Pratap Tokekar | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Pratap Tokekar CMSC421 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/22/2022	I made a review back in November regarding Prof Tokekar and I would say that his management of the 421 course improved between then and the end of the semester. Pros: 1) Posts lecture slides and links to additional online resources and textbook chapters to review 2) Mix of online and in-person OH and TAs did a good job at answering questions during OH 3) Interesting assignments and projects 4) Answers questions during lecture, OH, and is very flexible 5) Posts practice exams and problems to prepare for final and midterm 6) Allows regrade requests 7) Quickly graded final exams Cons: 1) Took a while for midterms to be graded and transferred to ELMS 2) TAs took a little while to respond to Piazza posts
Pratap Tokekar CMSC421 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/10/2022	I think the professor taught as best as he could, but the class structure just wasn't good at all. The TAs never responded on Piazza so he was basically the only one who ever answered questions, grades took forever to get back, lectures weren't recorded for unexplained reasons, and the slides were taken from UC Berkeley and never updated. Pratap has potential to be a great professor, but if he's gonna teach this class in the future he should just make his own slides, and he should push the TAs to at least answer student questions.
Pratap Tokekar CMSC421 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/10/2022	Professor Tokekar is a well-intentioned professor with a strong background in AI and the material within the course is interesting. He also does a good job at creating assignments and projects that are relevant to the concepts we were studying. He also answers questions well within lecture and breaks down the topics for exams and best ways to approach projects/assignments. The TAs also do a good job at answering questions during online & in-person office hours. However, there are a few things that I think Prof Tokekar could improve upon when it comes to this course: 1) Posting the lecture slides in a more timely manner because sometimes, it takes more than 1 day for the most recent lecture slides to be posted and students that missed lecture may have to wait to catch up 2) Responding to Piazza posts more quickly as it takes a while for students to get answer to those questions 3) Posting more practice problems & exams as although the assignments do a good job at covering the concepts and the lecture slides have good examples, more problems would help us master these concepts easier. Also, we only got 1 sample midterm and having at least 1 more would have helped. 4) Faster grading & regrading because it took almost 4 weeks for midterm results to be released onto ELMS and a few weeks for projects to be graded and is taking a while for grades to be transferred from Gradescope to ELMS Other than that, I would say the course was managed well by Professor Tokekar.

Pratap Tokekar
CMSC421

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/22/2022

I made a review back in November regarding Prof Tokekar and I would say that his management of the 421 course improved between then and the end of the semester. Pros: 1) Posts lecture slides and links to additional online resources and textbook chapters to review 2) Mix of online and in-person OH and TAs did a good job at answering questions during OH 3) Interesting assignments and projects 4) Answers questions during lecture, OH, and is very flexible 5) Posts practice exams and problems to prepare for final and midterm 6) Allows regrade requests 7) Quickly graded final exams Cons: 1) Took a while for midterms to be graded and transferred to ELMS 2) TAs took a little while to respond to Piazza posts

Pratap Tokekar
CMSC421

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/10/2022

I think the professor taught as best as he could, but the class structure just wasn't good at all. The TAs never responded on Piazza so he was basically the only one who ever answered questions, grades took forever to get back, lectures weren't recorded for unexplained reasons, and the slides were taken from UC Berkeley and never updated. Pratap has potential to be a great professor, but if he's gonna teach this class in the future he should just make his own slides, and he should push the TAs to at least answer student questions.

Pratap Tokekar
CMSC421

Expecting a B
Anonymous
11/10/2022

Professor Tokekar is a well-intentioned professor with a strong background in AI and the material within the course is interesting. He also does a good job at creating assignments and projects that are relevant to the concepts we were studying. He also answers questions well within lecture and breaks down the topics for exams and best ways to approach projects/assignments. The TAs also do a good job at answering questions during online & in-person office hours. However, there are a few things that I think Prof Tokekar could improve upon when it comes to this course: 1) Posting the lecture slides in a more timely manner because sometimes, it takes more than 1 day for the most recent lecture slides to be posted and students that missed lecture may have to wait to catch up 2) Responding to Piazza posts more quickly as it takes a while for students to get answer to those questions 3) Posting more practice problems & exams as although the assignments do a good job at covering the concepts and the lecture slides have good examples, more problems would help us master these concepts easier. Also, we only got 1 sample midterm and having at least 1 more would have helped. 4) Faster grading & regrading because it took almost 4 weeks for midterm results to be released onto ELMS and a few weeks for projects to be graded and is taking a while for grades to be transferred from Gradescope to ELMS Other than that, I would say the course was managed well by Professor Tokekar.