Nam Sun Wang

This professor has taught: CHBE250, CHBE301, CHBE333, CHBE424, CHBE446, CHBE482, CHBE620, ENCH333, ENCH446, ENCH482, ENCH620, GEMS296, GEMS297, GEMS396, GEMS397, GEMS496, GEMS497

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Nam Sun Wang CHBE446 Anonymous 03/13/2022	Had the MISFORTUNE to have this guy as a professor TWICE during my time at UMD. HATED every second I had to spend in his classes. I've got no advice for y'all, just deal with it -- make sure to really evaluate if you really want to stay in chemical engineering though LMAO.
Nam Sun Wang ENCH620 Anonymous 12/12/2021	It's been 7 years, so time to let everyone know: not much has changed. Probably the reason he hasn't gotten any other reviews during this time is that every CHBE/ENCH course only has one prof per semester, so there's not much point in giving reviews anyway. I suppose the one use of reading these bad reviews would be to warn students away from taking his tech elective, or encourage professional Masters students to take PDE instead since that also fills the requirement, but honestly at that point you've already taken 250 and are probably already aware of what this dude is like. He obviously doesn't do that much lesson planning, lectures with MathCad files that he writes on the fly (often getting stuck because he ends up having to debug in the middle of class), goes back to material from previous lectures to say that he made a mistake and that we have to change our notes, segues between topics in a nonsensical way etc. In both 250 and 620, there is an assumption that you are familiar with linear algebra. Since neither of these classes have linear algebra as prereqs, that's obviously not the case for most students. In my opinion, saying "students who haven't taken these courses are expected to do extra work to keep up" in the syllabus is a lazy cop out. Either require the course as a prerequisite or make the effort to teach the students the material as part of the course, especially when the course in question (LinAlg) has not been taken by the majority of students in his class. His explanations of fundamental concepts behind the applications that 250/620 are focused on are very poor. Homeworks: A high percentage of your grade. The one time his lectures are useful is when he does examples in class. If you see him coding, YOU MUST COPY DOWN EXACTLY WHAT HE WRITES IN HIS MATHCAD FILE! (And relatedly, make sure you have a functioning laptop before taking one of his classes) Those examples will often be identical to homework problems, and for that reason going to lectures can be incredibly useful. You likely won't be able to finish that homework problem without going to office hours otherwise. Office Hours are all but mandatory. The prof will stay late to help students out, but you will probably end up sacrificing one day of your week in office hours to get the homeworks done. I won't say they're impossible to do on your own (especially those in the first half of the semester), but the number of students capable of doing so make up a small minority of the class. He is not flexible on homeworks to individual students, but is usually very flexible if he perceives a consensus between all classmates. This is also true for take-home finals: if the class collectively votes for one, he's more than happy to accommodate. Exams: Extremely difficult. In both 250 and 620, focus on picking up the guaranteed easy points on the Gaussian Elimination/LU decomposition question (he takes off points for pivoting on that question by the way) on Midterm 1, and on everything else just do your best, but recognize that the averages are very low. For my class he graded exams fairly quickly, but that's atypical: normally, he returns exams much much later than when they are taken. Other than that, it's pretty easy to keep track of where you stand in the class, even if you don't get the material at all. For both the graduate and undergraduate programs, his class serves as a weedout/hazing course. If you are an undergrad: things get slightly better after 250 and 301. I doubt the faculty actually care about the fact that students aren't going to learn much in these classes, as long as its existence allows them to claim that UMD's programs are tough and have high workloads. I learned far more about what 250 was SUPPOSED to teach me when I took Dif E Q because of the Math department's superior professors, and through various YouTube videos on using MATLAB that I watched when taking other CHBE classes over the years. I've only ever found Prof. Wang to be respectful and friendly to students. I don't think he actively wants students to do badly in his class... he's just an atrociously bad teacher. The second worst professor I've ever had.
Nam Sun Wang blahengineer 09/02/2014	I made an account just to review this guy. I've been unfortunate enough to have him as my professor in multiple chemE classes. He is among the worst professors I have ever had and is one of the reasons I have seriously considered transferring. The below reviews are absolutely correct until you get to 2008 at which point he must've been in some serious accident and transformed into a horrible professor. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy. But you'll never want him to teach you anything.
Nam Sun Wang Anonymous 05/23/2012	He's a horrible professor. He cannot teach to save his life. The sad part is that he thinks he can teach. Avoid him completely.
Nam Sun Wang Expecting a W gsneck 04/11/2012	Hr knows about what hes talking about, but noone else does. my ta's pretty much told me that we should retake the course with the next guy if we wanted to learn anything. hes a nice guy, but unfortunately his homeworks are noway related to his notes and theres no textbook. hes one of those professors who you better hope are researching something important to humankind because he teaches worse then the teachers youve had in high school
Nam Sun Wang Anonymous 01/24/2012	I'll admit, he's hard to take seriously some times. He makes a lot of corny jokes. He's a really smart guy but he cannot relay the information for beans! The stuff we learned really isnt that hard to learn if taught correctly, which as you can guess, wasn't. If you were to ask me what I learned in the class, I would say "I don't know". Cuz I really don't know what I learned. The quizzes and tests were no where near as hard as the homeworks ( I never knew what was going on in the textbook, which reminds me-- it sucks! get another textbook that fits you better. Its so cryptic I really don't know how anyone can understand anything in it.) The tests and quizzes are basically just like the basic info he presents in the slideshows. I recommend you also really analyze any graphs in the chapter or powerpoints because he will probably quiz you on it. Um I didn't go to class that much and it didn't make a difference, I don't think you'll pay attention much if you go to class either. Yeah so don't freak out if the book or the homework looks like a foreign language, don't study from it and just focus on the lectures.
Nam Sun Wang Anonymous 12/24/2010	I totally agree with the last review. so try as much as you can to take another class like bionano, at least you'll feel you are learning something
Nam Sun Wang Anonymous 12/03/2010	Hmm...WTF?!?! All of the previous reviews of this professor must have been by people tripping on acid. This is probably the WORST class I have ever taken. Nam Wang is the most scatter-brained professor I have ever had. Although he knows the material very well, he is absolutely AWFUL at conveying that knowledge. We spend 3 minutes on a subject and we'll have both a homework assignment and an exam question on it. I learned jack-shit in this class and am so fucking happy that I don't need to take another bio-heavy class. As a requirement, we had to go on a field trip to a bio research facility. Although the tour was well done, it confirmed the idea that I have no interest in the bio field. I chose chemical engineering NOT biochemical engineering for a reason. How the fuck do people think this class is interesting?!?!? It's a really poorly taught kinetics class with "enzymes" instead of "catalysts." On our exams, we had to go through 3000 base pairs of DNA and look for a combination of 3 letters. This obnoxiously long analysis took so long that most people did not finish the exam. With respect to the TA, she was very nice but she never held office hours because she didn't live near campus. Her only responsibility was to come into class and do random "industrial series" lectures. They were interesting and I was excited when i got to hear the TA speak rather than Wang. Finally, I know this isn't an issue most of the time, but Wang's son was in our class. Because of this, Dr. Wang wasn't allowed to grade anything. He let students grade homeworks and exams. He would have several people grading assignments and because people had different grading policies, people with the exact same mistake would lose different amounts of points. WTF?! That is all...this class blows A LOT and i cannot believe that I didn't listen to people warning me about it.
Nam Sun Wang Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2008	This was an awesome course. It covers lots of interesting topics, from biology, math, and many aspects of fundamental chemical engineering (especially material balance, kinetic, and mass transfer). Prof. Wang draws from the simplest principles to solve complicated, yet practical problems. No fancy mathematical derivations nor convoluted logic; just plain 1-2-3. To a casual observer, his materials may seem very mathematical, but in actuality there is very little math. All the emphasis is on conceptual understanding, and let a computer/calculator crank out the numerical answers; so you had better know Matlab or Mathcad. Most importantly, Prof. Wang teaches how to attack a problem by combining common sense with critical analytical thinking. I especially love his "bucket science" in-class demonstrations. The homeworks have a lot of number crunching; you are screwed if you do not know how to use a calculator. But the exams has absolutely none of that. The exam questions come straight out of his lectures; half of the problems you see in exams he has already told you so in his lectures. Prof. Wang is the best professor I have had at Maryland; now I see why he has many teaching awards displayed at the front entrance to Martin Hall. He is very knowledgeable about what he teaches. He is fair but passionate. He even offers to take his students on canoeing trips. Take his course even if you are not interested in bio.
Nam Sun Wang Expecting an A+ nodice 01/28/2008	This was an interesting course -- biology for chemical engineers. It covers a lot of relevant and interesting topics. Dr. Wang is very knowledgeable, and it's clear that he has a lot of experience. He is also very flexible and understanding: he has pushed back homework due dates many times because people have e-mailed him and explained some extenuating circumstance. However, he uses MathCAD as his primary teaching tool - he has pre-made files with solutions to most of the problems he discusses in class. I wish he spent more time actually showing us how to derive different equations (which is what we have to know) and a little less time showing us what happens to the solution when you play with the different operating parameters. His exams are very conceptual. There is very little "math" in the traditional sense - they're all about knowing which equations apply and how to set them up to achieve a solution. The content on the exams doesn't mirror the homework at all, and somewhat resembles what he discusses in class.
Nam Sun Wang scroofoo 12/03/2007	Very easygoing yet knowledgable professor. Work consisted of: 1 HW a week- 25% 3 quizzes (really tests)- 25% 1 Final- 50% OR 1 Paper- 25% and 1 Final -25% Topics were mainly focused on kinetics, some introductory bio, and deriving material balance equations. Wang is an amazing guy who you can tell really likes what he is teaching. Lectures can get a little dull when he's working on MATHCAD. Quizzes are very tough but there is a steep curve in the class. The paper can be on anything you want related to biochemical engineering. Overall, would very highly recommend as an elective just because of the professor.