David Van Horn

This professor has taught: CMSC131A, CMSC132A, CMSC141, CMSC330, CMSC388F, CMSC388Q, CMSC389B, CMSC398I, CMSC430, CMSC631, CMSC801, CMSC838E

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David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/27/2024	This was a bizarre course for me. It was the most interesting CS course I took my entire education here at UMD. But at the same time, the professor does not care. The TAs do not care. It's an uphill struggle all the way. Submitting a project even a minute late results in a complete 0, ridiculous for a project-based class. Van Horn effectively walls himself off from his students, never once responding to any email. He doesn't even hold regular office hours for God's sake, he wants you to schedule a meeting with him. Perhaps my personal failing but I would always zone out 20 minutes into lecture although some lectures were incredibly fascinating.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting a C- Anonymous 05/23/2024	I'm gonna start with some pluses about 430. The class notes are thorough and completely finished, so what I did was read up on the topic for the upcoming lecture and treated lecture as a review, which was super beneficial. TAs I had in office hours were knowledgeable and helpful in breaking down the topics. David's lectures were sort of monotone and dry, but he did include useful tips for projects at the start of some lectures and I think he does care about having students learn the material. So if the topics interest you, you won't be disappointed. That said... the grading takes horrendously long to get back. It took over a month to get our first midterm grades back. Especially near the end of the semester, questions about final grades were ignored on piazza leading to a huge lack of transparency on what cutoffs were and on how to actually calculate our final grade. I just needed this class to graduate, and it was frustrating not being able to get a straight answer on what my grade actually was. Even now that I've gotten my final grade on testudo back, I was anticipating a C based on what they've said about how they'd do grading but got a C- instead. I can get over that because I just need to pass the class, but I have no idea how that grade is getting calculated due to the lack of communication.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Anonymous 05/22/2024	Professor never replied to emails. I still don't have my final grade on ELMS nor testudo, and I graduated yesterday. Also good luck finding a TA during office hours later in the semester.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Anonymous 05/17/2024	Super knowledgeable professor, super boring lectures. Huge disconnect between him and his TAs--assignments would regularly be posted and graded late, and even now our grades aren't inputted correctly on ELMS despite multiple complaints on piazza. The class goes by fast and everything builds upon previous material, so if you lag behind, you will definitely feel the consequences. Material was interesting and the notes were well-written. Early projects were actually pretty fun; later projects were much more assembly-heavy than I thought they would be, so if you enjoy working with it and manipulating the stack, you should do fine.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2023	Very good class, would recommend taking if you're looking for an actually not too bad and fun 400 level CS class. I thought it was one of the better organized courses I've taken at UMD, but a lot can be said for DVH's part in that. He was pretty much absent from every Piazza post relying on TAs and Jose to respond and emailing him was basically throwing away an email into the void. With that being said, I didn't have much issues with the course. The TAs are brilliant and make up for this lack of responsiveness and he does record his lectures which is a huge plus! Overall, good professor who cares about your learning. Would recommend.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting a B kcanha 12/02/2023	Most checked out professor ever, course was terribly organized. Apparently he did not interact with the TAs all semester and it showed. Projects were almost always posted late. Sometimes posted to course website, sometimes to piazza, never told where. We were told there would be a lecture quiz posted after each class, there have been 4 total. I'm about to take the final and exam 1 regrades aren't out yet, exam 2 initial scores (autograder) aren't out yet almost a week after taking it. TAs don't show up for office hours. Lectures were monotonous and hard to pay attention to. If you are able to pay attention he explains stuff alright, he does a good job answering questions in person. He is a nice enough guy.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/29/2023	Had him this summer for 430. One of the most well put together classes I've ever taken. Seriously. A lot of time went into the design of this course, so that you wouldn't spend hours and hours sifting through documentation for an answer. Most upper level classes will say its the students job to find out what functions to use to solve a problem, and what resources to get there. But everything you need for this class is in the notes and in lecture, so you can spend more time thinking about the theory, and doing projects then sifting through pages and pages of documentation. They even made a language to simplify x86 to only instructions that are relevant. On top of that, DVH lectures very well, attempting to explain those notes and boiler plate code with live coding examples. He doesn't just teach off slides he actually shows you what to do and tells you why he's doing it that way. Very good lecturer. But don't get me wrong this class isn't easy, you definitely will have to think your way through the projects and some projects I was just grateful to get a C. But I took it in the summer so maybe less time made it harder, I don't know. After one of the project deadlines passed that a lot of people struggled on, DVH spent 3+ hours walking through the solution on top of doing lecture that day. Him and his TA are also very responsive. This summer Pierce was one of the TA's and one of the best ones I've ever had. Anyways, take this class if you liked the interpreter project of 330 and the MIPs project of 216, because its sort of a blend of those 2 projects. This is one of those classes where effort and consistency will get you farther than intuition and I really think the staff gives you every tool you need to succeed.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/15/2023	Pros -Interesting material imo -No real exams, all projects -very organized Cons -Lectures are very boring -Lots of low level coding -Projects can take a very long time
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/22/2023	Lectures are kind of dry, but the class is well structured, excellently run, and very interesting.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Anonymous 01/05/2023	Time consuming but relatively easy class, as projects are mostly implementation, little to no theory involved. Dry lectures, much more engaging online and when you ask him questions in person. Otherwise a brilliant guy, would recommend if you liked 216/330.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Anonymous 12/19/2022	He deserves a 5-star rating for the following. First, he cares about students and their learning. His main objective is encourage students to learn as much as possible. His lectures are clear and he never rushes through the materials, which are well organized into different modules with increasing levels of sophistication to build up compilers with advanced programming language features. I like the way the course organizes exams. We had two midterms but no final exam. The midterm problems are all about designing and implementing certain features of some compilers that had been discussed in the lectures. The midterm questions are clear and reasonable. We were given 48 hours to complete the midterms but I did not have to devote the entire two days to each midterm.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/06/2022	Lectures are kinda dry but DVH explains things really well. Instead of Piazza he used Discord to communicate with the class, which made it so much easier to reach him and the TAs. The class is not necessarily hard, but it is a lot of busy work. Gotta stay on top of it.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2021	The course material was very interesting, and the materials provided were very helpful. DVH lectures well, but can be monotone, which can make it difficult to stay focused if you're easily distracted like I am. Outside of lecture, a Discord server was set up for the class. This was massive since it made communication between course staff and students more frequent, casual, and clear. It closed a lot of distance between the two groups. The format of Discord also made it so that problems students had could be solved more smoothly than they would on something like Piazza. DVH is also very kind in general. If he's an option, I'd highly recommend taking him, because he knows how to run a course.
David Van Horn CMSC330 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/28/2020	David Van Horn is clearly incredibly knowledgable on the topics that he teaches, however, his lectures are rather dull and lacking on student engagement. If you're able to focus through his lectures, you will do a great job, but I often found that I would zone out at some point and then fall behind his fast-paced lectures entirely and resort to watching Anwar's lectures instead. The class as a whole is easy if you put the time in, but that being said the work is constant and unrelenting, the expectations are high, and if you fall behind you will have a very hard time catching up.
David Van Horn CMSC330 Expecting an A tybug 12/20/2020	DVH is a decent lecturer, but is very monotone, though I didn't mind that personally. Not much more to say except that I disliked having graded clicker quizzes. If you don't attend lecture the onus is on you to know the material, but you shouldn't be punished with a 0 on the clicker quizzes on top of that. But YMMV.
David Van Horn CMSC330 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/15/2020	DVH is a good professor, but somewhat unremarkable. His lectures are kinda dry, but maybe that's just because we were online. The projects were interesting and fun, and overall I enjoyed this class.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Anonymous 12/05/2019	Such a great professor. Clearly is dedicated to the course and the students. He genuinely wants kids to learn and to build a curriculum that is strong and representative. However 430 was very challenging and a lot of work so beware if you enroll to spend 10-15+ hours on projects. There were no exams though just projects for all assignments, midterms, and final.
David Van Horn CMSC430 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/24/2019	Epic twitter account.
David Van Horn CMSC131A Expecting an A Anonymous 08/29/2018	I was new to programming, loved the class
David Van Horn CMSC131A Expecting a B Anonymous 05/09/2018	The good: This guy is very knowledgeable about programming languages, he even wrote some textbooks about them. He is very clear on what he wants and is always willing to answer questions. Sometimes he can be generous with bonus points with quizzes and other things. He can be low key funny af sometimes but is mostly monotone. Also dis man look like lil dickey bro lmao. The bad: Expectations are wayyyyyy too high for his students in 131A who are supposed to be beginners to CS. His lectures are boring and have little engagement. Some of his assignments can be straight up disgusting and will destroy your will to live. He can be very inconsistent with posting assignments and notes.