Mamadou Wade

This professor has taught: ENEE150, ENEE244, ENEE245, ENEE459F

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Mamadou Wade ENEE245 Anonymous 08/05/2024	Wade is not a very good professor and this class was agonizing. It's not really his fault, I think he tries his best and I do think he cares about students, but I hated every second I spent in this class. Labs were such a pain and we spent a long time on troubleshooting. I found the exams difficult, but they're a pretty small portion of your grade so it wasn't the end of the world when I did badly on them. My TA was pretty awful, he was very unhelpful and didn't grade any labs all semester (by the last class we still only had 2/12 labs graded) but when I went to office hours and talked to other TAs they were great and very helpful. From what I've heard, the ECE department just couldn't find anyone who wanted to teach the 244-245 sequence so they made Wade do all of it, and he seems to be doing his best, but it is still pretty rough. Hopefully at some point more professors will teach this class.
Mamadou Wade ENEE245 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/09/2024	I honestly enjoyed this class for the most part. The prelabs took a while to do but it was interesting to apply what we learned in 244 and I liked the Vivado software. Just put in effort on the prelabs and you will be fine. Both midterms were pretty easy and this class is just a lot of work for the prelabs.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 06/06/2024	Wade reads off the slides for this class, but it is a lot more helpful compared to 150. Class is boring, but Wade is one of the nicest professors I've had, allowing me to take extensions on a few of the homework assignments. The bulk of the course work that aren't quizzes or exams is the homework, which can be around 10-20 problems per chapter. You can expect to have 2 quizzes, 2 exams, and 6-7 homeworks, depending how far you get into the class. GRADING IS VERY LENIENT, and if you put even a little time into studying, you are guaranteed at least a B- on any exam or quiz, including the final.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/21/2024	For reference, I review all my professors, and my average review is 4.2, 4.13 weighted by credit Singularities/Unique because: - New to teaching, still adjusting for sure - Dr. Wade is Senegalese and a very nice man, though reserved, again I think because he is nervous and still adjusting to teaching. - 2 Midterms and a final, 25% each. 6, maybe 7 in the future, grueling homeworks that make the exams really easy. Plenty of extension time to do them, as well. You'll probably like: - Discussion TAs don't have much else to do, so they'll go ahead of lecture so you get to see and do everything twice. This is a skill-based class - the only memory you need is in the flip-flops ;). - Easy exams, easy grading, curved if necessary. - Nice guy if you talk to him, will explain things well 1-on-1, and yes he does have a sense of humor, just have to get over a little bit of a culture/language barrier You might get frustrated by: - Yes, he is a little robotic. Largely teaches by reading through his slides, and explaining increasingly complicated diagrams as the semester goes on, and there isn't always filler information for him to add, so it certainly gets dry after a while. - Sometimes, it's hard to get a question answered, because usually you're asking about a specific part of a diagram, and it takes a while to get on the same page with him. Dr. Wade struggles a little bit with interruptions, such as tech issues or these long breaks for specific questions. The bottom line is, Dr. Wade does what a professor is supposed to do. He teaches to the best of his ability, makes sure you learn, and gives fair exams. His way of doing this might not be anyone's favorite, and hence the 4-star review, but it absolutely works if you have a little patience and motivation.
Mamadou Wade ENEE245 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2024	I have not seen 1 thing of value that Wade adds to class (ENEE245). His lectures our pointless, boring, uninformative, and as a result hardly anybody pays attention. The test aren't difficult but are the most random grab bag of facts from the material I've ever seen. The design of the labs are fine(they are mostly plagarized out of the textbook, which he tells you not to get, but is actually super useful). But the instruction (the lab packets) for them is atrocious; the some of the code he writes is flat out wrong or clearly wouldn't compile, other ones haven't been updated in 10-15 years, and all of them are just a collection of random facts and theory with no organization. Answer keys weren't provided for the TA's so had to use the best looking lab from last year some of which was wrong. The TA's complain about Wade's poor communication and difficulty to work with. The lab instruction include the line "please fix any technical mistakes or bugs before lab as the TA's may not be able to help you". Finally, its the work of a 4 credit class that you just get 2 credits for.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/14/2024	Wade’s lectures were subpar. He essentially just gives you material straight from the book, and at a snail’s pace. My TA covered the same material as Wade in around 1/3 of the time. I would have enjoyed seeing other interesting examples or additional intuition behind why things work, but again he basically just rehashes the book. Exams and homeworks were quite easy. However the first few homeworks were really excessively long (even though the material is not particularly hard) so start early. It’s an easy class overall, but pretty boring. Be prepared.
Mamadou Wade ENEE150 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/12/2024	If you've taken ENEE140, then 150 with Wade will be a breeze. A lot of the class covered content that we were already familiar with from 140, and Wade did a good job of explaining the new material since his lecture slides are very detailed and thorough. Some people don't like his teaching style, which I understand, but I feel that he gave us plenty of study resources for whenever we needed them. I also appreciated how he always asks if students had questions or comments on each topic before moving on. The homeworks and projects were very straightforward, and much less work than what I had in 140. He also gave us more than enough time to complete these, with a 3-day grace period on top. The midterms were not too difficult, with averages being in the mid-80s and many of the problems copied directly from his lecture slides. TLDR: Take 150 with Wade
Mamadou Wade ENEE150 Anonymous 05/10/2024	Dr. Wade was very reasonable with all of his assignments and projects (we had two projects and four homeworks). If you understand all of the topics you will do well on the exams. The only drawback was that his lectures were pretty boring, he read straight off the slides. I would recommend taking him.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/10/2024	Professor Wade is a great professor for this course. He wants you to pass, so he welcomes questions, and creates fair quizzes and exams. Power points for 244 are easy to follow, making this one of the easiest ENEE courses.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	Mr. Wade is a very nice professor who genuienly cares for his students learning. His slides are inspired directly from the textbook and he's pretty good at exlaining the course concepts clearly. The class itself is pretty easy, and I enjoyed his teaching overall. Would recommend :)
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	very nice guy. the material may not be everyone's favorite, but he writes exams that tests what you see in class.
Mamadou Wade ENEE150 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/09/2024	Dr. Wade is a great professor, but his lectures are quite dry and boring and he reads off his slides, which can put you to sleep at times. However, once you get past that, he teaches the information very well and breaks down the concepts so you can understand. He goes through the code step by step and draws diagrams on the board which are very helpful. Course work: 2 Quizzes, 2 Exams, 2 Projects, 4 HW - This could vary depending on the current pacing of the class. He gives a week's notice for your exams and quizzes, and all of it is based on his slides, so make sure to study them. As one of the reviews said, Dr. Wade is lenient and understanding. He will curve quizzes and exams and provide extensions if needed. He would also go over the exams and quiz answers the next class or so. Also, the homework and projects are due one to two weeks after it is initially posted.
Mamadou Wade ENEE150 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/08/2024	Wade is a very boring lecturer, but makes his exams and quizzes quite easy. He takes examples from his slides and uses them for both quizzes and exams, so if you look over the slides beforehand you should be fine. The homework's aren't too hard, and the projects were honestly sometimes even easier. He also curves the average to a B on exams, but they have been above that anyways so he hasn't had to.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/08/2024	244 with Wade is an extremely easy course. His lectures can be boring at times, and occasionally he overcomplicates the easier topics, but just go to discussion and everything usually clicks. The homework's are very tedious, and can sometimes be hard, but they make the exams feel extremely easy. He gives lots of time to complete each homework, and gives a 3 day grace period for them all. As long as you can get over some somewhat boring lectures, Wade is a good professor.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/14/2024	Class, is medium difficulty but Wade curved. Take it with Wade
Mamadou Wade ENEE245 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/28/2023	Wade is still not a great professor for 245. However, unlike 244 where all of the shortcomings of that class fall on the professor, 245 has been such an infamous class for several years that Wade might actually be an improvement for the class's direction... which is honestly really sad. First off, a few good things I have to say. This class, despite how much work it is week by week, is at least an easy A if you try. The TAs graded fairly and mostly gave everyone A's on assignments as denoted by most of the lab report averages. Additionally, I believe any overdue lab reports were accepted on the last day of classes for full credit. I would strongly recommend against abusing this for both your and the TAs' sake, but the option is there if you're struggling to get in the last few reports. Finally, being able to choose lab partners each week is a godsend for this class. With that out of the way, this class is an absolute mess. First off, lab 0 was almost completely useless for me, as we had no hands-on experience with using the equipment. We instead watched videos for most of the time, including an hour long review of the oscilloscope we used in lab, which didn't help me understand how to use it in the slightest (keep in mind this is the first time I've used an oscilloscope, and neither PHYS261 nor ENEE205 are prerequisites for this class). Speaking of the oscilloscope, literally every new piece of equipment for the class including the oscilloscope, OrCAD PSpice, the DLA software, and the FPGA software are all incredibly poorly documented. All of my skills with the oscilloscope and PSpice were gained from the 205 labs because those are at least properly documented. For instance, prelabs 2, 3, and 4 of 245 asked for PSpice simulations, and I didn't figure out how to get those simulations until it was cleared up in the 205 PSpice lab, as there is nowhere in the provided 245 documents which clears up how to get simulations working, and trying to look online either brought up corporate nonsense or documents which didn't help in getting started in the first place. For the DLA and FPGA software, we just had to flounder around aimlessly until something worked, as the TAs were almost completely untrained on the software we use. Even disregarding that, the class is just an unreasonable amount of work each week. I swear that this class is two credits, yet it sometimes feels like it's five. It gets really bad towards the end, where they throw weekly labs at us such as the vending machine controller, integer square root finder, and floating point adder on a weekly basis, where such labs feel much more like 2 week Verilog projects they cram into a week. It's probably even worse than it sounds because the labs essentially have to be fully completed in prelab, and every lab as an associated tedious lab report to fill out. Unfortunately I didn't really have a choice to pair this class and 205, and both combined nearly drove me insane this semester with the seemingly never-ending prelabs, labs, and lab reports nearly every single week. Finally, exams. They're not weighted a whole lot, but they're a mess. For exam 1, it takes place in lab 4 labs in. As far as I'm aware, the TAs write unique exams, and while this semester's exams weren't bad, I heard last semester's first exams varied wildly in difficulty and quality. I'm not sure the origins of exam 2, but I do know that its quality was terrible. The multiple choice were each 5% each and tested us on features of Verilog we never touched, such as obscure data types and scalar values. Meanwhile, the rest of the exam was just a bunch of Verilog feature checks and basic 244 stuff, which was easy, but at the same time things like parameters are things we haven't used for about 2 months. This class's reputation is deserved in every respect. It is by far the worst and most tedious major class I have taken so far, which is a shame since it could be so much better if the class was just toned down a bit and had better documentation. Do yourself a favor and if you can, do not take this class alongside 205. If you do end up with both in the same semester, all I can say is good luck.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/15/2023	He’s a very nice guy and cares about his students learning, I would just recommend some more examples in the slides and he would be perfect
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/14/2023	Dr. Wade is super understanding. I had a rough semester, and him being understanding about it helped me a lot. He is approachable and will happily help you in his office hours. His exams are easy and fair, and he is very lenient grader. There are 2 midterms which are both 25% and so is the final. Although, I did have have to teach myself most of the class. He just reads off of the lecture slides and doesn't really teach you the why behind things. I think it would help a lot if he had more engaging slides, I just feel like he picks up the textbook definitions and puts them in the slides (but I have never opened the textbook so..). Reading through his slides will guarantee you a 100% on the tests. This class has no complicated concepts anyway (it gets complicated after ch5) and you should be good with YouTube vids, HW, and asking TAs questions. He doesn't post solutions to homeworks which I wish he did because they can help a lot during revision. He has pop quizzes which are 10% of your grade. They are super easy and he tells you about them in advance. Take him if you want an A in this class.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2023	Even though Dr. Wade is a nice professor who's lenient with grades, he's not a great lecturer. He takes the examples and information directly from the book that we follow in class, even though the book has mistakes in both its concepts and its examples. Sometimes, he catches on to these and lets us know in the lecture, but other times he does not; regardless, I felt like I couldn't trust 100% of the information he presented in lecture. Additionally, his homeworks felt hit-or-miss, because some of them took extremely long to complete but were easy, while for other ones, I didn't really understand what the problem was asking for and the mentioned problem felt too far to what we were being presented in class. Finally, Dr. Wade's pacing isn't great, since he spends a lot more time with binary-related computations such as addition and subtraction (and not as much on other topics that seem more useful, such as k-maps), but TAs can go more or less in detail on what is more or less important in the class.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/02/2023	The fact that Wade is the only professor for 244 and 245 would be less than ideal even if he was the best professor in the world, and he very much is not. He doesn't really plan his pacing well for going through content. The homework for each chapter is due "a week after finishing the chapter" and the exams are "a month after we finish chapter 3." It's not like he was springing exams on us without warning or anything but as someone who likes to plan I really would have appreciated actually knowing when exams were going to be at the beginning of the semester. We are almost at the end of the semester and it seems like we won't finish chapter 7, which seems common for Wade. Also, homeworks are incredibly lengthy so definitely do not procrastinate. Luckily he just assigns problems from the textbook so pretty much all the answers are online. I would tell you to try and get someone else but it doesn't seem like you can.
Mamadou Wade ENEE150 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/01/2023	Dr. Wade is very lenient and understanding. He has given our class multiple extensions on our projects and homework so that everyone has enough time to complete them all. Anytime someone has asked, he has extended deadlines for everyone. However, Dr. Wade's teaching style is not for me. Every class, it is just him reading off slides upon slides of information pulled right from the textbook. All of the exam content will be pulled directly from the 500+ slides he posts throughout the semester. I personally have found it really hard to focus in his class, but other people might not have that issue. From what I've seen, a good amount of people just skip his lectures as he posts them all on Canvas and doesn't really elaborate too much on anything on the slides. He does curve the midterms so that he has an 80% mean grade on the midterms. Homework and Projects are simple, specifications and test vectors are given by the TAs, and are pretty much a free grade. By the end of this semester, we will have had 3 Homework assignments (15%), 2 Projects (15%), 2 Quizzes (10%), 2 Midterms (20% each), and the Final (20%), which isn't a lot of assignments in my opinion. Overall, pretty easy class, boring but really kind professor, and boring content. If you skipped ENEE140 with the AP Java Credit like I did, definitely pay attention for the first few weeks, as I struggled in the switch from Java to C.
Mamadou Wade Expecting an A Anonymous 11/29/2023	class material coverage depends on wade's speed throughout the semester. This semester we are probably only getting up to chap 6 so registers and counters. Material overall was pretty easy so homeworks and slides were just all about what you need. Homeworks do take awhile, but they get easier with time and most of them are on youtube for a in depth explanation. Quizzes are "pop quizzes" announced 2 weeks in evidence... i know. 2 mids, 1 final and coverage also depends on where wade gets.
Mamadou Wade ENEE150 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/18/2023	From Spring Semester 2023: Dr. Wade is a very kind professor who will give ample time for students to complete their assignments and posts all the slides he uses to Canvas. However that’s about where the positives end, the class is pretty disorganized and extremely repetitive. It is a very rare occurrence for a lecture to start and the first 20 minutes to not be the exact same slides from the end of the last class. The exam content is from the slides, however they don’t really make sense. You will learn about pointers early but we weren’t tested on them until the second exam. Instead 20% of that first exam was multiple choice on Dr. Wades personal opinions on testing and debugging from 2 slides on syllabus day. Unlike enee140 the HW does not feel like practice, it feels like busy work. The projects are uninspiring and will teach you almost nothing. And instead of a concise lecture where you learn a topic a week and get better at C, you will be drip fed random snippets of information in a sea of side tangents. He will frequently use the whiteboards in addition to his slides. But he will not add anything new or explain it any better, he will just rewrite whatever is on the slides. All these issues are not a fault with enee150 but entirely caused by Dr. Wades teaching style. Ultimately take this professor if you would prefer boring busy work that might be less time consuming than actually learning something.
Mamadou Wade ENEE150 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/14/2023	Wade was incredibly thorough in lecture, he explained every single example or concept in incredible detail, to the point where often it felt like overkill and was somewhat boring when you already understood what he was saying. Though his teaching could get very repetitive and boring, being confused is certainly not a problem in his class. He was also really lenient with grading and deadlines, with regular deadline extensions and generous curves on exams. Homework and projects often had really vague directions, leaving students to have to guess about what he wants us to do. The exams and quizzes, though, were very much based heavily on the slides, and he told us this at pretty much every point. Bottom line, everything you need to know in the course is on the slides which he goes very in depth on.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/07/2023	Full disclosure: I haven't finished the course. I haven't even taken the second exam (it is on 5/10, the current day is 5/7). This class. I don't even have words to describe how bad it is. Easily the most poorly paced class I have taken so far at the university. Let's start with exams. The first exam covered chapters 1-3, or in other words, the units so incredibly easy that a 5 year old could do it. The only reason I didn't get 100% on that exam is because I didn't fully simplify something. That was in mid-March. The second exam is covering chapters 4-7, which is digital logic is actually somewhat applied. It is on the last day of class. The final is immediately the following week, which I know for a fact we won't get the second exam back to help study for it. And guess what? We don't have chapter 7 homework, but content from it can still show up on the second exam and final. The "Midterm 2 Practice" folder on ELMS? IT ONLY COVERS UP TO CHAPTER 5. It's not like this class is difficult either. Every quiz and exam I've taken has been incredibly easy, and I don't anticipate the upcoming exams to be difficult either. It's just that Wade does not know how to pace his class, and doesn't provide anything to compensate. His lectures are almost completely skippable. Don't go to them, except when there's a quiz or exam. I promise, you will likely get nothing from it. I certainly didn't. All he does is regurgitate the slides, which are posted to ELMS anyways. He barely adds his own touch, especially as the semester goes on. Honestly, part of this is a failure of the ECE department. Some concepts are introduced, such as the carry-lookahead adder and synchronous counters. But forget about breadboarding, we don't even see a simulator such as Logisim used to give an intuitive understanding of why these would be used instead of the ripple counterparts. I've had experience with breadboarding digital electronics before, so I am fully aware of everything introduced in this class. Heck, much of this material until chapter 6 is pretty much verbatim what I learned in PLTW Digital Electronics, and I didn't need a programming prerequisite to take that class. I certainly didn't need to have a sophomore standing in college. I even got breadboarding experience out of that, which I certainly can't say for this waste of time of a class. Anyways, I feel bad that 3 classes next semester are being stuck with Wade. How is it possible that 3 major track courses for electrical engineering only have 1 professor? I was debating whether to give this professor a 1 or 2 star rating, and honestly, I fully believe he deserves a 1 star for his teaching in ENEE244. It isn't hard, but it's entirely worthless. Just hope you get a good TA in case the awful textbook trips you up.
Mamadou Wade ENEE245 Expecting an A xtermn8 05/05/2023	His teaching is acceptable but the class structure needs a lot of revamping. Not easy material but there's a lot that he could do to structure it better and help us out more. In the last lecture he did admit this, though, and there will be some changes made in coming semesters. I think he said this is his first or second semester teaching it, so I've got to cut him some slack. Your TA will make or break the course, though.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/03/2023	The homework in this class is no joke. Wade assigns a homework for each chapter we learn, approximately once every two weeks. Make sure to get started on it early because it will take many hours to complete. Homework is not very hard but VERY time consuming, i.e. making us draw a truth table for a massive circuit that takes up an entire page (I feel bad for the TAs that have to grade this stuff). Basically just busy work but at least it forces you to get a ton of practice and get the concepts down well. Wade is somewhat lenient with due dates for the assignments, allowing students to turn it in a few days late. Lectures are extremely boring, more than half of the class doesn't even show up. Looking at the lecture slides and watching YouTube videos is likely a lot more productive. If you've taken CMSC250 already, the first half of this class is basically just a review of stuff you already know. Exams and quizzes weren't very hard.
Mamadou Wade ENEE245 Anonymous 05/01/2023	Wade strikes back from 244, now in 245. His class is disorganized and requires a disproportionate amount of homework for a 2-credit class. Lab assignments are riddled with mistakes and inconsistencies, displaying a clear lack of effort from the class administration.
Mamadou Wade ENEE245 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/04/2023	He does his job. Many students find 245 difficult regardless of the instructor, and I think that he's doing decently with preparing us for the labs. Your mileage may vary significantly depending on your lab TA.
Mamadou Wade ENEE245 Expecting a B- Anonymous 03/01/2023	Easily the worst class and professor I have ever had. There are no resources, nothing is graded on a timely manner, and the course material is so complicated to the point where its hard to even find resources on the internet for it. There is not an ounce of teaching Wade has done, and the labs are insanely tedious. If you don't have extensive experience with circuits or breadboards going into this class, you are in for a horrible semester
Mamadou Wade ENEE150 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/28/2023	Wade clearly cares about his students. He is very thorough with his lectures and if you go to office hours, you can get extra help. Because it was his first semester (fall 2022) teaching at UMD, I believe he had little time to prepare for ENEE 150 and 244. While his class for 150 wasn't as challenging as previous professors, he was still very knowledgeable and educational. I am taking 244 with him right now and he has definitely gotten the hang of teaching ENEE 244. We are almost halfway through the course, meaning he is pacing himself well this semester. I genuinely believe that he is a good professor but wasn't given enough time last semester to prepare.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/13/2023	Pacing was poor and resulted in not covering content which was necessary for ENEE245. Although the exams were easy, homework was tedious and miserable. Although this class was an easy A given the content, I would not recommend this professor for anything more involved.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/05/2023	HW is really tedious and repetitive, although it is not difficult to do at all and you are given insanely long periods of time to do it. Exams are very easy and Prof. Wade will answer any questions you have thoroughly. However, Prof. Wade teaches this class extremely slowly and at the end of the semester there were large chunks of content Prof. Wu's class went over that we just never did (half of chapter 5 and onwards). I basically never showed up to class and vague memories from PLTW Digital Electronics in highschool as well as CMSC250 was more than enough to comfortably get through this class. Take Prof. Wade if you want an easy A, but don't expect to learn very much. I'm somewhat worried that ENEE245 is going to be terrible now because we didn't go over so much content that is the basis for it.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/01/2022	Prof. Wade's teaching leaves a lot to be desired. His pacing is way off which can be quite frustrating. Homeworks are long and hard, tests and quizzes are the exact opposite. Do not reccomend.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/25/2022	Straightforward lectures, but we are critically behind the syllabus (Chapter 4, out of 8 in syllabus at Thanksgiving Break). Infrequent but absurdly long homework (4-5 hours). Easy quizzes and exams. Would not recommend.
Mamadou Wade ENEE244 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/16/2022	His lectures are rough and straight from the text book, but that does allow easy review and he posts his slides which are basically cliff notes of the text book. The homeworks are long but the quizzes and exams are extremely straight forward.