He is the best prof I have ever had. Keeps the class interesting, great class examples and VERY useful labs. Have never learned this much from anyone before. He is clear and approachable.

VERY nice and VERY helpful. He is not just a prof, he is a great friend!! One of the best in sfu!

No comment... Take a course with him

A Great Prof.Definitely take a course with him,If you have a question go to his office and ask,its very helpful.

He is one of the best prof i have met in sfu! good quality and good grade~

He always tries to be a better professor, and that is the best part.

One of the best profs! He encourages people to participate in lecture, and loves getting asked. His lectures are very helpful.

Easy!

One of the best prof. I actually look forward to his classes.

Awesome professor! Takes the time to review the previous lecture and explains all slides in thorough detail. His lectures are always informative and entertaining, makes having an early class worth it :P

He's simply awesome! He discusses everything thoroughly, highly entertaining, and he likes to keep his students engaged. His exams could be a little tough, but it's reasonable.

He is the best cmpt prof.

He's definitely very interested in the material and knows his stuff. Overall the course was a little unfocused but still a lot of useful stuff here.

Great professor. One of the best at SFU. Always open to helping students after class and during office hours. Has helped me a lot with C programming.

Great professor. Very helpful and clear. Some assignments can be long, but you can always go for extra help. Midterm was fair.

Excellent Prof, Super helpful, patient, Super nice, Very approachable

Awesome proff, probably the best you may ever have. He made a difficult and tedious course rather enjoyable and got students engaged in computer programming. The midterm was fair and so was his exam. The exam was leaning on the more difficult end though. Take a course with him a didn't regret it one bit. His awesomeness guarantees good grades.

Great professor, extremely clear and concise. Be warned, assignments are incredibly time consuming, quite a few group assignments. Exams fair but you need to study study study. No offbeat questions -if you studied you were fine. Extremely helpful in office hours/email if you need assignment help.

Good instructor. Put in the effort and you'll learn a lot. His assignments are not trivial; exams were fair.

This guy is great! Extremely good lecturer. The textbook isn't required if you attend the class and take his "fill-in-the-blank" notes. And if you don't want to do that, ask a friend before the exams, and they'll most likely send them to you (try making one friend atleast!). The exams for this class, in particular, were all based around his notes.

Fabulous professor with absolutely amazing teaching skills. Keeps everything interesting, and tries his best to help out his students. The exams and assignments were all fair game, yet, far from easy. You will learn A LOT by having him as your prof. Recommended VERY VERY much!

Had him for 2 other classes prior to this. Course content is easy, but exams can be VERY tricky (he takes pride in tricky MC). He's still a good prof, and takes his job very seriously. I like the lecture format, but assignments were tedious and long, while exams were trickier than they needed to be for a 200 level course

Truly the best prof I've ever had. In my 4th year now, I still can't forget how awesome he was.

Glad computer science department has this guy. He is great!

Great prof, took his other classes before as well and he taught them just as good. Challenging in the beginning but everything becomes crystal clear as you approach the final exam. Make sure you understand all his notes (not too many confusing topics) and you will get a good mark.

Mind blowing lectures, assignments are given crystal clear marking schemes, summaries are provided for easy studying for mid-terms and finals. Focus in class for an easy A.

He's keeping his enthusiasm and perfection just like 5 years ago when he started teaching at SFU. His lectures are very informative and clear. Assignments are there to help you understand the material and help you prepare for your exams. If he teaches a difficult class you haven't taken, take that class with him.

Great guy. He knows his stuff well. Fun lecture. Assignment are fair and related to the materials in the course.

Assignments are quite fair and his lectures are very informative

Pros: -group project is very useful (agile development method is used pretty much everywhere now) -lectures are crystal clear -kind and generous in general and very open to feedback from students Cons: -quizzes are VERY tricky

I've taken around 5 courses with Brian, and all have been great experiences. He makes the content easy to understand plus assignments are very much related to the topic discussed in lectures. If you can do the assignments, then you will do good in exams.

Brian's lectures are great and you get a lot out of his classes that can help you in future like co-op terms. Didn't had to prepare a lot extra for the exams, if you can do good in your assignments that it gets easier. If Brian is teaching any class, and you take from someone else, then it is a MISTAKE!

Good guy, gives videos to help with assignments that are pretty easy for what you should know at this level. Only complaint is he scales up how much you need for a decent grade by quite a bit so be confident that you can get at least 80% if you want something that won't break your GPA. Also check you can run android studio it is a memory hog.

He does his best to make material quite interesting during lectures. All the assignments are very practical as they are something you can actually use outside class. He is very accessible and cares a lot about his students. Be aware: heavy group projects, lectures are important as he tests something he only talks in lecture but are no in the notes.

The best prof I have ever had in my life

Ill say he is definitely the best prof in sfu. Extremely knowledgeable and willing to help. Assignments and project are very practical and useful in future. Take any course with him for real learning.

If all my courses were with Brian, I'd be the happiest person in the world. He really has a way of delivering the content in a very meaningful and engaging way. He is able to abstract ideas and make them relatable to everyone. Furthermore, he is SUPER helpful at all times, and even stays late for his students. )

Easy assignment/project and tough exam. You need to remember a lot of stuff to pass the exam. The curve is applied to this course. So pay more effort on the exam and you will be succeed.

Lots of fill-in-the-blanks. Can ask anonymous questions on Piazza. Definitely enthusiastic. Class average is high. Grade will be scaled down.

Amazing professor. Well guided and prepared lectures and you learn a lot. Only thing to watch out for is that this class (CMPT433) is one of the hardest courses I have ever taken in terms of workload. You will learn a lot but I also had no life outside of school lol

Really good professor

Brian is a really good professor, exams are reasonable, assignments are hard but possible to do. However, sometimes his assignments expect a lot out of you!!! He says he could do the assignment in a few hours, well yes because he has so much experience, but for students 1-2 weeks is not even enough, so expectations can get quite high.

One of the best choices you could make for a professor and course combination.

Truly the greatest intellectual of the 21st century. Engaging lectures, helpful labs/assignments, and loves the number 42.

The best prof at SFU. He is very clear, caring and knowledgable. Love him. Definitely recommend him.

Brian is generally considered the best CS professor at SFU. He is nice, funny and gives good lectures. I recommend going to his office hours when you have trouble because he is very helpful and informative. He gives a lot of homework but difficulty is moderate. Exams and quizzes are generally tough so do not sleep on them.

Awesome prof

Honestly, the best prof you can ask for.

Brian Fraser is a real gem in the faculty. He doesnt feed off students suffering like the other professors. He is truly there to teach you and doesnt mind giving students code to help. He will go above and beyond to help his students

Cool, nice, supportive, caring professor. It doesn't get better than Professor Fraser. He is amazing and a great educator.

One of Dr. Fraser's many great qualities is he seems to understand how students want to learn. He is really good at making as many resources available as he can so that one can do one's best as a student. From answering questions on Piazza to posting test cases, he really gave us everything we needed to be successful.

This man is a god. He is so considerate and caring unlike most of his colleagues at SFU, and his YouTube videos are literally the best out there. Taking a class with him was an honour. you'll learn from his 276 class probably more than all the other level 2 cmpt courses combined.

Dr. Fraser is a great prof for online courses. Many instructors have a discrepancy between how well they know something and how well they can teach, but Fraser is great at both. He really knows how to make students understand a concept, and always takes questions and requests to explain clearer. You have to put work in, but he makes it easier.

350 characters is not enough to list all the positive things to say about this professor. He loves his job and it shows, and he knows how to effectively convey information. Only bad thing about having a prof like this early on, is that you miss this type of quality in later courses with other professors. He is a true gem.

In CMPT130, the lectures are so concise and clear that you understand everything the first time you watch. Tests and quizzes are fair. Assignments are well made, creative and enjoyable. Despite being online, this course was very organized and accommodating for the students. I cannot speak highly enough of Dr. Brian Fraser. He is a real gem at SFU!

Dr. Fraser is an absolute gem of a professor. I did this course online, and his recorded lectures were very well put together, going over a lot of content in a straightforward manner that makes it easy to follow along and learn. He was always very welcoming and took the time to actually be invested in his student's learning.

Dr. Fraser is a great prof. Lectures make sense, labs are useful, and assessments are fair. Without prior coding experience, the course has a steep learning curve, but that goes for any intro-CMPT course. I wish we had the chance to work on bigger projects instead of bi-weekly assignments, but overall Dr. Fraser is a very solid pick for CMPT130.

I don't know what SFU did to deserve a professor as great as Dr. Brian. He's empathetic and treats every question as valid. I wish more instructors/professors worked as hard as he did to make students feel good about learning something new and being comfortable in uncomfortable knowledge spaces.

Brian is one of the best professor in CMPT department. He is hilarious, caring and always accessible for his students. I have been with him 4 courses: 213, 276, 200 and 433 and he never let me down

The superlatives you read below are true: Dr Fraser is a top tier instructor, and perhaps more importantly, an amazing person. Funny and engaging lectures. Listens to feedback, taking surveys and reviewing results in class. Empathetic towards students especially during the pandemic. High workload but you receive valuable and practical education.

He kept making a reference to "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," which was very funny. Anyways, I have nothing to say that strays from the usual; Fraser is a king.

Project-based course, and all 4 of them were pretty fun to implement. The group project difficulty depended on how good your teammates were, but Brian had measures in place to keep everything fair. Quizzes are doable if you just study the notes beforehand and attend lectures. TAs could have been better, one did not know how to use GitLab.

Brian Fraser is quite literally one of the best profs at SFU. Also had him for CMPT 130 and he does a great job making the lectures engaging and the content absorbable. Projects were quite enjoyable and was very accessible for help and clarification on requirements whenever it was needed. You can just see the passion this man has when teaching.

Brian Fraser is a God. Lively lectures, clear notes, fair quizzes, and you will learn a lot in the class. Will start you off with Java then ramp into android. By the end you will be fairly familiar with Android Programming. Project / assignments were a lot of a work, but fair. Would take a class with Brian again!

Dr. Brian Fraser is the best prof at SFU! My favorite thing about him is that he makes students who speak up in class who don't give the right answer still feel valued and conveys that what they have to say is considered and important. I feel this makes a big difference to students. Every prof at SFU should strive to be as enthusiastic as Dr. Brian

There's a reason why he has a high rating. His recorded lectures were fantastic and great to listen to and follow along. Very enthusiastic about topics, and I genuinely enjoyed the course. Takes feedback seriously to better improve his course. Has systems in place to ensure everyone is marked fairly for projects, thus you'll get what you put in.

I took this class a while ago and his lectures were amazing. Well-formated and clear lecture slides (you do need to fill out some blanks). His assignments are fair in the sense that it does challenge you and yet able to finish without too much stress. His exams can be tricky.

Brian's teaching is filled with passion and therefore highly motivating. His design of coursework is aimed at industry standards and helpful for students to kickstart an early career in computing science. Also, he takes care to suit the needs of all levels of students, and he sacrifices his private time outside of class to respond to questions

Learn lots from this class. Although assignments may be tough, you learn a lot. Peeps below me do be salty. LMFAO

This class requires a lot of work but was worth it. Amazing lectures that just get you motivated to code in C. 100% recommend.

Professor Fraser is a living legend. He's extremely cheerful during lectures (Which is MUCH more than can be said for the other professors I've had) and fair in his grading and expectations for you. He has that ability to make you want to learn programming and leaves you enough flexibility in assignments to devise your own solutions. 10/10.

Dr. Brian is one of the best professors at SFU. He's very caring and makes the time to talk to students and understand their concerns. His lectures are fun and easy to follow. Has great demos. His instructions on assignments are very clear and he is very approachable for help. If you have the opportunity to take a class with him, do not hesitate.

Best professor I've had so far at SFU, I'm tempted to take classes I don't really care about just to get another class with him.

Brian is very accessible (on Discord and in person) and cares about his students. He has a very generous late assignment policy and granted various extension options for our last assignment. He uploads video tutorials and gives away hints on assignments. Brian has a no-such-thing-as-silly-questions attitude which makes learning fun and enjoyable!

Teaches everything you need to know to complete assignments, gives lots of extra examples. Lectures cover everything on the assignments and tests. Prof really tries to make sure you succeed. Best prof I've had at SFU so far.

He was awesome!

The GOAT

Approachable, positive attitude. TA's and prof are accessible outside class on discord if you need help. Lecture recordings online so don't need to come to class (but do anyway because he is a great teacher). Projects every week with up to 4 days late (no late penalty which is flexible). Easy quizzes. midterm is slightly harder. Would recommend.

I love Brian Fraser, only if I could rate him higher :(

He's a really nice guy. Lectures feel very fast for people who aren't very good at coding.

He's one of the best professors I've come across, and in the 4 months that I've known him he's become someone I look up to and aspire to be. He cares about his students, really loves teaching and is just a really cheerful person in general. Exams are not easy, but not extremely hard either, you just gotta put in effort and understand concepts.

Amazing professor and many opportunities to boost your grade (quizzes, assignments, reflections), however the final was very hard so make sure you study a lot for it!

Super nice and always finds ways to help his students, final was hard but everything else was good

Great professor. Has a clear joy for the subject and for teaching. Records all his lectures. Interesting assignments and generous late policy. Very accessible on Discord and in person. Cares for students and tries to help them succeed.

Took concurrent studies with him! Engaging lectures! Great explanations

I came into this course knowing nothing about coding. Something I would criticize is the flipped lectures. I think I preferred learning stuff while at lecture rather than watching a video. Other than that, he is an amazing lecture and is open to all questions with such care! He is very knowledgeable and you can tell he is very passionate!

All around amazing teacher. Learned alot from just paying attention during lectures. Projects, assignments, quizzes and exams weren't difficult, but did test your knowledge.

Probably the best professor in the entire CS department with lectures that makes you want to attend. (despite this he still makes them available via recordings) Course is a lot of work but also the work assigned are highly connected to course material and reasonable.

DR BRIAN THE GOAT. he is SO passionate about what he teaches. amazing lecturer, he made learning C++ so doable. midterm and final were tough, but in the end it was worth it. i learned so much from him. i wish he taught my entire degree :')

Arguably the best lecturer at SFU. Very passionate and attentive. Lectures = great. Assignments = well designed but a lot of work so never procrastinate. Guides / notes really provide a wealth of information. Quizzes are kind of tricky. You get to demo your group projects - a lot of strong candidates this term!

Simon Fraser University

love this guy!!!!

Good lectures and enjoyable content

Lectures are very organized, pauses in between slides to check up on class understanding to slow down or re-explains if needed, doesn't shame you for asking questions, and doesn't tolerate hate speech anywhere. GOAT. Need I say more?

Gold standard for computer science professors. Recorded lectures, well designed assignments, fair exams and overall solid guy.

Doesn't objectively really get better than this in terms of professors

he is a great professor, but you need to be extremely familiar with python. Although an intro course , its pretty hard.

society if every instructor put as much effort into their teaching as brian. the course being an introductory course, is not easy. but you have almost endless resources and support. theres office hours everyday on discord and after every class during the week. the midterm was pretty hard compared to sample midterm and assignments but not impossible

You can tell from day one that Brian Fraser really wants to help everyone learn, understand, and master the material. He is excellent at explaining, teaching, and answering questions. The course homepage is super easy to navigate.

simply the GOAT

Brian Fraser is a great professor, his lectures are the best. Sometimes he expects a lot from students, but it all comes from a good place. Assignments are long and tricky at times, while the midterm was very difficult for the 45 mins given. Final was more forgiving and rewarded those who went to class. This class taught me so much, it was tough.

absolutely amazing, what a great guy. he will go onto great places!

Professor Fraser is an amazing teacher who makes the material engaging. The assignments and exams can be challenging, but he provides plenty of opportunities to boost your grade. For study prep, I found tools like unstuck ai and the free textbook really helpful.

Very rewarding (learned a lot) but tough course due to quantity of topics. Would recommend even if not required because it mainly teaches to write good code which seems very important when it comes to actually looking for work. Felt that some of the assignments were not the most interesting, but well designed to learn what was taught in lectures.

Dr. Brian is easily one of the best profs at SFU, I took this class with him with absolutely no prior coding knowledge and understood his explanations really well. He/his TAs are accessible 7 days a week and provide amazing explanations and advice. Ignore those who gave him bad ratings I can almost guarantee they simply didn't do any work.

my first programming prof, didn't realize how spoiled we were

Brian Fraser is an amazing professor. Easy and fair midterm + final, great lectures, genuinely interesting to listen to and allows for cheatsheets during exams. Definitely recommend taking him

Brian Fraser is hands down one of the most amazing professors at SFU. If you're taking CMPT 120, you're in for a treat. He genuinely cares about his students and makes every lecture engaging, clear, and approachable. His outfits are always amazing, especially the McDonalds fit which is always the best lectures.

This guy is like the Lebron of teaching computer science. He has a cool McDonalds fit that lets you know the lecture is going to be amazing.

Simply the GOAT. Generally has a grace period for late assignment but do note that if you miss this deadline you get a zero. Though he gives you more than enough time to work on it so it's on you.

straightforward, do the work, get the results.

Goated prof, quite possibly can't get any better than this for cmpt. long assignments require alot more time so be vigilant about that. Overall one of my best experiences in cmpt courses

4 for difficulty due to the crazy workload, so pair with easy classes. Pick your project group members wisely. Quizzes were trivial if you understood the assignments and lecture slides. Lectures are posted online, but they may sometimes have missing audio or examples that are relevant to assignments. Go to class, Brian's an awesome lecturer!

Lectures are engaging. Makes you want to go to class because you learn a lot and it isn't boring. Throws in humour, great analogies, and keeps a bright smile up. Don't think you can get a better computer science prof here at sfu.

Best CMPT prof, explains all concepts exceptionally well. All lectures are recorded so you are not required to attend. Always accessible for extra help. Provides detailed study guides for exams.

Easily the best prof I've had at SFU so far. The course is dense, time-consuming and the process of learning neovim made me want to walk into the ocean and never come back. But in the end, it was worth it. The assignments are long but rewarding and now I have to stick to IDEs with neovim support otherwise it feels too slow. 10/10 would recommend.

One word: GOAT

This was a tough course, but he included very helpful analogies and concise explanations. The exams were based on the assignments and lecture slides. He records lectures, but he brings a lot of enthusiasm and activities to his lectures so its worth going. The rumours about the long assignments are true so make sure to start those early.

Best prof at SFU by every possible measure. Lectures are genuinely fun and useful. Assignments (while difficult) are incredibly rewarding to complete. Neovim sucks in the beginning, but it's not actually that hard (there's ~10 keybinds you genuinely need to memorize) and you get used to it quickly. Quizzes are easy if you just do the assignments.

Makes difficult class seem not so bad. Offers lots of support through good, engaging lectures, and actively answering questions online and in person. The course does have a lot of assignments, be prepared to spend a lot of time on them, note each assignment has an accompanying quiz. Highly recommend to go to his lectures. Overall amazing prof.

Goat best prof at sfu

Brian is a great prof, with his lectures being informative and interesting. His assignments are fun to do, though be aware of the long assignments. These take up to 30 hours to do. Even if you get 100% on one, you need a high grade on the quiz that unlocks your assignment's grade. The quizzes were obscure and shouldn't be underestimated.

A LOT of assignment work but it's expected for a 4 credit course, midterm and final were very reasonable, quizzes weren't too bad if you did the assignments. What I really like about this prof is that he's very accessible outside of class, along with the TA's, and has lots of online office hours, which is very beneficial when u can't go in person

Great lecturer for a very intensive (particularly workload-wise) course. I learnt a lot, and while the workload (sections are standardized) was extreme at times (especially with the new quizzes/labs that I felt were disjointed at times i.e. what was expected to know), Brian's a very caring, experienced, and inspirational lecturer. Take it with him.

Brian Fraser is AMAZING! His lectures are great and he spends some time going over actual code and giving coding exercises in-lecture, and they're even recorded, so you can watch them whenever! That said, the long assignments in the latter half of the course are VERY long, so do account for that when deciding your course load!