Justin Wyss-Gallifent

This professor has taught: CMSC250, CMSC351, CMSC398E, CMSC420, CMSC456, ENEE456, HONR219O, MATH206, MATH241, MATH246, MATH274, MATH299Y, MATH310, MATH401, MATH403, MATH405, MATH406, MATH410, MATH411, MATH431, MATH445, MATH456, MATH695, STAT400

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Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/08/2024	Eh... gonna be honest, Justin's a good professor but the 8am timeslot was really really rough and I only made it to class about fifty-sixty percent of the time. I know that everyone swears up and down about taking Justin at all costs, but if there are other solid options with a later timeslot, it might be in your best interest to consider them if you don't envision making it to 8am class every session. The notes are definitely great, but the concepts in this class are a lot better solidified when you attend lecture in person, so definitely consider this!! Signed, someone whose homework average was embarrassingly low <3
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/07/2024	I love Justin and he is my personal GOAT. I encourage that you go to lecture because he explains topics really well and in ways that most people will understand. He doesnt record his lectures but he does post his lecture notes to ELMS, which is MASSIVe for studying for exams or homework questions. Also, he has his own website (https://www.math.umd.edu/~immortal/) which includes all of the content he will be teaching in the course, and I highly recommend using it from time-to-time for better, more in-depth examples that he sometimes won't be able to go over in-class. He strikes a fair balance between more mathematical concepts and programming. The weekly homework is fair and not too difficult if you go to class or OH (grades only 10 highest). The exams are also open-note, so that's cool. The final is take-home but is kinda long long. The programming assignments are not too bad either, and you get to skip one. There are 2 "difficult" ones (B-Trees and KD-Trees), so I recommend you skip either one of those.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Anonymous 10/29/2024	I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs I hate proofs
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/25/2024	Took it over the Summer. Class material was laid out well, organized and easy to digest. Justin & the TA's were very helpful and responded pretty fast. Would definitely recommend taking 351 with him if possible. He's one of the best CS profs.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/23/2024	Took this class in the summer. Layout was 1 exam every two weeks for a total of 3. I believe he mentioned he cut some small part of the normal material out to make sure we had enough time to cover everything. Justin was always very understanding about everything and very receptive on Piazza, I definitely recommend taking this class over the summer if you get the opportunity.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 08/19/2024	Good class, organized and good recording for the summer. No complaints.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/17/2024	I actually enjoyed going to this class despite not being a morning person. He makes one of the more notorious classes at the University really fun and easier to understand. I enjoyed this class a lot in the Spring!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/13/2024	Justin is the best. He is a very fair grader and always considers how the class feels about deadlines. He moved back so many of our projects because students expressed needing more time. The class does have some proofs and math on homework, but it is definitely not as math-heavy as some reviews state. He makes the class engaging, so I was never bored or falling asleep in class. His notes are amazing and grades come back fast.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B- Anonymous 06/08/2024	Amazing Professor and deserves all the praise that he gets he truly is the greatest professor at UMD.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/31/2024	Regarding the quality of the teaching, 100% recommend Justin. You can’t go wrong. However, if you want an easier 420 class, marsh might be the option. Justin’s class is overall harder, regarding homeworks and projects. Exams aren’t too bad. In fact, spring 2024, he offered an online final, which kind of helped a lot of students, including me.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/29/2024	Great professor of course, but not worthy of 5 stars in my opinion. Seems like he can dumb down the material a little bit in order to be more well liked. Good at explaining concepts and would highly recommend taking him, but might be a tad overrated in terms of teaching ability. Lectures can be slow at times. Exams were very fair to what was explained in class.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2024	First time I've had Justin and I will say that he is a great teacher and he has structured the course extremely well. Homeworks every week. 6 projects or so that aren't too bad (if you've made it past 216 and 330 then you'll be fine). I thought the content was taught extremely well and, often, he would include things about how these data structures were used in the real-world. There a lot of tree data structures, but they are interesting. Honestly, this is one of the best cs courses I've taken at maryland.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Anonymous 05/20/2024	Great lecturer, homeworks are really good often taking 2-4 hours a week depending on complexity. Exams are good, but with no leniency (not in terms of grading) which if you mess up a bit, your grade will take a hit. I am taking away a star for the way hes making a TA (Elizabeth) hold a lot of weight to the class often working tirelessly to help everyone.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/20/2024	Hands down the best at UMD. Yes, his exams are hard, but you learn a lot. He's organized and genuinely cares about his students.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2024	I don't know why Justin's 420 section gets a bad reputation. The class was well organized and well taught. Online notes were pretty thorough and were a good resource to have. The grade was split between homework (2/7), projects (2/7), two exams (1/7 each), and a take-home final (1/7). Homeworks were mostly pretty reasonable, occasionally a tricky proof but if you read the notes the proofs were always very doable. Lowest two homeworks got dropped. Six projects total, B-tree and extended KD tree projects were difficult, but the others were fairly reasonable. Even the hard projects didn't take too long. One project gets dropped. Midterms were both fairly straightforward, if you did the practice problems and understood what was going on in the class you shouldn't have any issues. Take home final was very easy, it was open note and if you paid attention in class it wasn't bad at all. I got a lot out of this class and it never really stressed me out. Would definitely take it if it fits into your schedule.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2024	Wanted to give a 4 but as a professor, definitely worth 5 stars based off teaching ability and personality. Nice guy, can teach topics extremely well. Why did I want to give a 4? He is not very forgiving for things like homework extensions. you could be dealing with medical/hospital issues but justin still wont give an extension on the homework (true story).
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/20/2024	Really great and awesome professor who cares about our learning. Homework may be a bit challenging at times but it is very doable and really helps us in knowing the content for this class which is also very helpful for the exams. Having Justin this semester has been a blast and I really enjoy every part of his class :D Definitely recommend taking him! He has a really nice grade cutoff too :)
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/19/2024	A very fair professor and very professional. If you understand the homework and go to office hours you will definitely pass with him at least just make sure to keep up on content and stay engaged in the class. There is no better way than from his notes as he keeps them very professional and clean. A great teacher overall.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2024	Justin's CMSC420 class was great - he goes in-depth in his lectures while also explaining concepts fairly well. While his CMSC351 exams were on the more difficult side with lower averages, his averages in CMSC420 are fairly high and it's definitely a more chill class.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/19/2024	Easy A+, you get cheatsheets for Exam 1 and Exam 2. Projects are fair as long as you give them enough time. Skip the B-Trees project, the other "Hard" project is way easier. Final is take-home.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Anonymous 05/19/2024	Disclaimer: Justin and Max were coteaching this semester, and I had Max. What this amounted to this semester was that homeworks and grade weights were the same, while exams (including the final) and final grade determinations were separate. Also, at this time, I haven't received my final grade, so I will review Max at a later time. However, since Justin determined a pretty good portion of the course, I feel it is appropriate to review him at this time. In terms of the good, it's mostly the lectures and online notes. I had Justin for 250 last spring, and everything's pretty much of a similar quality here. Unlike 250, I didn't go to many of Justin's lectures, but the few I went to were well-delivered and what they needed to be, like they were in 250. The online notes were consistently useful throughout the entire course. I highly recommend anyone in 351, or even anyone just interested in learning elementary algorithms, to read his notes. The homeworks were honestly quite tedious this semester. Way more than in 250, these felt designed to be easy to grade over being well-designed. We had to use the templates for each homework, which isn't an issue on its own. However, specifically for open-ended responses, this could create a lot of space constraint issues we wouldn't otherwise have, which is difficult to deal with when the answers the rubrics want are so specific sometimes. It was an issue throughout the semester not knowing what was being looked for, and I think visuals would have been a good supplement for some of my answers, but I mostly avoided them because of the space constraints. Also, the proofs could get really tedious sometimes, especially in the second half of the course. And it's been echoed by the professors and TA's that we didn't need to prove too rigorously, but given that I have a poor foundation in proofs, it never seemed enough to be succinct because I might miss an edge case or something. So I just yapped (logically) to try and cover all my bases, which must have been miserable to grade. The grade weights are... not favorable. It's unlikely to change in the near future, so you're likely seeing 1/6 homeworks, 1/6 per exam (3 exams), and 1/3 final. This can make the class unnecessarily stressful sometimes, and the only compensation is that Justin's exam averages are pretty high all things considered. This isn't too new to me, since similar weights were used for 250 last spring. I didn't like it much then, and here it's even worse, since much less partial credit is given. Actually, more partial credit was pushed for this semester in all sections, and it still felt stingy due to how much assignments are weighted. My main problem with the way this course was run is that I don't feel that I got much out of it. Of all the undergrad CS courses I've taken so far, this one seemed to be the least useful, which is very surprising. CMSC132 may have spent too much time being "Java 2, the class," but when it got into data structures with a dash of concurrency and algorithms, it served as a very useful foundation. CMSC216 served as my introduction to low level programming as a whole, being my gateway into data representation in memory, assembly, and system calls. CMSC250 was a flawed, but still reasonable introduction into logic and proofs, with a hint of combinatorics and probability which I don't think were taught particularly well, but they were there. CMSC330 served as my introduction to functional programming and programming language theory, which fueled my love of programming languages I currently have (particularly functional programming). All of these classes had their own flaws, but I can say with certainty that I got something out of each one. Meanwhile, I don't think I got much from this class as a whole. Unlike the content in CMSC250, I believe algorithms, at least in an undergrad computer science perspective, really needs a computational supplement to really be useful outside of the academic context. As it stands, this class serves as a fairly shallow overview of some of the major algorithms in computer science, and doesn't really serve to go much beyond the few things my 132 class did have (I heard it's even less favorable for the people who had Fawzi, as apparently he had students drilled on the major topics in this course). We mainly covered sorts for far too long, which I understand is a 351-wide issue, but we didn't go as in-depth into the sorts to make how long we took on them worth it. Time complexity was heavily emphasized, but space complexity was mostly ignored, and caveats to the big Theta runtimes of algorithms mostly seemed handwaved away. Most importantly, I don't feel very equipped to use the material from this class in a meaningful way. I don't feel equipped to use, modify, or create algorithms from this class because everything felt so shallow, which is a shame because I came into this class knowing I was terrible at algorithms. I'm making these arguments knowing that I'm biased because I grinded LeetCode last summer (which I'm still terrible at), and I'm trying to put aside my biases when making these arguments. But truthfully, everything there is to gain from this course is in Justin's notes, which I did not feel the same way about 250 (not because those notes were bad, but because the skills we were intended to gain from that class needed to be practiced, whereas 351 you can get most of the content with a halfway decent overview of the algorithms). Overall, my score is middling. Justin is a great lecturer, and his notes are fantastic. However, I don't think that the course structure or content are anything to write home about.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/18/2024	In this class you learn about various obscure data structures, most of them being variations of self balancing binary trees. Justin’s lectures and notes are great as usual. I recommend studying using his Latex notes from the Justin’s notes website, as they go a lot more in depth than the handwritten class notes. The class consists of 2 in-person midterm exams, an asynchronous take-home final, weekly homework assignments (2 of which are dropped) and 6 coding assignments throughout the semester. The coding is all done in Python, and Justin drops your lowest scoring coding project (drop the B-tree project trust me 😭) Overall I think the course content isn’t super applicable to real life as you’re most likely not going to encounter most of these data structures, but nonetheless I found the course content interesting. His homework’s are also notably harder than other professors’, as he goes deeper into proofs, induction, and the math aspect of things. In terms of difficulty I’d say it’s similar to Justin’s 351, maybe slightly easier.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/18/2024	Justin is Awesome!!! I really love his class. He is the true GOAT!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2024	Took Justin again for 420, so I'm going to give him another 5 star. The only assignments are homeworks, coding projects, and exams, most of which were pretty easy. Lectures weren't mandatory, and notes were posted online. Our final was take-home and open-note and it was really easy too. It truly feels like Justin cares about our learning in the course. Highly recommend
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/17/2024	Justin is great at lecturing and compared to my 250 HWs, the 351 HWs were much more reasonable. However, his average the previous semester was too high and he compensated by grading super harshly(with rubrics that were very unclear). In addition, you were expected to know things taught in his 250 class that weren't necessarily taught in all sections. Towards the end of the semester, grading started seeming a lot more fair(could have been more fair grading or maybe I finally figured out what the TAs were looking for. Also his latex notes are awesome. Personally, I think these issues are the departments fault not Justin's and that the department should recognize that people do well in Justin's class because he can teach very well and is more organized than say Kruskal.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/17/2024	Justin is a very engaging and good lecturer, don't get me wrong, probably one of the best I've seen in the CMSC department. Here are some Pros and Cons of him: Pros: Good lecturer, as mentioned before Engaging, as mentioned before Says curse words every so often (biased since I enjoy lecturers who do that) Interacts with students nicely Handles situations nicely Quick to respond to situations as well (ex. fixing an exam answer key when students said that an answer was wrong) Has his own lecture notes posted on his own website (some UMD link with ~immortal on that link) Cons: Simply put, the big thing about this class is the weight of assignments. There are only two things in the WHOLE class and it's Exams, in which midterms make up 50% of your grade, and the final makes up 33.33% of your grade, with HW being the last 16.67%. It does seem extreme, but there are many tips to not have to think about the weight. In terms of tips, number one, go to OH! The Head TA (assuming she stays, who is Elizabeth) is super good, and so are the rest of the TAs. I personally did not take advantage of OH but if you ever run into trouble, they will help. Number two, take advantage of the sample exams, and I mean TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM! A lot of Justin's exams will be SUPER related to the old exams he had, so make sure to look at those. Number three, work with others on the HW. Even though HW isn't a big part of your grade, it still is important and sometimes those questions will pop up on the exam, so make sure to do the HW, even if the class allows 2 to get dropped. Make sure you do it! Lastly, do not underestimate the exams. At first, the class may seem easy as it is stuff from past classes (if you took CMSC131, 132 and know Big-O notation really well) but trust me, you do not want to think that way. That is part of the reason why my expected grade is a B-, and not anything higher. With that said, I highly suggest you go for Justin for 351, and definitely utilize the tips I mention in this post.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/16/2024	Justin is great. However, he is not the infallible professor that many UMD students make him out to be. In my opinion, the standard for CS faculty at UMD is so low in students' minds that any instructor who is competent at their job is deified. I will attempt to write an informative and balanced review, since while many of these reviews are very kind to Justin, several are not very useful to prospective students. Logistics: This semester, Justin assigned a homework assignment on most weeks (11 total this semester). There were three midterms and a final exam. The homework is weighted 1/6th of your overall grade. Each midterm is weighted 1/6th of your overall grade (so 3/6th total) and the final is worth the remaining 2/6th of your grade. We had three 50 minute lectures each week and no discussion sections. Justin drops the lowest 2 homework grades. He has said that the course will only be curved if the overall class average is <75%. He says this has never happened. Pros: - Justin has LaTeX notes for the course posted on his website. These are very comprehensive and are a handy study resource. Sometimes, they are overly verbose. My impression is that Justin is very focused on being as accurate as possible, which is good, but can lead to him making things more complicated than they need to be for the sake of being thorough. - The homework assignments are usually well-aligned with what is tested on exams and are useful for learning the content. They do not feel like busy work. - He maintains a solid and professional team of TAs who are very responsive to questions on Piazza. I did not go to office hours much so I cannot speak to that aspect. Cons: - There is very little room for error in exam grades. On some questions, Justin/TAs are stingy about partial credit. This can result in a small number of incorrect answers lowering your exam grade by a bit more than what feels reasonable. Since each exam is weighted pretty heavily, poor performance on one exam can also tank your grade for the whole semester. - Justin specifically told us at the beginning of this semester that he believes grades in CMSC351 have been too high historically and is actively trying to make the exams harder/grades lower. - I personally did not find his lectures very useful because he tends to start explaining concepts in a very mathematical way that does not click for me. I need to first understand a high-level explanation of an algorithm before I can begin to comprehend its time complexity, pseudocode, pros, cons, etc, and he tends to jump right into things quite in depth. This might just be a matter of personal preference, as I know others who enjoy his lectures. He does not record lectures for personal reasons. Advice: - Unless there are new instructors for CMSC351, Justin is probably your best bet for the near future for this course. - Keep up with the course content as it moves quickly. If you miss a lecture, read the online notes for the topic that was covered. Make sure you do the homework assignments by yourself. They are very useful for learning the content and performing well on exams. Start them early as they are time-consuming. - Study vigorously for exams. Often, classes will either require a lot of memorization or deep understanding of concepts. This course requires both. Do not become complacent because you've heard so many good things about Justin and assume that you will breeze through the class. You will still have to work hard.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/13/2024	Definitely one of the best teachers I have ever had. The course started really hard for me it was very math heavy and I thought I was going to drop it. Luckily I didn't because it definitely got more doable over the semester. Justin is a really great teacher, and its well worth going to lectures but you dent really have to because his online notes are also so good. Justin is also just cool and chill which is a crazy combo. Overall the class is not too hard and Justin is a big chiller would def recommend.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/10/2024	This is my 4th time having Justin and like others have said, his classes are always pretty straightforward. You can expect fair exams that take only a few hours of studying for. There is usually 1 hw a week which takes a few hours to do. And the projects in this class are also mostly easy. I stopped going to class halfway through the semester and still was able to perfectly understand the content by looking at his notes. That being said, I do feel like Justin is a bit overrated because of his personality. He's definitely in my top 5 teachers, but not GOAT status like many people claim.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Anonymous 04/18/2024	Nice guy to the class but pretty rude in one-one conversations
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Anonymous 04/17/2024	GOAT
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/09/2024	Professor Justin is very overhyped, he teaches fine but his exams are brutal and he is not considerate at all. I would recommend taking a different 351 professor but going to justins lecture to get the best of both worlds
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/04/2024	I learned something at UMD; he is the best professor.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/15/2024	Like people have said, any course with Justin will be an awesome course experience. Great notes, great lectures, fair exams, super nice guy. Take his class if you can!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/07/2024	- very good notes posted online, it has everything you need to succeed (just make sure you read them and take time to actually digest it!) - very interesting and funny guy - you should attend every lecture or else you risk quickly falling behind - a few proofs you have to work out, you need to be able to generalize these proofs for the homework and each exam tends to have 1 or 2 proof questions of moderate difficulty (nothing like 250 or 351). - you should get an A as long as you put in a decent amount of effort - A lot of reviews emphasize how this course if proof heavy. There are a few proofs here and there that are important, but most of them aren't hard to recite and generalize, plus he gives you a breakdown of the exam question types so you can prepare ahead of time for the proofs he will assess you on.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 02/20/2024	He always had great notes, was very understanding, and was an amazing professor overall. His grading was fair, as well as his curves were generous. He had online lectures to look back on, and many old helpful materials to practice with for all exams given. He was also very organized and followed a set structure. We never got behind.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Anonymous 02/10/2024	CMSC420 was a miserable experience for me. I felt like he was very thorough and organized in lecture, but his exams leave no room for error and because he is doing well at his job, i will not lie, it just made it hard for me to adjust. It felt like 420 should have been a 4 credit class because we had 1 homework due every week and then a project every two weeks. So it was just hard for me to get into the routine of class and then also the topics are interesting but if I were to relive my semester, I would probably look towards other classes to save myself the pain.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/30/2024	He’s known as the GOAT for a reason. Highly recommend any class you can get with him!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/25/2024	GOAT
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/20/2024	ABSOLUTE GOAT. If you get Justin as your professor, thank your lucky stars because you have been blessed. All jokes aside, Justin is a fantastic professor who kept my attention in lectures with his nice visual/verbal examples and fun stories. Genuinely learned so much and feel like I got a really good grasp of the material and content. Exams were also all very fair and similar to the provided pervious exams. I looked forward to going to lecture, and know many others in the class felt the same. Also- Pablo Cedillos, the TA, was fantastic and key to my success in this class.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting a B+ akl2025 01/11/2024	Justin's lectures and notes are comprehensive. If there are no major changes to his curriculum, be prepared for weekly homework assignments (he'll drop the lowest score out of 11) and coding projects every 2-3 weeks (he'll drop the lowest score out of 6). On the positive side, Justin provides a helpful exam outline during the review day, along with to previous exams and their solutions. Furthermore, he is flexible with deadlines upon student request. Pros: + Justin is a concise and responsive professor, adept at explaining complex concepts with clarity. + He and his TAs are supportive, ensuring timely assignment grading and effective communication. + The homework and exams are fair and reasonable. Cons: - The class workload resembles CMSC351, with occasional challenging proofs, although they are kept to a minimum. Tips: Make use of TA office hours and visit Justin's office for any questions or clarifications. Attend lectures, especially if you prefer a hands-on approach over simply reading latex notes. Use practice exams and thoroughly review homework and latex notes, particularly for proofs. --> Overall, I highly recommend Justin as an instructor. However, if you lean towards a more flexible class structure, Marsh might be a preferable choice.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/04/2024	Boring class. Too much math/proofs in a CS class IMO. Nice guy though, very passionate.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/03/2024	amazing professor. this class is supposed to be one of the hardest cs classes, however, justin makes it so manageable. his exams are very fair, homeworks are pretty easy and don't take that long to do (you can work with friends too). i just studied a day or two before each exam and was getting an average of 85% on them, and this was after I completely stopped attending class altogether. i just did his homework and actually understood it, and did the same thing with practice exams. if you feel that you are getting behind or not understanding stuff, go to his lecture. otherwise, no need to attend.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 01/01/2024	Personally, this class was not my cup of tea. Homeworks were 351ish and really hard at times. Projects here challenging, but I enjoyed them for the most part, however they were probably the hardest ones I've seen throughout the cs program so far. As long as you start everything early and take the time to review the notes often, you'll be fine.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B pfilardi 12/29/2023	This course is the most difficult I’ve taken- I’m very glad I had the opportunity to take it with Justin.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/26/2023	justin is such a good teacher that if i failed his class i would’ve thought it was my fault instead of lashing out of disappointment and blaming him. class by default is hard and some problems on exams you REALLY need to read carefully but if you get this guy for 351 you can pass. started my first exam with a 60 then saw an increase to 75 to 87 and an 80 on my final. seriously great teacher and an average person like me was able to get thru this class cus of him. if you have no choice but to have kruskal good luck, seemed like dudes class was garbage on fire
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/25/2023	Lectures were a waste of time, especially at 9 am. Homeworks and exams are on the easy side. You can do well by reading the online notes and taking all the practice exams.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2023	Overall, Justin proves to be an amazing instructor in all aspects. The grading for this course was Homework = 100, Coding = 200, Exams = 2x100 = 200, Final = 200, Total = 700. Your two lowest homework grades are dropped and your lowest coding grade was dropped (there were 6 projects in total). Homework was just testing your understanding of the data structures, including doing some proofs/calculations. Projects had you implement the data structures in Python with a possible slight twist, they weren't easy but they also weren't unreasonably difficult. All of the projects used public tests, so you knew your score immediately upon submission. Pros: - The lectures were engaging and helpful. Justin explains things thoroughly and uploads his notes to ELMS. - As always, Justin's accompanying notes for this class are amazing. Always in full detail with rare mistakes, and contain everything you need to know for the homework, projects, and exams. If you want to take an early look at the course contents, just search up "Justin cmsc420" and you should find his notes. - Justin always had a review session before every exam. He explained all the concepts you needed to know for the exam, and provided a brief description of what each exam question would be about. I felt more than prepared for every single exam. The exams were fair, and he provided plenty of practice with the homework and past exams. Justin was also very lenient with project deadlines. He pushed them back if people said they wouldn't finish in time. - Grading was done pretty quickly, probably a week or so for exams. The median scores were always high (high 80s, low 90s) so there isn't much trouble there. No curve, but Justin says he bumps you if you are close. - His office hours were helpful, I only needed to go once though. The class also has a Piazza so you can ask questions there. Justin occasionally looks at Piazza, and the TAs were usually looking too. - The course content and projects are valuable and helpful for the future. Understanding data structures is important and I believe that I have a good understanding of many valuable data structures, their purposes, and how they are used. Cons: - The only real con I have is that the final is cumulative. You have to remember a ton of content about the course, which can take a lot of prep time away from your other courses. However, you do get a notes sheet for the final, so my preparation basically just consisted of creating that notes sheet and doing all the problems from past exams. This was good enough to score well. We didn't cover all of the material in his notes, so there is some content that we missed. - People seem to say that the proofs are excessive, but I personally didn't find this to be true. The hardest proofs on the exams were basically just slight variations (or even exact copies) of proofs on the homework or the online notes. He also alludes to which proofs you need to know for the exams if you go to the lectures. If you understood why those work then you should not have a tough time. Generally speaking, yes you will be doing some amount of math but only as it applies to how the data structures work. If you seriously hate math that much, then yes maybe you are better off going to another professor. You will still have to do some form of math for this course, it's just how these data structures work. Taking this course was extremely valuable. I highly recommend taking CMSC420 with Justin.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/22/2023	Justin legitimately knows how to teach. I have no confidence in math and was dreading 351, because everyone made it out to be impossible. But with Justin, I'd honestly say this class isn't bad at all. His notes are well-organized, his homeworks and exams are fair, his lecture style is clear and concise and well-practiced, and he runs a tight and well-organized class. Usually exams have 1-2 challenge problems that involve proof solving or creative thinking, and the other questions are variations on the homework. He dropped cutoffs by about 1%, even though the course average was high. Excellent instructor, worth the hype.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2023	good
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2023	Great class and professor. Gives very specific exam outlines beforehand so you know what to study. Homeworks and projects are challenging, but very doable if you put in the work.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2023	He's a nice guy and cares about his students.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2023	He's Justin. Fair, charismatic, and one of the best profs at the university.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2023	It's Justin, great lecturer and passionate about his students. Class is easy but has more of a math emphasis than other CS classes IMO which I don't really enjoy.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/20/2023	Justin is a great professor but the class had too many proofs in my opinion, even though it seem to go down from last semester. My main issue was just how much more work this class was compared to the people who took 420 with Marsh did. Overall not a bad class, just unfair compared to marsh.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023	If you want to learn content then he’s the best instructor no doubt, but exams are just copy paste from last semester. Pretty uninspiring to learn all the material when you can just learn the past exam material and do well.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2023	Passionate teacher and cares about students’s learning. Don’t really enjoy taking a CS class with a math focus though.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/20/2023	He was definitely knowledgeable about the stuff, projects seemed fair, not bad.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/17/2023	One of the best classes I've ever taken. Rating speaks for itself- take him!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2023	Really good teacher and lecturer. Makes concepts easy to understand and regularly answers questions during lecture to ensure everyone understands the topics. His homeworks and midterms reflect what we learn in class, and both are very fair. In the end, I think ~80% of your grade is based on the three midterms + final, so they carry a lot more weight than a traditional class, but Justin provides good resources that will help you succeed.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B+ FozzyBear1 12/15/2023	If you ever get the opportunity to take one of his classes, do it. He's a phenomenal lecturer. His lectures made sense to me, which is unusual for me. His quizzes and exams were super fair (bordering on easy). I learned a lot from this class.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/15/2023	Justin is a great lecturer. His lectures just made sense to me. His exams and quizzes were more than fair (3 of the 4 midterms were very easy). If you have the opportunity to take Justin for any course, take him, end of story. Don't overthink it.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A respectmyopinions 12/12/2023	This class is easy for a 400 level. Dont have much to say about Justin that everyone else has not already said.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/12/2023	This guy is absolutely amazing. Empathetic and has interesting lectures that actually made me want to go to class. Every assignment was challenging enough without making you want to rip your hair out. Every topic is explained in full detail and the lecture notes are very easy to comprehend. Studying for the final wasn't difficult because each project required a thorough understanding of the topics. Cool accent too :D
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2023	By far the greatest professor I have ever taken at UMD. Truly cares about his students and wants you to perform well. He posts all his previous exams and notes on his website and has a youtube channel. Technically you could only show up to class to take exams and still get an A but you should always attend anyways because he is just a phenomenal, funny and engaging lecturer. CS students are blessed with this man.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/06/2023	The best. He is one of the best professors in the math/cs department if not one of the best professors in the whole university. He is super nice, super friendly, and he will answer any questions you have. He teaches in such a logical way and explains things so well that it made calc 3 easy to understand. He has a quiz almost every week, but some of them are pretty easy and you end up dropping 3 of them. Also, he posts all of his lectures and notes on canvas, and he posts past exams, problems, and instructional youtube videos on his website. Plus, the exams have a similar format to the past exams, and if you do bad, you can even replace one of the exams with your final exam score if you get a better percentage on the final. He is so good that some of my friends with other professors just use his videos and lecture notes to learn. Also, he is very good at drawing and made it super easy to visualize a lot of calc 3 concepts. He is truly amazing.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/26/2023	Probably his last time teaching MATH241 as he is moving on to computer science but I will say he truly is the best professor at UMD no one compares to Justin anyone who has taken a single class with him can vouch he truly is the greatest.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/24/2023	He has a pretty thick Aussie accent, but other than that he is pretty rad
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/18/2023	take marsh, save yourself the pain of doing unnecessary proofs unless you absolutely love math
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 05/28/2023	Justin is a very good professor, all the reviews are pretty much right about him. I didn't go to many lectures because they were early in the morning and he posts his lecture notes, but the few I did go to were very entertaining and engaging. Unfortunately, the final was really hard, and I scored just a few percent under the C-, so I'm going to have to take this again. I don't think it was his fault, the final was hard for everyone, but I wish I could have passed because I can't take this class again with him next semester.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Charl1e1029 05/26/2023	Justin is slowly but surely making his rounds through the CS courses, and he taught 420 reasonably well. I will say, I've had Justin 3 times by now and its pretty standard what to expect with him: his notes are always AMAZING - makes it hard to want to go to class hehe; his midterms are usually easy (but watch out for the final!!!), and overall his homeworks are manageable and graded leniently. He had a few hiccups with teaching some of the content in this course, but imo that's to be expected since he's only jsut recently started teaching CS courses. This course also had some projects and they took time and effort, but definitely were no biggie. Love Justin, he's the goat!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/26/2023	He makes the class easy and the exams are straightforward enough where you can do well as long as you review lecture notes and homeworks (I actually found these homeworks much more difficult than the exams). As a professor though, he clearly knows his material, but he is a little slow when it comes to providing resources for students to study. If you can, definitely take the class with him; no hesitation about that. Just be prepared to sometimes be a little lost and bored in lecture.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ HashedString 05/26/2023	Easy A+, there's not a lot of work in this class, just remember that you actually have homework due around every week. Some of the later ones can get conceptually tougher (esp if you aren't a CS major) but you always have OH. This is basically an entire async class where you will never have contact with anyone. Just self paced homework. Pretty simple GPA booster
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH406 Expecting an A ktran58 05/26/2023	I was taking MATH241/406 with Justin in Spring 2023. - MATH241: His lectures were straightforward to follow. Also, he made the quizzes/exams not too hard, so getting high scores would be easy. However, TAs wouldn't go over the discussion/quiz problems for the entire section; if you've ever felt lost, definitely ask for help (My TA was Luis, and he's super helpful). For grading, he dropped the 4 lowest quizzes at the end, and the final grade could replace the lowest midterm if it was higher. - MATH406: This is the most interesting class I've ever taken. The proofs were confusing sometimes, but he made it clear. Homework could be time-consuming but I did enjoy doing it. Exams are pretty similar to the practice.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/25/2023	Lovely professor. Explains things very well in lecture, and gives homeworks and groupworks that serve as good practice, with fair exams.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/25/2023	Very nice professor. His lectures at 9:30am were engaging but I did fall asleep a couple times. He has a nice accent. The course was challenging and the final was much harder than I expected. I had a 98% going into the final because I did well on the two midterms and my grade dropped to a 86% which was a B+ so he does curve. Honestly, the bad grade on the final is my fault. I made a lot of silly mistakes and didn't prepare much. Other than the hard final, the structure of the class had groupworks which is basically just required discussion attendance (you can miss up to 4 without it affecting your grade). Homeworks were not very difficult but there would be times when the TA grading your homework would just be very picky about a certain problem. Kinda annoying especially when ur just skipping steps cuz you can do it in ur head. The pace of the class was a bit off but this was the second time he was teaching this class so it was reasonable. Felt like we were going really really slow at the beginning and then really really fast at the end. Wasn't terrible but skipped a lecture in the beginning and next one was still the same. Skipped one at the end and was lost at the next lecture even after looking at the lecture notes he posts after every lecture. Would recommend totally recommend. Be wary of his finals (the myths about his hard finals are true from my experience).
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/25/2023	Everything was on Matlab for this class. Posted all the assignments online the earliest day possible and you do everything at your own pace. There are deadlines for each of the individual assignments, but I just finished the whole class over the span 8 hours. Around 5 minutes - 1.5 hours for each of the 8 modules. The first couple assignments are super easy. As a CS Major, it was not hard. The directions were straightforward and I didn't need to contact Justin or use the office hours (definitely take advantage of if you get stuck though). One of the easiest classes I've taken. I joined the class a week late and had no problems finishing everything before the third week of school. - Joe
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/24/2023	Justin explains concepts very well and his notes are very organized and clear. His exams are straightforward and he provides practice exams which are helpful. If you attend lecture, then the homeworks are easy to complete, as he goes over very similar examples.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2023	A professor who really knows how to teach, not just to complete the teaching task.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/18/2023	yea that final was pretty tough. But he's the GOAT.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/17/2023	Justin is a great professor, don't get me wrong. Engaging lectures, reasonable homework deadlines, mostly reasonable exams, etc. However, I don't know if he's the best 250 professor. The first section of the course was far too easy. The concepts were simple, and the exam was easy (avg 90%). I don't know if this was the best thing, as it may signal some to stop taking the class seriously (I know I did, which was a terrible decision). I don't know how I feel about the second section of the course. This was set theory and proofs. The lectures were effective in learning the material, but I feel like we could have gotten more practice beyond what was on the homeworks to really solidify the material. For example, my thick skull didn't realize you could prove the two sides of a biconditional using different methods, so on the exam I tried proving both halves directly. The homeworks given weren't enough to solidify the material in my brain. My big issues with the course are in the third section. I felt woefully unprepared for some of the content in this section. Sums, products, and induction were fine (although it wasn't so cool that the sum formulas weren't provided on the final). It's combinatorics where the major issues start to arise for me. The range of combinatorics problems is much broader than anything else in the course, and I feel that Justin didn't prepare us very well on that front both in lecture examples and homework. Admittedly, I don't understand the subject very well at all. Regardless, after going through the homeworks, reading the solutions, and going through the final practice problems he posted towards the end, I just didn't feel prepared for what may have come on the final. It felt like too little practice given how much there is to it. I found probability a bit easier, but the problem remained that there was not as much practice as I would have liked on it. Bayes Theorem is free though, granted I memorize the formula. I don't feel that needed more. The weekly groupworks should have been a potential remedy for this. Unfortunately, they're not. The questions, especially early on, could get extremely vague, which was unhelpful in learning the material. Something about these ones didn't click in the same way as the groupworks I had in calc 3 did (I did not have Justin). A textbook was recommended, but without guidance on how to most effectively use it. I don't know if I should have used it in retrospect, but it is what it is. Overall, do I recommend Justin for 250? Absolutely. He's Justin after all. You will likely end with at least a B if you try. I just have a few gripes with this run of the course.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2023	After hearing about some of the complaints last semester in regards to his 420 teaching, I was a little skeptical about picking him over Mount. But when in doubt, always choose Justin. He makes things clear and concise, is very fair, and approachable, and best of all is extremely receptive to feedback. This is my 5th class with Justin and I can say time and time again that my experience with him has always been pleasant. He is the genuinely the best professor I've had and I can always recommend a course with him no matter what it is.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/16/2023	Look up "math206 umd" on reddit. People speed-run this entire 1-credit class in an hour. It's the easiest 1 credit you'll ever take.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/03/2023	I had no issues with him up till these homework, he shows how to do a certain type of question during lecture, then puts that type of question in the homework, and then takes points off when you do it how he did it during lecture.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A- dfesenko 05/03/2023	I believe Justin makes this class a lot more fun and interesting than other professors. The lectures are enjoyable, homework is not overbearing (one homework a week) and exams are relatively straightforward. Also no random quizzes during lectures unlike some other CMSC professors. 10/10 would take again and recommend to anybody choosing between professors. You won't regret taking this guy.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/02/2023	By far the best professor at UMD. He makes every lecture engaging, so even though his notes are good enough to learn the material off of, it was still worth it to attend every class.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/30/2023	Justin is very responsive to student feedback. A lot of students complained that the course was too proof-based, but I actually liked it with more proofs. Anyway, he adjusted and now focuses more on testing that you have the right intuition for the proof rather than doing a formal proof. Some students also complained about project deadlines, and he was flexible with those. Honestly, those students are ridiculous because most of our projects were made available more than a month in advance, and they are pretty easy. The lectures are really clear and he always makes it obvious what material you will be tested on. Homeworks and exams are also not too hard. The reviews from last semester aren't very good, but that was his first time teaching it. Practice makes perfect, I guess.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH406 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/30/2023	This was my first 400-level math class (taken concurrently with 405). If you are comfortable with proofs (CMSC250 or MATH310), it will probably be pretty easy. The cryptography applications are super fun! Our exams have not been curved so far, but that's because the averages were high. I would not expect anything to get curved. It's just not needed. The homeworks are a bit long, but it makes studying for the exams easier. I suggest at least starting the problems the same day that you cover the material, and then reviewing them at the end of the week. If you can code, it is definitely good practice to code up the algorithms we discuss. Justin is impressively organized. He posts all assignments well in advance (often a whole month). He is very responsive on Piazza. His past exams and solutions are available on his website, so there are plenty of study resources.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent Expecting an A Anonymous 04/14/2023	Very good at explaining concepts, fair homework and exams, but absolutely cold and heartless. If you have any disabilities, avoid taking any classes with him. He refused to extend deadlines for me when I was in the ICU, despite my ADS letter and multiple doctor's notes.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/03/2023	great lecturer but the course just becomes cmsc351 part 2 and sinks heavily into theory so if you didn't like that then take cmsc420 with mount
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Anonymous 03/04/2023	I had Justin for MATH206, which I was able to finish in the 2 days before the semester started, and I also have him for CMSC250. He's a really great guy; I'd probably give him 4.69 stars if I could though, simply because I think he babies the class a little bit. Our first exam was ludicrously short and a ton of people were finishing with a full 40 minutes left. His lectures and notes are extremely organized, and you can get ahead of the game if you absolutely wanted to. Homeworks don't take more than 3 hours a week. Very talented at explaining concepts in a simple and concise manner.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/18/2023	Great course design! Modules were helpfully written with adequate instruction to figure out the project. Projects were extremely manageable with my limited programming experience. Never had any contact with Justin, but the course runs so smoothly. Highly recommend taking this course in preparation for future math classes needing matlab. Just stay on top of deadlines!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/02/2023	Great professor that makes all of his content easy to understand. Posts his notes online as well.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/24/2023	Extremely easy course if you have programming experience, finished in less than a day
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B theGreat 01/19/2023	Obviously Justin has a very good reputation. I think that's mostly from his personality so students tend to overrate him a tiny bit just because he is relatable. That being said, he is still a smart professor and a good teacher that knows what hes talking about. Pros: - Easyish exams all things considered that are not hard to finish on time - good lecturer. Easy to follow, takes great notes, don't have to attend class - very engaging and fun to listen to - drops lowest 3 out of 13 homeworks. - the class is very straightforward which i liked Cons: - homeworks can be hard so start them early - not many TA's available to help with homework
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Anonymous 01/05/2023	Easy class, chill prof.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/27/2022	Self paced course where the grade is based off of public tests so you know your grade. Can knock out the entire course in a couple days.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Charl1e1029 12/24/2022	Love Justin, but he's definitely still working out some kinks for lecturing for the CS department. The few qualms I had regarding my semester with him included: 1) Some homeworks were graded very unfairly at times. Like a -20 came outta nowhere every once in a while 2) His exams were many times riddled with typos/errors. On the 3rd midterm, he even had to throw out an entire question 3) He's constantly trying to improve the way he teaches many concepts, but that can lead to him teachning some of them incorrectly/more confusingly Overall, Justin's a great guy. His lectures are engaging, and his lecture notes are some of the nicest I've ever seen. I'm absolutely certain that as he teaches this course more and more, many of the qualms I listed above will significantly diminish if not disappear. I absolutely loved him as a UMD math legend (had him for 241) and he's on his way to being a UMD CS legend as well.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH403 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/24/2022	very good curve but so many homework sets you have to learn 20 chapters of material, so sometimes you will have 2 homework sets due a week he drops homeworks though so it's fine i guess
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/24/2022	Easy 1-credit class to fill 120 credits. TA was responsive and helpful. All assignments were posted within the first week of classes, so I could get them all done then I didn't need to care about it after that. MATH206 was an online class, so I didn't have a chance to meet Justin. I will take MATH241/406 with him next semester to see how good he is. If you have programming experience, then take it. If not, it's good for practice but would be time-consuming
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A ceremonialgradematcha 12/22/2022	the fact that he ended every class ~15 minutes early and still managed to get through all the material speaks to his prowess as a lecturer, and i have no problem with that. his course organization, however, was disappointing. countless mistakes on both homeworks and lectures were constant sources of confusion. almost every homework had some sort of typo or confusion, needing a midweek announcement for clarification, pretty much undoing a lot of the progress students had in that question. we even had some questions that were completely dropped (looking at you, nim game tree) or some that were never fully clarified (looking at you, floating-point multiplication). tas are also unreasonable with regrade requests, and won't give points back for things justin clarified. exams were mostly fair, but also filled with the same mistakes that plagued the homework. every exam had several typo corrections, and one question was completely taken off. justin said something about how not all tas could be trusted with proofreading, but at least having herve (cotaught) or someone else look at it would help. the final had 3 (out of 15) questions on a topic we covered only for a week, which is poor topic choice for a supposedly cumulative final exam. his exams also involve a lot more wordplay and reading (so little slip-ups will lose you big points), which is certainly a valid thing to do, but i don't think it's that relevant for the course. the two also taught an incorrect version of dft. while i understand that version's easier to analyze, the correct version was just a slight change away and yet there was not even a mention of the tweak in class. that being said, he's a great lecturer and a pretty nice person. i remember submitting a homework late because of a technical issue and still getting credit for that homework.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/21/2022	Communicative doesn't keep anyone in the dark. Fair exams. Top-tier professor overall. Only problems: Each exam has a small mistake or two but they are either dropped or corrected. Lectures can be a bit tricky at times IF you are rusty in math (i might be a special case though) Otherwise honestly still also TOP tier lecturing. Overall just a good experience with him and highly recommend taking him if you are lucky enough to have the option.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B- Justacoder 12/20/2022	Love this guy. Great lectures and explanations. The notes are very detailed and helpful. I recommend reviewing his notes before lecture to cement your understanding. Exams were fair and his revierws were helpful. Only complaint is that some of the homework questions are hit or miss. Sometimes they are unclear or ambigous.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2022	Genuinely the best lectures on campus. Have no hesitations in taking him if he is available. In-depth, beneficial, and entertaining lectures. As long as you show up to lectures and discussions, any student has the opportunity for an A in this class. Deserves all of the positive reviews he has received, and I wish I could have him in future courses. Brilliant lecturer
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2022	Great instructor. Clear lectures. Engaging, funny, charismatic guy. Homework clearly translates to the exams. Homework is harder than exams. Exams are easier and really test ideas directly from the homework. True/False section he's a fan of always, could, most type questions here: read carefully. Exam questions are usually variants of homework question principles. Lots of tracing through the algorithms, forwards and back. High exam averages because the exams are FAIR AND REPRESENTATIVE of learning. Actively works to improve. Knowledgeable. Sometimes he makes the equivalent of a typo in his hand written notes but always goes back and fixes it. Breaks up notes into these wonderful sections. Doesn't record because he wants attendance. Overall great experience. I will say that during office hours there's always 3-5 students there. Thus, you kind of get 3-4 minutes with Justin and then wait 5-10 minutes for the next question. This makes sense because he has over 500 students a semester and over 3-5 classes. Approachable. Insightful. Highly recommend.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2022	I'm a simple guy. I see Justin teaching, I take Justin. One of the most dreaded CS courses made entertaining and actually understandable.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B+ Anonymous_Entity 12/17/2022	PLEASE TAKE HIM as Justin is really the only competent calc III professor UMD has. Also, while his exams are fair and his teaching style is amazing, the final is going to be very hard so some examples he never went through like problems involving trig subsitution, integration by parts could be on the final. DEFINETLY REMEMBER YOUR CALC II STUFF FOR THE FINAL.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2022	What can I say that hasn't been said already? He's that guy! Brilliant personality and lecturer, very grateful for the experience.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2022	Along with 95% of what people said here, fair class, fair lectures, amazing personality. Provides entertainment with learning and professionalism, a combo that is difficult to find in the university. As stated earlier take him whenever you get the chance.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/13/2022	my grade is my own fault, Justin is the goat.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/12/2022	This class was only good because of Justin.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/08/2022	Brilliant lecturer and extremely fair exams
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/02/2022	One of the sole brightspots in UMD STEM undergrad.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/28/2022	Justin is THE king of teaching. Literally, make your entire schedule around taking his class-it's worth it! Lectures were great since he made complicated topics very easy to understand. He did thorough examples and answered questions well. He was also excellent and telling people with off-topic questions to go to his office hours and didn't waste class time. Don't skip lectures, but if you have to miss class, all of his covid youtube videos are up! Or if you need to review examples again, the youtube videos are awesome. His exams were very fair but challenging. Do all the old exams if you can. He didn't curve since the averages were all very high. The optional hw questions from the textbook were also very helpful, especially to build up to being able to do the practice exams. There were group worksheets every Tuesday which were doable in a group and by asking the TA questions. The weekly Thursday quizzes were challenging but fair, plus the lowest 4 were dropped.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC420 Expecting a B- Anonymous 11/20/2022	Very good lecturer, however, made this course seem like 4 credits instead of 3. Exams were fair and averages were good, however the projects were insane. During Thanksgiving break he modified a Mount project which only had 3 required methods to implement, and instead required us to do 8, along with ML which was a topic not previously discussed in the course--hence the 2/5 stars. I would not recommend him for this particular course. He also wasn't very helpful if you had coding questions and was curt on Piazza sometimes. Stick with him for MATH courses, not CMSC.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Anonymous 10/19/2022	Justin's teaching has probably saved me a big headache while taking this class. Most people have said that this class is one of the hardest classes were required to take for the CS major. But with this professor I actually really understand what is going on. Whether or not my grades reflect it is another issue but thats on my studying. Going to his lectures and not just reading his notes that he posts really helps me understand the concepts and I'm really glad for that.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/07/2022	If you have coded before, this class should be fairly easy. If not, you will still find this to be fairly simple as long as you put in some effort learning MATLAB and basic programming principles. It's essentially a free A because you can contact your TA or Justin if you have any questions MATLAB or non-MATLAB related.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 09/24/2022	It's Justin. Enough said
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting a C- Anonymous 09/23/2022	This class is not as easy as people claim to be honest, especially if you have no programming or math background. Please read carefully if that's you and don't let the other reviews sway your judgement. Matlab is a programming language comparable to Java and C++, maybe even C. Heck, it was built with C. I didn't know anything about programming when taking this class, and I had to essentially teach myself C first, and dweldge into some nasty low level operating systems concepts (which is in the scope of CMSC 412, the hardest undergraduate computer science course offered here) to even comprehend how to do those complicated math equations in MATLAB. This course sucked up so much time - I came in thinking it's an easy 1 credit, but boy oh boy oh no. It warranted weekly office hours - that is - whenever I had the time. This class, for each week's assignment, would suck up more like 10-20 hours a week and living at office hours. The fact that there is no lecture for this class doesn't help. The one saving grace of MATH 206 is the generous curve - I passed with a 49%
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Anonymous 07/28/2022	Justin is the GOAT
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/03/2022	Super easy class if you've coded before (even just in Java). Never directly interacted with Justin because the course was pretty much self-taught, but I do recommend taking the course for an easy A and MATLAB experience.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/31/2022	This class is very easy, and as long as you do the work you should get an A/A+. Most people tend to forget the assignments because they're asynchronous, so don't forget to do them. The only thing I dislike about this class is MATLAB grader as it's hard to debug compared to MATLAB because the errors that MATLAB grader show cannot be easily traced, so I recommend writing code on MATLAB and then just copy-pasting it into MATLAB grader. In my opinion, learning MATLAB code and finishing the assignments can be a little bit annoying, but the TAs and Prof. Justin are very accessible, so make sure to reach out to them if needed.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/29/2022	Really great lectures, he's very caring and truly worries about his students and if you come up to him with questions he will be very nice when explaining and explains topics in a very straightforward and easy to understand way. However as great as he is, I had a very stressful time in 351 because of the grading issues that came with basically every assignment. TA's most of the time if you had something not resembling the rubric in a homework assignment, or just because based on their own judgement, will not take their time to read your answer and will not hesitate to slash off as many points as you can as possible (Many times I have gotten back as much as 20%-25% of my assignment just because the TA did not read my answer entirely, and I've had to explain very thoroughly in my regrades). I know this is not his fault, but he was very aware of the grading issue because we would get multiple announcements about how there would be over 100s of regrade requests for each assignment and exams. This would not be an issue if the grading was more careful in seeing if the student truly understands the topic instead of how close it is to the rubric, or even something as small if simplifying 1 more step would give the same answer. Oh and what the other reviewer below said is absolutely correct, sometimes I would compare homework answers after grades came out on grade scope, and classmates who wrote the exact same I did would get full credit while I would get -50% off or even the entire question wrong. Same thing if they had the same reasoning for more deep thought questions. Mind you sometimes you would have to regrade this multiple times to get your points back if the TA's were unwilling to check, and it wasn't for sure that you would get your points back. Lastly the reason that also made me give him a not so great review even though I enjoyed having him a lot as my instructor, the above issue of getting massive hundreds of regrades because of extremely inconsistent grading, got so bad that during the last weeks of school after the final they said that since regrade request numbers are always hundreds, they would not allow regrade requests for hw12,hw13 and the final exam. Our homework is worth 28% of our grade and people were relying on this to bring up their averages if they didn't drop them, and they even admitted they graded the hw "leniently" and the rubric would even say "anything reasonable even if not correct". My questions were not read, marked off points without explaining any reason because of the shortness of time with regrades from past assignments, and the final exam also had some grading inconsistencies. My final point, Justin throughout the semester said that the cut-offs would be lowered slightly below the regular cut offs to account for the grading inconsistencies, the ambiguous writing of questions on exams and etc. This was only 1% or so when confirming when my friends, which if I will be honest, 1% of the entire class is not enough to account to how extremely bad and up to the TA grading your assignments judgement is. And even if Justin offered to contact him regarding grading on hw12,hw13 and the final exam, he would only do this if you were borderline. Which, is kind of extremely hard to figure out when we did not have cutoffs published.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/25/2022	The actual GOAT. Really made sure we understood the concepts he was teaching. He and Erika cotaught this semester, and they did a fantastic job of making 351 a much better experience than I was anticipating. Would recommend!!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ wmy78b 05/25/2022	This class is super easy. Everyone can get an A/A+ if you learn. I know Prof. Wyss-Gallifent is super popular and busy, but he replies email really quickly.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A- KDsBurnerAccount 05/21/2022	Lectures were great of course. It's Justin. However, the course could've been managed better, and rubrics for homework's and exam solutions could have been much less ambiguous, as well as the questions on the exam. There can be a time where you work with your friend on a homework, then you receive a 0/15 on a homework problem while your friend receives a 15/15 because the rubric is not as definitive and TA's judge based off their intuition and subjectivity. Same goes for exam problems, besides the fact that you obviously do the exam independently, you can have a solution that follows the gradescope rubric to earn a specific amount of points, but the TA can be subjective and not go off of what the rubric says and even give you a 0 for the problem for what should have been partial credit atleast. This may be a TA problem sure, but Justin leads the TAs and instructs them on what to do, so I feel there's a bit on him too as he could make the rubrics for homework problems and exams more definitive so TAs can't be as subjective. Exam problems were ambiguous as well to an extent, mainly the true/false portion, but some written responses as well, but the true/false was only a few points (typically 10 points an exam). Essentially, there could be multiple interpretations of a question which could make you believe either true or false based on the interpretation you go with. Overall, great professor along with his lectures of course. No doubt about that. He needs to be more straight forward about a few things though. The course wasn't difficult to manage so he did amazing with that, but there would be confusion on the ambiguity from the student and TA side, in terms of grading and interpreting problems.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2022	Coming off of 250 with Justin, I was expecting to get torn to shreds with 351, especially with the stigma around the class. Given that I don't think Justin is the best at organizing courses, I think he and Erika had a great duo with her taking most of the nitty-gritty details like Piazza answering and course announcements. The class ran extremely well (definitely some improvements needed on the TAs and their grading in this course, but that's not on Justin) and I can still vouch for Justin's lecturing. Guy is one of the best at UMD, he could explain Dijkstra's to a 5-year-old. Tests and homework were extremely fair, an issue I found sometimes with the 250 homework, and both Erika and Justin made the course extremely enjoyable. I also had him for 241 this semester. Relatively smaller course, pumped out grading and got the concepts where they needed to be. Could definitely tell he was in his comfort zone with this course as his lectures were spot on every time. Tests were extremely fair and grading was good. Overall, 10/10 professor.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC456 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2022	as we all know Justin is a great professor and that was the case with cryptography. definitely learned a lot and he didn't make it harder or easier than it needed to be, which is amazing considering it's his first time teaching the course. as a teacher, there is nothing that I can complain about. there is a fair amount of work but I think it's reasonable for a 400 level course. I'm giving him 4 stars because I felt there were instances where he was rather curt/rude when responding on Piazza. maybe that wasn't his intention because he's always very kind in class, but that is how it came across on Piazza. also no recorded lectures which was kind of annoying (i think he just really hates anything to do with online school) but at least he posts his notes from class online. overall, great in terms of teaching so I would recommend
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2022	The best teacher ever!!! Form your entire schedule around taking his class--it's worth it! About the class: - Weekly groupworks on Tuesdays: these are worksheets based on material from the previous few lectures and you work in groups to complete them - Weekly quizzes on Thursdays: these are based on the worksheets from earlier in the week and are fairly straight forward - MATLAB assignments: there are 4 assignments on MATLAB grader which are very easy to complete if you read the instructions - Homework (optional): the textbook problems from every section are a good way to reinforce the material taught in class (do them if you have time) About Justin: - He is a very funny and caring, which makes his lectures very entertaining and informational. He gives the best examples to reinforce the topics he taught and structures all his lessons in a way which is very easy to follow. Even some of the more difficult topics were a breeze because of Justin's phenomenal explanations. Some of my friends who almost failed Calc 2 last semester got an A in Calc 3 this semester because of Justin! As for his exams, be prepared because they are not easy. But he has all his previous midterms posted on his website, so if you do at least 4 or 5 of them as practice before your exam, you are more or less guaranteed a good grade on the exam. On the rare occasion you might be confused in his class, you can watch his youtube videos in which he goes over every chapter topic in even more detail (and with more examples). - He does not curve because his exam averages are high (range from a 75% to 85%) but he does drop your lowest 4 quizzes and group works, as well as replace your lowest scoring midterm with your final exam (only if it helps your grade). These is a reason his man has almost a 5 star rating with 161 reviews.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Anonymous 05/15/2022	Good notes and his exams are very similar to past exams and he provides answer keys for them too.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC456 Anonymous 05/15/2022	Unsurprisingly a great class. Nothing less expected from Justin. Pros: + Outstanding lectures + Reasonable homeworks and coding assignments + Fair exams + Good grade distribution - nothing is too heavily weighted + Responsive on Piazza + Helpful overview of materials, was an appropriate amount of breadth Cons (these are really meant to be constructive feedback): - There were some nontrivial mistakes on homeworks/notes/exams, which wasn't the end of the world, but did cost me time while taking the exam - Some of the Piazza responses could have been more civil Take a class with Justin if he's teaching it!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH456 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/11/2022	This was Justin's first time teaching this course and he smashed it. The course structure was excellent and I could tell how everything built on previous content and tied together. I felt we spent an appropriate amount of time on each subject and were able to learn how everything functioned without getting to caught up or rushing through it. I was glad we got the opportunity to touch on hash functions and cryptocurrencies as well as elliptic curve encryption and holomorphic encryption. You could always count on one homework assignment every week with a coding assignment. It was very reasonable and the homework definitely improved my understanding of the content.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/10/2022	Justin has way higher averages on every exam than other professors, so he doesn't curve. however, this is because he makes course content easy to understand. Justin has discussions and quizzes down to a T and it really helped my understanding of the course material. I'm sure you already know this but if you CAN take justin, then you should.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Anonymous 05/10/2022	Lives up to the hype! If you're not an engineering/math major though I will say there's a bit of a learning curve when it comes to figuring out how to study and make time for this class. You don't necessarily have to go to lecture because Justin's YouTube videos are just as good, if not better (there are more examples on them since he doesn't have a time limit). But you should because he explains things very clearly and isn't boring. Also has a cool accent. Dropped the 4 lowest group works and quizzes. MatLab projects are super beginner-friendly but I would recommend starting them early just in case you need to work out tiny bugs in your code. They are easy 100s though! For exams, DO THE PRACTICE EXAMS! They are so helpful and he has solutions uploaded for most of them. Couldn't recommend him more!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Anonymous 05/07/2022	best 351 professor ever. Exams are super fair and he is amazing at explaining.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/06/2022	God of the math department, take his class!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/06/2022	Justin deserves his reputation as the best UMD professor. He isn't overhyped. In fact, he should be hyped up even more than he is already. His quizzes and exams are challenging, but since he's such a phenomenal teacher, it doesn't even matter how difficult his assessments are because you'll have learned the content thoroughly. He has a gift for explaining things clearly and is excellent at visual demonstration. He makes the course content seem simple because he doesn't needlessly convolute or overcomplicate anything. I pity anyone who graduates from UMD and has never taken a class with Justin. He is a world class professor and must be protected at all costs.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/05/2022	Best professor at UMD. If you are going to take 250 or 351, do it with Justin
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/04/2022	Great professor as ratings suggest. I had a few cons to how 351 was managed. 1. No recorded lectures. 2. Never can get an extension on homeworks (no exceptions). Other than that, amazing.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent Anonymous 04/14/2022	I have never had Justin for a class, and I feel like I have already been taught by him on multiple subjects. I have never even met him in person and I find his online lectures/notes to be more clear and easy to understand than my actual professors' lectures. From what I can tell, the only qualm people have with him is that he does not curve much. Such is to be expected when you teach at such a high level. Goat.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a C- Anonymous 03/17/2022	He is very good at public speaking but he seems to not be able to empathize with the students that are struggling through the course. This tells me a lot more about who he is as a teacher than what his lecturing style lets on. To be a good teacher who have to know what it is like to fail and then the endurance needed to overcome that failure and sadly I don't think he understands that yet.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent Anonymous 01/07/2022	He's so good, you should deregister if you're taking him so that a spot opens for me :). Haha just kidding, he's perfect. I feel so lucky to have had a professor like him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/02/2022	Had Justin for MATH241 and used his notes for CMSC351 this past semester. He's the hardest working and probably best prof I think I've ever seen. Definitely take if you can.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/27/2021	His rating speaks for itself. Take Justin if possible.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/27/2021	The best professor in UMD!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/26/2021	He is the GOAT! Take him at all cost!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH431 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/23/2021	Honestly with the way the class is setup, he wants you to succeed. Some homeworks can be challenging but he offers a lot of help during office hours. The class itself itself is really interesting, mainly because of how Justin teaches it.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2021	As everyone likes to say, the best professor at UMD. He taught extraordinarily well, communicated everything, forgiving grading with tests that weren’t overly challenging. As a math major I wish I could have him for all my math classes.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/22/2021	Fantastic lecturer, makes concepts easy to understand and apply. His notes on his website are a life saver and are remarkably thorough. His exams were fair and straightforward if you were prepared, and the homework problems were extremely relevant to the exams. Greatly enjoyed taking this class with JWG; even if math is not quite your thing, pay attention and do the homework and you'll succeed. Highly recommend.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH401 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2021	One of the best if not THE best professor in the entire department. Possibly the entire university. You don't need me to convince you, just look down at the hundreds of reviews that say he is amazing.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2021	Great lecturer, hard to pay attention at times with the 75 minute lectures but that's a personal problem. Only thing I can complain about is the absolutely atrocious organization of the course. Every released practice has at least 13 mistakes on the answer key, 50% of my homework had to be regraded because the TAs misread and marked my answers as incorrect when they were correct. Overall, probably one of the best lecturers out there but not great at organizing courses.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting a B- mewuzhere 12/16/2021	This probably doesn't need to be written again but Justin is one of the best at UMD. If you have the opportunity to take him, take him. Lectures were engaging and super organized. He provided all of the notes that he used for lectures. Exam expectations were very clear. Homework tracked well with the material in the lectures and was helped reinforce concepts. Everything was graded in a timely manner and everything was well communicated.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A fiftyseven 12/09/2021	Amazing teacher. Super engaging and explains everything really well. He handles any student questions really well too, not only answering them but going into depth so everyone gets a better understanding. Uploads the notes for the class so you can see everything and review it. In addition, he has his own typed up LaTeX notes he uploads which are also really good. Workload is good too, just a weekly assignment. Would highly recommend.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B Anonymous 10/08/2021	I cannot imagine any other professor has ever taught CMSC351 at the same high level quality as Justin. As someone who took the course with Clyde Kruskal and failed, retaking it with Justin was the biggest blessing in my computer science degree. His notes for this course are so good that I plan on using them for interview preparation and beyond. He made the class exciting, interesting, and erased the dread about algorithms which was instilled in me by Kruskal.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A GoFly 08/30/2021	Excellent professor and is understanding of student's concerns and was flexible with due dates if students thought something was wrong with the class pacing and the homework. His exams are relatively straightforward if you practice his old exams.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/26/2021	Given the format of this course he's more of a manager than an actual instructor—the course itself is pretty easy, however.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH411 Anonymous 05/21/2021	He lives up to the hype! Lectures were interesting and he was super understanding about due dates & exams given that everything was online.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/21/2021	I feel like reviewing Justin is kinda pointless because it's so clear he's literally the best prof in this school. I have never had anyone explain anything to me as clearly as Justin teaches math, and on top of that he's a caring and understanding person. Really could not ask for anything more.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/14/2021	Made arguably the hardest CS class at UMD into one of the most interesting, useful, and honestly kind of easy class there is. Has such detailed notes for each topic that is publicly available (look up immortal umd for his umd website with the links to notes). These were absolute lifesavers and also just demonstrated how much he enjoys what he does, which is another reason why I gave him 5 stars. He is definitely one of the best professors I have ever seen. He is nice in office hours and with questions, but he will come across extremely blunt and sometimes rude in piaza and emails, but he explains that it's the fact he has so many questions and has to go through them. So I was taken aback at first since he seemed a little rude in emails and posts but he is really nice in office hours and just when he is able to actually spend time on answers.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/11/2021	By far one of the best professors I've met at UMD. I was skeptical about joining his class as it was his first time teaching CMSC351 but he went above and beyond during the semester we were learning online. Justin spent a lot of time coming up with online class notes on his own time to explain difficult concepts, and spent a lot of time in lecture going through examples to help clarify content in the notes. Grading and exam timing-wise, Justin was very empathetic and reasonable with students. Do the homework and review his notes before exams and you'll do well in the course!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC351 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/11/2021	Justin was fantastic. He clearly cared about us and wanted us to learn the material without truly worrying about grades. His exams were super fair based on what he taught us in class. The homework was tricky but he designed them so that we would learn the material and think about it in an abstract manner.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting a B Anonymous 02/08/2021	Justin was a lifesaver during Zoom U. He was very knowledgeable and taught everything clearly. He was very good at engaging with his s tudents during lecture and they could ask questions. 100% the best professor in the CS/Math dept.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/27/2021	For MATH206, you have unlimited tries and instant feedback. This is probably the best 1-credit course at UMD, and is pretty much just MATLAB practice.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH401 Anonymous 01/12/2021	Amazing!! you could literally not know any linear algebra and get a B or better in this class. He gives you all the information that you need to know. Super nice guy, chill.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/12/2021	MATH206 with Justin Wyss-Gallifent is one of the best one credit courses offered at UMD. It is a very reasonable amount of work and is not too difficult.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A abhimod 01/03/2021	Exams were all take-home during the pandemic. The lectures were very easy to understand and told you what you needed to know.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/01/2021	Justin didn't teach this class really since it was very much do work at your own pace. The class itself, especially if you have previous coding experience, is really easy and you get as many tries as you want for every problem. If you really wanted to, you could finish the class in a day, but for me it only took about a week and then I never had to worry about it again with was nice, but a lot of people waited to the last minute for deadlines and didn't have enough time to figure everything out, so the TA begrudgingly extended some deadlines
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Anonymous 12/29/2020	Even though it was his first time teaching this course, he was very knowledgable about the material and his lectures were very interesting and helped prepare us for exams.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent CMSC250 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/22/2020	Very hard class but his explanations made them doable. Exams were timed, but not on Zoom.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2020	Perfect. Both live and recorded lectures. Exams were challenging, but they were take home.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH401 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2020	Very good lecturer, definitely lives up to his reputation. I don't really need to go into much more, the rest of the 100+ reviews tell the rest of his story. He is one of the best lecturers I've seen at UMD. If you can take a class with him, DO IT!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/24/2020	Just absolutely fantastic. Extremely accommodating and wants all of his students to do well. His lectures are amazing. We need more professors like Justin. He's extremely approachable and always answers questions. The amount of work that he assigns is reasonable and his matlab projects have some of the best documentation I've ever seen.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH401 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/19/2020	He is the coolest prof! No exams when classes moving online. And I have to say the project "cryptography" was so much fun to do. Such a surprise when seeing the original image was my id photo. Gotta give him 5 stars!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A- Anonymous 09/05/2020	He is not overhyped. Best math professor I’ve ever had.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent Anonymous 08/12/2020	I never had Justin as my professor. Why am I rating him, then? Well, during Spring 2020, he recorded and uploaded all the MATH241 lectures, so I did learn from him for half a semester. He's clear, organized, concise, and overall a great lecturer. I can't speak to his exams or homeworks, but his lectures are amazing.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2020	everything great about justin has already been said, but he was especially great this semester w COVID -- super understanding, lenient deaadlines (3 days for the final), and excellent lecture videos. absolute tank
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH403 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/15/2020	lots of hw sets every week. Cant understand why he has good reviews. The worst instructor at umd That ive ever met.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/13/2020	His explanations are super thorough and easy to understand. The course is supper easy and goes at a reasonable pace. I came in with no coding knowledge and left with a 100% in the class and knowledge on the basics of MatLab in 6 short weeks
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/18/2020	Best.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/28/2020	An absolute gem of a professor and human. Couldn't have learned more in this one semester. I would take a class I didn't need to just to take it with him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/06/2020	Pretty simple class if you've done any type of programming before. He gives you 2 tries to submit each assignment for full credit, so you can fix any mistakes you made on your first submission
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2019	MATH206 course was very, very easy. 3 projects, each of which take less than an hour. I also took MATH401, of which he wrote the curriculum, though it was taught by a different professor. It was a very interesting course and the textbook/homeworks are very well written.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/18/2019	Justin is great! As long as you do the homework, attend lecture, and review concepts here and there, I firmly believe it’s possible for anyone to get an A under this man. He is prepared every lecture and explains concepts in a simple and clear way. His drawings are neat and really enable you to understand 3-D space. The way the class is setup with group work also helps reinforce concepts. Quizzes and midterms are super straightforward without any curveballs. He is also very approachable and helpful during office hours. Basically, if you have the opportunity to take a class with him, do it. He always shows up as TBA, so check reddit if he’s teaching that sem and sign up!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/17/2019	Justin is the best human being on the planet. As a great communicator, each lecture is planned exceptionally well and each concept is explained thoroughly. He's charming and relatable, and manages to crack some jokes in each lecture. The assignments are easy; the class is no harder than it needs to be. I didn't do any of the optional practice problems from the book and pulled off a 97. The exams are straightforward, just study well and put in the time to succeed.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/25/2019	Multiple opportunities to turn in the assignments. 3 very easy matlab projects. Can get it done in the first week of classes.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 10/09/2019	MATH206 is a great course! Easy 1 credit online class that took maybe 3 hours to finish and a great way to add that you know Matlab on your resume. Most other math courses use Matlab as a supplemental tool where you learn the commands useful for that course but you never actually learn the basic framework. Math206 is a great way to do that. Don't worry about this course, the tutorials are great, the professor is great, the TA is great, and the resubmit policy will make it hard to not get a good grade.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/27/2019	Justin consistently comes to class prepared to teach the material, and his expertise combined with his clarity of instruction enables him to be an excellent lecturer. He is always professional and down-to-earth with his students, especially during office hours. He deserves his consistently high ratings and I strongly recommend taking him when given the chance.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ StardustGogeta 05/25/2019	This class was entirely digital and lasted less than half the semester, but I have absolutely no complaints. If you know MATLAB, then the class is extremely easy, and it takes a sum total of three hours to complete all work for the course. If you don’t know MATLAB already, then there is a collection of helpful (and humorous) tutorial documents provided on Canvas to help you teach yourself, and there is a very forgiving resubmission policy to help you out if you make some small mistakes.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH410 Anonymous 04/14/2019	I've had Justin for MATH241, MATH401, and MATH410. He's been incredible for all three. He is such a nice guy and simply knows how to each. He also runs his classes in a professional, organized fashion. His expectations are always very clear and his willingness to help students is unparalleled by any other professor I've had at this university. He seems to always know exactly what students are thinking. Because I've had him for three classes, I've seen how he adapts his style to best suit different types of classes. Especially for MATH410, where the material gives students a lot of trouble, Justin is so good at explaining things clearly and patiently. I cannot even fathom the notion that there could be a better professor on this campus than Justin.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/06/2019	Best math professor on campus.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/04/2019	Everyone pretty much says to take MATH206, but I'll give a contrasting opinion here. I would recommend to take the class, but be wary of the grading scheme used. The grading scale is: Project 1 - 100 pts, Project 2 - 100 pts, Project 3 - 200 pts. After you submit a project, you have 1 day to fix the project in order to get full points, otherwise you can only get 80% of points. Because the grading scheme is lopsided, I got 100% on the first two projects, and got an 80% on the third project, giving me a 90% in the class. You can't see what errors you have unless you submit the project, so you only have one chance to redo the project. Justin is great at responding to emails, but is fully strict in following what is on the syllabus without leeway.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/11/2018	Honestly, if you're a CS major who's taken 132 or is in 216 or higher, you can pass this class no problemo. It's very very basic coding. You follow the project description step by step, and use the MATLAB pdfs he provides on each topic to do it. I only put in at most 2 hours of work on each project, and he gives you 3 weeks to do each project. Would recommend for easy grade booster, or if you want to know programming in MATLAB basics.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/30/2017	Justin Wyss-Gallifent is a god. No one shall attempt to defy Justin Wyss-Gallifent. You shall say Justin Wyss-Gallifent's full name when referring to him or else you'll be punished by Justin Wyss-Gallifent himself. It is said that even Chuck Norris has kneeled down to Justin Wyss-Gallifent. Take Justin Wyss-Gallifent's class to succeed and learn Math. Justin Wyss-Gallifent has already taken his own gracious time to step out of heaven to teach math to plebeians like us. Please consider his time and efforts.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH246 Expecting an A soulelite 08/25/2016	Best Math professor I've ever had at UMD, hands down. If this guy is available for any Math course that you are taking, ENROLL FOR JUSTIN'S CLASS. You will definitely not regret it. He teaches in such a clear and precise manner, and he is also a very nice guy that is willing to help you after class. He genuinely loves to teach to students, and it really shows.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B lharron2 06/03/2015	He is a great teacher I highly recommend him, but you can obviously tell that by his rating.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B+ TheTrooth 02/02/2015	Justin is one of the best, if not the best professor I have had at UMD. He always comes in prepared, and since he has been teaching this class for years, he knows and stresses all the places where people tend to make mistakes, so you won't make them. He has a step-by-step approach to solving every problem you will run into. In addition, he is also very kind and makes jokes throughout the lecture. If you ever have the chance to take him, do it. I promise you won't regret it.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ muon 01/28/2015	Didn't think he would live up to the hype, but goddamn, he did. I took Math 206 with him and sat in on his Math 241 class, and most of my experience with him was for 241. I had already taken 241 in high school, but I felt like I learned the course entirely anew. Incredible, incredible guy. He reminded me why I pay for college. If there is an option to take your class with Justin, work the rest of your schedule around it. Make this a priority.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A lmayhew 01/12/2015	Justin is awesome! I had the pleasure of him being my TA as well as lecture teacher. He is by far the best math professor I have ever had. He is understanding about making up quizzes, and makes his lectures interesting. He wants his students to do well. Justin answers e-mails so quickly, and can always provide helpful answers. He always gives 2 study guides with the solutions for each exam. His exams were all fair. Not easy, but everything that was on the exam was thoroughly taught. I can't stress how awesome of a professor he is.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/03/2014	I had him for the online MATLAB course over the summer. I never once met him in person, but for an online class, it was great. He had all of his PDFs laid out and available. They were concise and had plenty of examples. The assignments were overall fairly straightforward, though you may have to think for a few minutes about a couple of the later ones. You get a second chance to get a 100% if your code is incorrect after the first submission, which was a nice bonus. He always got back to my e-mails pretty quickly and did his best to help with any errors I was having in my code just through e-mail. I got a 100% in the class and would definitely recommend his intro to MATLAB course.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A josephkim96 12/03/2014	Justin is the best professor I've ever had in my entire life. He teaches step-by-step and makes otherwise difficult concepts easy to understand. He also makes me laugh every single lecture. Best professor I've had the pleasure of working with. 11/10
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140 Anonymous 08/25/2014	One of the best, if not the best professors. He presents the materials in ways that anyone (even with poor background and fundamentals in math) can understand if he/she puts some effort. He tells students what to focus for the exams. TA was extremely nice and helpful as well. Wyss-Gallifent is just a really cool professor. His exams were fair (more on easy side since i falied Calc 1 once and re-took it during spring semester). He's extremely nice guy. When Levermore had a class before us, and left the board messy and ended late (about 2~3 minutes before our class time), Justin never lost his cool. Not even once. Take him. If you put in a little bit of effort, you're gonna pass.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A UMDStud 07/07/2014	Justin is a little overrated as a professor, but he's so highly rated that that still means he's awesome! He's cool, he's funny and he's an engaging speaker. You'll come out of the course really understanding the material and his tests aren't super easy but they're very straightforward and lots of practice tests let you know what to expect. If Justin is available TAKE HIS CLASS!!!!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/03/2014	Justin is the ideal professor- knowledgable, understanding, and entertaining. He makes the subject easy and simple. Exams are very reasonable. Definitely take Calc III with Justin if you can.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/19/2013	Great prof. Works through examples in depth and is easy to follow. If you go to discussion and do the homework/MATLAB you should be fine.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH411 Expecting an A anonn 05/13/2013	He really cares about his students. He explains concepts extremely clearly and encourages you to think about what's going on in class. I never had to use the textbook because his notes are so clear. Tests are difficult enough to let you see if you actually are understanding the material, but not so difficult that you feel like crap after taking them. I also took the MATLAB course. The tutorial was really helpful and clear. I spent maybe 10 hours total the entire semester on this class, and that includes learning MATLAB from scratch and doing the projects. Take this class as early as possible; it's easy, not a lot of work, and a decent introduction to MATLAB.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A unspokenkibbles 05/09/2013	Justin is more or less the ideal math professor. Energetic, engaging, and interesting, his lectures proceed at the perfect pace with exactly the right balance between examples and theory. Just take him already. Think of a complimentary adjective that could apply to a professor and it probably applies to Justin. Seriously, if it's a choice between Justin and someone else, it's not a choice. Justin all the way. Why are you still reading this? Go to Testudo and register for his class already.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 03/17/2013	Justin is amazing if you don't already know. I had him for calc3 and he was boss. My review is more for the Matlab course. If you need a GPA booster, take this class. Justin is really helpful, and provides awesome tutorials. Also, the TA is amazing. If I wasn't sure about something, I just emailed the TA, and he made things really clear, so definitely take advantage of him (he's grading your projects anyways). There are only three projects and Justin gives you a lot of time to do them. The last project is a little tricky but the TA offers a lot of guidance. Take this course, you won't regret it.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/14/2012	TAKE JUSTIN FOR ANY CLASS! He is literally the best professor I've had at Maryland by far! He explains concepts really well and he even adds some math humor into the lectures sometimes. Even though calc 3 wasn't always easy, he explained things very well and there was never a moment in class where I felt lost. His exams are very fair if you pay attention in lecture, and do the suggested but optional homework problems he posts online. Definitely go to discussions because there is a quiz at least once a week in discussion. The quizzes in discussions are 10 points each and add up to be 100 points of the total point value of the class. There are also 3 Matlab projects throughout the semester and 1 Matlab quiz, each worth 25 points, also adding up to 100 points. We had four exams in the semester, each exam worth 100 points each. The final exam this year was written by Justin and was also fair, no surprises. Overall, I really enjoyed Calc 3 with Justin and I would retake another class with him if I could.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/30/2012	MATH206 was a very easy class. There were 3 online project using matlab, and all of them are posted on the first week, so if you finish all of them, you're basically done. This is an online class so you never actually see the professor, but the T.A.'s are very helpful, and Justin's online is very interesting/easy to read and understand.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/23/2012	Great person, even better professor. You don't need to get the textbook, he will teach you everything you need to know in class and dumb it down for the people who really know nothing about math (which is not the best for some people because if you go into higher math later, it is possible that you won't able to deal with some of the complex proofs and derivations since justin's version of 241 is so simplified). Very reasonable exams; he only gives you problems you have seen before. Has weekly quizzes in discussions, four matlab projects (actually 3 and then 1 matlab quiz), four exams, and a final. Nothing is too hard in this class; everyone should be fine.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/19/2012	Never actually met him because this is an online course. But it was a great class. A great introduction to MATLAB. He explained things on his website very clearly and had plenty of examples and practice problems. He was also always willing to answer questions through email and was very respectful. There were three projects I think. They were pretty easy but last one took a little bit of time to do but was still very doable. I felt like the class was extremely helpful especially since I was taking differential equations at the same time which uses MATLAB. Plus the class is only like three months long. I highly recommend the class.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/31/2012	I took Justin for Math 241 fall of '11, and have to say that he brought back a love of math I thought UMD math teachers had sufficiently killed off in me. Justin is a great math teacher. He is not only approachable but a genuinely nice guy who teaches because he loves to teach. He is a lecturer, NOT someone who is being forced to take time away from their work to teach the class. My biggest recommendation is a simple one. Swing by his office hours and say hello. I found myself practically living out of his office once I started going. It was a great place to get math work done, get extra problems, or just chat, and Justin is a great source for math help as well as random facts and entertainment. In addition to everything I've already said, I want to point out that for anyone afraid of Matlab, Justin's are very reasonable, and his guides will get you through most of them without any problem. Justin is also very fast about answering emails with questions, especially as MATLAB assignments approach their deadlines.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B+ zdrag728 12/16/2011	Justin is hands-down the best math professor I have had at this university. He knows how to explain the topics without confusing the class with worthless proofs and MATLAB. His sense of humor is great and it is apparent he really cares for his students. I recommend going out of your way to have Justin as a professor before you graduate.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A G2011 12/04/2011	One of the best teachers I've ever had in my life. (Possibly this will hold true for the rest of college!) He writes precise notes with great handwriting and pictures and explains topics in great detail. Doesn't grade homeworks but they are helpful! Has about one quiz per week in discussion but they're mostly up to the TA. Assigns three MATLABs where he gives tutorials for all of them so it's basically an application of it and there's one super easy quiz on it as well. Four tests and a final and his tests should be easy since you get a cheat sheet as well
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Jessica Liu 11/22/2011	Love him. Everyone would attend his lecture even at 9am. His style of his exams are exactly the same thing as his review sheets. No webassign and only matlab which he gives tutorials on. This guy is the best. Take any math class with him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH221 Expecting a B defeatthehuns 11/15/2011	He's #1 on this site for a reason. His exams are fair, he makes sure you know the material inside and out, he's really nice and funny, always willing to answer questions and explain things thoroughly. Whether you are an A student or an F student, take his class. He is a wonderful person and an intelligent professor. Also, the lowest 7 webassigns being dropped doesn't hurt either, ha haha
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH206 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/11/2011	I have never actually seen the man teach as I'm taking his online MATLAB course, but I love him. He's so accessible, even to his online kids. And everyone on campus seems to use his guides for all their math classes!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A- TerpGuy 08/19/2011	This guy is clearly THE best professor you can have at UMD. Also, for a guy with PhD, he is really humble and really laid back. His notes are very clear and organized. He teaches the class with theory and lots of examples. His notes were so good that I only opened my book to do the hw. His pace with the syllabus is reasonable but faster compared to other professors because Justin wants to spend more time in the latter chapters. Those chapters are crazy so it will benefit in the long run. His exams are easy and follows the sample exams he posts before the exams. There are three easy matlab assignments. The fourth one is a short matlab quiz. All matlab related hw/quiz is easy. The final was not that bad. But do not underestimate the finals. You still need to work hard. Do not miss out on taking a course with Justin.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Anonymous 07/29/2011	Prof. Justin teaches the material by going step-by-step through each example and he even goes over examples of harder problems (which other profs rarely do). He is very down to earth for a person who holds a PhD. Assignments: 4 exams (none dropped), 4 matlabs (the last was a quiz counted as a matlab to make sure we were actually doing our own matlab assignments), 12 quizzes (2 dropped), and the final. Doesn't really curve grades since the average is usually high for a math course (low 80's).
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B Anonymous 07/15/2011	Justin was as good a math teacher as I could have expected. Not only was his class entertaining, he also was an excellent teacher. If possible, you should try to take a class of his. You won't regret it.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting a B tommyboy 06/01/2011	Not only is he the best math professor I've ever had, but he is the best overall teacher that I have ever met or had the pleasure of being a student to. Great class, great professor. Take it with Justin.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2011	Probably one of the best professors you can have at the University. If you get the chance sign up for one of his classes.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Pochacco 05/19/2011	Justin is a GREAT teacher. He's funny, engaging, and his pace in the class was perfect. During lectures, he writes out (in words) what his steps are. He also points out common mistakes. There's a little homework, but nothing over the top. It just helps you stay caught up. At office hours, he's extremely helpful and also just really fun to talk to TAKE HIM if you can!!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A finalexamswag 05/17/2011	Look at all the reviews... This guy is a rockstar with a piece of chalk. He's really understanding, approachable, nice, and really funny. I actually LIKED to sit up front (everyone tries to get to class first to sit up front). This guy is arguably the best professor on campus. Take his class, even if it means changing your whole schedule. You will NOT regret it. Justin - You are the man
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A bigbabby 05/14/2011	Good teacher. He explains concepts well and goes at a reasonable pace. Lectures are primarily example driven, which makes concepts easier to understand. Weekly quizzes and monthly(ish) MATLAB assignments which he gives a full tutorial for. 4 exams, which is more than average, but it is for good reason, as the last chapter is the hardest, and therefore gets its own test. Curve is very light, 4 percent this year, but class was easy. And you don't really need the textbook. He gives example exams which are close to the real thing, and the discussions help too. I didn't buy one and got an A.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH220 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/09/2011	Justin is one of the best professors by far at UMD. Stop looking at any others and just take him! I had him for MATH220 and even though I did terrible in 140, I ended up aceing his class no sweat. He's great to talk to in office hours or via e-mail, very understanding and a very fair grader (he even dropped a question from one of our exams because it was confusing and a lot of people did poorly on it). Great guy - just take him and you'll see!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A emulhern 04/28/2011	Justin is a fantastic professor, the best I've had so far at Maryland. He is really engaging and he makes the class understandable and manageable. His tests are straightforward and easy to study for, as many of the questions are modeled off ones from practice exams posted online. He covers a lot of material in every lecture, but not so much that you ever feel overwhelmed. As long as you put in the necessary effort, this class should be no problem.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH475 Expecting an A rockinbassman 04/20/2011	Really good teacher, especially compared to other math professors at UMD. One of the things I love about Justin is that he is humble. If he felt one of his lectures wasn't perfectly clear, he'll spend some of next class clarifying the tougher bits. Many professors just move on and leave the stragglers behind. I'm not a huge fan of the group works, but they're fairly infrequent. He grades very easily on them because they're tough. Plus he brought us bagels!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH130 Anonymous 03/31/2011	I am going to compare Cremins vs Justin So I took MATH130 with Cremins first. He is not a bad professor at all, but if I had a choice, I would have definitely waited one semester to take it with Justin. Cremins teaches relatively well, but at a quick pace so taking his lectures would be beneficial to you if you took calculus before in high school or somewhere else. His exams are challenging sometimes. If you have never seen calculus before in your life, then take it with Justin. Unlike Cremins, Justin really takes everything step by step to make sure you know whatever he is teaching means and why he is doing whatever he is doing. Justin also puts out sample tests that are pretty much verbatim, (except for variables and etc.) to the actual exams. The grading system he has is also good because you can either concentrate on your exam grades, or your group work, quizzes, and final and take the higher grade. Meaning if you get an overall C on your midterms and get an overall B on group work, quizzes, and the final, you get a B in the class. This is much more flexible than Cremins, where you get what you get out of the entire total of quizzes, mid terms, etc. Justin sometimes writes useless transitions like "lets think about this" or "think about it!" but that doesn't really bother me too much. His handwriting is also very neat, which sometimes Cremins lacks. So in a nutshell, if you have taken calculus before, are really good at math, Cremins is a good choice. If you are not so great at math and want a slightly easier grading policy, Justin's the way to go.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 amgarcia 03/03/2011	awesome guy, great teacher!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH220 Expecting an A clue 02/06/2011	One of my favorite teachers last semester, and definitely the best math teacher I've ever had. He is very entertaining and makes the information and the class interesting. He goes in-depth and explains everything very subtly. The exams are not difficult -- as long as you pay attention in class and do the practice exams posted online, you should be fine.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent Expecting an A Anonymous 01/09/2011	I am in love with Justin! He's a math GOD..and I mean that! He not only writes down every little detail on the board but is such an approachable and nice guy! He genuinely wants his students to learn! If you go to class, take notes, and study a little..you will surely get an A! Besides his awesome teaching skills...he makes super cute jokes and has a nice accent. You'll want to marry him-trust me! He is too good to be true.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/19/2010	Justin is one of the best professors I've encountered at this university. He's very easy to relate to with his young spirited style (always wearing chucks to class). The accent is a nice touch to whatever he has to say, as well, along with his sense of humor. His lectures are VERY organized, as he writes from left to right on the board, and NEATLY. You won't miss a thing he's saying, and if you do, he's always happy to answer your questions. I had him first thing in the morning, and it was a very nice class to wake up to (:
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2010	This guy is the greatest! He writes everything down on the board and explains all the concepts throuroughly. His exams are extremely fair and he posts sample exams up. He is a very down to earth guy that you can talk to. He also has the best accent ever and is super cute : ) I took Math130 and 131 with him and he made it easy to understand. You wil have to work and practice calculus no matter who you take, but Justin makes class very interesting and he throws little jokes around during lecture!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/17/2010	I took this course with Cremins in Spring 2010, but got a D so had to retake it. I wish I had taken it with Justin in the first place. Justin writes out his notes neatly in 4 columns on the board, so that they are easy to understand, and when you go back to study your notes everything makes sense. He also gives 2 sample exams prior to every exam that basically prepare you. The quizzes and bio worksheets depend on the TAs, so hopefully you have nice ones. I absolutely loved him, plus I think I was motivated to go to his lecture because of his accent.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH220 Anonymous 12/13/2010	well for one. i am in love with him. i tell my friends about justin all the time. but all jokes aside he is the best math teacher i have ever had. i took calculus in highschool and failed it miserably. he makes calculus doable. you can tell he really enjoys teaching as well. the lectures are great. he writes down EVERYTHING and he writes down similar problems that will be on the hw, not just the easy ones. he is just great. he says little jokes every once in a while just to make people laugh. hes just really chill. i want him for 221 next semester but i don't have time. so i will wait until he teaches it again. seriously you are a fool if you don't take him and you have the opportunity. he is that great did i mention i am in love with him
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH220 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/10/2010	Greatest math teacher ever! Seriously, he is really good. He goes through everything step by step, explains what everything mean. Gives sample exams and throughly goes over it! Possibly the best math teacher anywhere. ALso, he tells a lot of jokes, which is a rarity with math teachers.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Anonymous 12/09/2010	Justin is one of the best professors I've had during my years here. He breaks everything down so it's easily understandable and the exams, for the most part, are very straight forward since he provides you with a sample exam and goes over it in class. He's funny and very receptive to questions.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A ayoungin 12/01/2010	If you have an opportunity to take him, do it. You will love yourself for it I had him for 130 and 131. They work the same way: -you gotta go to the hour and 15 min lecture. It rarely ever feels that long and he writes EVERYTHING on the board [so spacing out for a few won't kill you]. -one math discussion a week with a 10 point quiz. he only counts 10. there are 13 or 14. win. -one bio discussion a week with an easy 10 point group work. same deal: only counts 10. win again. -you'll only need the textbook for [optional] homework or extra review problems. - he gives one or two sample exams. he gives an ENTIRE lecture before a test as a review day. go to it,do the sample exams, and YOU CAN'T FAIL. This man was born to teach calculus. And he has a sweet accent. That's the formula for a great professor.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140 Anonymous 11/09/2010	I kind of want to marry Justin. Or be him. Yeah, he's that good.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting a B plmqaz 10/27/2010	I would give this dude a 10/5 if I could, he's that great. Literally could answer any question anyone had immediately. Has such an all-encompassing handle on the material he's able to teach it to you in his sleep. He is a phenomenal teacher and I am so glad I took his course, just to see what a good teacher is like!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140 Expecting a B Anonymous 09/21/2010	I had taken calc1 3 weeks later the previous semester with Okijo he had a longer name and i learned nothing in the course. But Justin taught everything perfectly. He did a amazing job explaining concepts and, unlike most professors, started out like you knew nothing. He would explain things that you thought you knew, but he would give you a deeper understanding about it. He is a really cool guy and makes lecture fun with his jokes.If your taking calc, make sure you have him as your professor and no one else. He is hands down the best teacher I've ever had. lol I wish he taught calc 3 lol
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/11/2010	I also took Gulick's 140 my first semester here and although he was a great teacher, I still had a difficulty learning and understanding the material. Justin made it really simple and easy to understand. By writting literally every word on the board taking notes was easy. His sense of humor and cool accent are an added bonus! I really wish he taught all of my math classes!!!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140 Expecting an A- xbfrittsox360 05/06/2010	There's a reason Justin is the highest rated professor on this site: he is the absolute man. I had the privilege to take MATH140 with him this semester and understood the material 10 times better than when I did in high school. He teaches the material with such clarity that it is impossible to not understand what is going on (no matter how dumb you may be). What separates him from every other professor here at UMD is his teaching style. He is incredibly fun and engaging with the students. He always goes off topic with a joke or random topic at least once per class and it just makes you think to yourself "this guy is so cool." This may sound like a strange love story, but I guarantee you that if you take this class (or any class) with Justin, you will feel the same way. One day I saw him walking around campus in his red converse sneakers enjoying the awesome weather outside and I feel like that sums up who he is completely: the best professor I've ever had. Thank you Justin!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH130 Expecting a B eeverhar 05/06/2010	Justin is a really great professor! His lectures are really easy to follow, and actually makes the lecture a little more fun. He does everything in a way that is really easy to understand, but even if you still can't grasp the concept, he is always willing to talk to you after lecture, at office hours, or whenever. You still need to study, but most of the time, a lot of the problems are right from the old exams, or from class problems. I would recommend Justin to anyone who needs to take a math course.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/06/2010	Great professor. Teaches on a good pace for everyone to follow and understand the content. Justin gets his students well prepared for the exams. If student gets a bad grade, there's no excuse because Justin does everything he possibly could to get the students prepared for the exams. A really good professor and I wouldn't want any other math professor other than Justin.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/22/2010	I took Gulicks 140 and failed with a D. He is by no means a bad proff however. He just doesnt teach it the way Justin does. Justin thoroughly enjoys the nuances and implications of what he teaches and puts everything in terms that non math majors can understand. He starts with a non proof driven explaination and follows it up with the reasoning/proof. Drastically simplifies the overwhelming material in the book. I have not opened it once this semester. every question i've had could be answered by my notes. Ive definately needed to study for the exams but my work has been rewarded. The exact same amount of work in Gulicks earned me a D but i fully expect an A or B+ this go-round.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH130 Expecting an A amic41 03/02/2010	LOVE HIM!!!!!! If you have a choice definitely choose him as your professor.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/19/2010	I am certainly not a math person, but I actually did really well in Justin's class. He was such a GREAT teacher. Studying for exams was very doable because he always gave practice exams so you knew what to prepare for. He was also hilarious in class and just an all around nice guy. DEFINITELY take him if you can!!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A+ acgonzal 02/08/2010	Single best professor that I had last semester. I cant really add much beyond what the other reviewers have said. He is just truly that excellent. He really made math fun, and the only way that he could have made the class easier was to take the exam for you. Beyond that, he really explained things well, so that the stuff that I learned in AP Stat and AP Calc finally clicked into place and made sense in the context of the world. Try to get Justin as your prof if at all possible.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A nbambata 01/24/2010	Im sure hereally donesnt need anyone else say how great of a teacher he is but for anyone that is thinking about taking one of his classes think no more do it! He is one of the best teachers UMD has to offer!!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/13/2010	Took justin for 130 and 131 he is the best math teacher I have ever had, not only is he a really awesome teacher, he is soooo chill. the environment in class is fun and loose and he actually cares about his students! Take justin if u can he is the man!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH403 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/23/2009	Abstract Algebra was probably the most difficult course I have taken so far in college, but it was all worth it because I learned an incredible amount thanks to Justin's awesome teaching skills! I had him for 246 last semester, so I decided to give this class a try because he was teaching it. 403 was a very tough course for me, but I'm sure I would have failed the class if any other professor had taught it. Justin lectures is such a straightforward, easy-to-follow manner and explains everything he writes of the chalkboard. He provides plenty of examples so that everyone can comprehend the meaning of theorems, definitions, and proofs he writes on the board. Unlike most of the professors in the math department, Justin actually cares about his students and doesn't brush them off. He responds to emails very quickly and has numerous office hours available if you need extra help, since many of us did need it. The exams were pretty hard, but straightforward nonetheless, with averages/medians usually in the 50s. He does give an appropriate curve so if you think you're failing, don't worry, all hope is not lost!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A Pokarose 12/23/2009	Justin was an amazing teacher. He took the time to explain things to you in an engaging way. His lectures were never boring and they never seemed as long as they really were. He always uses real life examples relating to our field of study so that we could feel as though we were actually learning something. He not only teaches you how to do something, but often teaches you why you are doing it that way and how the formula was derived. His tests were very straight forward and closely resembled the practice exams, so you always knew what to study. He was an amazing teacher who really loved to teach. He also computes your grade two different ways at the end of the 131 course and takes the higher of the two grades. I highly recommend taking Justin's classes, you won't regret it.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A+ Pugluvr291 12/23/2009	Justin is a fantastic professor. He is extremely knowledgeable, but teaches in a format that is conducive for all students to succeed. He is extremely fun and all students actually enjoy going to his classes. The workload is perfect and his tests, quizzes, and group works couldn't be more fair. He is ALWAYS available for help outside of class. He is the best and funniest professor I have ever met. TAKE THIS CLASS. I promise you that you will do amazing (if you work hard) and you will actually want to go to class. Justin clearly cares about all his students and I think the good ratings below me vouch that he is an amazing professor. He gives sample exams to help you prep for his exams and he drops 3 quizzes and 3 group works. The homework is good practice for the exams so I really advise you do it. However, it is not collected/graded so it is not mandatory. My only regret is not failing this class so I could take him again!!! Overall, the best professor UMD has!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH131 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2009	Highly recommended. Justin is one of the best professors - funny, engaging, and organized. He teaches in a way where even the most struggling student can understand. He takes everything step-by-step in a very organized and simple way. I did not even have to look in my book for help once. The only time I opened the book was when I was doing the homework problems. Also, the sample exams are very similar to the actual exams.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH141H Expecting an A Anonymous 10/24/2009	Justin is by far the best teacher in the math department. He covers everything you need to know in depth and focuses on things that each class is having trouble with. He takes it personally if his class does poorly on his exams and really puts in the effort to make sure they don't. That being said, his exams aren't easy but aren't impossible either. If you do the work and go to class you will do fine.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH246 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/04/2009	Justin is a great professor. he doesnt make you learn all of the unnecessary things that the other 246 teachers make you learn. his tests are basic and there is nothing that is on there to try to trick you. they are basically the same as the practice tests he gives, which really help a lot. the final exam was a little bit more difficult because it is a uniform exam and there are things that he did not cover, as far as i know. (i did not go to many classes at the end of the semester) he probably would have curved it, but he had taught the other material so well, our class did better than the classes who covered more material. Overall, if you put any effort into this class, there is no reason to not get an A
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH246 Expecting a B highvoltage81 07/09/2009	I had Justin for Diff eq, which on its own is moderately hard. He was different from wolfe who i had the semester prior in that he didnt just write up all the formulas on the board or derive them, he went through step by step to show you the methods you needed to know, and his tests clearly followed his lectures. im taking him again for math403!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH406 Expecting an A a778999 05/24/2009	Great professor. Made the material easy to understand. I didn't even need to buy the book because the notes were so clear. However his curve isn't really generous so don't expect a free A.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH246 Expecting an A cityazndan 05/23/2009	Great class. Exams were like the samples. Screw the MATLAB book...guides were always posted. Excellent professor who broke MATH246 down into the simplest of terms. As long as you do the MATLABs, do well on the exams, and take a decent amount of quizzes, you have the A on lockdown. The final was VERY similar to the ones on testbank.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH246 Expecting a B kvizzle321 04/28/2009	Justin is a great professor. MATH246 is a very hard class, and the book they give you is not very good at explaining, so lectures are very important when learning the material. He was pretty flexible with missed MATLAB assignments, which were pretty frustrating. Additionally there are weekly quizzes in discussion but he drops a few of them. I missed many lectures and quizzes and still have a chance to get a B. As long as you go to lectures and take all the notes, you will have no problem getting a good grade in Justin's class.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH246 Expecting an A jwong89 04/20/2009	By far the best math professor I've had. If you go to class and write down all the notes he writes on the board, the only time you will open your book is to see what the homework problems are. Lectures are very organized, starts with the theory and then shows a couple of examples. The best thing is that he only teaches what you need to know for the tests and the tests themselves are really easy. He doesn't try to trick you with the tests and the sample exams he gives are very similar to the actual tests. Basically, if you can do the sample exams you will know how to do the entire test. Weekly quizzes are a pain, but he only takes the top ten. MATLAB is similarly a pain, but he posts guides to the MATLAB assignments that are pretty much a step by step guide to the problems. If you can, take Justin for any math class that you have to take.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH220 Expecting an A+ physicalfitness 04/19/2009	The best professor I have had at UMD. If you are taking 220, you need to have him. He teaches the material so clearly and what he writes on the board is what you need to know. My roommate and I took 220 at the same time, and with his professor (one of the authors of the textbook) he suffered a lot and did so much more work. The webassigns are tough, but he dropped your 4 lowest ones. He is known to be the best 220 lecturer. I got an A+ and I know 5 other ppl in my discussion did too.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH130 Expecting a B PossePrincess 04/12/2009	Justin is amazing. I was considering taking 220 for my required calculus course, because it's the easiest. However, everyone raved about Justin, so I decided to take 130. I'm no math person, but he makes this class easy. I am definitely taking him again for 131!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH246 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/06/2009	You know? I would write an amazing review, but it seems like everything I could have said about him (all good) has already been said multiple times. I just felt like reinforcing the positive ratings anyway.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH220 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/23/2009	Very nice guy. I missed a scheduled exam and he let me re-take it without question. Great professor. Makes calculus concepts simple and easy.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH246 Expecting an A warthog 12/24/2008	I flunked Diff Eq twice, and had to beg for special permission to take it again. I took Justin's 246 one summer, and finally understood everything and got an A. Absolutely wonderful professor, can't recommend highly enough. Also, I just read this comments page after reading Wolfe's. Total opposites, haha.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/23/2008	Genuinely wants to help students. He posts study guides and sample exams to help... Arguably, one of the best math professors in the university.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2008	Class is relaxed, tough material but Justin makes lectures fun and easy to follow - he writes in complete sentences :) Lectures and discussions are necessary, sometimes missing one makes it hard to catch up.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140H Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2008	Justin is my favorite teacher this semester by far. He's funny and explains everything really well. I never have fallen asleep in this class because he makes class interesting. Before the tests, he gives out sample exams which are really good to study from. He's really good at clarifying everything that anyone might have a problem with. I never figured a calculus class would be my favorite class, but Justin is awesome and I was pleasantly surprised.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent Expecting an A Anonymous 12/10/2008	Explains everything in details. Instead of forcing us to memorize formulas, he taught us how to derive them. His notes are so good, you'll understand everything without even open the textbook(btw, I suggest the math department make copies for the hw problems on the textbook only for Justin's class. So that we don't have to spend so much $ on a piece of brick). Justin is great, and I completely agree with the person who said "i once was lost but now am found!" ......
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH141H Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/10/2008	This teacher is really awesome. His notes are really great and organized so I have a sweet notebook for review. If you have to take Calc 2, Justin is the best teacher to objectively help you understand the material and prepare for the tests. I'm taking my final on monday and I'm nervous about it but I feel like Justin made me more prepared than any other teacher could have.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A apekzhrk 12/08/2008	I wanna say that he's a really bad teacher so that his classes won't be full when I have to register!! But he is the BEST mathematics teacher ever. Unlike other professors, he is very detailed and uses simple analogies and other forms of explanations that makes it easier to understand the material. He doesn't regurgitate the textbook to you at all. You just sit in his lectures and the material will just seep into your brain.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140H Anonymous 12/05/2008	explains everything really well. tests are hard - but fair granted he teaches really well.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH220 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/01/2008	OMG! hes an awesome prof!!! i had pilachowski last year and had a D in calc. but i retook it with Gallifent and may i say i once was lost but now am found!. hes the awesomest prof ever! explains everything!!!! i am usually the C student but this case the teacher was fair. he doesnt put mean problems on his exams and has an awesome sense of humor!!! the homeworks prepare you for the exam and the TA's can be really helpful. overall i would really recommend him to average students (especially bio majors who have other more important classes to worry about) =)
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/12/2008	Best teacher ever! He explains everything thoroughly and makes a lot of jokes which makes lecture helpful and enjoyable. He doesn't curve but he explains everything so well you won't need a curve anyway. Definitely take him for any and every math class you can!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH241 Expecting an A dm 11/10/2008	Justin = GOD. this guy is amazing, i would recommend him over ANY math professor. he is so organized, the sample exams are very similar to the actual ones. He's very humble, and does not assume you to know more than you should know. If he's offering a class, take it! The whole 'Justin' experience is something you should not miss out on!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting an A- xinio64 07/28/2008	One of the best math professors at UMD. He did a wonderful job explaining the material to us and was more the willing to help us whenever he could. Like other people said, write down the stuff he writes on the board. It's enough info to study with. The textbook you use is crap anyway, so don't rely on it. We didn't even have to address him formally, he just told us to call him "Justin". He's so cool. I wish he could teach all of my classes. The material for MATH240 is still quite difficult, however. You have to pay attention and do the assigned homework. But Justin will help you as much as he can. TAKE HIS CLASS WHENEVER POSSIBLE.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2008	Amazing professor. Is very approachable and teaches in a very relaxed and fun style. Always welcomes questions in class and attendance at office hours. He posts sample exams for each exam in the course. They're similar to the actual exams, but not verbatim. Analyze the sample exam questions and try to think of ways of re-phrasing the questions as some of the actual exam questions can be a bit tricky. Write down everything he says in lecture and you'll never need to open the book except to do homework problems. Studied right off of my class notes. I would definitely recommend taking a math course with him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Anonymous 05/19/2008	By far, the greatest math teacher I've ever had. Very clear and straight forward, easy to understand. He is also very kind and approachable and he prepares you well for exams. People do well on the exams not because they're easy, but because everyone actually learns the material. I completely agree with one of the comments below....if you are a girl, you will want to marry him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting a B pluralfacade 05/15/2008	Best. Teacher. Ever. He makes math interesting and fairly understandable. Just like someone else said, you can copy down what he writes on the board verbatim and that will be more than enough material to study from.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting an A dk11 04/24/2008	Best Math teacher ever. His lectures are awesome. He has a great sense of humor which makes the lectures so much fun. He puts up 2 sample exams for each exam which is really helpful. And the MATLAB assignments are pretty easy too. Overall a great professor and an easy class .
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Anonymous 04/22/2008	Go to the Lectures and just write down everything he writes even if you aren't paying attention because you will be able to read the notes and understand exactly how to do everything. Make sure you look at the homework every once and a while because he will explain the concepts so well that you will understand the problems in class but then when it gets to a quiz you might not remember. He also makes MATLAB simple and easy, you should have no problem with matlab even if you hate it and if you do, email him and most likely he will give you a hint.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent Expecting a B Anonymous 04/17/2008	greatest math teacher ever. he explains one concept in lots of different ways so that you'll eventually understand one way of it. unlike the guy who said his overelaborating was bad, i think it was an excellent technique. it made it stick in your head, and he reeeally helped u understand the really hard stuff. very good teaching skills. hes funny too, which is hard to be when your a math professor. he keeps u interested. exams are very fair. he always gives 2 sample exams. u review one in lecture and one in discussion. the questions on the exam will be some type of integrated version of those questions. helps a LOT. MATLABs are also fairly easy. he'll help if u go to him for help on them. oh, and the BO is because the armory smells like crap ALL the time, no matter what room ur in. its not justin.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH221 Anonymous 03/31/2008	Amazing professor. I had a really good Calc teacher in High School and his teaching style was very similar so I had no problem with the material. He is very detailed in his lectures, and probably is the only math teacher who writes full sentences on the blackboard. The intense detail can get a little boring sometimes, but I would prefer that than a quick overview and then not understand what he's saying. He has a great sense of humor and is very upbeat. I highly recommend his class.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH221 kmann2989 01/07/2008	Really good teacher but it was soooo elementary at times. I guess thats why the course is elementary calculus. Its good if you don't understand math at all, but can be kind of pointless if you do. His tests are exactly like the review sheets, if you can understand them, the tests will be a piece of cake. Also drops like the lowest 7 webassigns which was amazing!! Worst part about the class was discussion, the hardest little quizes ever, maybe just my T.A.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH240 Expecting a B yayourumd 12/18/2007	Justin was by far the best math professor I've ever had. He teaches math in a way that people who aren't actually geniuses can understand it. He was the only good experience I've had with the math department, adn was basically just amazing. He was phenomenal and awesome in every way shape and form and you should all go out of your way to take his class. He also had a great sense of humor which helped a lot. And to the person who said he has BO, I have no clue what he's talking about. I had to go to him for help and talk tohim after class a lot and never had an issue. I'm guessing that the anonymous person was anonymous because the BO is actually theirs and were trying to cover it up!!
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH140H Anonymous 12/18/2007	Horrible teacher. Over-elaborates things that should come as common sense to people. Tests are a ridiculous waste of time. Nice guy, but horrible as a teacher. And if you're going to be in his class, I suggest bringing yourself a scented candle or something. Massive BO.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH221 Anonymous 11/17/2007	Best teacher ever. period. you will want to go to class, and if you're a girl, marry him.
Justin Wyss-Gallifent MATH115 Expecting an A jjubar 10/29/2007	He teaches in a way that makes everyone understand everything, and is very receptive to questions. He also has a great sense of humor, so it makes it bearable to do math at 8am.