Charles Silio

This professor has taught: ENEE244, ENEE350, ENPM607

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Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/21/2019	STUDY THE OLD TEST! ONLY WAY TO GET BY! IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL FAIL! CLASS WILL PUT YOU TO SLEEP! AVOID AT ALL COST!
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/10/2019	Silio is a terrible at teaching, rude to his students, and does not give reasonable study material. From the first day of class, he assumes that all of his students are familiar with the specific example machines' architecture and layout, and any questions are regarded with exasperated and inadequate answers. It appears as if he can't fathom that something may be confusing or explained improperly. The material he covers is often inadequate to answer homework questions, and the required text does not do much to help in that regard. Many times, it will be impossible to decipher what a question is exactly looking for simply due to poor phrasing. The material in the class is interesting, and if you want to enjoy it I would recommend taking anyone other than Silio.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Anonymous 01/13/2018	Silio is a bore in class and couldn't teach a cat to meow. Avoid if you can. Most of his class is ranting about old computers.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/23/2015	This class will be frustrating. For the first few weeks of the semester I guessed my way through the homework, turning it in, and learned how to do it the next day from my TA. His lectures are very long and drawn out and I had trouble learning anything from him. I passed this class by getting my hands on his previous tests and homework solutions. His exams are very similar to previous semesters and was not surprised by the exam when I showed up. The prgoramming assignments are the most difficult. He slightly changes a few of these so that you can't just copy and paste the assignments from previous semesters. If you get them working 100% he will curve your grade, so I relied on my TA for assistance to get them working. He grades extremely fast but gives little partial credit.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/17/2015	Don't take him unless you already know how to do assembly. He's hard to learn from and I have not learned how to code at all this semester. If you do end up having him make sure you hand in all the programs WORKING. You have until the last day of the semester to hand them in otherwise your grade will not be curved. He replaces your lowest midterm grade with your final grade if you get a higher score. Try to show up to class occasionally he remembers who shows up. If you plan on memorizing his past exams, remember that the final is not on IEEE
Charles Silio ENEE244 Anonymous 05/06/2015	Do not take him!! He is horrible at teaching, he puts students to sleep but you cant skip class because he purposefully puts things in his lecture that you cant learn anywhere outside of class so you will fail the test if you didnt learn it. Only problem is half of the crap he says is useless, so what do you memorize? On the subject of his test, he tries to trick his students then he grades without partial credit. One mistake and you loose all your points, no matter what. Its honestly the first time Ive seen multiple people fail a class entirely from stupid mistakes. It doesnt help that he is rude and seems like he has something out for his students. Just stay away from him
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/04/2015	I really like Silio. His lectures can feel a bit long and boring, but I don't know how any other professor could do much better. Sometimes he goes off on tangents about his experiences, but I really enjoy his stories because they help you make connections between the theory you learn and real-world applications. His midterms have seemed fair so far. Its really annoying that he doesn't give partial credit, but he doesn't put any surprises on the midterm and gives you a sample midterm so if you don't make stupid mistakes and study then you should do fine. He also replaces the lower of the two midterm grades with the final which is nice. Overall, I think he is a good professor and I think he really knows what he is talking about. You can tell he's put a lot of though into the best way to teach the topic and the textbook that will allow us to learn best.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Anonymous 05/26/2014	Nope. Don't take him. He made 244 a pain and a bore, when otherwise it could have been a very interesting class. What a shame and a waste of money. I don't ever want to have him as a professor again. Apart from him being a poor teacher and his character condescending, the way he grades exams is illogical (the irony). Your grade can easily turn into a C if you are not a human calculator because mistakes are inexcusable for exams, even if you completely understand the course material and you just made a silly mistake, inexcusable. Maybe one person in the entire class enjoyed it. He is not a good professor.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/26/2014	The only reason I'd give him 3 stars is because of the easy exams. Apply for IEEE (UMD one) so you can look up his previous exams. They are almost word for word the same, so you should nail them with little trouble. He gives minimal partial credit so you'd better get the questions entirely correct. Homework is an absolute BITCH so watch out for that. Plan on spending ~2 hrs on each week's assignment (more if you actually want to read the book, which I recommend you do). Pray that you have a good TA because s/he'll be able to teach a week's worth of Silio's lecture in one discussion. Anything they miss can be learn easily enough through the book. I recommend for the easy exams, but as a lecturer.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2013	Worst lecturer on the planet. Pretty sure he just put ridiculous questions on the exams because he was trying to make a point about people not attending his boring lectures. If you can manage to be excited enough about the material to actually pay attention in lecture, you might be able to do well. Do not recommend.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/21/2013	Silio really likes IBM and will spend 75% of his lectures talking about the industry rather than the material you're supposed to know for the class. His exams don't really test how well you know the material; rather, how well you can memorize the answers from IEEE testbank. You have to know the exams inside out because there is no partial credit, so if you make the tiniest mistake, you will not get higher than a B. His grading also is very hit or miss (the final is worth 35% of your grade and can replace a midterm which totals to over 50% of your grade). However, he is the better alternative for the professors that teach ENEE244, so you should take him as a lesser of two evils.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a C ashivkum 05/17/2013	Even though I got a low grade in this course, the guy is fair. Very fair. His exams are up, free to viewing, and exams are usually very similar to those online. Fast grader; usually done within a few hours. Might be dull during lecture, but when you go to office hours, you see a personality in this guy. He teaches you, shows passion, talks about things in industry, and is actually a very interesting guy. I got a bad grade because he gives like ZERO partial credit on exams, but that's my fault, not his. Do the programming projects and turn them in before the end of the semester, and he curves your grade (regardless of how the rest of the class is doing). I'm sure that I passed this semester because of that...
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/06/2013	Dr. Silio is truly terrible as a professor. He goes on and on off tangents and fails to really communicate the course content across. Doing the homeworks is the main way you'll learn anything on this course, and the tests are the same year after year as other people mention. It's not too hard to get an A though as long as you study off of the old tests and memorize/learn the way he poses questions. Also, learn to do as much of the homework as you need, and copy the test from the answer key (he assigns WAY too much: more than a 4 credit class). He seems to have no respect for student's time and notion of what is appropriate. He's also quite arrogant which comes across easily. It's ironic considering he's a no-end professor with a very low salary and low significance. It's clear that he thinks of himself as better than scientists, and quite ridiculous actually.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2012	If you've had Silio before, you know what to expect. Two exams and a final account for 90% of your grade, and the final can overwrite one of the other exams. Exams are similar to previous years so check the testbank. However, the testbank alone will not get you through this course like you might be used to. He gives 4 programming assignments during the semester (one of which is a program he writes and you just analyze.) The programs themselves are worth only 4% of your grade and are a lot of work, so most people chose not to do them. HOWEVER, if you do not do the programs, he will not curve your grade. You will also not know how to do large portions of the second exam and final. You must get all 4 programs 100% working to get any credit for them, but you can turn them in up until basically the last day of the course so that you can still guarantee yourself a curve. The only way to do well on the final is to do the programs and know what you're doing. He also creates a few big sets of notes for some of the more important topics, minimizing how much of the book you have to read. The microarchitecture notes, which you get within the first few weeks, are your most important resource for the class. Read them, have the diagrams and instruction set out while you're programming, and you'll learn everything just fine. You also get most of the diagrams and tables on the exams. A large portion of the class did not do the programming assignments, and they as a whole did not do well in the class. If you don't do any of them, you're almost assured a C or lower.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/13/2012	He is totally unfair. Let me give you an ex, no3 on exam 1 got 85 and 63 on exam 2 and 89 on final. So final score was 86/100. As the person didn't submit programming assignments the grade should not be curved as he told the class .so 86 is a B. But he gave an A which is unfair to other students. Exams are similar to previous exams. So not bad but a bit unfair.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/26/2012	Silio can be very blunt and rude at times. The one time I went to office hours he wasn't pleasant at all. But when it comes to the actual class and the material, I thought he was pretty good. Lecture is spent not on theory but on going through example problems and explaining the concepts behind them. The methods that Silio used during lecture were generally a lot better than the ones presented in the book. The 2 midterm exams are worth 27.5% of your grade each, and the final is worth 35%, with the other 10% coming from discussion section. In addition he will drop your lowest midterm and replace it with your final exam score if this benefits you. The layout of the tests is nearly identical to his prior exams on the UMD IEEE test bank. Definitely run through a bunch of those old exams and you will do fine on the tests. Silio is very straight-forward and is not out to trick you, so you will be able to anticipate exactly what is going to be on the exams. For the final, he gave those of us in lecture lots of hints about the problems that would appear, so definitely go to lecture to benefit from this.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/27/2011	Very straight forward professor - he is not around the bush, not out to "trick" the students. He is very blunt about what he tests on and what he expects you to take from his class. Personally, I loved this about him. The sample exams he hands out are very similar to the actual exams (almost identical to the 1st). There are weekly homework assignments, two midterms, and one final exam. The homeworks are very tedious and time consuming, but they are beneficial in that most of the problems at the end of the chapter are harder than any problem he will give on an exam. I remember one homework assignment had 75 karnaugh maps. The two midterms are significant toward your grade in that they count for most of the points in the class; however, he has a policy in which if one performs better on the final than any of the previous midterms the midterm grade will be replaced by the final. This is only for 1 exam though. One thing about him people hate, though, is the fact that he does not believe in partial credit. Only very rare occasions will he give out partial credit. As far as the lectures go, he goes off topic often but has interesting stories pertaining to the material that you learn, which makes it better. Also, he teaches much easier methods to perform logic than the book does. Definitely get your hands on previous exams - they do not change. He says so himself.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2011	The homework can be difficult and time-consuming in this class, but it's only 10% of the grade and TAs seem to be very fair in grading it. The book is useless, but unfortunately you need it in order to do the homework. Attend lecture, as Dr. Silio explains things much better, and often knows much simpler methods than the book uses. The problems on tests are identical from semester to semester, only with slightly different information. If you do not belong to the testbank, sign up and study old tests. Practicing them, and being very careful not to make a mistake on test day, can get you a pretty easy A.
Charles Silio ENEE244 UMDstudent2011 04/04/2011	Boring lectures, and lots of homework are what describes taking ENEE244 with Silo. HOWEVER, his exams are the same every semester (just different numbers). Take Silo for ENEE244, you won't regret it.
Charles Silio ENEE140 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2010	You can't follow Silio's lectures! He talks so quietly that if you dont sit within 10 feet on him you cant hear. He strays off topic constantly, and isnt too structured in his assignments which causes a lot of confusion. Overall, take 140 with Silio but dont go to lectures, they're incredibly pointless. He gives you everything you need to know on elms handouts and reads straight from them in lecture anyways. Good class, bad professor
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting a C logical-zero 10/21/2010	Well, I read a lot of poor reviews about Prof Silio and for the first 3 weeks of the semester I had made up my mind to hate him. Yes, his lectures are ancient. Yes, he likes to tell army stories. Yes his exams require you to be proficient, not just knowledgeable. Yes, he gives very little partial credit. Now read this carefully: Prof Silio is the Mr. Miyagi of professors. He has been teaching the same 5-6 courses since Elizbeth Taylor was in the second grade. There is a method to his madness. You might not like how he teaches but you will be a digital logic ninja. If you go to his office hours he will explain, in great detail, how to solve the problems. Additionally, if you take him for 244, you will be a whiz kid in 206. If you ask his gradebook, I was at the bottom of his class but 206 is a cakewalk now. All in all I enjoyed the class because you get to solve problems without complicated math. You get to design things that solve problems with only two numbers (1,0). It's quite fascinating how much you can do with True, False. I'm honestly considering minoring in microelectronics now.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A silversd 07/21/2010	First of all, anyone who is looking at this review has to take this course at some point. That really isn't an option. The only option you have is the professor. I recommend Silio over Nakajima. From what I have heard and read, Nakajima cares too much about proofs and Boolean algebra instead of Digital Logic Design. Silio, on the other hand, does teach the material, including helpful hints that detour from the book. In fact, I didn't really have to read the book at all because I learned everything in class. The one drawback to Silio is his grading. He does give partial credit if you do part of the problem correctly, but it isn't always as much as you would like. For example, if you fill in every row correctly on a truth table except for one, there goes a quarter of your points even though you got 1/16th of the problem wrong. That said, pay attention in class, and study the sample exams, and you will do fine with Silio.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting a B fma1 05/22/2010	If you wondering who to take, Silio or Nakajima, it's really up to you. Silio will actually teach you something unlike Nakajima, but he doesn't hold review sessions. Nakajima holds review sessions, but he can't teach. If you study a bunch of Silio's past exams, the test will be a cinch. Nakajima makes you do stuff like prove this and that using Boolean algebra which I really don't see the point of. Basically, it's like the other guy said. If you have to stop and think, you probably got the problem wrong. On the final exam I took 5 days ago, I had to stop and think on the propagation delay one, so I just left it for last. It was multiple choice, so I worked it out partially and guessed. I mean, I would say, I liked Silio because the final exam is the most important thing. I got an 54 on the midterm and a 40 something on the 2nd exam, but I got a B on the final so I got a B in the class. You should come to class just to see if there's anything important that might be on a test. But most of the time it isn't so bring a pillow, catch up on your sleep. Don't bother taking too many notes if it's in the book because he goes way too fast with slides. You won't be able to copy them. You're better off reading the book and his notes. I recommend Mano's book, not Givone's. Givone never gets to the point. Honestly, I barely even used the book. Only for homework did I actually open it. When he gives you the choose a/b/c/d/e for karnaugh map about implicants, do not choose none of the above. That is always wrong. That killed me on the first exam. And hopefully your TA will teach you the graphical method for NAND->OR/AND. After you do that, put it on a Karnaugh map and then get the sum of products. And make sure you know exclusive OR really well. Basically, it tests to see if the inputs are both the same. 0 XOR x = 0, 1 XOR x = NOT x. Think of it like this: 0 0 0 If I don't eat the cake and I don't eat the pie, then there won't be only one thing left to eat. 0 1 1 If I don't eat the cake and I eat the pie, then there will be only one thing left to eat. 1 0 1 If I eat the cake and I don't eat the pie, then there will be only one thing left to eat. 1 1 0 If I eat the cake and the pie, then there won't be only one thing left to eat.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/13/2010	his son went to princeton. at princeton they don't let you double major. he once had a student who misread a question and when the student asked for a regrade, he wrote "learn to read" on his paper. the student's mom was a reading teacher. everyone loves ibm. he laughs like tickle me elmo. these are the things and more that you will learn in his ENEE 244 class. What did you expect to learn? Engineering? He handwrites everything on transparencies and they mean nothing to me. Literally, it's just a bunch of variables. No one asks questions because it seems like everyone is too lost to ask them. They don't even know what to ask about. to put it in perspective, i had a 3.9 GPA in high school and came in with 40 AP credits and had a 4.0, let's see what happens this semester...
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A miyamamo 12/18/2009	I had Silio last Spring and he has been by far my favorite professor. He tells personal anecdotes, which irritates some people, but which helped me stay engaged throughout the class. His lectures alternated between written on the chalkboard and overhead slides pre-written in marker upon request (but it was a foolish request). Having some background to the course is very useful as he'll jump right into things that will be over your head if you've never done anything with logic before. I took an Introduction to the Fundamentals of Computer Science class in high school and it was more than enough to give me solid footing. He does give partial credit, but in a different way then most professors. He'll follow your process and from the moment you make a mistake, everything that follows is wrong (because you have a wrong assumption). Unless, I suppose, you make a second mistake that magically fixes your first, in which case you'll get credit for the work that's right again. Most people complain because they get no credit when they fail to set up a problem correctly, but if you can't take the time to read a problem why did you bother even enrolling?
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/01/2009	Silio is one of those professors that you dont want to go through. I skipped his lectures quite often because i could not keep up with his lecture notes. BUT if you take his class, all you have to do is study his past exams, because the ones he gives are very similar. that should be enough to get by
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A dmorris 07/23/2009	Had him for Summer 2009. Was a good teacher. Make sure you get a hold of his previous exams and study his practice exams as well as any homework problems he gives you.
Charles Silio ENEE140 Anonymous 04/14/2009	OMG....he is really not good at teaching.he is always talking about his personal experience during class and cover the material by just reading the slides.his class will really makes you fall asleep because its toally not helpful. i really dont recommend him. you can study the material by reading his notes and maybe that will be much more efficient.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Anonymous 04/12/2009	He is awesome if you want to talk past ancient history about some computer that he advised the government to make is small size but they never listened... and how the whole project is in somebody's basement... If you want an easy "A" or "C-" and dont want to understand a single word of the material... then get homework solution and his past exam form other students... Otherwise "YOU ARE WARNED IN ADVANCE"
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/03/2009	Unlike what everyone else says, he actually isn't too bad of a lecturer. However, you have to come prepared for class i.e. look at the material in the book in order to understand him. The best thing about taking his class is that his exams are all very similar to his previous exams which you can easily obtain. All he does is switch up a few minor things. Sometimes, he uses the exact same questions. Best way to study for his exams are to look over past exams and maybe go over the homeworks. Its true that he's stingy with partial credit but if you can do his past exams, the real exam should be easy and you shouldn't really make any mistakes. Also, he's pretty generous with his exam curves which really help out at the end. Best advice I can give you: start early on the homeworks since they take forever, get your hands on previous exams, and practice practice practice. If you do enough practice problemss, eventually they become second nature to you and it's really not that bad.
Charles Silio ENEE244 cp_eng 12/26/2008	He's a good teacher. He thoroughly explains the material (get him to teach on the chalk/whiteboard-- this is much more effective than his transparencies) and he is always willing to help if you go to office hours. People complain because he's a harsh grader, but it really just motivates you to actually learn the material. Yes, this is engineering, you have to do a lot of work.
Charles Silio ENEE244 Expecting an A ProphetElisha 09/03/2008	He's such a terrible lecturer. He'll give really long supplemental readings that are worthless to you and are a waste of paper because no one understands them. His handwriting is illegible on his ancient overhead slides. His homeworks take a long time. He hasn't changed the format of his tests for years so you'll probably get more out of studying previous tests if you can find a test bank than from his practice tests. He's really harsh in his grading and gives next to no partial grading. You might be surprised at the grade you get (could be higher or lower than what you expect). He curves a lot, but given the harsh grading, it might not be enough.
Charles Silio ENEE350 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/25/2008	I took 244 and 350 with him. Pretty much, he is a terrible lecturer, and cannot teach worth anything. However, he will give you homeworks and tests in such a way that if you are not proficient in the material, you will fail. He gives very little partial credit, and his exams are more of an exercise in precision than creativity. What I mean by that is, he will give you some 7 problems and if you have to stop and think about any of them, chances are you are not going to do well on the test.