from the ground up. His lectures are funny, and explains concepts really well. Always releases a bunch of exam prep material, that was super helpful. He listens to student feedback and makes changes accordingly. I would recommend taking any class with Nelson.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/19/2023	His TAs are HORRIBLEEEE. I had both Fawzi and Nelson, and Fawzi's TAs are way more helfpul when it comes to projects. Nelson is for people that kind of know how to code already, and Fawzi is for people who have little experience coding and want to learn more.Sometimes I feel like going to Nelson's lecture is pointless. He does record everything, but his lecture slides are self explanatory. He is an average professor.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2023	Nelson's lectures could be more focused, but honestly just having a professor who cares about your well-being is more important to me, and that's what you'll get. He is very compassionate when you have extenuating circumstances or need an extension for some reason or another. He's funny too, but don't talk too loudly or he'll call you and your friends out.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/16/2023	Nelson is a very chill and funny professor. Lectures are recorded and projects and exams are very straightforward. The course covers express, node, and MongoDB, so you do learn some valuable information as well. Definitely recommend taking this course.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2023	Nelson is great. He's really funny and understands student's struggles. 335 was a very useful class, and extremely manageable. Projects were basically just adapting what examples he did in class and there was no final exam, just a final project. Would definitely recommend.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/05/2023	When first learning how to code I would say Nelson is the absolute best as he gives a lot of leeway in all types of situations. Such as extensions for just any reason and is fairly quick with his responses. Exams are all fair and can be a cakewalk if you study the previous exams throughly. In any scenario where he can help you he will. Projects actually matter in that they actually count for a significant amount of the class and they are all fairly easy. MOST IMPORTANTLY ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF ASK FOR WHATEVER YOU NEED(increased tokens, extensions on projects, etc…).
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/03/2023	Straightforward and funny professor who teaches you the fundamentals. Great for people getting into web development. I would recommend Nelson 100% for CMSC335
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/06/2023	He is a funny teacher, but he gets off topic way too much. If you are looking for an easy grade, this is a good professor, but he is not that good of a teacher.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/06/2023	Nelson is the chillest professor. He understands students needs and teaches important material. This class was very easy though. Projects are mostly changing things from the examples he has in class. The tests are a lot of info to memorize but I found that it wasn't graded so harshly.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B Anonymous 02/01/2023	Had Nelson for CMSC 131 in fall 2022 and he's the best CS professor I've ever had. Like it's not even close. He genuinely cares about his students and will do just about anything to help you succeed. I ended up doing horribly on the second midterm and when I emailed him asking for help, he told me to meet him in his office hours. I went there and the man spent over 30 minutes with me going over my entire test in detail like what I got wrong and how to avoid falling into the traps I fell into going forward (which helped big time). His lecture slides and in-class code were very helpful and enabled me to finish the projects in a timely manner. He would dig deep into different complex methods and better explain them using analogies which I also found very helpful. The projects can be challenging but are doable if you don't procrastinate and start on time. He's also very understanding and will grant extensions if necessary. Exams are a mixed bag but for the most part, if you complete the practice exams he provides, you should be fine. If there is one complaint I have about his class, it has to be the amount of unnecessary stoppages that eventually start to get pretty annoying (like a student may not be paying attention and if Nelson notices, he'll stop lecturing for a few moments and press him/her on the spot) and the sometimes corny jokes he'd blurt out during lecture. Despite this, I overlooked all of this and quite frankly didn't really care at all because I was gaining a lot out of his class despite the fact that I had prior coding experience. All this being said, if you have the opportunity to take 131 (or any other class) with Nelson, DO IT! You won't regret it. He is very friendly and shows that he cares about his students. He will give you the necessary resources to do well in his class and he's perfect if people who have little or no coding experience.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 01/27/2023	Annoying as hell. Makes stupid jokes during the class and is not good at explaining.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/24/2023	You need to take this class an elective with Nelson. Nelson is the best. Period. There are 3 tests and he gives you a test from the previous year that is basically the same thing, with different numbers. The projects are all super easy and straight-forward, while also making you learn the topic. He also gave extensions for almost every project which was always a nice surpise. I wish we spend less time on html in the beginning and spend more time with React/Angular, but overall, great class and great teacher.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC133 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/15/2023	This class is basically cmsc131 but you just meet less. I don't think it was a particularly easy course but I would say it was fair. As an average student, I did have to spend some time in office hours. Do not start the projects late. Nelson was a really kind and helpful professor for this and even extended some deadlines for us when we requested him to do so. Overall, you should be ok if you put in effort in this class
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/13/2023	Nelson was a great professor imo. He brought humor to lecture, although I barely went and just watched recordings. Discussions arent mandatory so I only went to one discussion session which had a quiz. The midterms were easy and were basically clones of the past midterms which he gives you to study off of. Projects werent that bad I just recommend starting them when they are released. Most of the projects were very to the example code shown in the lecture or on the class site with a bit more complexity to it. I fortunately had some prior java experience so I was fine with following the topics, but I do think without experience it could seem pretty fast for some people.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/10/2023	Nelson is a really great professor. He keeps lectures fun and engaging and explains challenging concepts really well. His quizzes and exams are not super difficult (they’re pretty much identical to the sample exams so as long as you study those you should be fine). TA office hours ran pretty much 9-5 weekdays so it’s easy to get help. Some of the projects were challenging and they definitely require the full amount of time to work on them so don’t procrastinate! I think this class would be more difficult for someone without CS experience but still definitely doable as long as you start work early and get help when you need it.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 01/05/2023	I think it's a myth that he is one of the best professors. I am switching to Fawzi next semester. For simplicity I will make a pro and con list Pros - Website is easy to navigate. - Projects, once you get the hang of them after the first few, are easy and the single most helpful thing for my learning - At surface level seems a nice, personable man - Gives extensions for projects easily - Him and TAs responsive on Piazza Cons - Overall, not a good lecturer: Disorganized, hard to follow examples. Even the pauses during lectures, half the time when we were supposed to discuss what he just told us, the people around would just look at each other and talk about something else because no one could pay attention long enough to understand what he said. - To follow up on that, he claimed that "I get about 20 minutes of your undivided attention per lecture, the rest is filler and jokes". I have other professors who were able to capture everyone's attention the entire time. He's just unable to keep attention because he is all over the place. He tries to make up for this and get our attention with jokes, which I will address. - The jokes were funny at first but got boring and just seems to be pandering and trying to get our attention, which he couldn't. - The exams are graded pretty harshly, and some of the material on the multiple choice questions was never specifically addressed in class. - My TA was awful and unhelpful in answering questions, which didn't help. I hope you're luckier in this regard.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/31/2022	Absolute sweetheart, funny, and caring. Despite having hundreds of students, he makes sure to memorize people’s names during lecture and interacts with students in a way that keeps lecture lighthearted and easy to feel comfortable in. He has an interesting way of pacing his lectures- it may seem that his pauses to allow for individual discussion and jokes cut the total amount of material learned, but it doesn’t. He is still a lecturer that can teach you a lot about java while also making it digestible and not overwhelming, especially for someone like me with zero prior coding experience. His humor is wonderful and him allowing us to talk to other students at certain points of his lecture makes the material that may seem daunting at first much more manageable. His exams are fair and he gives out many practice exams that you can do to succeed. I only got a B because I slacked off in the middle of the semester- with Nelson, as long as you attend lecture and engage in the content, you will absolutely succeed.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/27/2022	Nelson is very understanding and lenient on due dates. Highly recommend the course. Low stress while still getting a background in web dev. Doesn't require coming to class and records all lectures
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/26/2022	Awesome dude, taking him again for 132
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 12/24/2022	Nelson is fair with his grading and is funny. Although he does not curve and his class is fast-paced, he is understanding, provides review for midterms through previous exams, and he records his lectures. Good professor
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B- kathleenMiles 12/23/2022	"Nelson = best teacher" has become something of its own myth at UMD. From all of these reviews you can see that he has many rabid fans. Effectively, this is a man who is SICK AND TIRED of teaching CMSC131. He gives off comments such as "I will be teaching this class till retirement" and "well, the paycheck keeps coming and that's what matters". Nelson also has an awful way of communicating. He sends massive email blasts, often multiple times every single day. These are weirdly formatted and read like strange tweets, and often completely irrelevant. I wish he would actually put some thought into the emails he bombards his 800 students with. Sure, he replies to emails and you can go to his office hours. But you will never meet with him for more than a few minutes. One day he suddenly decided that all TA office hours would be cut short and go online. His reasoning was this: "I was walking along that building at night, when I suddenly felt this urge: I want to MUG somebody! That was when I decided that this place was too dangerous for my TAs." During lecture, he CONSTANTLY gets distracted, cracks lame jokes, and picks on you. It is actually better to just watch his lecture recordings. because he edits out all the wasted time. Despite his nonsense, Nelson is very lenient with project extensions and make-up exams. Apparently his exams are easier than Fauzi's as well. Maybe I will choose him solely based off of this fact next semester, because now I know that I should never attend lecture anyways.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/23/2022	Nelson is decent, but I do feel like he could be better. There's a website called Piazza where students can ask and answer questions, and TAs and Nelson himself are active on there too, posting announcements and answering questions. This is definitely helpful when you're working on a project and confused on wording, for instance. All lectures and discussions are recorded and available on Canvas, so if you ever miss a day or want to go back on a concept discussed in a lecture or discussion, you can always do so. The projects really weren't hard, but that might not be true for others because I have previous programming experience and many others in the class do not. Just make sure to start them early and get them done with; I usually finished projects a day or two after they were released so I could focus on other classes. That being said, I do feel like his exams were frustrating. If you misinterpret what a question is asking (you can't ask a TA or Nelson on wording either; they won't and can't really help you on that without giving you hints on it) you will lose points, even if you knew the answer to another interpretation of a question. However, I do feel like the content itself on the exams were very fair, and he did give information on possible content the exams would have. His final is pretty easy as long as you go over previous midterms and finals. The thing that annoyed me the most were lectures, because while Nelson joked around and gave us time to talk to our classmates, he spent a lot of time off-track and I felt like this could have been better used to teach us concepts from 132 and above. He does give you knowledge that you will see or need to understand later (such as memory maps, and you will need to understand how memory in a program works in 216), but I feel like he could have done more in this regard. Lectures were genuinely boring for me; I tried following what he was showing us at the start of the semester, but began to work on other assignments or projects for other classes and multitask while he was lecturing later in the semester. If I didn't do this, I genuinely dozed off.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2022	He explains things easily, he records his lectures, his exams are easy. Overall great professor and he's way easier than Fawzi.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2022	The course is structured well, and Nelson is an honest and caring professor. There's a discussion board where one can ask whatever questions they have 24/7, lectures are recorded and posted; the exams and quizzes are fair, especially due to Nelson's explicit listing of what will be on the exam; and later in the semester, Nelson establishes two deadlines for projects, making it easier for students to pace themselves so they may complete projects in time. His lectures are great too, and he allows for "turn and talks", which can be beneficial to many. My only gripe is that Nelson would frequently go off course, which may be a huge problem to some who simply wish for instructional content only: in my case, it was a slight issue. Aside from such, his projects aren't as graphically appealing as other professors who teach 131 (like Fawzi), and instructions may be unclear at times. That being said, usage of the discussion board is highly recommended. Additionally, Nelson is fair with extensions on projects classwide, if you ask, so don't be shy — sit in the front! He's lovely.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2022	Nelson is so funny and knows what he is doing.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A- Justacoder 12/20/2022	Nice person and good professor overall. This lectures were good and his projects were fair. He understands how stressful college can be and trys to accommodate. Only complate is that sometimes his exams material we have just learned and his review guides have a lot of topics which never actually get tested.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC133 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/20/2022	Fair course, faster paced 131
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2022	Nelson is really funny. And he records his lectures. And he records his lectures.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/17/2022	I really liked Nelsons personality because he was funny, caring, and understanding. However, I can't say I enjoyed the lectures. At the beginning I was fine because he makes lectures fun, but I got more tired of his endless banter as the semester dragged on. He interacts A LOT with students, which made lectures very distracting and hard to follow along with. Most of the lectures I went to, I found myself not paying attention because he would go off on long tangents about unrelated things. He is a very easy professor though. Keep in mind, I had taken Comp Sci A AP in high school so I understood most of the concepts, but all of the projects were manageable (and in my opinion easy). His exams weren't necessarily easy for everyone, but I never got below a C on any of the 3 midterms even though I never studied (once again, I had already learned most of the topics that were covered in class, so I'm sure people who have never taken a comp sci class had a much different experience than me). Also, he reused a lot of multiple choice questions from his past midterms. I suspect the final exam was also written by him, because the multiple choice questions were very similar if not the same as some of the questions on past midterms. I finished the final exam with about 45 minutes left, so it was extremely doable. I won't be taking him next semester because I've heard Fawzi prepares you better for future comp sci classes and is a better lecturer (and a harder professor), but if you're looking for someone easy, I would take Nelson.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/12/2022	Epic class, Epic professor. Everything is set up so perfectly. Attendance is optional. All resources in one place, reasonable exams and projects. Take this course if it all fits your plans.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2022	Nelson is one of the most understanding professors I have ever met in my life. Maybe it's because he's a POC, but he just gets us. He understands that we are poor, so he doesn't make us get a textbook (everything is recorded/on slides). There are endless examples of concepts. He is EXTREMELY lenient on project extensions and teaches us how to negotiate deadlines. You will not get the full experience with Nelson unless you sit in the front and ask questions. Otherwise, you'll just sit in the back and roll your eyes over how many times he cracks a joke. Paying attention in lecture was extremely difficult for me because I sat in the back and was not engaged.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2022	Man, do I love this guy. Absolutely love him. His project descriptions are very slightly confusing at times, but you have Piazza, other students, and the TAs to clarify the descriptions. His lectures are recorded (and Nelson talks about this very often) so if you're feeling sick, you don't have to come to lecture. Honestly, because he records the lectures, you don't REALLY have to come to class... but I went anyway even though it was in the morning because I was absolutely stoked about his lectures. He has a nice sense of humor and he tries to take advantage of that "hip professor" image, which I guess he's doing well. That could be why his jokes might get a bit old by the end of semester and possibly might tick you in the wrong direction, but he's a nice guy. Very lenient for makeups and extensions AS LONG AS you have a valid excuse! Get familiar with him and he might call you out during lectures but it's good to befriend a prof. Oh and Nelson is very good at teaching. When he introduces a new topic, he makes funny descriptions and connects the material to prior knowledge so that beginner students can understand them quicker. Will be taking CMSC132 with him next semester!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/01/2022	Nelson is extremely student-friendly for a class that can be very challenging for beginners. He records all his lectures which is a life saver for so many. He also gives out plenty of extensions for projects and is very supportive throughout them. He is excellent and, in my opinion, a must-take for any beginner coder like myself. A very engaging, energetic, helpful, detailed, and hard-working professor that I will make sure to take whenever possible.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/17/2022	I am taking this course during the fall of 2022. Nelson is the GOAT. Genuinely an amazing lecturer and an even better person. I wish he taught more upper-level classes so that I can take more classes with him. Always keeps the class engaged by making funny jokes. Amazing teaching skills, he discusses a topic and then immediately shows an example. Records lecture and immediately posts them. Attendance is not required unless it's exam day Exams are extremely fair, nothing scary. Projects are not super challenging but do not wait till the last minute to implement them. AMAZING PROFESSOR MUST TAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/07/2022	Nelson is an amazing professor. His lectures are very detailed and he keeps his audience engaged which is super important. He is honestly one of the most understanding professors i've ever seen as he is flexible, helpful, and will always be fair when grading. He is also super funny which helps me stay engaged in the class and genuinely want to go to office hours and every lecture. TAKE HIM if you get the chance, you will not regret it!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/31/2022	Nelson is funny, smart, understanding, and super helpful. He is not the traditional college professor in that he really seems to care about each of our success in a deep and person way. He is super nice and gives great advice to be successful in CMSC and life in general. I would recommend this professor to anyone taking any class which he teaches. He is great so I would take him, if you have the chance.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 terpsCompSci1 10/17/2022	This dude is amazing
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/13/2022	This guy is the GOAT. He gives practice exams that closely mimic the exam you will be taking. The multiple choice is almost identical and the coding is very similar to the lecture examples and much easier than the projects. The projects are tricky though so make sure to start them early. Lectures are easy to understand and his jokes make class enjoyable. If you don't have an internship in the summerI highly recommend taking this class as he makes this difficult course so much easier.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Anonymous 08/09/2022	216 is the only course at UMD that I've taken so far, and it was great. Nelson was awesome, it sucks a bit that the class size was ~120 students, but that's UMD I guess. This class was very fast paced during the summer but Nelson made it manageable. + He's funny + He's dad + He's nice
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/06/2022	I’ve taken CMSC131 and 132 with him and he is great. His lectures are good paired with great slides(and are recorded!), cares about students (if you ask him for extensions he will most likely give it if majority needs it), and makes the class enjoyable. He can be annoying sometimes(calling out people a lot) or fooling around, but if you don’t care about that he’s a pretty good lecturer. He gives you past quizzes and exams so you know what to expect on the midterms/quizzes (not including finals though). His code examples are really good to refer to for projects in 216. In my opinion, if 216 is the only class you’re taking in the summer you shouldn’t be too worried about the projects and exams. Just start early on the projects and do all of the practice he gives you for the exams. If you do that and try, you will at least pass with a B. If you’re willing to get ahead in the summer, I would say go for it.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/03/2022	Genuinely a wonderful person. You can tell that he really cares about his students and wants everyone to succeed. The course itself was pretty easy, although Nelson didn't go too in depth into the particulars of most topics, just focused on an overview and how to do things without too many details. That's not my favorite way of learning information (jumping right into looking at code), but the exams and projects were fairly straightforward. I always felt like I knew what to do and like I could get help whenever I needed it. He records every class, which makes it easy to do well even if you can't make it to every lecture or discussion.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/31/2022	This class was alright. Nelson's projects are not well-written in my opinion, and it's hard to understand what is actually wanted us to do. Sometimes, it's also hard to understand where to begin the projects, but that's different for everyone of course. Nelson made the exams pretty easy though, especially the final exam. He's also responsive through Piazza and understood if we needed deadlines pushed back for projects, so I most definitely appreciated that. Discussions are alright, but they are definitely not necessary to attend.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC335 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2022	Nelson made this course easy, and he knew it. Absolute king. I went to lecture, but you could easily get away without ever watching lecture. A lot of stuff you can find on the internet or in the lecture examples. I was a bit worried about this course because I found his 131/132 courses to be tricky at times (especially with exams), but Nelson kept this course very straightforward and minimized exam difficulty. I have nothing bad to say about this course except for the fact that I wish it provided more depth on practical skills. We only got into Node towards the end. However, part of what made this course easy was the lack of depth so yk... But yeah, def a chill elective with a wonderful prof!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 05/16/2022	The nicest, most understanding teacher. His classes are entertaining and he really makes an effort to get to know his students (even in a huge lecture). He presents the information clearly and the tests are very fair. The projects take time but he preps his TAs really well to help. Not an easy class, AT ALL, but Nelson goes above and beyond for his students. Also has very good slides and all classes are recorded (he posts the slides before class and the recordings the second class ends).
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/09/2022	Nelson is a super funny guy, and he really cares about preparing his students for the future. Very helpful in office hours. In addition to teaching material very efficiently and being very responsive to feedback, Nelson will teach you to advocate for yourself, a skill that is useful for the rest of your life. He is very specific about how to prepare for exams and projects and provides many resources. Amazing professor.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/07/2022	I like Nelson a lot, I had him for 131, just took him for 132, and am planning on taking 216 with him. Yes he can get carried away sometimes with messing around, but he teaches you absolutely everything that you need to know for projects/quizzes/exams. Everyone I've ever met who doesn't like Nelson has just been lazy and didn't care to understand what he was saying. Great fun guy.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/05/2022	Great professor likes to tell a lot of jokes. Class is easy if taken in high school if not make sure you prepare before you take it. Nelson is a great lecturer also was very helpful by giving online resources such as videos of him lecturing. Also great for freshman cares about his students and wants them to adjust to college.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A log_n 04/21/2022	Nelson is simply fantastic! Super passionate, engaging, and offers so many resources for students to be successful! His exams are also very fair, especially if they're online. Best instructor for computer science at UMD by a mile. Had him for CMSC133 too.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/02/2022	Nelson is good professor, with entertaining lectures that are relatively easy to follow. While CMSC131 is not the most beginner-friendly introductory course, that isn't really a knock on Nelson. He wasn't the most accessible for help at times, but that was the only complaint I had. Overall, still a good professor who I'd take again.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 02/02/2022	Nelson is one of the best cs teachers. period. If you have the option to take him, take him. He makes the course super easy to get through and he's super funny.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 01/12/2022	Nelson does his best to keep the lectures entertaining and tries to adjust deadlines whenever possible. It's a bit hard reaching out to him or his TA for help, but the website he uses along with other instructors takes up most of that. In general you'll be all good if you took a Computer Science that covered the basics beforehand, including the ones in high school. If you're coming to this class with no prior knowledge, you might find yourself lost at some times, as he starts his lectures with the assumption that you already know the basics. You will have a project almost every week, with rising difficulty, so it is highly recommended you start your work as soon as possible. Submitting your projects last minute is difficult, since the website can go down from how many people are doing the same. There is almost no flexibility once the deadline passes, and the late penalty hits hard. Study when you should, don't hesitate to go to office hours, and don't be afraid to reach out for help, as it will be difficult to recover once you fall behind. Don't be afraid to ask for anything, since if it's possible he can push deadlines back by a week, but don't rely on it, since procrastination does hit hard in this class. Otherwise, taking the course with him isn't all too bad.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/07/2022	I think Nelson was a rather good professor, and a good lecturer. He often made jokes and gave people breaks. I must say however, some of the jokes were directed at students (Madison, if you're seeing this, I hope the U.S.S. Nelson didn't hit too hard). If you left class early, he would begin to fake cry, which admittedly was funny, but if you need to leave the class early then just expect that. He would also repeatedly tell people to be quiet, which had interrupted class a fair bit. I also felt some of the multiple choice on the tests were a little random, but other than that, he was really good. He did provide a lot of extensions (which helped a ton of people), and ended up curving the class because of one of the exams having a low average. Take him if you need breaks during lecture, want some extensions, or generally just want a funny professor to laugh with.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 01/05/2022	Nelson is a cool professor. I will try to create a pros and cons table for you, the reader, to understand my mind. [PROS] - He's funny. - Does not require attendance, so you can watch his lecture videos on Canvas. - Projects are fun. - He's nice. [CONS] - Sometimes the jokes get annoying, especially when you're trying to learn. As stated in other comments, he will sometimes just say jokes randomly (which can be funny at times), but as the days went by the jokes became old. - You really gotta pay attention if you don't know the material and talk to TAs constantly if you don't know anything. If anything, the TAs are more helpful than Nelson himself. - As anecdotal evidence, he created a 3rd exam (in the past there were only 2) which covered a bunch of topics. I went to the exam review and the TA told us not to review this one topic. Next thing you know that topic is on the exam!!! I heard that half of the class did POORLY on that exam (including me). I went from a B to a C overnight. - Projects are fun but require a ton of logic. I had to use external sources to find out topics that I did not understand. - Exams and quizzes are done on PAPER. You really have to know Java word by word or you are dead. For slow writers, good luck because you only have about 20-40 minutes to do about 3-4 methods. [CONCLUSION] If you do not know Java, LEARN IT prior to taking this class. If you do not have ANY knowledge, you are screwed. Gladly I had some coding knowledge that helped me in the long run. Learn how to code and how to write it. Overall, great class but annoying coursework.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/24/2021	public static void main(String[] args) { /* Nelson is a great professor. He is really laid back, chill, and constantly makes jokes and finds interesting ways to keep students engaged. This was my first time coding in Java and Nelson made it very straight forward and doable. Pros: - Nelson is a very funny and likable guy. On the first day of classes he will tell you that he always wants you to call him by his first name which I found interesting. - He is very good at making analogies between programming and more understandable topics. For example, he would make an analogy between a bakery and objects in java. This makes it really easy to understand his teaching, even for first time programmers like me. - His lecture slides are much more detailed than Fawsi's (from what I have heard) - His exams are very much like the previous exams. As long as you study those, and the additional resources that Nelson provides, you will be more than fine on the exams. - Occasionally during every lecture, Nelson likes to say "1 minute" which indicates that we can talk to our neighbor for a minute and digest the information that he just lectured about. I found this useful and made the class less fast paced— gave me time to breathe while learning new information. After this minute break, he opens the floor for a few questions before returning to his lecture. - Nelson uploads the code for every class example and provides many many resources to ensure you do well on the projects and exams. - Grading for exams is honestly pretty lenient. Because all the midterms include hand-written coding, it is easy to miss the small nuances that come with programming but the TAs that grade your tests know this. Often times when you look at the grading break down, you are given points on a segment of code just for "ATTEMPTING to _______" - Very accommodating in regards to extending deadlines for things. He even encourages that the class speaks up if we need an extension. Cons: - His funny personality sometimes gets in the way of the actual teaching. Yes it does lighten up the mood but often he will stop mid sentence just to pop in a joke. Additionally, some of his comedy is offensive or will get stale. For example, he once made a statement to the guys in the class about how they should not feel bad if a girl rejects them. He then goes on with his joke and says that girls are like "instance variables" and how the guys should just "pick another one" if one doesn't work. If you know anything about Java, you will know that he basically just called women "objects". I didn't think too much about this but I can see why some people would find his humor offensive. He also always makes the joke "turn to your neighbor and tell them they are a (insert random java terminology)" which literally makes no sense and gets old after the first couple times. - The third midterm was a nightmare. In the past, there have only been two midterms and the third was only added a couple years ago. This means that there is little study material and the worst part is that the second and third midterm are only 2 weeks apart since they kind of just shoved it into the curriculum. The class average for midterms is usually pretty high but dropped to a D average for this midterm. Nelson did adjust the letter grade cut offs for final grades because of this though. - Projects become very challenging towards the end of the semester. This is obviously necessary to challenge students but sometimes they are impossible to figure out without a TA. - Frankly, sometimes it is difficult to understand his accent and it leaves you to think more about what words he is saying in the first place rather than the actual content within his sentences. Overall, I think Nelson is the better option for CMSC131. He is very knowledgable and it is clear that he comes prepared for class with examples to explain complex ideas to new programmers. Just beware of his random remarks. It is clear that he is looking for validation and wants to be liked by his students so he makes jokes on topics that students our age would find "funny". If you can get past the cringe factor, this class will great. */ System.out.println("Chose Nelson!"); }
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2021	Nelson is great!!! If you're the type of person to get kind of bored during boring old slide lectures then he's good for you! He relies on examples in the lecture and a few small concepts from the slides. He gives us one-minute breaks in between heavy topics/examples so that we can discuss it with our neighbors, which I find really helpful in keeping everyone interactive and actually paying attention esp in a morning class. His exams are doable as long as you do the past exams/practice he gives which is really helpful. His third exam; however, was overly long and challenging compared to his others so it tanked a lot of people's grades, but he just released grades and seemed to have provided a better cutoff to benefit (f.e. some A grades were considered A+ and so on), so as long as you put the work in you should be golden in terms of your grade (it's not meant to be challenging to get an A or B). Also, his projects are definitely on the challenging side sometimes especially later in the year with Recursion and the class implementations, but if you study his class lecture code and ask for help during office hours (always go early otherwise you probably won't get a chance if it's close to the project deadline). Overall, he explains things effectively for the most part and I'd recommend reading some notes on the topics before coming into class on the first day just so you have a good idea of what coding in Java is about and you aren't bombarded too fast! He does not curve, but his grades are pretty fair. I really enjoyed his class and it's insane to me how much I learned in just three months! I totally recommend Nelson
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- stressed_student 12/21/2021	Context: Programmed in Java through an intro to java course in HS as well as APCS A (Not principles). Honestly, if given the choice between Fawzi and Nelson, I would recommend you take Nelson. BE PREPARED to spend time outside of class learning, digesting, and applying the information taught in class as I felt like Nelson was quick with the material during the lecture. Sources like Alex Lee or w3schools really helped me out when I was lost within the material. Especially with me coming in with prior knowledge of Java and programming, this course definitely challenges you in a good way. Be sure to manage your time well, start your projects early, and always ask questions. If you have no experience programming before, you're going to have to spend a lot of time reviewing and learning the material for the first time as it's a lot, especially with the pace. I believe my grade within the class was fair, as I know I could've applied myself more to fully understand the material. This class should be on your higher level of priority (The same level/effort as MATH140 for me at least). In the end, I learned a lot from Nelson and do not regret taking the class with him. Pros: - Recorded Lectures - Lectures, programs, and in-class notes are always posted online - Provides sample exams/quizzes for students to prepare for prior to midterms/finals. - Allows you to have your laptop out during class (NOTE: I have heard that Fawzi does NOT allow laptops out during class). - Always understanding/flexible with scheduling conflicts --> not afraid to move assignment/test deadlines further when asked Cons: - Can be fast with the material he goes through - (Did not bother/affect me at all) Has a slight accent - (To some people this might be a con) Brief moments during class to reflect what was learned to classmates + ask questions - Sometimes he can joke around too much to the point where it'll take away from the class time (Did not annoy me, a review from someone earlier mentioned this and I also believe it's true). - Does not use Canvas. Nelson uses his own website for posting projects details, slides, sample programs, etc... - (Not a con for me) Uses Piazza for class announcements + addressing student questions/concerns/memes (yes there is a meme folder for the class, pretty dope).
Nelson Padua-Perez Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2021	Nelson is a great professor who I'd really recommend for your first ever CS class. He goes through the material throughly and provides plenty of examples during lectures to help you see the actual effect of the concept he is teaching. However, if you want to do well in this course, please please please start your projects early so that you have more time to submit and seek help from TAs during office hours(He also constantly emphasizes this point). Use the lecture slides to study and you'll do fine on the tests.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2021	Nelson is a great professor, he tries to keep lectures interesting with jokes and takes small breaks every 10 minutes for the class to ask each other questions or just talk. He is good at keeping everyone interacting with each other and encourages people to talk and get to know each other. However, the course, in general, is very difficult, if you have not taken any Computer science courses before, this course is very challenging. I know people who have barely passed this class as they have had no experience, and since this class is fast-paced it is really hard to keep learning new material while also doing the projects. I would really recommend coming in with some level of experience and looking over material that is covered in this class before taking this course.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 12/16/2021	He is a great professor in the sense that he is funny and tries to keep the class engaged. However, he goes relatively fast throughout the material and it is easy to get lost through the semester. He doesn't give us students enough time to reflect on the material and understand and just keeps going. A lot of the times when I went in for office hours or asked him questions after class, he makes me feel stupid and acts in a way that gives off the vibe that I should already know this. At times he wouldn't even answer the question I had. I have to say though, he is very generous with deadlines and is willing to extend if people request it. He doesn't curve.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/14/2021	Nelson is a goofball for real - My first ever programming class, and I learned a ton, and ended with a good, fair grade. I could find Nelson to be irritating though, if I don't understand a topic, he tends to joke a lot. But he made the class fun, projects were fair (most the time), and the workload was not too bad. Issues: Spelling/grammar mistakes in project descriptions, discussions being useless
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 12/13/2021	Nelson is awesome, I swear he is the ideal professor for students who have no CS experience, especially those who are worried about jumping into CS without an understanding of what the major really is. Nelson creates a great environment with humor and takes time to reassure you that CS is not as intimidating as people make it to be. While you do need to be willing to put in the work, he is the most accommodating and patient instructor I've had because he really does care about his students needs. I will definitely be trying my best to take as many classes with the instructor in the future!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2021	I've never taken a coding class in my life, but I just tried to understand some basics of Java over the summer. However, I didn't really get that far. I was really stressed about taking CMSC131, in fact, I was constantly asking people at UMD how difficult it was for a newbie programmer to adjust to the class before I came here. CMSC131 will take a lot of work and time management, but it is do-able, especially if you have Nelson. He's a great teacher who cares for his students and is willing to be accommodating towards them (deadline extensions, cancellations of quizzes, etc.). He gives you all of the resources you need to do well in his class. I haven't taken the final yet, but so far, I believe that every test and project we've been given has been fair. He is a example-based lecturer and it works perfectly with my style of learning, but make sure this style fits you if you want to take him. That said, you will only do well in this class without any previous experience if you are willing to put in the effort. Start projects early and go to TA office hours to clear concepts up. Spend a few days studying for each midterm and make sure to do all the practice exams that you are given. Reach out for help using the free I4C tutoring service or talk directly to Nelson.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/12/2021	IF YOU HAVE NEVER CODED THIS CLASS IS HARDD!!!! Advice for Class: There is no way around it, this class is difficult for those with no prior experience or who it doesn't come naturally. Nelson is a decent teacher, but be prepared that he moves really fast. Your first 2-3 weeks of semester should just be spent constantly coding small tasks to get familiar with java and eclipse. It will help so much. Also watch YouTube vids to try to get ahead. The tests are hard as well so prepare early to write your code instead of type. The previous tests he gives as examples are ALWAYS much easier then actual test, so know / understand them like the back of your hand. The projects help you learn the most because they take HOURS. I would have the expectation that each one will take at least 8 hours. start them as soon as they are released and bounce ideas of friends as much as you can. DO NOT CHEAT OR SHOW CODE to others. the TAs will notice if you copy. Just explain what you did and how in words and you should be okay. Use your peers as support in this class because it is easy to get stuck. Nelson review: He is good teacher will slight accent and decent humor. overall is nice and down to earth(insists you call him nelson). His lectures are not the most organized and he tends to bounce around which can be confusing. Luckily you can watch them back and try to understand. He is relatively accessible in office hours, but tends to come off as an overpowering personality in person. I suspect this is because he lectures groups more then teaches individuals. I also think he knows this and try's to improve(only somewhat successful). I am trying to take him next semester for 132. He is defiantly not perfect, but he is far better then some other shit teachers at UMD. Ps. People tend to vary in their liking of him because of how much they enjoy his humor in lectures.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 12/10/2021	Okay, so Nelson is a very nice guy, and if you ask for an extension on a project he normally gives it to you but tbh he isn't a good professor. I would not recommend this class to anyone who hasn't taken any programming classes before. This class is super fast-paced and if you fall behind you'll be lost. This class is extremely hard, the tests are what most people fail at because of how hard he makes them. He gives you previous exams to practice but the questions he asks on the exam are totally different. I am talking about studying for 4 days straight and still failing kinda hard. On one exam everyone did bad on and he still didn't curve it or find a way to help us out because of how badly it affected our grades. The projects aren't totally awful until you get near the end of the semester, I would say you are working on a project every day of the week through the semester. But most people do better on the projects than on the exams and that's what helps your grade. There are certain TA's that aren't really much help and it's so difficult to make a meeting with a TA for no reason. I have never seen so many people struggle with one class until I took CMSC131. I really don't recommend this class to anyone and if I could go back in time and not take this class I would. This class ruined my first semester of freshman year.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2021	Nelson is clearly a super caring guy. He acknowledges the difficulty of CS and wants everyone to do well. His lectures are also great and he keeps you engaged with jokes and stories. Some people complain that the jokes and stories are a distraction, but they made me more engaged. Just make sure you don't blank out during lectures as you can miss important info. Projects and exams can be tricky, so make sure you are on top of everything. I came in with coding experience so I was fine, but I saw a ton of my friends really struggle.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/08/2021	Just finishing up the semester and had to give Nelson a review. Out of my 3 semesters here, he’s easily one of the best professors I’ve ever had. Not only is he hilarious, but he also keeps his lectures engaging, and really tries to get his students to understand what is going on. I have had no actual prior programming experience before coming into this class, and I was able to pick up on concepts really easily, especially with all the examples he hands out. The projects definitely get challenging near the end, but you have plenty of time to finish them and the TA’s can be very helpful. This is not the easiest class, and it definitely has a decent workload, but it was overall enjoyable and a great start towards a computer science degree. Also: HE RECORDS LECTURES! It’s really useful. Fawzi doesn’t to my knowledge. Some of these 1 star reviews are upsetting me so here’s what I have to say: - His accent is so slight that you can understand everything he is saying just fine, and his occasional grammatical errors are not at all confusing, just read over the sentence again. - While this class does get harder as it goes along, as long as you pay attention a good 80% of the time and keep with the work, there is no way you would be able to call this class impossible. - As far as CMSC131 and CMSC132 go, I have heard that Nelson is one of the easier professors. - He definitely does more than read his slides. He shows several examples of code for each topic - He isn’t a big fan of when people talk loudly in his class, but he’s cool about it. I talked with my friend everyday in that class at a low volume and he didn’t mind at all. - He will ask you to clarify your questions if he doesn’t understand, so be sure to be clear about your issues. The TA’s will help you if he can’t. I highly recommend if you want to go into CS, take Nelson.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/19/2021	Definitely one of the best professors at UMD especially because of how easy and fun he makes the lectures. He is the only professor that I have this semester whose class just seems to effortless and fun. Nelson seems more like a friend than a teacher - a great quality for someone looking to be mentored.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/02/2021	All in all an amazing instructor. He is funny, engaging, and gives easy exams and quizzes. I learned a lot from this CMSC132 class when I took him back in Fall 2019. Excellent choice to take.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/23/2021	One of the best CS professors out there. Yes the class is difficult but Nelson tried to make the material as understandable as possible. But halfway through the semester the course feels like it suddenly sped up, so you need to stay on your game the whole time or you will get overwhelmed by new material fast.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2021	This is an inherently hard class but Nelson tries his best to make sure everyone is on pace. Office hours are a big help for for this class. The projects are challenging but if you've learned Java before it shouldn't be a big problem. Nelson's lectures/slides are very helpful and he usually does not test on contents he didn't teach. He also really cares about his students' mental health.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 01/03/2021	Nelson is a kind professor who will help you navigate your programming career and learning how to learn. He is decent at teaching and makes the class enjoyable. Do not be fooled by his jokes, if this is the first time that you are learning JAVA, be prepared to work hard in this class, the kids who took JAVA is high school will make it harder for you to get a good grade. I would take Nelson over Yoon for sure. Overall, if you can't get Fawzi(hard exams) then you will be ok with Nelson (he is big on giving your old exams and other resources).
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/27/2020	Nelson does a great job of making a potentially boring class, extremely fun. He explains the concepts well and adds in humor to make it bearable. This class is a lot of work, of course, but here are a lot of ways to get help if you need it. I am going to take his classes as many times as I possibly can.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/01/2020	He's good at explaining concepts. It is a bit distracting when he talks to his students in the recordings (class was asynchronous so we only watched recordings of previous lectures), but it helps with having a mini break in between. His accent is a bit challenging at times, so do not rely on the auto-generated captions. Open to help on Piazza and usually assigns enough time for projects, but you will most likely be directed to a TA for help. He gives lots of time to complete quizzes.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an F Anonymous 11/20/2020	Hardest thing ive ever done in my life. It started soooo slow but then it got extremely hard extremely fast and ruthless after learning about objects. Nelson is cool but not for this class.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/12/2020	This man knows how to keep the class engaged, and he's absolutely hilarious. Projects and exams are kind of difficult though, so make sure to really get the material down.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a P Anonymous 10/28/2020	Nelson is a funny guy who makes a lot of jokes, but I didn't really learn that much from him. I wish I had taken the course with the other instructor.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a P Anonymous 05/18/2020	I'm an international student. My native language is not English. And I have to say, if you don't have any background on coding or if you are not an English native speaker, DO NOT TAKE Nelson because he has a thick Spanish accent. It sounds like he was shooting a machine gun. DADADADADA.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A kjmehta 05/17/2020	Great guy
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 03/07/2020	This class was very hard but I feel like Nelson made it bearable. He's very funny and keeps you engaged in the material. I didn't really study for the first half of the class so I didn't do so well early on but later on I payed more attention to his lectures and was able to do much better.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/06/2020	Amazing professor! Had him freshmen year fall seamster and it was a great way to begin at UMD. He cares about his students and gives them every possible tool needed to succeed. His lectures are super fun and entertaining, and projects and exams are all definitely fair.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/29/2020	Take nelson.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/10/2020	Took him in Summer 2019. The best!!! Such positive energy and lighthearted jokes to break up the content :) Loved the way he taught the class, so now I'm about to TA for the first time for 216 (not for Nelson tho :(((( )
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/04/2019	Perfect, approachable, answers questions, funny, and commands classroom
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/27/2019	He's Nelson... enough said
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Anonymous 10/24/2019	Amazing amazing amazing. Best CS professor in the department honestly. He cares so much about his students, actually understands that we might be going through stuff and offers help. He cares. If you tell me your favorite professor is Fawzi, then I'll know you never experienced having Nelson. Sure, the class is hard. But Nelson gives you a really strong foundation, and motivates you to do the comp sci major.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/21/2019	Nelson is a really good professor who explains things very well and gives you the resources you need to do well in the class (lecture videos, old exams, discussion questions). His lectures are also entertaining which is something that I miss now that I no longer have him.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/26/2019	Great exams/projects, seems to care about his students. I found myself distracted in lecture a bit by his lecture style, since he tends to go back and forth between topics. Because of this, I think Pedram might be better at conveying the information we needed to learn
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2019	He is really great at engaging the majority of students but I tended to find his jokes to be childish and distracting. I didn't always feel welcome in his lectures. He had a routine where he would repeatedly pretend to interrupt students while they asked a question, and I found this to be disrespectful. Well-intentioned but lacking execution. His exams and grading are fair, and he gave a decent curve.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Anonymous 05/12/2019	Great professor. I was lucky enough to have him for both CMSC132 and CMSC216. Straightforward exams, great sense of humor. Encourages the making of memes on Piazza. Very approachable
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A braniac9 04/11/2019	Lived up to the hype. Great and engaging lecturer who cares about his students (overused some jokes, though). Other reviews mention grammatical errors in project specifications, but this was not my experience. Receptive to student concerns.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132H Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/06/2019	Great professor. Funny and covers the material well. Class is hard though.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/28/2019	Don't know why a lot of people hate on Nelson. He's an awesome professor and I thought he explained things to beginner programming students very well compared to other 131 professors. I had experience in Java before coming in, so I didn't have to study as much I guess. I would recommend Nelson over Herman any day. He does make some weird jokes here and there, but if you have at least a little sense of humor, the 75-minute lectures fly by.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/24/2019	Funny guy who will engage you with his demeanor and slides. If you have been doing well in 131 and 132 you should expect to do well as long as you put in the work for projects.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2018	He is funny and makes lecture interesting, but attendance isn't mandatory and he records lectures. The exams were sometimes difficult but practice exams were released. He responds to student concerns (changed the release tokens from 24 to 12 hours) and is fair.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/22/2018	Good teacher, exams can be vague.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2018	My only prior experience to CS was Programming 1 my senior year of HS, and all those topics were covered within the first two weeks of CMSC131 so everything was fairly new. Nelson is an incredible professor! He makes the lecturers funny and engages with his students. He really cares for his students and extends projects when he sees fit. Sometimes there are 1 point assignments to boost your grade a little. His lectures are posted online but I highly recommend going to class and then going home to rewatch the lecture and taking notes. I did this for the final exam and scored really high that I wished I did this throughout the semester so that I wouldn't have been crying about the projects. Projects are hard but people are willing to help!! His exams and quizzes are no surprise if you studied and dedicate time for the materials. I ended up with an A- in the class with the small curve. I highly recommend Nelson!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/13/2018	He is not a very effective lecturer, as I end up teaching most of the material to myself outside of class. He gets distracted very easily and will look to call anyone out that is talking to their neighbor or on their phone, even if they are not bothering anyone. This ends up being a distraction to the entire class and I find it hard to focus or take him seriously. He posts lecture slides that are very helpful and they reflect the content that will be on the exams. He is a fair teacher but I do not enjoy going to lecture.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC389N Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/23/2018	This guy is basically your favorite high school teacher as a UMD professor. Really, really good dude. If you ever have any problems while you're taking his class, you can go to his office hours and talk to him about it and he will do his best to work through those issues with you. He seriously, legitimately, actually cares about his students, which is something you don't see very often. As much as I'm tempted to give him a 5 star review, I can't just because he's not a great lecturer. He's funny in class, but he gets a little off-topic and distracted a lot, so a lot of what you learn from him, you have to learn from his slides outside of class. He makes this super easy though, because his slides are great and he records all his lectures on panopto, so you can go back over things if you missed something. All in all, he's one of my favorite professors I've had here and if you get a chance to take a class with him, do it. You won't be disappointed as long as you actually take the time to talk to him and get to know him.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC389N Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/11/2018	He's a very funny professor who actually provides a good CS course. His projects are very reasonable, and he even gives code example to help with the projects. Tests are very easy, you just have to practice his old exams that he provides. I never got lower than a B- taking 3 of his classes. CMSC131, CMSC132, CMSC389N.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC389N Expecting an A Anonymous 03/27/2018	Currently in his 389N class now but this is my third straight spring semester with him as a teacher. Had him two years ago in 132, and last year in 216. So this review will cover all those classes. 132: First time having a class with him and my god he was crazy funny and just all around cool. People don't like him because of his jokes but he does that because he believes that students can only focus for a short period of time and need to take a small break before focusing on the lecture again. I find this VERY effective! He is a really effective teacher. I got a C in 131, barely survived, and when I took Nelson for 132, I had a whole new understanding of the material that was way more invaluable from studying java the previous semester. First time taking his exams at this time as well and he basically makes his real ones the same flavor as the practice exams (because they're all old exams). Naturally he makes the final harder and a little more different but it can be done. 132 was my favorite semester at UMD and nelson was a HUGE part of it. Made me happy to be a CS Major. 216: Ok so i had to retake after fucking it up the semester before with Herman. Most of what I said about 132 can be repeated here as well. Old exams follow the same style as the ones he gives you. The projects, yes are daunting and make you stress a little bit but with a little tenacity it can be done. he made 216 a lot easier for me after Herman ruined it for me. 389N: It's my most favorite class of the semester. Despite the time its taught in the mornings any class with Nelson is a blast and this class is his "child" so to speak. It's web dev which is right up my alley and his passion as well. The first exam was really really (and i mean really) easy. And the projects i can finish in a matter of 2-3 days depending on how much time i spend on them. Unless Nelson offers more classes or teaches more in the upper levels this will most likely be my last semester with him as a teacher :( It was well worth it all three times. He makes you proud to be a CS major.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 01/30/2018	The worst thing about Nelson is that his jokes get really old.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC389N Expecting an A Anonymous 01/25/2018	Amazing
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC389N Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2017	This is my third time having Nelson as my CS professor (I had him for cmsc131 and cmsc216), and he's growing on me. He makes so many weird/painful jokes in class which makes it difficult for me to focus, but also keeps me awake so that's good haha. CMSC389N was an alright elective. Midterms were easy as hell and the final probably will be too, but there's a ton of written code required. We had a group project where we had to use php/html, javascript, and bootstrap and that was actually pretty neat and a good group learning experience. This is a great class for anyone looking to get into php/javascript and web app platforms, or databases. I ended up despising web dev this semester, but it was a good experience to learn some php/html, JS/JQuery, and SQL in case I have to use it in the future... plus Nelson is a laugh, haha. Good luck!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/26/2017	Amazing professor! Keeps the class entertaining while teaching the material in a well paced manner.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/20/2017	Easy to follow.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/19/2017	First CS professor I've had and seems to be one of my favorite professors so far. CS material can be really confusing but Nelson uses simple analogies to make sure his students understand what's going on. Really engaging as well, both inside and outside the classroom. If you have the chance to take him, do so.
Nelson Padua-Perez Anonymous 11/19/2017	His project descriptions are full of grammatically errors and make absolutely no sense at all. Every single minute of his lectures, he interrupts himself to tell someone to stop talking even if they aren’t talking. This makes it difficult for us beginners to focus on what he’s saying since he keeps on interrupting himself mid sentence. If you’re good at coding, sure, take his class. He’s funny and makes a ton of jokes. But if you’re a beginner, beware. His inability to teach the content in an easy-to-understand way, coupled with his convoluted project descriptions, will give you headaches and nightmares.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 11/19/2017	Good personality with a great sense of humor but that’s about it. Complaints: + His project descriptions do not flow well at all. They often have grammatical errors and information seems to be scattered all over the place, making projects very intimidating for beginners. Explanations do not make much sense at all unless you’re proficient with programming. Instructions for projects are simply horrible to say the least. Either too much info scattered throughout or too little. You’ll spend a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly it is you have to do, unless you’re already good at coding. + His lectures are all over the place. Every minute, he interrupts himself to tell someone to stop talking (even if they weren’t talking). For us beginners, it doesn’t help that he keeps doing that. He should just focus on his presentation and teach us the lectures without interruption. If you’re good at coding, take his class. He’s funny and makes class fun. But if you’re new to coding, be careful. His projects will give you constant headaches, and you’ll waste a ton of time trying to make sense of the project briefings.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A- lactaid 11/19/2017	Nelson is a great professor. He tells jokes to make class interesting. Some may find this distracting however. I took him for 132 and 216. He's a really nice guy. The projects are difficult but they can be rewarding.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A mike 11/11/2017	Nelson is one of the best professors I have had at Maryland. He always keeps his lectures interesting with jokes and stories. He also is great at teaching the material so it's easy to understand. His projects take some time, but he gives a great explanation of exactly what you need to do. Definitely try to take your CS classes with Nelson (everyone calls him by his first name).
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/05/2016	Nelson is a great guy! His personality is so nice and he's HILARIOUS in class. He makes it fun to learn and a lot easier to pay attention in class. I am a newbie to computer science so the class itself was a little difficult. Nelson is a good guy for people new to computer science because he will make your introduction to compsci very fun. The first midterm for us was really easy and was just like the practice study guide they gave us. The second midterm was ridiculously difficult. It was impossible for anyone with no experience prior to have done well on that exam. Even people that were experienced were depressed after the exam. As for the final, it was a lot better. It wasn't too difficult like the first one but it was still challenging. Make sure to study a lot and go to all the discussions and lectures and to try to learn on your own time because class time is not enough. This class is tailored more for the experienced kids so being a newbie is quite the disadvantage. The whole "you don't need any experience prior" was one of the biggest lies I was told. Also be aware of cheating and copying other people's projects or even collaborating. There was a whole thing this year where the professors are going to prosecute those who cheated on projects which will result in an XF (failure and cheating mark) that will stay with you forever even if you retake the class. It's also better to do it on your own because you learn a lot more that way. BTW: TA hours are a HUGE mess. It's always packed in the TA office and you have to wait a long time for the TA to even come to you to help you. Kinda why I don't understand why the rules for even talking about the projects together are so strict, but can't really do anything about it. Don't show anyone your code and don't ask anyone for theirs. It's a serious issue. TIP: Do really well on the projects because those were the only things holding my grade up (as well as the quizzes). You can bomb the exams and still get a decent grade if you do extremely well on quizzes and projects.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 12/30/2015	Nelson is absolutely and unequivocally the worst instructor I have ever had the misfortune of taking a class with. He is decent at lecturing most of the time, but that is not too much of a merit, since he just reads off slides. I have asked questions both in class, and in office hours, and I have never received a satisfactory answer. For example, one time in class, he offered an opportunity for us to ask questions about the current project we were working on. When I asked a question, he told me my question was too complicated to understand, and instead of letting me clarify, he instead told me that he wouldn't answer my question, and would be moving on to the next topic. I decided to go to his office hours to try and clarify my question. However, he would not even let me finish my question before interrupting, and repeatedly telling me my confusion regarding the project was because I had not read the public tests (which is a solution not remotely related to my original question). He was very rude and discourteous the entire time I was in his office. He uses Piazza (sort of like a forum), under the pretense of having TAs or fellow students being able to help answer questions regarding the class. However, he only uses Piazza as a way to avoid answering nuanced questions himself. This was quite obvious the other times I had attended his office hours, when he would simply tell me to ask my question to the TAs instead. As noted in other reviews, he stops lecture to call out students unnecessarily for the most ridiculous things. Aside from it not being funny, it is quite embarrassing to be put on the spot like that. He is able to still be popular among students because he makes frequent jokes all throughout class. While some of them can be funny, a lot of the jokes I find to be annoying. He jokes about marijuana, cocaine, drinking, etc., in order to project a "chill" image which the typical college student will find hysterical. To summarize this review, Nelson has repeatedly proven he is rude, unable to answer questions that are nuanced, and desperate to be liked. Those genuinely are the three most dangerous traits an instructor can have, as he will find opportunities to belittle you throughout the semester if he knows you don't like him. Stay away from his class at all costs.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/02/2015	People told me Nelson was awesome before I chose his class, but honestly I'm a little disappointed now. He jokes a lot during the lecture, with makes the class seems easy, but I just feel like I cannot really learn from him. Also I don't like him making fun of students in the lecture. I think his exams and quizzes are fair, but the projects are really hard. I personally won't recommend him. In my opinion, he might be a good guy but just an okay professor.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/22/2015	Nelson is a wonderfully funny professor who really values his students. I would certainly recommend that you take him, if possible, because he makes his classes very enjoyable. His exams can be fairly tricky, but if you study well you will be fine.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Anonymous 05/19/2015	In my opinion, Nelson is a solid CS professor. I took 216 with him, and he made it a point to ensure us that it wasn't a weeder course. Once you get around the accent, he's great at explaining the topics at hand. He keeps his lectures fairly lighthearted and relaxed, and he also has a sense of humor. He, along with his TAs, are stationed on Piazza to help students with any problems or concerns, and this is very convenient and helpful. Projects take longer to complete than those in 131 and 132, and starting early is essential. Quizzes and Exams are fair, and he provides a test bank from previous semesters. The final was challenging, so be prepared. Regarding the cons of a class with Nelson - he can be very annoying. The amount of times he will stop the lecture just to call out a student fooling around is just unnecessary and it also distracts everyone in the class. His humor also doesn't appeal to everyone. In addition, be prepared for your inbox to be flooded with his email updates on the course material. I once remember receiving six emails in a 15 minute span from him alone. Overall, he's a great CS prof, and the only professor I would take over him is Fawzi Emad.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2015	Here's the thing with Nelson: he's a great guy and fun to be around, but sometimes that gets in the way of his teaching. He jokes a lot, which makes lecture interesting, but I feel as if I could've gotten a lot more out of 216 with someone else. His projects and quizzes are fair. The tests are fair too, although he likes to test very nit-picky, minor details that any normal person would just test out in a dummy program rather than memorize.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/04/2015	I think he is an amazing professor. He is a pretty decent lecturer, but I think what makes him stand out is how receptive he is to student concerns. Every decision he makes is meant to help us succeed and have a better understanding of the material.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/09/2014	He's a pretty good professor. His lectures are extremely boring and he sticks unfunny jokes in them, but all of the slides and recordings of his lectures were available online. I needed to start my projects right away because the last half of them were given back-to-back with little time to work on them and I couldn't get any help from TAs. If enough students were confused about some part of an assignment, he would explain it in detail during lectures, but individualized assistance was hard to find. He never gave any of the pop quizzes he threatened to give, but if he says that something will be on a test or quiz, it will be.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting a B watergems 08/23/2014	Nelson's class was very disappointing. The first half was challenging and interesting. The second half died for me. The projects were super simplistic but overly complicated with external obfuscation/unclear specification. He seemed to claim this was some kind of test of character or professional challenge. But it just made the last 1/3 of the course into a technically inadequate, stressful game. He is funny but that's not why I'm in school. Nor am I in school to be stressed and have my character tested. There were way too many cheaters, collaborators and brown-nosers who had their strategies for getting their projects done, and they really benefitted in the second half of the course during the b.s. projects. The students who were doing their own work were then at a disadvantage. Meanwhile the technical quality of the material covered during that last 1/3 was very low. i'd rather have a less engaging, entertaining teacher and get a good education throughout the entire class.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC330 Anonymous 05/19/2014	I've taken Nelson for CMSC216/CMSC330, and he has to be one of my favorite CS professors. He explains the material well and tries to keep it fun in the process. If you are deciding between Nelson and another professor for a CMSC class - do yourself a favor and take Nelson. You will learn a bunch and have fun in the process.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC216 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/29/2014	Great professor , absolutely hilarious. Very fair in terms of exams , quizzes , and projects. You can find everything in his lectureExamples if you are confused on any topic. Would highly recommend, best teacher i've so far in CS.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132H Expecting an A Anonymous 09/23/2012	Great professor, awesome person. If computer science is not your thing, this is the best professor you can have. He explains every concept thoroughly and tests you only on what he goes over in class. I'd highly recommend going to class because if you don't, the powerpoint slides will seem really disjointed and incoherent, but in class he explains everything. Projects are extremely reasonable and are very relevant to what you're doing in class. Quizzes mimic the worksheets he gives out. If you have a problem in the class, USE YOUR RESOURCES (professor, TAs) because they can immensely help. Makes some funny jokes that lighten the mood of his class, creating a very comfortable environment. The only complaint is that the end of the semester is pretty rushed in terms of material. He goes over many design patterns, sorting techniques, and algorithm strategies very quickly, and you're expected to have a basic understanding of ALL of them on the final exam.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/16/2012	I thought Nelson was a really nice guy, but his lectures weren't really all that good. He makes the class easy tho, so if all you're worried about is your grade, you'll be fine. I recommend taking another instructor (Fawzi Emad or Evan Golub) if you really want to learn something.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC122 Anonymous 12/15/2011	In all honesty, I don't know why everyone is praising Nelson. Maybe it is because they didn't have him for CMSC122. Seriously, don't take this class. It is just a bunch of unneeded stress. Nelson is the first teacher that I've ever had that actually discouraged asking questions. I asked him reasonable questions during lecture and he not only didn't answer them, he makes an example of me in front of the class. He also teaches the class as if it is a bunch of grad students or something. He goes super fast and will once in a while ask us if he is going to fast. When I told him he was, he proceeded to go at the same pace. He is also very inaccessible. He often ignores emails or sends back nasty messages saying things that frankly, I don't understand. The TA's also don't show up to class so when you go into office hours (which also suck) you don't know who they are. I went to a lot of the lectures, but I found myself learning more from a friend in a 2 hour period than I did all year with him. I noticed that computer science is a thing that comes natural to some and not to others. If you are like me and know nothing, seriously reconsider taking this class.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC122 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/11/2011	He's a good professor and will take every single question you have. His jokes are hilarious the first few days, but then he starts to recycle and it gets old and awkward fast. Which is fine because he really does break down the material into manageable pieces for someone like me who has never done a bit of programming in my life. There are quizzes but he tells you when they are. He threatens pop-quizzes sometimes because a few weeks in no one listens to him anymore because he moves on to miscellaneous and useless topics after JavaScript, but he never pulled it. Make sure to ask him questions in class though because once that clock strikes 1:50 (or whenever the class ends), he is outta there. Won't answer your questions and isn't helpful in office hours. Go to the TA's for that, and that's what he tells you. I'm taking this as a programming requirement for my math major so if you need one and want to do minimal work, take this course with Nelson.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A+ fma1 08/23/2011	I took CMSC132 during the summer and I say he's not a bad professor. Lecture material was kind of boring to me as a lot I already knew, but Nelson tried to connect it to real life examples. The two things I didn't like were that he would make jokes time to time and he would pay too much attention to me. I got 100% on his pop quiz, so I was actually paying attention. I understand why he makes jokes, but I didn't come to class to listen to jokes. I came to learn about OOP. So whenever he did that, I would study something else.
Nelson Padua-Perez Anonymous 05/19/2011	Nelson was funny, but eventually it got really annoying, and was a waste of time. For a DCC class, this class was a lot of work, considering that most of us don't have programming experience. He's nice and helpful though, so if you enjoy a joker and comedian, Nelson might be the professor for you.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC122 Anonymous 05/11/2011	This is by far the worst class at any level of education I have ever taken in my life. The syllabus did not describe the guidelines in the class at all. It just listed that there would be projects at some time during the semester but students were not informed of when projects were due until they were assigned. The professor also assigned a major assignment each week about halfway through the semester. I never had a break from this class. I was always either working on a project or studying for a test or quiz. I understand that there will be assignments, but I never had more work in any class of college so far and I have taken some 400-level classes. When I had questions about some of the assignments, I would go to both the professor and the TA's office hours. However, once I was there, I received no help. I was told to look over the powerpoint slides again and then turned away. My questions were not answered at all. The lectures for this class were incredibly boring. The teaching style was horrible. At the beginning of the semester, Nelson said he did not care what students did during his class. Yet throughout the semester, he constantly called out students for talking, texting or typing on their computer. His lecture style was not engaging at all. It was so hard to focus and he did not gear the information at all to people who are not great with computers like myself. Whenever students asked questions, his answers were not helpful at all. Worst class ever. Do not take this if you are not great with computers and are not a computer science major.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/03/2011	Nelson is a very engaging and fun teacher to have. He enjoys to teach and make jokes at the same time which is very entertaining. Even though he said in the beginning that he will teach like you never did programming before, I believe that is not true. Exams are not that difficult and projects are pretty fair, where as if the class is struggling to finish it, he will extend the deadline. Overall, I would recommend him as a teacher 100%. The TA does not explain the concepts pretty well.
Nelson Padua-Perez Expecting an A Anonymous 02/04/2011	I had Nelson for the first time in a winter course on PHP (cmsc389p). I loved the class. I highly recommend it. Some of the reviews here complained about Nelson's teaching in class, but the problems with these critics are that Nelson teaches such easy topics (CMSC131, CMSC132, CMSC122 for non majors, CMSC198 for non majors), and other ridiculously easy classes that he doesn't have to spend all of class lecturing "int x = 3;" and basic syntax to you. He's funny, approachable, and will be a great teacher as long as (in his words) "they pay me enough". Great guy. Sign up quick, because his classes tend to fill up.
Nelson Padua-Perez s8214 12/07/2010	The first day he had me laughing so hard, i knew it was going to be a good semester. Hes really great at explaining tough concepts, extremely helpful if you go to his office hours, very patient with students who do not understand the material, and very funny. Its rare to have a teacher that can make the class laugh every single lecture. Awesome professor.
Nelson Padua-Perez Expecting an A Anonymous 12/06/2010	Great teacher. He is very straightforward and posts all the powerpoints used in lecture online. There are also weekly study sheets on the class website that I found helpful for our quizzes and tests. Nelson also cares about his students, and he is very good at communicating via e-mail and addressing student concerns. He's also a pretty funny guy, and will tell jokes to make class more interesting. Just pay attention, because if he sees you using your phone or going on facebook he will call you out on it in front of the whole class!
Nelson Padua-Perez Expecting an A ashivkum 11/30/2010	Nelson is an excellent teacher for thsi class if you have programmed before. Otherwise, the pace of the class might be rather brisk. Sometimes he does not explain certain material, and asks you to go to his office hours, which apparently he doesn't give a shit about. On the bright side, he is an extremely funny guy, but he has his days, like some days he is 100% business, and other days he is just cracking jokes and you don't learn shit. He is very understanding in projects, and will give you extra time if you truly need it. Overall, an extremely friendly guy, but if you get sidetracked, he will pick on you in front of everybody. My opinion? Take this dude, for whatever class he teaches.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC131 Anonymous 10/25/2010	Guy says he teaches the class as if none of the students have had programming experience before but that's so false ....... guy sits there and writes code and just gives little explanation. Majority of the class already had programming experience so they understood so the class was clearly catered toward them. Get Fawzi.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/21/2010	Nelson is a great teacher. He's very upbeat and likes to tell lots of really geeky jokes during class. He'll know if you're not paying attention and he'll call you out on it, but it's not a big deal. The class is certainly not an easy one. Make sure you have plenty of time to do the projects. Nelson is very accessible and always there to help.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 05/20/2010	Funny teacher whose ppt lectures are relatively more interesting. Just do not expect him to help you with any personal programming issues. Easy A. Point questions toward TA. Sometimes does not show up to classes for unknown reasons. Does not do anything he doesn't get paid for, I guess. If you have questions just be sure to ask during class so that he will actually give you an answer.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132H Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2010	Pretty easy class. Projects could get a bit tricky, but tests and quizzes were not a problem at all. Starting the projects early and getting them out of the way is a good idea. Nelson was encouraging and helpful the few times I have approached him outside of class. As a teacher, he did a pretty good job explaining concepts. No complaints here.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 05/13/2010	Terrible professor. If you have a backround in programming you will be fine. But if you are taking the class because you are forced to take a programming class and are not a CMSC major and do not spead time programming "just for fun" you will be lost. And he is not helpful. Most of my conversations with him were as follows; I dont understand this.... Well, we went over that in class. Yes I remember, but I didnt understand it in class either. And I still dont understand it. Well why dont you understand it? I went over it in class. I know, but I dont understand it. OVER AND OVER AND OVER
Nelson Padua-Perez Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/07/2010	I took CMSC198J over winter term with Nelson and absolutely loved it! He explained concepts very well and gave us a lot of time to practice programming while he was around to help us. This class was an excellent way to finish my Comp-Sci requirement, and the winter term set-up gave us a lot of face time with Nelson. He was very funny and very helpful and appreciated any student who actually made an effort to do the practice programming challenges. Some of the projects took a lot of time, but I found them fun--like solving a puzzle. Nelson was an awesome professor and also wrote me a great review for study abroad. If you are a motivated student with a sense of humor, I highly recommend his class.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/03/2009	He likes to joke around a lot in class and its pretty funny at first but really gets old and annoying after about the first week. When asked a question in class, he'll most likely respond "come to my office hours" or "go to the TA office hours". Then when you go to his office hours, he gets irritated and tells you that he already went over it in class. He always emphasizes the fact that he cares about his students and wants to see them successful in class. I really question that... Best advice I can give you for this class is to start the homeworks and projects early and do take advantage of the TA office hours. They help out a lot. Also he posts practice quizzes and exams which are pretty good study material for the real thing. Oh yea, and never go to his office hours asking about a project that is due soon. I went to ask a question about a project three days prior to the due date about a question the TA's couldn't even answer. He spent 10 minutes lecturing me about how "successful programmers" start projects early so that they aren't cramming to do it at the end. Then he told me to go to TA office hours... Overall not a hard class but don't expect too much out of Nelson.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 11/24/2008	the only reason im giving nelson any stars at all is because he explains concepts pretty well during class. other than that, if you have to take 132 this semester, take it with fawzi. nelson wastes A LOT of time saying jokes that have NOTHING to do with class. he may seem funny at first, but when you really need help and he doesn't answer your question, it's not funny anymore. when people ask him questions, he either says "ask the TA", "we already went over that", or "come to my office hours". ive gone to his office hours and he just sends me back to the TAs. he also is not considerate of our time. he gave a project AND homework at the same time (homeworks are like mini projects). i also agree with the person below me about EVERYTHING they mentioned.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 11/19/2008	i lot of people liked him. but to me he was very annoying and got on my nerves. he tries too hard to be funny, and most of the time isn't funny at all. he also says he does not care if u don't pay attention in class as long as you don't disrupt the class. but he himself disrupts the class every 5 min to yell/joke at some kid for not paying attention when the student wasn't even disrupting the class
Nelson Padua-Perez Expecting an A BriBri013 10/27/2008	This is probably the hardest I have ever worked for an "elective" course, but I really did enjoy the class. It says it is for beginners but Nelson covers a lot of difficult material. I had background in some web programming so I did alright, but the people without any experience seemed to struggle. I would take it over again just for him, he's worth coming to class! If nothing else, even if I was so behind I wanted to cry, Nelson made class interesting and fun.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A pluralfacade 05/17/2008	Awesome guy. I've had better teachers, but Nelson keeps class interesting with his jokes, and the way he ran his class really helped me to get a solid grip on the material.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/12/2008	I took him a few years back, he is pretty good at teaching, but goes overboard with the jokes every now and then to a point where you feel kind of embarrassed and annoyed. Some days he is on the money with his comedy show, but some days I really felt like telling him to stfu. The only other complaint was that he rushed the end of the semester pretty hard, so make sure you stay on top of the material. During the last week he made us memorize details for dozens of design patterns which were all on the final.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/16/2007	Quite simply, Nelson is among the best professors UMD has to offer. His class is immensely interesting, he is very funny, and he is a fair grader. The work isn't very hard, but if it is, he is very helpful. No complaints.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Expecting an A unitar 12/04/2007	I actually took class with Nelson in Fall 2006, but felt that he was such a good teacher he deserved a review now that this site is up. Nelson is an excellent teacher that keeps his students laughing, which keeps the material interesting. Take every class he teaches!
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 11/15/2007	Nelson is a good teacher. Like everyone has said he tells jokes during class to keep the boring subject material interesting. He also does a good job explaining the projects. I got an A in his class.
Nelson Padua-Perez CMSC132 Anonymous 11/06/2007	I took 132 with Nelson a few semesters ago, but I did want to mention that he is a great teacher. He keeps class interesting, always cracking jokes and telling stories. My only complaint is that sometimes I was in the mood to just learn what I needed to and leave, and sometimes the jokes were a little too much. Other than that, I learned a lot and had a bit of fun, too. Got an A in his class.