2.2
Quality3.5
Difficulty29%
Would Retake140
Reviews29%
Would Retake
140
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
14
4
14
3
20
2
31
1
61
What Students Say
“All in all, one of the worst professors I've ever had”
CSCI1113 - 1.0 rating“His lecture is absolute useless”
CSCI1113 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
61%
Textbook Required
5%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
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Declining
-0.51 avg changeRatings by Course
CSCI3081
3.0
(4)CSCI4131
2.5
(56)CSCI1133
2.4
(8)CSCI1113
2.3
(18)CSCI2081
2.0
(25)Difficulty by Course
CSCI2081
4.2
3081W
4.0
CSCI3081W
3.7
CSCI1113
3.6
CSCI4131
3.2
Reviews (140)
I believe that this was Dan's first time teaching, and it showed. His lectures were vague, inept, and included ludicrously inane participation exercises. The class was generally messy, and any structure it did have came from material and schedules inherited from prior professors. On the plus side, Challou's exams are very easy. Hope for a good TA.
He had a more relaxed nature when teaching that really worked in this class, fun and useful homeworks.
I like him. He is nice to people. Some instructions in the assignments can definitely be shorter. To me, two sentences often have the similar meaning. Time given on iteration4 is not enough. Exams are easy if you review the lecture slides.
This is apparently a class for people who are excellent C++ programmers, but who have no clue how to make a plan. He doesn't so much teach you as give you a pep talk about why making a plan is good and you should do it. Then you have to go home and write C++ code, which he never taught you. Annoying mandatory group project. Nice guy, though.
If you are an A student and value your time and prune unnecessary activities because life is short, you'll probably get a B here. 10% of the grade is coming to class and labs where you'll be explained 5 minutes worth of material in 1 hour. 7.5% of the grade is doxygen. 15% of the grade is answering quiz questions about vocab from the reading.
The cool part is one gets to learn how to write one's own programming language and how to build a translator from it to C++. The lame part is that the class is treating it as if it was like joining an organization called Cash$cam: with self-help books and articles each of which could be summarized in bullet points on a single slide.
For an introductory C++ course, all homeworks and tests were graded very harshly. There was hardly any curve, and despite spending obscene amounts of time on homeworks, my grade was very low. Professor Challau is hardly any help, with confusing lectures and hardly any help at office hours. Luckily, he did, at the end, post homeworks in class.
If you do the readings and know what is in the materials, you will be fine. Challou is a really nice person.
His lecture slides were completely full of text and he'd quickly babble on about the context and move onto the next slide before you could even read his slides. His lectures were not helpful or coherent. His writing assignments were absurd. We had to write 5 page single spaced paper on test automation graded horrendously by the TAs.
Challou is a really nice guy. If you go to class, pay attention, and read his slides, you will pass his class with good grades! He's also very approachable in person. Overall, I strong recommend taking classes with him.
While the homework and tests are the same no matter what professor you get (which are very long anyway), his lectures are long winded and barely get anywhere. If you read the book (which is a really good book and easy to read) you should be fine, you could even consider skipping lectures if he didn't give out pop quizzes. Overall: not helpful.
He reads directly off his power-points, which are taken directly from the book, and it feels like he takes 30 minutes to stammer through a single slide. When he isn't reading off the slides, he's talking about his personal life. Oh, but of course you have to show up for class because of the pop quizzesexercises. Easy class, worthless professor.
I've had Challou twice and didn't care for him either time. I never had trouble passing his courses, but I couldn't stand his style. He gives pop quizzes in order to get you to come to his long-winded and often useless lectures. Tests are open booknote. I also found him extremely condescending during lecture. no me gusta
The course material is not too difficult if you read the book and put effort into the weekly labs. Challou's lectures are really long and super hard to pay any attention to. He basically teaches straight out of the book, so the lectures aren't too helpful. There are several random quizzes though, so you do need to show up to lectures.
Worthless lectures that are out of the book. He makes you come by giving random quizzes. If you read the book, do the homeworks and labs, you don't need to go to his lectures. Exams weren't tough, but were very congested, giving you no time to think things through.
Teaches straight from the textbook. I felt very belittled when going to his office hours. Smart guy, bad teacher. Seek help from the TAs and grad TAs instead; they're amazing and are patient! Tests are long and you've gotta cruise through.
Lectures are not too important if you just read the textbook. Tests are pretty manageable -- we got to make a note sheet for all of them. Final was fairly straightforward. Definitely go to TA office hours for help on the tough homework.
Very bright guy. Super nice and considerate. Gives good lectures. The requirements for assignments are clearly spelled out. There should probably be a little more communication between him and the TAs. I would take another class with him.
He is not helpful in any way. Attendance holds some percent in total grade so you have to attend the classes. His lectures are really boring. Deadlines are considered very important here so try not to miss any. Iterations are very important as well as they hold 35% of the total course so take that seriously and Good Luck :)
Lack of communication between the prof and TAs. Lectures take more than an hour to explain 15 minutes of material. Easy tests with trick questions. Teaches coding and communication methods that he sometimes follows. Most of the work is at the end of the class. Group projects are a trap and the only escape provided is to ditch your group.
The projects are hard and Challou will spend 4 or 5 lectures about the first tenth of a project (repeats material many times) and you have to break your head to figure out the rest. It seems like he does not know the material. finds creative ways to avoid answering questions. very harsh grading. unclear instructions for assignments. avoid Martha.
These three hour lectures could not have been any more boring, the way he talks and explains things. Which really he doesn't do. Instead of explaining a concept and reviewing it using powerpoint slides, he likes to just write his own code on the chalk board which is very hard to see.
Prof. Challou is one of the best professors I had during my time in UMN. His lecture examples are fantastic and give valuable insights into the projects assigned. His projects are doable and well structured. Exams test your conceptual understanding of the material, but are manageable. I took 3081W with him too and loved the class.
He's a good teacher. Tries to be funny, fails more often than not. Has tests every week and a few non graded pop quizzes( nothing tough though).
Read the book, pay attention to lecture and make sure you have a TA go over your homework before you turn it in. Don't expect a curve a lot of the people in your class are going to be really good at programming. Also if you're not an experienced programmer take the section for inexperienced people, that's my biggest regret.
He stumbled through a few lectures but he was pretty decent overall. Great grad TA that was much more involved in the course than Prof. Challou. Tests often had questions on edge topics (e.g. set operations in Python). He honestly seemed like an earnestly great funny guy, just not quite comfortable with what the class (CSCI1133) was yet.
midterms and finals are 65% of the total grade
Dan is a funny, laid-back professor who really wants students to understand the material. He goes through many examples in class to reinforce what he is teaching. Homeworks and exams are very fair and practical. I never felt like I was doing "busy work" or was taking unfair exams. Dan made 4131 a great class that I'd recommend taking with him.
Show up to lecture and start get ahead
This class was a great way to get a little exposure to a bunch of different languages. Projects were most of the grade, and besides some bugs, they were usually straightforward. Lectures got long, but I got more out of working through the projects than from class. He randomly collects in-class work for participation grade.
Fun, interesting class, very approachable instructor, on top of course organization, lecture content, TA management, and keeping the class informed of changes and upcoming events. 4131 in particular is quite easy with any prior web development experience whatsoever, and should be definitely okay for those without any previous experience.
Interesting lectures, labs help for tests
Terrible professor. Very condescending, and forces you to come to awful lectures with pop quizzes. Very unorganized and often has mistakes in his work and on the tests. All in all, one of the worst professors I've ever had.
i do not like what he taught in lecture.
Homework can take 6+ hours a week, and he gives pop quizzes in class without any notice. Anytime you ask a question, he always answers it in an extremely condescending way.
2.5 hour lectures are enough to make any prof seem boring, so I can't really blame Prof. Challou if he seemed kinda dull at points. No quizzes so there are 4 assessments total in the class which is both intimidating and refreshing. Lab and HW are pretty fun if you like project based learning.
Please listen! DO NOT TAKE THIS DUDE IF YOU DONT WANT TO RETAKE THIS CLASS. His lecture is absolute useless . Grading is harsh and horribly strict. It is really painful to be in his class, homework is not an issue but he is too bad at teaching and you won't learn enough, so you probably don't know how to do it. Note: DO NOT TAKE FOR GOD SAKE.
Lecture was once per week, 2.5 hrs. VERY dry and boring lectures-but you earn points for in class activities. You learn the bulk of the course material in lab, also once a week (3 hrs). Weekly homework assigned, and weighted heavily, as labs do not count toward your final grade. Although, you must pass 10 of 12 labs in order to pass the class.
In class exercises worth points make lectures mandatory. Dan is a very dry lecturer, and did not really help at all. Bulk of learning will be done during lab and homework. Homework is graded pretty harshly, so make sure you follow constraints. Dan is not a friendly man and is very condescending with most questions. Readings are also helpful.
Too much homework. Exams were heavy and didn't give enough time to do.
This class is mainly JavaScript/PHP/MySQL. I think exam is not effective to learn these things, but 50% of score is from exam. Also, grading is really strict. For example, there are 28 classes in this course, but if you skip 3 in class quizes, then you fail. Homework grading is also strict. I think this system is not so suitable to learn it.
He is a totally terrible instructor. His assignment is really hard. He usually teach the knowledge existing in assignment one day before due date. His office hours is also not helpful at all, because he never help you solve your problem.
Follows book quite closely, so if you do your readings the lectures become quite useless.
The class is home work heavy but I guess home work helps in learning the material. Probably it would be better to reduce the weight assigned to exams. A decent experience.
Class is way too easy/trivial to learn any actual web development. He practically gives away a majority of the homework solutions a day or two prior to the homework being due. You see others complaining because they've become to dependent on this instead of just thinking through the assignment. Exams are simple if you honestly do the hw.
As others said, lecture duplicates the book and is generally boring, but if you pay attention he teaches well. Labs are mandatory and long, but important along with homework. Tests were reasonable but weighted heavily. Class would be better is the grading scale was more generous (94 for an A)
Lectures are a waste of time. Literally posts links and youtube tutorials in his slides so you can actually start learning after lecture. Does participation exercises since if he didn't nobody would show up, except for when he randomly gives you 60% of the homework during lecture, which incentivizes procrastination. Loves trick questions -_-
Chalou was a very interesting fellow to learn 1133 from. If anything, he does a fine job in lecture and stuff, but hes not the best and writing tests. We had 4 total tests, first two had averages in the 60s and the second two were in the 80s. It wasn't how prepared we were. It was whether he wanted to bone us or not. Overall, he's fine for 1133.
Dan was one of the worst professors I've had. Coming into CSCI 1133, there's gonna be a lot of different skill levels. I think he forgot about this little bit. His homework is graded super strictly, cannot teach well at all, doesn't give good examples and gives a lot of pop quizzes. Honestly don't take CSCI 1133 with him
It's an easy class if you take the time to do the homework and actually check to make sure that your solution works. I only went to the lectures because he'd randomly have pop quizzes. The tests were easy if you took the time to understand what was going on in the class but as with the homework, there was usually some ambiguity with questions.
Dan was an adequate lecturer, but his flaws layed in his homework and test writing skills. Whether or not you had programming experience or not, it came down to whether you could understand what the test questions were asking. There were 4 tests total, 1&2 averaged low 60s and the other two mid 70s. Depended if he wanted to be a shmuck or not.
Dan Challou is a meh professor. His lectures are fairly boring, homework are alright, gives random participation exercises in his class which is fairly annoying. Seems to have extensive industry experience which is good, but I never would want to work alongside him.
I had a very negative experience with Prof. Challou. Participation is 5% of your entire grade and it is determined by in-class excercises. There is a policy of missing up to three in-class excercises, but beyond that you will lose the entire 5% participation grade. He posts links to w3 schools to "teach" so there is no point in listening to him.
Dan enjoys wasting time doing necessary things like write 2-3 pages of code on the whiteboard. The worst thing is that sometimes he doesn't even post the code on moodle so if you didn't write it down then too bad. The class itself is useful if you don't have much internet prog experience and I learned more from w3schools and the textbook than Dan.
Lecture attendance is part of the grade, and half the time is spent explaining how to do the homework. Very little content covered in lecture. W3Schools is your textbook but just read what you need for HW. Nothing in the class is overly difficult but you learn a lot if you have no HTML/JS experience. Challou is very approachable for questions.
Challou is a New Yorker in the Midwest, so he can be a bit callous in class which rubs some people the wrong way. But if you show up and do the work, the pieces come together. Practically gives the homework away in lectures. Tests are fairly hefty, and he's prone to some trickier questions, but it's nothing he hasn't pointed to in class.
Dan won't hold your hand through projects and that's why I think people don't really like him. The course focuses a lot on program design that can be ambiguous (which he points out is what is going to happen in industry). Nonetheless, not too challenging if you read the textbook and design docs carefully, very informative course.
Poorly communicates with T.A.s. The course itself is very ambiguous in how you may go about programming, and he does not help in specifying anything. Many program requirements were maintained horribly - very tedious work without much learning involved, and many errors in the project brief led to lots of unnecessary extra work.
Makes fun of students for asking questions, wastes time during class, not helpful. Unclear grading criteria. Nothing works even though theyve had the same project for years.
Poor to no communications with TAs. Says a lot in class but contains very little information. Can't give clear lab and project requirements. Have major changes and errors in the middle of project. You won't learn much suffering in his class.
Challou's lectures were mostly a waste of time. He failed to convey any relevant information until the day before project iterations were due. I learned little about program design. My main complaint is how unclear the grading was. There were times when we would turn in something worth 20% of our grade but had little idea of how it would be graded.
I'm a person who doesn't like to rate a professor. HOWEVER, I SHOULD RATE THIS PROFESSOR. This is the worst class ever I took (I'm a junior). He never clarifies anything about the project even if this class is a project-base. He just read the provided requirement. If you have two sections for 3081, PLEASE GO ANOTHER SECTION.
Absolute mess of a class and professor by far worst class I've taken. Barely learn anything about development only takeaway is testing is a thing and iterations is a word, throw everything else away. Terrible at answering questions, spends way too much time on basic stuff, and no feedback on project till last week so can't fix anything at all.
Truly the worst class I've had to take in the department. Classes are disorganized, and everything revolves around an awful project the professors refuse to get rid of. Challou was rude and not understanding of the material when asked simple questions. Work was due every week and was draining.
The project was poorly prepared and the design docs were unclear, full of errors, and changed multiple times per week, sometimes mere days before due dates. TA's were not familiarized with the project and were unable to get the provided code to compile. Answered most of my questions with "ask a TA at office hours."
Has no knowledge of the code he lectures on and never comes prepared for class. His lectures are either useless or confusing: he seems obsessed with pithy software design lingo without any substantive discussion of the definitions and applications. Most egregious, has completely unclear grading standards. I didn't learn anything from this class.
I have never seen a professor put so little effort into understanding something worth more than 60% of their students' grade. The project was brand new, and it did seem like it was being written by Wendt as we were working on it, but still, he didn't even put in a minimal amount of effort.
Absolutely do not take this class with this professor. Professor barely understood the project on a level deeper than "follow what the design docs say" and lectures were mostly useless. Grading requirements were confusing and grades weren't released in a timely manner, making regrades extremely rushed. Extremely disorganized.
Dan is somewhat reasonable and nice as a person, but the way this class was run was subpar at best. They try to give you an understanding about what industry is like, but it's wildly inaccurate, because industry is unpredictable. The department has been struggling with this class for years, and it looks like they still haven't quite got it right.
Toughest class I've had to take so far, he does not give clear requirements on the project. TAs tried their best to help, but since the class is mostly on the project TAs couldn't be of much help since everyone's approach to the project differs. Requires at least 30 hours a week for the project. Goodluck!
Class is useless but mandatory, he love to wasting time doing unnecessary things. Without explanation just write code on the whiteboard , then post the code on canvas later. His homework instruction and lecture slides are disordered. He would post 20+ websites in one of his pdf. Basically a class you are learning on your own. 30 hours/week for 3
Professor presents examples and refers to w3schools and references to learn. I feel like there could be more structured learning and active process. He's a smart guy and decent professor, but very laid back. I feel that I would have gotten more out of the course had I taken it with the other professor, last semester.
Wastes a ton of time chalking up stuff on the board without any explanation. The course material is good but I haven't been to a single one of his lectures without feeling like I'm wasting my time. Class is easy if you've already done web dev work else I can see it being very confusing. Most of the learning is from figuring the project out on my ow
Professor Challou spends much of the class time going over examples of how to do problems similar to the homework assignments. If you are a reasonably confident programmer, you can do just fine by going through W3 schools to learn all of the material; lecture examples are unnecessary as homeworks are simple. W3 schools effectively replaces textbook
Dan challou is very brash with students. In CSCI3081W, a freakin-gosh-darn-crud of a class, he struggled to coordinate with his co-professor and consistently misinformed students when questions about the semester-long project came up. The only reason to go to class is the bi-weekly quizzes.
Dan is a real character. I enjoyed his warm, lighthearted personality throughout the course. Although his lectures aren't always very clear, he's really great at responding to questions and clearing things up. Assignments are clear and approachable. Course organization is somewhat lacking, but Dan makes it work.
Dr. Challou is kind of a goof and is light hearted during class. He was flexible for me and often responds to questions in class quickly, though office hours are a mess. Not much material is learned in lecture, but that's okay because the homework cover content well. This class is basically just 7 homeworks and 1 or 2 of those are a lot of work
He has no idea he is teaching nothing in class.7 HWs basically throw to you and done by self-learning from Googling, the class is basically listening to him talking to himself, tests are 25% each, not really hard can basically google all of them. Restrict you from using this/that build in features which I found to be pointless,Personality alright.
It's like he teaches you 1+1 2 in class but then expects you to do integration by parts for the homeworks
This class is pretty straight forward and teaches you the basics of web development. Dan does a good job of making sure everyone understands the tools necessary to complete the assignments and provides starter code for most projects. The only thing I disliked about this class is that there are 2 exams weighted at 25% each. Solid class overall.
If you have web development experience, then this class is like extra practice for you. Otherwise, most of the homework will involve some kind of self-learning. The exams are weighted highly, but they are doable if you understand the homeworks.
For those who don't have experience in web development, this will be a super challenge in the first 3 hws. His hws are hard and time-consuming, along with that, the office hour isn't flexible, so you on your own. But things got better as we move on to further hws. He provides some backup information that will help you on these hws.
Lectures werent very insightful or helpful. Dont make careless mistakes, because he doesnt care if you understand material or not, if you make a mistake he will gladly punish you for it. The class overall wasnt that organized, but that may be because it was a summer course. 1133 was not tough but with this professor it wasnt enjoyable.
Dan is the worst professor I've ever taken at the university. If he's teaching any course, stay far away from him and that's a warning.
1. Superfluous DAILY in-class assignments solely to waste our time. 2. Mandatory zybooks that do not respect the study styles of all students. points 1-2: basically forcing students to "do stuff" for grade, because its busy work. 3. So many assignments: a. instructions are 14-15 pages, when could be compacted to 3 4. refers himself as doctor (phd)
Homeworks can take a decent amount of time. Some of them are a lot longer than others. Dan is probably the most disorganized professor I've ever had; constant mistakes in his slides and write ups. Tests are worth a disgusting amount of your grade for a class like Internet Programming, where you mostly just do projects.
I did not learn anything from the lectures and there was a lot of busywork in this class. However, the homework assignment, although sometimes time-consuming have clear instructions and rubrics which is really nice and the tests were pretty reasonable. I learned a lot of practical, applicable skills in this class so definitely 100% worth taking.
I usually don't review profs but I felt the need to warn students away from CSCI4131 with this prof. I think if the class had labs the HWs would make more sense but since it doesn't students are dependent on Office hours and those usually don't get to everyone in the queue. If you need to take this class, do it with another prof.
Challou's lectures are slow, unfocused, and overall useless. He gives lecture assignments that are incredibly vague and poorly written. The overall focus of the class is so awful. He just genuinely cannot teach. Above all else, it feels like the TA's know more Java than he does. I would advise to avoid him but there is often no choice.
Way more work than I expected. Given volume of work wish the exams weren't weighted so heavily.
honestly bro Challou is goated, dude is the nicest professor i've had he reminds me of my grandpa. he may go on completely irrelevant tangents but honestly i don't care. the class was easy albeit I had to do a lot of googling and reading. Challou, what a man you are...
I'm writing this review because Dr. Challou's class is unfairly rated low. My tips are to ask questions via email or look things up, and do the participation exercises. There are at least 10 pts of extra credit for every HW and the exam and final project is not hard. Also grading with TAs is fast so you get good feedback.
Challou doesn't really do much in lectures. He just reads off slides and makes you do participation exercises. The TAs, on the other hand, absolutely carry this class. The exams are HEAVILY weighted and can make or break your grade, meanwhile the homeworks (there were 7) are worth basically nothing but are a ton of work.
Very approachable professor. Understanding and kind but fair. There are a lot of assignments for Zybooks and participation- especially early on in the semester- but they are pretty straightforward and helpful for learning the material.
Professor Challou was such a nice guy but I didn't like what he taught. I felt like I didn't learn anything and he would just do examples in class instead of teaching. There is so much busywork in the beginning and the tests are annoying because you have to produce code under pressure which I feel isn't a great indicator of knowledge
Dr. Dan was one of my favorites. He was the kindest instructor I've had, funny too. He really genuinely cares. Unlike previous reviews, I really found his lectures to be helpful. My only complaint is that at the beginning of the semester, there are so many ZyBooks assignments, In the end they are helpful, just make sure you take the time to do them
Professor Challou was a great professor for this course. He is clearly passionate about the topic and makes the material digestible and easy to understand. The pace of the course was nearly perfect and the grading was clear. He spends time in lectures answering questions and going over solutions rather than solely reading off a slideshow.
Challou bumbles around during lectures reciting slides that he very clearly does not have a good understanding of. His homeworks feel very poorly assembled and have you do tedious useless problems.
The lectures were generally hard to follow, especially during examples. He oftentimes referenced lectures from professors at other universities which were much more helpful than the lectures in class. Additionally, attendance was very heavily weighted (~15% of the grade). Outside of this, he seems like a nice guy.
He doesn't know what he's talking about and his lectures are a waste of time. His exams are too long to be finished in the given time frame and honestly I think he's racist..
Don't take this guy, lectures are just listening to him talk to himself and read off some ancient looking slides. Grading is a mess. The sad thing is that this is actually a pretty interesting subject, but it is a bore with Challou. Also he seems kind of racist
bad lecturer but the TAs carry the class
Dan has no clue what he's talking about, but he's too arrogant to admit it. Take another professor.
The class is a lot of work for something not for CS majors. He is also not very good at explaining concepts. I suggest skipping lectures and going to a TA for a summary of each lecture. One TA literally carried the course and explained all the concepts clearly in 1/10 the time it would've taken Dan in lecture. Good person tho if you talk to him.
Pros: (Breaks concepts down well in lectures / Easy A if you put in the work / Caring / Nice guy / I learned a lot), Cons: (Labs were often tedious and useless / Extreme amount of homework assigned in first couple weeks / Programming tips were often not practical / Very nitpicky on random things / Unclear instructions on homework)
Professor Challou's lectures are so unhelpful; he rambles on about stuff that doesn't matter. Everything I learned came from the zybooks and the TAs (they were really helpful). He makes the labs and homework insanely difficult and convoluted. I would not recommend him as a professor at all.
this class is a joke i went to TA office hours and he was never there
I'm retaking this course because I failed it last semester. Dan is not the best lecturer but the TAs are soooo helpful in understanding everything. They literally carry the class and it's the same TAs from last semester so I'm so thankful.
Incredibly bad lecturer. Homeworks seem to be too large for how much they count for your grade, for how well the material is actually taught, and for a 3 credit class. I would recommend waiting for another teacher.
Challou is the worst professor I have had in 3 years at UMN. Avoid any class this man is teaching.
Challou is astonishingly bad. I can't remember a time in any other CS class when I have been asked to do more with less actual information given in teaching. Programming assignments are quite large, so don't take this with Challou if you are taking other project heavy classes (although I would suggest taking with someone else no matter what).
the TA with a balayage is so goated!!! she taught me everything from scratch
Don is well... a very poor lecturer. He is a top tier yapper. He likes to sit in his desk in the front and type our URLs character by character. The class is decent, but most of the learning comes from outside sources.
that exam was so hard. literally trick questions and who names their functions mystery()
I'm taking 4131 with him and 2081 to raise my gpa. I have to say the TAs definitely carry. Especially in 2081 where students are learning the foundations. I got an A in 1933 and struggle in 2081 because of the way dan teaches. he makes the most straight forward concepts super confusing i don't know how other students are learning this stuff
Do not take any class with Challou. His lectures are the worst I have ever seen. He will yap the entire class period without saying one thing useful or informative for the tests or homework. His version of teaching is throwing links to websites which may or may not be relevant and saying absolutely nothing of use himself. AVOID!
Worst teacher I have ever witnessed. Lectures are useless babbling and if you do not have prior experience in internet programming you will be lost on HW and have to self teach ALL of the material.
Just bad. You will teach yourself most of the time. Just exhausting class.
this class is insanely hard for a lower division cs class. the TAs are helpful but it's hard to do well when all the material you learn comes from Dan. I had a TA explain something to me in office hours and it made a lot more sense than Dan did in class. I am shocked how bad someone can be at explaining something they were hired to teach
how does he still have a job
Very very boring lectures. If it wasn't for graded in class activities I would never attend. He will frequently only get through 1/3 of the slides for the day and barely explain the ones he gets through. Basically all learning in this class will be done outside of lecture through zyBooks readings and homework assignments. Do not take with Challou
One of the worst profs in the CS department by far.
Classes are so boring and he just goes on and on. One of those professors that just assigns stuff without it actually being relevant because they should just know how to do it. Tests super difficult and homeworks are so long for being worth so little. He came straight from the private industry and it shows.
I cannot emphasize enough how bad of a professor Dan Challou is. It truly astonishes me.
Challou is incompetent at every level. His lectures are the most abysmal I have seen at UMN, and he creates homework assignments which extensive time and yet are worth very little for your grade. On these assignments, going off of the rubric is simply not enough; missing minute details hidden in his overly verbose writeups will cost you many points
*gives files to class for hw assignment "If there is errors in the files, you fix them! It is a 4000 level class"
His lectures were terrible and never covered the work we were doing. He gave out way too much homework and his class was way too fast-paced which made it hard to learn. He would give us links to learn the stuff ourselves rather than teach us. If you are interested in the concept of this class, you are better off teaching yourself.
Worst lectures imaginable, but he will also kill you with grading on the projects. If you do one thing differently than one sentence says in the writeup (while maintaining the same functionality), he will butcher your grade.
I genuinely don't know why he is still teaching. It's bad. Required lab when everything else on campus was cancleled
I thoguht people were joking when they said avoid this professor at all costs!! However, the TAs are goated I cannot deny that. They teach so well lectures are pointless if there were no required in class exercises
Just had a nightmare about him in the middle of summer thinking about how he taught class this past semester
He seems like a decent guy and is definitely experienced on the subject matter. Personally, I thought his lectures were a little too drawn out and that he didn't explain things the best when attendeding office hours. The TAs were really helpful though, and the labs were the best part of the class.
Lectures are tedious, but unstuck ai and the textbook are essential for doing well. Professor is strict on grading, so stay on top of the assignments. Overall, a challenging but manageable class.
Lots of reading from zyBooks that we have to finish in the beginning of the class but after that it's fine. Exams are not hard and projects are easy but I have a fair amount of web dev experience so take it with a grain of salt. The grading criteria is clear and the links he provided have sufficient documents to help me do the work.
the other reviews were right the TAs carry the class especially monday ones
This class is so hard but the TAs are helpful. I would recommend getting to know them if you ever take the class. One TA met with me over the weekend to help me with the homework and give resources for learning the course. It was more helpful than Dan's rambling tangents
What is it with this professor and his overly long homework writeups? You miss a single, minute detail in his 10 page writeups and you get boned for it. His lectures are also just not worth going to. Super disorganized and yaps off of random links. Absolutely killing my interest for web development. You're better off learning from YouTube or Udemy.
The TAs carry the class, and he is rude to students, and disrespectful.
No technology allowed in a tech class is crazy. The TAs definitely carry yeah the other reviews were right.
Dan's tries to be a good lecturer and be a nice teacher, but when he talks he immediately drones, and when you ask him questions he can come off as a bit rude. Most of what you learn will be from the zybooks or from the TA's helping with everything.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
61%
Textbook Required
5%
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A-
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