2.6
Quality3.6
Difficulty17%
Would Retake110
Reviews17%
Would Retake
110
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
20
4
16
3
22
2
20
1
32
What Students Say
“A great person, a tough teacher”
CS1371 - 2.0 rating“His lectures are a waste of time”
CS1371 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
8%
Textbook Required
37%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.28 avg changeRatings by Course
CS1311
5.0
(1)CSM02
5.0
(2)CS1370
5.0
(1)CS1332
3.7
(3)CS1321
3.5
(4)Difficulty by Course
CS1372
4.0
CS1370
4.0
CS1371
3.7
CSM02
3.0
CS1332
2.7
Reviews (110)
Very funny in subtle ways. He'd be a great neighbor.
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Very helpful, as well as fun.
boring
He is awsome! and very funny!:)...He is not my teacher but I sit in his class instead of the one I have registered!
He is one of the best CS teachers. He was EXTREMELY helpful. He wasn't my teacher but I attended his lectures. The class itself is very hard, not the professor. It is a newer class so things got very messed up with testing, grading, and such.
He is very nice. I went to his office often, and He was very helpful. Actually, the class is difficult, but you can get a better grade by asking questions with TA or Professor.
He tried to teach the best he could and was nice, funny, and approachable, but I was usually pretty lost during the lectures. But this is a hard class, no matter who you have, I guess. I don't think it really matters who you have for the class, though. Just hope to do well during the Matlab portion.
Smith is a nice guy. He sometimes moves a little too fast in lectures however, and sometimes puts material on the exams that was not covered thoroughly in lecture. Recitation is very important.
Not a very good professor. I was often lost in his lectures. He does have an ok sense of humor. I learned most of the material on the homework or in recitation. Tests are pretty easy though. No curve.
Smith's class is WAY overrated. He is not that great of a professor. I often fell asleep during his lectures they were so boring. It is obvious that he cares very little about the welfare of his students. I'm making an A in the class with no prior programming experience whatsoever.
I didn't think attending lecture fo this class was helpful at all. I made an A in the class, but only because I went to the help desk religiously and attended all recitations and review sessions. Toward the end of the semester, I stopped attending lecture because it only confused me. Most of the people who I've talked to agree with me.
Kind of get the feeling he doesn't care too much about the students. Lectures are pointless to attend.
Smith is quite possibly one of the worst lecturers at Georgia Tech. He is incredibly boring, and he doesn't know how to teach the subject adequately. In class he just plays with the matlab program rather than teaching us the fundamentals of programming. You'll learn more by going to the help desk, recitation, and help sessions. AVOID HIM!!
Lectures were boring but I attended all of them and it sort of helped me understand the basic concepts. Review sessions and recitations were great and prepared me for the tests.
Also known as CS 1803. Format has changed since last semester, but Smith is still an excellent teacher. He really does seem to care about his students and their grades. Never curves. One homework a week: 4-5 hours usually if you know what you're doing. 3 tests and a final, all containing lots of tricky questions. C on a C++ compiler.
Unless you have experience with C programming, you will struggle in this class. You'll get 0's on your homework (it's always impossible to do) and fail your tests (along with the majority of the class). The TA's were just as horrible as Smith. He barely curves in the end (despite 70% of the class failing). Avoid taking him if you can.
Smith is really funny and has a different joke every class. He explains things very clearly, and he wrote the book
Smith is really funny and has a different joke every class. He explains things very clearly, and he wrote the book
I started the class under the old format, but dropped. Retook under the new format. Somethings have improved, but still not an easy course. If your EE/ECE, you have to take it, and I think Smith is the best choice. He's tough but fair. Seems to truly enjoy teaching.
Clear, entertaining, helpful. Great professor, I highly recommend him!
Fun teacher, Class is normally entertaining, but you will rarely learn anything in class. He is very helpful in Office Hours, and the TA's are always very helpful. Learning C with him was a breeze, but he enjoys giving large amounts of coding homework. His practice tests are usually a mirror of the real test.
One of the most worthless professors you will encounter. He is a very nice guy, but is completely ineffective at even attempting to teach any useful material what-so-ever...perhaps he relys on the TA's for that...but most of them do a pretty shotty job. I am quite frankly ashamed that I had to pay money to be put through his 'teaching'.
if you can take this class over the summer with another professor. going to class will put you to sleep.
Hilarious guy.
The best professor I have ever had at Georgia Tech. He is the author of the textbook for this class, so he really knows the material. I found his explanations to be very logical, but be warned: you must not get behind, else his class will become incomprehensible. The class is very tough, but if you invest work and time, you will succeed.
Guy is funny, but the applause after every question usually means I don't get to hear what the question OR the answer was. Homework levels are off the charts, w/ massive homework asnmts being due each week meaning Thur is always nthg but me sitting in an uncomfy chair for 14+ hrs. I also have 2 read the book to lrn nythg snc lctrs r 1 stp ahd of HW
I appreciate his attempt to get the class to ask questions. However, I get tired of, daily, spending an entire lecture on an example problem, will little to no background of what we are doing, and applying it to a large amount of homework. Its not teaching. If I had not learned several languages previously, I would be struggling. Don't take lightly
Smith is a genuinely nice man with a good sense of humor but he just cannot teach. He frequently uses terminology that he must think is common knowledge but most of us have no clue what he is talking about, resulting in a lot of confusion. He spends entire lectures spanning several days on example problems yet barely explains what he's even doing.
Lectures are terrible. Smith just can't teach very well. Homework is very difficult, due weekly. Class average is very low.
The class is useless, hw are totally irrelevant, test average are around the 60s, horrible teacher over all.
Funny guy. Teaching methodology consists of him tackling huge coding problems while the class watches. Very good if you are interested in computer science. Otherwise, not so much. Go to recitation, it's where you learn things.
Yes, his lectures are absurd, but a decent background of coding is all you need to understand them really. The homework is tough and the tests are nothing like the homework. Recitations are where it's at to ace the tests (i never did). Nobody ever knows for sure how he curves. Just go to class if you can. He does recognize faces.
Doesn't know how to teach. You are more confused coming out than going in. Don't waste your time going to this teacher. When teaching a new language, you must start slow and explain things in simple terms. He uses complicated terminology that NO ONE understands. take a different teacher if you can.
One of the worst professors. He a horrible teacher, the lecture is useless, and the TAs do nothing. Every time i went to office hours for help i was told to leave and fix my messy code. Practice tests do not resemble the test. Homeworks are extremely difficult. Assumptions are made on your previous knowledge. TAKE BILL LEAHY HE IS AMAZING.
He is pretty funny and kind of strange. His examples in class go way over our heads and you leave the class more confused than you were before. By nature, this class is hard, and David Smith does nothing to make it better. TAKE MARSICANO'S CLASS
He wrote the book, and expects that you read the book before class and know that information. In class, he only goes over examples that are more difficult than you'll ever have to do. The recitations are REALLY helpful, they teach the basics that are in the book. Homeworks are hard, but tests aren't too bad if you do your own homework.
omg!!!!!!! run while you can! don't ever ever take him! he is horrible!
Great Teacher. His in-class-examples are far more difficult than the homeworks but if you can keep up by just paying attention then you'll understand what's going on. Homeworks take up the most time and tests are very easy. If you want to get an A on the test, go to recitation. And also, help desks are VERY helpful. I was never turned away.
Okay, so this class is hard, but it is regardless of lecturer. The TA's are helpful at recitation, and if you find yourself getting lost, find someone to explain the material soon because if you are really on top of things, you'll be fine in his class. Smith is pretty entertaining if you just give him a chance.
Good guy, likes to joke around, doesn't always go over everything you need to know. Usually will just write code in class to solve a problem related to the material you're learning. Doesn't teach much in class, but very approachable for help if you need it.
1372 is C programing for the GameBoy Advance. I found this class to be a really easy A. If you hated 1371, 1372 will be hell. I never bought the book, can't comment on it. The professor has slight british accent, NBD. He doesn't teach in class, he just writes a program with the class related to the hw. If I wasn't CompE, that would have been death.
His lectures are more or less worthless. The best way to learn the material is to go to recitation and do lots of practice on your own. The tests are somewhat difficult, but Smith does full grade replacement with the final exam, so as long as you know the stuff by the end of the semester, you'll get a good grade.
RUN!!! This guy is awful. I promise you will learn C better on your own using "C for dummies". The final is a huge portion of your grade. If you make bad on the final you fail the class. The class averages when were always below 60. Just take someone else if you can.
His lectures are some of the most useless, rambling wastes of time imaginable. I learned absolutely nothing from attending his class, mostly because he never explained fundamental concepts, choosing instead to jump into pointless, long-winded examples with little-to-no justification. Be prepared to learn everything on your own or in recitation.
As the person below me said, be prepared to learn everything yourself. He is a simply awful instructor most of the time. VERY rarely he teaches an informative lesson but most of the time you just watch him doing some gigantic example which doesn't pertain much to what you actually need to know at a rate that you certainly cannot follow.
He's an interesting guy, but his lectures are useless. Instead of explaining HOW to code, he rather goes up and shows the class what cool things HE can do using Matlab. It's a very difficult class in general. He recommends you don't buy the textbook, and I did not, but now I wish I had. There are very helpful entries in it.
He's a funny guy, makes the lecture very entertaining. You can tell by the way he teaches in his lectures that he does know his stuff. Read the book before he covers it in lecture, if you ask him questions he will clarify. And he is approachable for help. His TAs are also very helpful.
Dr. Smith isn't a bad professor, but he can be frustrating. He likes to do his own thing and have you pick up what you need to know from his work. He wrote the book, so you'd think he'd be more direct, but he wants his students to dig and discover things on their own. Sort of opposite of Marsicano. You learn most from HW anyway, so don't worry.
His class is fairly interesting and tests are pretty fair. One-on-one, he is one of the most helpful professors I've ever had. Plus, his lectures are pretty funny!
He was good for the summer. He did write the book after all.
Incredibly unhelpful and made it difficult for a beginner to understand programming as a whole or MATLAB-- even with some prior experience, I found it difficult to adapt to an already troublesome program. His teaching was lacking and the homework only served to exacerbate the issue. Going to recitations/review sessions are basically a requirement.
If you have absolutely no background with coding, you're going to have a bad time. Smith is very unclear and almost assumes everyone has coding experience. He tries to be funny, but just isn't. Recitation is where you do all learning. Overall, tests are not too horrible if you study. Homework will take up the majority of your time.
Avoid him at all costs. This class is awful and this professor does not teach. I have no coding background and this class has been the most stressful class I have taken at tech. When you take this class, make sure you don't have any other hard classes because this takes up so much time.
Class is useless. Learned everything on my own. Homework wasn't hard if you understand the concepts but they are time consuming.
A great person, a tough teacher. As someone who has never coded before, I was expecting an easy start, just like a language class. My hopes were quickly shattered. The grammar of MatLab is difficult to understand, and that was only exacerbated by Prof. Smith's tangential lectures. I must admit he will take time to answer your every question, though
Very funny. He's an old British man with a great sense of humor (many times at his own cost). His lectures are sometimes boring and confusing, but he does everything he can to answer your questions completely, so ask questions if you are confused. He is also eager to help in any way he can. He is overall a great person as well. Highly recommend.
He is a very funny and enjoyable man. His lectures are not confusing other than trying to figure out what you are supposed to take away from it. He is very willing to help out when you need it. He made me enjoy going to class and I don't think he deserves that many bad ratings on here because a majority of the people don't even come to class.
Lecture is absolutely useless. Don't expect to learn anything from him - you'll have to figure it out yourself.
Tough class but he taught me well. Quirky sense of humor from being British.
Don't listen to anybody who tells you that this class is impossible. While the class will be time consuming it's very doable if you just put in the time and effort. Homework is semi-difficult but forces you to know the material. Tests are challenging but not hard. If you do all the work yourself you can get an A easily.
The class is difficult, but the tests and hw are the same between all of the sections. He wrote the textbook, so he is very knowledgeable about the topic. He is one of the most passionate professors & truly loves teaching. He wants to make a difference in his students' lives. If you actually attend lecture and get to know him, you will love him.
I love him but lectures are absolutely worthless. Go to recitation and do the homework. be diligent!
His lectures are a waste of time. Just go to recitation and help desk. DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!! Doing your homework is he only way to learn in this class. And beware, the homework will take hours and hours, but go to help desk and recitation to get help on it or else you're screwed.
I agree that lectures aren't necessary for tests, but I thought he was hilarious (!!) and told great stories about working in the early (euphemism: legacy) days of CS. Also he was very open to questions on what classes I should take, his views on different programming languages from working with data manipulation &c.
Funny and engaging lectures! Smith is a great guy but his lectures are pretty useless. He uses way too complicated examples to teach simple concepts which really takes away from the learning. He knows everything about MATLAB though. He wrote the textbook.
This is a class you have to get through, like it or not. Smith is hilarious but the lectures are useless. You will learn a small bit from recitation and everything else by teaching yourself. FIND AND MAKE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE WHO KNOW C/C++/JAVA OR YOU WILL STRUGGLE. Helpdesk is essential for harder HWs but they're really slow to help out. Beware.
He is really passionate about the material and is a pretty interesting dude. Lectures would be awesome if you already knew the material because he uses difficult terminology and goes at a fast pace. Recitation and homework are crucial. If you do these by yourself you will get an A. What you get on the final is pretty much what you get in the class.
Unless you have experience with MATLAB, you will have a difficult time with the class. The problem sets are excessively difficult and take up far too much time for an introductory class. Lectures don't help much but there's wrong with the professor. Nice guy. My advice is get a group of friends, work together, work early AND GO TO HELP DESK!
His lectures don't help much because he just codes stuff in class related to the topic, but he doesn't "teach" concepts. You learn concepts and do actual problems related to hw in recitations. The recitations are what you should really go if you want to learn something, and when you are doing your homework.
Run. Avoid getting this professor. His lectures don't help because half the class he spends telling you about some worthless stuff, and then the other half is him just doing random coding that is pretty abstract. You don't even have to go to lecture. If you get this professor, pray, go to recitation, do your HW, and study hard.
Smith throws you into the deep end with MATLAB while he explains concepts in terms of Java to CS majors in class, leaving newbies to hang. His humor is awful and the lecture consists of watching him do programming irrelevant to the homework. Tests are extremely challenging. Find a great recitation TA and do the HW at help desk to save time.
Prof. Smith teaches the class as a way to learn problem solving. While it is interesting at times, his lectures don't help that much with the homework. Also, start working on the homework early, and go to the helpdesk if needed.
He is very confusing and his sense of humor is terrible. He teaches next week's subject when the homework is still on last week's subject, so it confuses you because you can't use the new things you learned on the homework until you have homework on that subject. Go to lecture for PRS extra credit then leave. use the MATLAB guide.
Smith is the sweetest, silliest man, but he cannot teach well at all. I went to help desk weekly, extra recitations, and read the textbook, yet I still struggled with this class. I began to attend Kantwon's lectures, which were incredibly beneficial. If you are in one of Smith's sections, go to Kantwon's lecture.
He's a good guy, but his class is awful. When the topic was iteration, he was teaching about putting geese on a sunset. He knows what he's talking about, but his lectures are worthless and you're better off learning from the book that he wrote.
Lectures were next to worthless. Recitations and TAs are much more helpful, but optional too if you have programming experience.
Never coded before, then taking his class would be disaster. Smith is a good guy, he makes efforts to make the lectures interesting, but I just learn nothing from his lecture. Homework and recitation is where I learn everything.
I think Smith is a great professor. However, his teaching style is probably not for everyone, and people who have never programmed before can have a pretty tough time. He lectures a week ahead of the weekly homework and his examples can sometimes get a bit complicated. There's a lot of extra credit, be sure to always do it.
Lots of homework, but that's not specific to the professor. Lecture was rarely useful, as he seems to assume the students know a lot more than they actually do. You can definitely get an A only by going to recitation, since the TAs know he's not the best at teaching.
Smith was useless in this course. I skipped lecture and attended Kantwon's lecture and recitation. The TAs were very useful in this course.
Smith really does not do a good job of teaching the material. He assumes everyone knows coding and his examples are impossible to understand. His lecture is pointless. Youre better off taking kantwon for this class. TAs are very helpful and theres lots of homework(coursewide- all teachers). Great guy, but he cant teach well
If you've never coded before then going to Smith's lectures will be very difficult for you to actually grasp the concept; he uses really strange examples and doesn't just talk about the general idea of what you should know to complete hw. Watch kantwon's videos & go to help desk!! Also make sure you comment your code and do all practice tests.
Smith isn't a teacher by trade. He's a veteran computer scientist/aerospace engineer so he brings experience and stories. Lectures won't help you learn CS1371 but it is worth hearing what he has to say. Recitations are FLEXIBLE. I recommend that you find a good one. DO CODE COMMENTING FOR E EXTRA CREDIT. HW is how you learn. Find friends/groups.
His lectures aren't very interesting and he rambles half of the time. You need to be really focused to understand things. He knows a lot about Matlab but isn't good at explaining what he knows. The homework is slightly challenging and the tests are a little tricky but both are generally very fair.
Smith is a nice person, but he is not the best at teaching. If you have no programming experience, I would not advise that you take his class. If you know Java or a C-like language, you can do all right. Homework is given weekly (same homework for all CS 1371 classes), graded by an automated program. TAs and other students are your best resource.
If you plan on making a good grade, you don't need to go to his lectures. Just go to a recitation early in the week (you can go to any recitation you want) and you'll learn everything you need to know to be able to do the homework, which there is a lot of. Smith knows his stuff, but doesn't explain it very well. Lectures are very boring.
Go to Kantwon's lectures. This man does not know how to teach. Most boring class
Prof. Smith is a nice guy, but an awful teacher. I stopped going to class two weeks in because the lectures were not helpful at all. Fortunately, Matlab is something you can teach yourself for the most part (I did have some prior coding experience though). You are also allowed to go to any recitation you want, so make sure to get a good TA.
If you CAN go to kantwon's lectures, do it. I couldn't, so I stayed with smith and it was fine. Everything is the same in 1371 across sections, so there are tons of resources to get help and do well. If you're in smith's lecture you'll be fine and learn the material, but he's not as fun as Kantwon even though he knows everything there is on MATLAB
He wrote the literal book on the subject, but neither he nor his book is very helpful. If you want help, go to Kantwon's lectures since he actually teaches. For actual help, you have to go to the TA or the success center. Also, almost all of your grade is from the tests, so study for the tests and skip the homework if you have limited time.
I wish I could give Dr. Smith a higher rating because he's absolutely hilarious and easily my favorite professor this past semester but his lectures are not conducive for learning. I came in with no coding experience what-so-ever but i found even having Smith, I was able to learn all the material through recitation and doing homework.
The problem with this class is that Smith just gives crazy examples in class and really never covers the fundamentals or goes off on tangent stories that have nothing to do with the concepts. I heard some recitation TAs are good but mine just went over the basics which isn't very helpful when homework is due on Friday and recitation is on Thursday.
Would not recommend. By not having prior CS knowledge, his lectures can be confusing and unhelpful. Im pretty sure this man is highly skilled in MATLAB but he doesn't know how to explain it effectively to a bunch of kids that know nothing about MATLAB. Couldnt attend Kantwon's lectures but TAs know how bad smith is and do their best to catch us up
There's a LOT of homework. However, it only counts for a relatively low percent of your grade and doesn't get difficult until around 2/3 into the class. Final project was a bit of a joke. He often gets VERY off track (once timed for 17 mins) and can be difficult to understand from too far away. The recitation TAs were better than him in my opinion.
He's a nice guy. His lectures can be really cool and fun if you have prior coding experiences and really know the material. However, if you do not have prior coding experience, I would not recommend taking him, as his lectures utilize a lot of "next step" rather than the basics. Do all the tedious homework, and utilize TAs and recitation.
Smith is absolutely terrible. Just make your schedule so that you can go to Kantwon's lectures. Take advantage of the resources like Helpdesk and PLUS sessions for this class.
David Smith is a nice guy but his lectures are not great. But in all honesty matlab is not a hard coding language, it is how the course is set up that makes it difficult. Just go to recitation sessions. The final will replace tests if you do well.
I have never done any sort of coding in my life, and it seems like Smith assumes that everyone has a coding background. Every time I went to lecture I would get more frustrated because literally nothing he said made sense. If you do end up with him GO TO RECITATION and get help from your TAs. Clear your confusion right away or else it will pile up.
Lecture didn't help at all. Most of my learning occurred on my own while doing the homework and using TA resources. Definitely attend recitation and attend TA office hours; they are the only source of hope. There's a fair amount of extra credit on each homework assignment plus a whole extra credit assignment at the end of the semester.
Professor Smith is a nice guy but his lectures are not that worth it. Go to recitations and do the homework, that's the only way you could succeed in the course. Also, the course is pretty time consuming, so form study groups and and go to the help desks.
lectures are super unhelpful and he talks as if everyone has been coding for a few years and its just a casual convo. Says some really weird/sometimes insulting things during lecture as well. Go to help desk, do homework early .. or just do wtv it takes to get Kantwon
Your professor really doesn't matter as long as you attend recitation (or even another professor's lecture) and do the homework. Midterms are pretty faithful to the practice tests. That said, I never benefitted from lecture and hardly ever went. He didn't teach so much as go through examples, and his handwriting is completely illegible.
Do not take Dr. Smith! He goes straight into functions with no introduction on basic programming knowledge. I tried to read and learn on my own because the lectures were doing me absolutely no help. Help desk was useful, but having Dr. Smith destroyed my self esteem in that class. I had to withdrawal because I was not going to pass.
Dr. Smith has a very impressive professional background, but he lacks some teaching skills. He does not teach students the basics and logic behind each topic, jumping straight into rather complex examples. Make sure to attend recitation and Help Desk, as these will be your best resources to actually learn the material.
D. Smith does not seem to get enough credit. I took his class and found it easy to understand and entertaining. Many of the other comments here say that he can sometimes go too fast, this is true, but he also greatly values and encourages questions. If you ask him questions he will more often than not explain it very clearly!
Wasn't very clear in lectures. I had some background in programming and did fine, but others in the class had difficulty understanding topics - recitations are invaluable if this is your first time with code. Tests are pen and paper so come well prepared and know the language like the back of your hand.
Overall I thought Smith did a good job of teaching the course. In his class, you got what you put into it. He encourages questions and does his best to answer. He cares for his students and wants to help you succeed. His examples are often very confusing and are easy to get lost in.
Probably one of the worst, least organized classes I've ever attempted. David is super pompous. If I could give him a 0 I would.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
8%
Textbook Required
37%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.28 avg changeRatings by Course
CS1311
5.0
(1)CSM02
5.0
(2)CS1370
5.0
(1)CS1332
3.7
(3)CS1321
3.5
(4)Difficulty by Course
CS1372
4.0
CS1370
4.0
CS1371
3.7
CSM02
3.0
CS1332
2.7