http://www.CourseReviews.comCourseReviews.com - East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvaniaen-usCopyright 1997-2008 CourseReviews.comTue, 19 Aug 2008 10:00 ESThttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssdylan.feed@coursereviews.com (CourseReviews.com)dylan.webmaster@dylangreene.com (Dylan Greene) hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review41289/Quite-the-Proficient-ProfessorProfessor Williams is a good, but difficult instructor. She has something important to offer her students in programming classes, and that is personal experience. She is fluent in the languages she teaches. She taught the Object Oriented Programming class in Java, which is quite similar to C++ and I would highly recommend learning this language in some class, as it is very versatile and highly transportable across platforms (at least more so than most other languages.) I considered her homework assignments to be about average in frequency, and I don't think they were unreasonably difficult or lengthy. She gives an extremely adequate amount of time to do the assignments, and the problems I noted most students encountering time wise was that they didn't start the assignments until the last minute. Whatever you do, do not hand in assignments late, as she is entirely intolerant of that. (I think her premise is that it wouldn't be tolerated in the "real world") I felt as though her tests were on the hard side, simply because some of the material covered on the tests wasn't what you would expect, considering what material was covered in the classroom. The classes are primarily about the language itself, while the exams cover object oriented programming from a more broad-spectrum point of view. Her grading seems to be the biggest complaint across the board from her students. She grades quite harshly, and many consider her grading to be unfair. Unlike the other reviewer, I did not note that she graded those outside the major differently than those who were Comp-Sci majors, (perhaps there were no non-majors in this class) however, even if she did, I would expect to be held to a higher standard since this is my major. I don't consider that unfair. She definitely will pick apart your work, and expects perfection in your coding. Also, make note of things she mentions in class regarding assignments, and be sure to ask questions about the assignments. She does not make "suggestions!!" If she mentions something regarding an assignment, she expects to find it in the assignment, and she will SLAM you if you don't heed her "suggestion." Creativity is not recommended or appreciated. She makes herself very available to the students, by providing copious office hours, and even gives her home phone number so she can be reached on weekends and such. I found her to be quite personable, and enjoyed her lectures. She offers a great deal of information, however, she often hands out printouts of the lecture, so you can focus on what she is saying, not on writing everything down. She shows a multitude of examples, which always makes it easier to understand how things work, and will not hesitate to code on the fly if there is something in particular that the students want to see. I was quite impressed by that, as a lot of instructors won't take the chance that their code won't work in front of students, so they won't do it off the cuff. I definitely recommend this instructor, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're going to float through this class, you definitely need to go to class (she takes attendance every day) and work for your grade. One last note, regarding coding for this instructor in any language, document, document, document. She is HUGE on documentation and test cases, and no matter how good your code is, your grades will suffer gravely if you do not document your code well, and in the manner she expects. Look closely at the examples she shows in class to note her documentation and test case requirements and follow them closely.noemail@coursereviews.com (Student101)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review41289/Quite-the-Proficient-Professor#comments2004-01-05T10:09:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review41289/Quite-the-Proficient-Professorhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review41288/According-to-Zarach-quotYou-are-dead-bodyquotThis man's level of understanding and knowledge about mathematics is no different than any of the other math instructors I have experienced at ESU, it is exemplary. I consider the entire math department at this university to be of an extremely high caliber. His lectures are succinct, and relatively clear, his examples are concise and his recall (in all areas) is amazing. The homework requirements for the class are about average, with one being due nearly every week. They are relatively difficult, and you will accrue points toward your final grade via these assignments. Do NOT miss even one assignment! He makes himself extremely available for outside help, and I would say he considers you NOT to be a serious student if you do not seek him out for additional help. Do yourself a favor and get help from him, as it is definitely worthwhile if you can deal with his insults. In addition to homework, he gives several exams, both in class, and take home. The take home exams are quite difficult, and he will tell you straight out that there are some problems that are "impossible," yet the in class exams are quite reasonable. One additional note, he does not appreciate technology, and will not demonstrate anything on your calculator, or use Mathematica for any examples or anything of that nature, however, do not neglect to bring your calculator to class, as he expects you to have it. (no calculators are allowed on in class exams) The problems you will experience with this particular instructor, are not with his level of understanding of the subject matter, but are on a more personal level. He is an immigrant from Poland, and is extremely "old world" in nature. I don't consider that an inherently bad thing, however, although he contends that he is proud to be a new US citizen, he is constantly telling his classes how stupid we Americans are, and how much better it was back in his native land, and I'm fairly certain that he spent at least 11 years in Kindergarten, as he claims all subject matter covered in the Calculus II class was covered at his school in Kindergarten. He has a stringent list of classroom rules, which are distributed via the syllabus on the first day of class. They would be considered by most to simply be common sense, and rules of polite society, however, there are two problems with this. First, he does not follow them himself, eating and drinking in class, while we may not, and second, he enforces them through threats. ("Are you trying to test me? You are dead body!") However beneath his harsh exterior and rude demanor, I am convinced that he has a soft side, so if you take a class with this man, stick it out. I feel certain that he spends the first half of the semester weeding out the students who don't care to learn, and the second half teaching the ones he hasn't scared off. He considers himself quite funny, however, his humor is primarily geared at insulting and criticizing his students. (He considers it appropriate to refer to us as "Morons" and often tells us how stupid we are.) In addition to his classroom banter, he will sprinkle your homework assignments with various insults, and the only blessing you may have is that you probably won't know what they say, as his handwriting is preposterous. His accent is still fairly heavy, although I understand he was nearly impossible to understand when he initially immigrated, so I'm sure this is an improvement. I personally had no trouble understanding him after the first or second week. Overall, I had a reasonably good semester with this instructor; however, I have gone out of my way to avoid taking another class with him. If you go to class, and do the assignments, you WILL learn from this man, and after all, that is the point, isn't it? One final note: Socks with sandals! You have to see it! noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review41288/According-to-Zarach-quotYou-are-dead-bodyquot#comments2004-01-05T09:40:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review41288/According-to-Zarach-quotYou-are-dead-bodyquothttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review39554/The-nicest-and-best-professor-at-ESUProfessor DeCosmo is by far the most professional educator on this campus. Not only that, but he is really nice. He is very personable. He is on campus at 6:30 am and his door is always open. His exams are challenging, but reasonable. Students in his class are embarressed to get a low grade because they feel they've let him down. Homework is at times heavy, but it is not busy work. It helps so much. Exams are given back the next class. He is just a great guy! He is enthuastic with his lecture and never stumbles on words... he knows his stuff. I'll remember his classes for ever.noemail@coursereviews.com (jas6866)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review39554/The-nicest-and-best-professor-at-ESU#comments2003-12-09T13:38:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review39554/The-nicest-and-best-professor-at-ESUhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review37978/Great-teacher-especially-for-an-Assembly-courseProfessor Cole is one of the best the computer science department at ESU has to offer. Exams are usually intermediately difficult and anybody in the class can pass them if they know the material. His homework assignments/projects are great. Some say they are a bit too difficult, but if you put the time into them and 'use the debugger', it becomes pretty easy and you get a great grasp of lower-level programming with Assembly. His lectures are usually very good, but due to the nature of Assembly, some classes will be rather boring. Cole will try to liven up every lecture with some kind of joke. He'll probably bust out at least one good joke a class, which helps keep the students involved. He's easy to understand and teaches exactly what needs to be learned. His schedule office hours seem sparse, but he's actually there a lot more than scheduled. Overall, he's a great teacher.noemail@coursereviews.com (kentonet)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review37978/Great-teacher-especially-for-an-Assembly-course#comments2003-11-14T00:55:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review37978/Great-teacher-especially-for-an-Assembly-coursehttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review28809/A-good-teacherProfessor Freitag in my opinion, did a good job. He seems to know his stuff, and the class is not too difficult. I like the style he teaches the class with as well. Homework is rather difficult at times requiring some thought. This is because you are given a pretty decent amount of time to complete the homework. However, when it comes to exams it isn't so hard. The exams are more based on theory rather than calculations. Meaning he will ask you to apply definitions, relate ideas, but not necessarily solve a problem.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review28809/A-good-teacher#comments2003-08-05T18:02:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review28809/A-good-teacherhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review26593/Unequivocally-the-worst-teacher-I-have-ever-seen-bar-noneWithout exception, this man is the worst instructor I have ever had the misfortune to experience. (And yes, I've had Emert.) His lectures are next to impossible to grasp on so many levels. First, his English is poor and often difficult to understand. Also, he is downright lazy when teaching. Anytime he does not "feel" like explaining something in his lecture (or doesn't understand it himself,) he literally says, "Blah, blah, blah..." We all thought this was pretty funny until we discovered that the blah, blah, blah part was what was on the exams! Lastly, I believe that he simply does not know some of the material he is supposed to be teaching. For example, it took him 3 class lectures to demonstrate "bit by bit CRC testing," which he required us to do as an extensive homework assignment, however at no time was he able to get his examples to prove correct! (In other words, WE had to do it, but HE couldn't!) The slides he uses for his lectures are not his own, although he puts his name on them and presents them in that manner. Because they are not his own, they contain a good bit of material that he does not wish to cover. He provides access to the slides, but with so much material that he does not cover included on them, you are always left wondering exactly what material you will be tested on, and what is "optional." In fact, some 4 hours before the final, students were streaming into his office asking what to study for the final because we literally had no idea what we should expect. He assigned a major semester project, requiring us to code in a language no one knew, did not explain the project, and refused to answer questions, although he would ask if anyone had questions. If you did ask a question, he would either tell you that it wasn't a "specific question" or he would tell you to "ask the other guy" which meant ask someone else. He actually told our class that we should find the code we needed for our project online and CUT AND PASTE it to create our project! The man has no qualms about stealing someone else's work, and in fact encourages his students to do so as well. To my knowledge, at least 50% of the class this semester went to either the Chair of the Department or the Dean, in order to express concern for the lack of teaching this man perpetuates upon his students, however, that was a useless gesture, since nothing came of it (in other words, don't waste your time, no one cares.) One last attribute that I would like to mention regarding this man, and I am unable to determine if it is inherant to his Korean ethnicity or simply yet another character flaw of the man, but he is extremely sexist against the female students in the class, and either dismisses them as though they were merely some pesky annoyance that he is forced to deal with, or virtually ignores them altogether. A number of classes that this man teaches are not taught by anyone else, and therefore, if you are needing networking classes or graduate classes in computer science I would recommend you looking to another college for that degree program. I consider this man to be a serious detriment to this university and a discredit to the teaching profession, and I consider the time I spent taking this class to be the biggest waste of my time and money that I've experienced as a student.noemail@coursereviews.com (Student101)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review26593/Unequivocally-the-worst-teacher-I-have-ever-seen-bar-none#comments2003-05-23T13:00:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review26593/Unequivocally-the-worst-teacher-I-have-ever-seen-bar-nonehttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review25199/Top-o-the-lineI have to disagree with the review of Professor Cavanaugh on this board. I'm currently taking his calc 2 class, I'm not doing well at all. I'm doing everything I can just to hopefully go an E to a C from his class. ESU has many faults, like a lot of Universities, but their math department is great. As stated, Prof. Cavanaugh is the Chair. This guy has more knowledge about math than I could hope to learn in my lifetime. He explains it in a manner everyone can understand, and yeah, he's not perfect, he'll screw up once in a while. But he makes a joke of it and gets people laughing. He is always available for help it seems, and he's really great about taking the content to a way in which you'll understand it. Granted on a personal level, at the beginning of the semester, he seems ruthless. You'll get the occasional "Drop cards are in the office..." when no one answers a question that he's asking, but its just his way of getting people motivated. He's pretty sympathetic as the semester goes on, and it seems he goes from ruthless to a really funny guy. If you can get past that much, and you tough it out, you're really going to learn a lot from this guy. He's tough, his exams are EXTREMELY tough, and he does not collect homework. Some may see that as a good thing, but its just more grades that won't help you in the end. He gives quizzes each week, consisting of one, at max TWO questions, but he always seeks to challenge you and take you above the bare minimum knowledge level. The only other suggestion I can offer is to take a previous class with him, like Calc 1, so you get a feel for his methods. I came from Prof. Prince's Calc 1 class (she's another great one), so it took me a while to get used to Cavanaugh. This guy is top of the line, but its not an easy course. Tough it out, and if you need help, GO TO HIM. Despite his in class demeanor, he really is a totally different person when he's sitting there walking you through problems one on one.noemail@coursereviews.com (Kasal)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review25199/Top-o-the-line#comments2003-04-24T21:26:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review25199/Top-o-the-linehttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24973/Avoid-at-all-costsI took this class too and the other review is spot on. She's very spiteful and does not keep her temper outside of the classroom. She is also a reverse racist, and actually lectures on the subject quite a lot. Be prepared to get chewed out if you're even slightly late and humiliated if you don't see eye to eye with her on something. She constantly gives pop quiz and essay tests without warning and will not discuss with you what you've missed if you happen to have to take a bit of time off.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24973/Avoid-at-all-costs#comments2003-04-18T02:08:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24973/Avoid-at-all-costshttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24972/Dont-say-a-wordUnfortunately, there's no choice but to take abnormal psychology with Hodge. She will NOT give you an A, so get that out of your head from the start. No matter what you get on the tests, the case studies will drop you down, guaranteed. Her speaking skills are laughable. She positions her glasses on the end of her nose so she can look down at you, and mumbles so that only people within a three foot radius can hear. Oh, and don't give your opinion on anything. It will be wrong, and she will let you know. She will get very upset and yell and scream and embarrass you, should you venture on opinion on anything. One more warning...read the chapters AHEAD OF TIME. She gives very mean and unreasonable pop quizzes.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24972/Dont-say-a-word#comments2003-04-18T02:00:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24972/Dont-say-a-wordhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24736/Lick-My-Scrotums-EmertHe is the best professor I've ever had...My a$$ he is...I am one of those freakin freshmen this year...and u know wat..i am tranfering out of here...first of his son lives in my dorm and he tried to fail his own son..what kind of guy is he...probably didn't even know his son was in his class since he cares less about who is in his class...Listen to this, I have all A's on the test and quizes, yet I have a 50% in the freakin class...His grading is outstandingly rediculous...I couldn't figure out why it was that I was failing the class...so I redid every piece of HW word for word..come to find out he takes off for extra spaces in your HW..YES..this man takes off for every "accidental" mistake...He grades the HW as if they were freakin test...Would someone please let me know wat you learned in this class besides leaning how to let a prick of a professor fail you...I advise Never, ever, ever, ever take this guys class unless u dont mind getting a B or below...Because he refuses to believe anyone is smart enough to pass his class...If I had the power to protest him out of that school I would because he is just one of the worst in that school there is many, but he tops them all. I think I'm going to print out all of these forums and make hundreds of copies and throw them all over the union and his junky office which he believe, "A messy work area is a sign of genious," did anyone else catch that bull saying he's got...Neway he is THE worst...do not take his class...You WILL regret it.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24736/Lick-My-Scrotums-Emert#comments2003-04-12T08:27:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24736/Lick-My-Scrotums-Emerthttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24247/Quite-simply-the-worst-professor-Ive-had-thus-far"Professor" Emert is frankly one of the worst teachers I've ever had, even including grade school. His lectures consist entirely of him reading his (somewhat unprofessional) slides to you, despite the fact that you could easily print out hard copies of them all. His voice is extremely annoying and sometimes hard to understand. His office is a complete mess, with miscellany scattered across the floor and no sign of clear organization. Handwriting of corrections to exams, homework and quizzes is usually hard to read, which is expected from a CPSC professor. Exams in this class are terrible. Emert grades them so unbelievable anally and literally walks around the classroom looking for cheaters the entire time. It tends to become quite distracting. If you don't label tests exactly to his specifications, he marks the answer as being completely wrong. This guy should not be teaching required courses in the CPSC major.noemail@coursereviews.com (kentonet)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24247/Quite-simply-the-worst-professor-Ive-had-thus-far#comments2003-03-28T11:24:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24247/Quite-simply-the-worst-professor-Ive-had-thus-farhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24161/Smart-but-not-a-very-good-professorCavanaugh is currently the chair of ESU's mathematics department, which may be a cause for some of his lacking as a professor. He seems sort of lazy when it comes to the class. During lectures he often 'wings it' and makes quite a few mistakes. Look for the "Ah, dummy!" exclamation during every lecture. Exams are very difficult and probably too difficult for learning students who understand technique but don't yet have concrete foundations, which is almost the entire class. The 50 minute class period is definitely not enough to finish his exams with any amount of confidence. He never assigns any homework, probably because he doesn't have/want to take the time to grade it, being the department chair. Quizzes are usually acceptable but he isn't very generous with time given to complete them. One thing to his credit is he is very knowledgable about the subject material.noemail@coursereviews.com (kentonet)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24161/Smart-but-not-a-very-good-professor#comments2003-03-25T20:34:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review24161/Smart-but-not-a-very-good-professorhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review19919/My-mistakeI don't even know where to begin. I took this class because it's an intro class, and I figured I knew a good deal about computers already. Boy, was I wrong! Besides having absolutely no people skills, Professor Emert could not be any less interested in student's success. The PowerPoint Slides are wordy and complicated. And yes, I bought the $65 book and no, I haven't opened it once. I work twice as hard for this class as I do for my major classes! Our assignments are long and complicated, and no matter how much time and effort you put into it, don't expect to get higher than a B. I was beginning to wonder if this was even a computer USES class, because we have only used the computer 5 or 6 times in the semester, which is almost over! You would think the administration would wake up and realize that this man is awful! I feel so bad for the poor unsuspecting freshmen who arbitrarily get placed in his classes. No wonder so many transfer out after their first year. I just wish he cared more about the students than he does. He doesn't even care to learn your name. You don't want a professor who doesn't care about you or your success. I would highly recommend NOT taking Professor Emert. It's in your best interest, especially if you would like to actually learn something.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review19919/My-mistake#comments2002-11-19T21:04:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review19919/My-mistakehttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review19865/Waste-of-money-and-time-for-allI too took this class with "Professor" Emert. I am a computer science major and he is by far one of the worst teachers I have ever had. The books were a waste of money. The stuff we were taught in class had absolutetly nothing to do with the material in the books. A big waste of money and a GIANT waste of time. Unfortunately he is the only teacher that they have who teaches this class. ESU better wake up and figure out a better way of teaching withOUT this guy in their department. He talks about how great he is as a programmer maybe they should put him in front of one of those classes. He's so good in fact he makes up his own programming language within the USELESS powerpoint slides he provides us with. The tests are too much information and the only place to get the information is from those powerpoint slides again. The homework forget it. He laughs at you when you try to do floating point instead of helping you out. He gloats about how hard it is and how he can fry our brains. Real funny professor you should find out what the people really say. If you ever need to get in touch with him forget it. He is never in his office. He responds the one liner emails quite often though. If you have to goto his office good luck because it's so messy and disorganized it's almost scary. Is this an indication of what type of teacher he is? I think so. Think again before taking this class unless you absolutely need it. What a joke of a teacher.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review19865/Waste-of-money-and-time-for-all#comments2002-11-18T19:30:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review19865/Waste-of-money-and-time-for-allhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4861/Beware-of-the-professorM.S., 1954, Leningrad University Obviously he is a rather old professor. If he graduated college in 1954 that makes him in his upper sixties to lower seventies. Also you can see he was born in Russia and it shows. He has some of the worst speaking skills I have ever heard in a professor. The problem is the class is all lecture, nothing else. This makes the class near impossible. The class is an hour and 15 minutes and he will talk the entire time. The class is not in a computer lab, so you have to take notes rather than program. Have a fun time trying to figure out what he is saying. Even if you can understand him, you will undoubtedly fall asleep soon after class starts. He has a very monotonic voice like Ben Stein only worse. He sits at his desk for the most part and just goes over an entire package or function while the rest of the class dozes off. Sometimes he will tell everyone to sit an read an entire page in our book, that means the class gets silent for five minutes while the professor takes a rest from talking. Do you like when the teacher gives you notes? You won’t like his; they could be cooking notes for all I know. If his English is poor, his handwriting is worse. I think he is left-handed, but uses his right for fun. All joking aside, you seriously will have a hard time reading anything he gives you. If any teacher should give notes that are typed you think it would be a computer science teacher, ha not him. Homework is not too bad. Simple bookwork that is at the end of each chapter, fair enough. The programs he assigns however are a different story. Forget about sitting down and doing a program, that doesn’t happen. His programs take many man-hours to complete. In my opinion his programs ask too much, also he does not provide any skeleton program like other teachers do, you are on your own. To demonstrate his laziness, he only wants a printed copy of your program; he doesn’t need it on disk. This means he has no real proof that the program even runs. It is easy to fake data and results. He just goes through your program and check marks each page. If I were you I would seriously consider taking another professor if there are any others teaching this course. Friedman is of the poorest quality. He tries to teach, but no one can understand what he is saying. Forget asking him a question, he will answer with more words that are not recognizable. I’m not being too harsh either, I have spoken to many people who are not originally from America, however I find him to be very hard to understand. He slurs his words together and links each word with uuuuuhhh….. On top of a VERY challenging course, the teacher who does not speak or write in English does not make for a fun experience. Forget about the mid-term and final in his class. Just try to do good on your programs because no one does well on his tests. He gives you the blue book with paper and tells you to write two entire packages from memory, what a joke! Then there are several other questions on the tests that are formed in such a way that no one would understand. Also you may have guessed it, the entire tests are handwritten, so you must first decode what they say. Beware of this professor. noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4861/Beware-of-the-professor#comments2000-03-29T10:22:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4861/Beware-of-the-professorhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4860/Very-fairProfessor Drago is a very fair teacher. He is the real deal; he is a fully-fledged active psychologist who has an office off campus. He knows his stuff and is very interesting to listen to since he doesn’t just spit out facts, but gives you examples and stories. He also shows great movies and really captures your interest. My only gripe would be that since he is always dealing with clients at his office, it is hard to get in touch with him if you need to. However there isn’t much reason to talk to him. He lectures what is in the book so you have two ways of learning, from him or at your dorm. One of the coolest things he does is he will spend the entire class before a test or a good portion of it going over what will be on the test. All you have to do is write down the topics he says and study them; you will get an A or B. He usually curves the test if he sees a good portion of the class got the same thing/s wrong. Overall a very fair teacher, but he is not too easy. There is a good deal of reading and studying you must do, but it is reasonable. He is a very good professor and I recommend him. If you are looking at taking a course in psychology try to get in his class. I have heard horror stories about other teachers in his dept. Try to take him, you won’t be sorry.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4860/Very-fair#comments2000-03-29T08:29:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4860/Very-fairhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4859/Very-PoorWhere should I start with “Professor” Emert. Well for starters he is the worst professor I’ve had to date. Do you like to waste money? This course may be for you. You start out by purchasing a $90 book and a $45 book, which is $135 down the drain because he never uses the books. You may think I’m kidding but you seriously do not use the books. He “teaches” things that are not in the books and if you do not understand what he is saying in class you are screwed. I guess I’ll move on to his teaching technique, I hope you enjoy PowerPoint slides because they are all you will see. He gives you handouts of important graphs but the copious amounts of text on the slides of his you must copy down. However the PowerPoint slides are of the worst quality and can be hard to understand. You spend a good deal of time learning about binary conversions (hex, oct, ect) and his slides do not show the steps needed to take for the conversion to work. You just see what you started out with and the end result, I hope you know how it got there. When it comes time to take a test or a quiz this guy is crazy. He always goes out of his way to make at least two different quizzes so you cannot cheat and he walks around the entire class the whole time. That isn’t really a bad thing, but since he is so paranoid about cheating he obviously did a great deal of it in his day. Also you must show ALL of our work when doing floating-point conversions and whatnot. If you don’t he will once again think you are cheating. That $90 calculator you bought is worthless in his class too. Since you can program things into it, he considers it s cheating device, so you have to purchase a 4-function calculator or use none at all. The homework is very hard and his slides are of little to no use. You have quizzes often, but tests are even worse. Tests come in the little blue book, which is just white lined paper. You must remember entire charts and graphs and put them in the book along with the large amounts of other questions he asks. Also you must answer the questions in the exact fashion he wants you to, or he will mark it wrong. His class is pointless; I highly doubt you will retain anything you “learn” in there. Remember from what I said about the books being useless, it is true you will not find anything you need to know for the test in the books. You really must teach yourself. Don’t expect his support to be too great either. If you ask him something he considers it a great inconvenience and will re-teach you what you don’t know at double the original speed because he is too busy. Also forget emailing him, his one-sentence responses get old real quick. This professor is in my opinion has very poor teaching skills. If you don’t know something it is your fault, you are obviously not as smart as he. Beware of this teacher, I would highly recommend not taking any of his courses at all costs.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4859/Very-Poor#comments2000-03-29T08:08:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4859/Very-Poorhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4821/Not-an-easy-AProfessor Williams was a very hard teacher. My first impression of a female computer science teacher was that it would be easy, but I was very mistaken. She knows a great deal about the subject and definitely understands the material she is teaching. She will have the occasional typo while giving examples on the overhead, but that is human. She is available for extra help and does help you during class if you have any questions. The workload was a bit much I thought, there was always a program we should be doing, but I guess that is expected. On the negative side she did not grade fairly. If you are majoring in computer science you will have a much tougher time than those who are not. She grades differently for the two and goes much easier on those who are not in the major. I found this to be rather unfair since I put just as much time into the programs if not more than others, yet my grades were lower than those who had more errors. Some may think that is fair, but we were all learning the new language together and comp sci majors had no advantage over the other students. There was no homework other than programs that were due and she took the time to compile your work and check it out, not always a good thing but it is fair. She did take the time to teach us and she wanted us to learn. I can tell you that I learned a great deal from her, but it wasn’t easy.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4821/Not-an-easy-A#comments2000-03-28T14:26:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4821/Not-an-easy-Ahttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4805/Easy-gradeThis is a very general course, which I think everyone at ESU must take. The class was very easy and a good grade is easily attainable. However there is really only one important class and that is once every two or so weeks, that is when he collects “themes” or writing assignments. Your grade is based solely on your writings and more so your later writings. He tells the class that he does not value your early papers nearly as much as the later ones meaning you can do very poorly on your first few as long as you show improvement by the end. In class you read aloud several of his favorite handpicked authors and discuss how they used detail and whatnot. If you don’t like reading out loud to a class, this is the wrong teacher. The class can get expensive since he requires you to purchase five or so books by the authors that he selects. After you read he does not ask questions about the book because you are reading only to view the author’s use of detail. You will see that most students realize after the first month how pointless the class is and since it is so long (hour 15 mins) they will only go to it once a week. I skipped many classes and had no trouble attaining an A for the course. Another point that must be made is that he is very lenient on submission dates; in fact he has none. You can hand in a paper 2 months late and say you were still revising and he will gladly take it. Overall a very easy course, just do the themes and you will find yourself with an A or a B.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4805/Easy-grade#comments2000-03-28T10:37:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4805/Easy-gradehttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4804/Hard-to-understandIf you are a person who learns best by having someone explain something to you this may not be your course. Shi obviously is Asian and from day one you know it. His English can range from difficult to impossible to understand at times. He tries very hard to get his points across, however sometimes in the middle of a lesson he will say a word or two that will sound like nothing you have ever heard before. This fact alone makes learning very hard in his class. You really have to pay attention and when you come across a word that you do not understand it can really throw off your train of thought. When you recover and figure out what he is saying he has already moved on. However in his favor I must say that his examples he puts on the board are the same exact ones found in the book. This enables you to go back later and figure out what is going on by yourself. Homework is a joke. He assigns way too much and does not collect it. Obviously you won’t be doing it every night, there is just too much, and he won’t collect it anyway. Test and quizzes are pretty fair. He tells you what to study; if you do then you will be fine. Overall if you can learn by teaching yourself then this class will be fine, however if you learn best by having someone teach it to you I would recommend another teacher.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4804/Hard-to-understand#comments2000-03-28T10:23:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4804/Hard-to-understandhttp://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4803/Easy-to-talk-to-enjoyable-teacherCharles Warner or “Charlie” as he preferred to be called was in my opinion a very good professor. The course was not that challenging, but at the same time required some work. He was very easy to talk to and provided a warm environment in which to conduct class. He did not posses the notion that all students are dumb and worthless. He really listened when you spoke which is something very rare these days. My only gripe was that the tests had little to nothing to do with what we learned in class. We spent most of our time learning skills for better public speaking, but the final was all about the history of speech and the development of language. We covered it in class a few times, but it just didn’t seem to go with what the class was all about. He is overall a very good professor and a nice guy. I recommend him.noemail@coursereviews.com (Anonymous Student)http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4803/Easy-to-talk-to-enjoyable-teacher#comments2000-03-28T10:00:00-05:00http://www.CourseReviews.com/u1941/review4803/Easy-to-talk-to-enjoyable-teacher