SHe is so hard. She does not curve the class, and she takes attendance everyday of lecture and has a quiz every day of discussion. She tests over the hardest material and has really hard homework. There are so many other calc teachers to learn from. DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS!

She is very unclear, especially with guidelines. The exams are basically regurgitating information. She can be rude, and doesn't teach very much. DO NOT TAKE HER IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO!!

She is easily the worst teacher I have ever encountered. Her grading is highly subjective. She grades based on how much she likes each individual student, regardless of a student's quality of work. Only take this class if you are familiar with Python because she will expect you to know how to use it and will not teach you if you don't.

This is easily the worst teacher I have ever had in my life. DO NOT TAKE HER CLASS IF YOU DO NOT HAVE TO. She is rude, unhelpful, and difficult to talk to. TERRIBLE TEACHER.

Stay away. Thank god I had programming experience before Denise's class. All she does is talk about her stupid apps she designs all of class. I kid you not, she brings it up every day. She never taught python and expected a lot from students. I didnt do too bad as I had python experience from before. Again, she sucks.

She talks about her son more than she does the material. If she spent half the time teaching how to program in Python as she does talking about herself, the class would probably be a lot more enjoyable. She has been by far the worst professor I have had in all my 3 years here at IOWA. If you dont have to take this course stay away!

Unfortunately the class is mandatory for Elementary Education Majors. It is beyond difficult and is in no way relevant to the major. She is enthusiastic about the topic, but makes things up that not even the TA's understand. She doesn't accommodate to the way I learn and expects us to know things almost no one does. Good Luck Elementary Ed. Majors!

This class was impossible. Taken online and she didn't post any support for the assignments. Her instructions were to read the sections and complete the practice problems. She occasionally posted sample problems that she worked out. Only grade was the exams and they were extremely tough. No curve at all for the course. Mail in homework wo grade

Helpful in person. Class is horrible, though. The only grades are on tests that aren't returned. You can see them in person but why take it online then? You are completely on your own to learn material. Online lessons are a joke. Rote memorization of a hundred or so terms required and they have to be exact. Worst educational experience ever

She's just downright awful. Unhelpful, rude, takes her class very seriously, makes up her numbering system whenever she feels like it. Will take points away on tests for her mistakes. No textbook she writes her own notes for the course. Horrible communications with her TAs. If in the future you have the option to not take logic with her, DON'T.

I'm an honors student, and I normally do pretty well in my classes. Not only was this class atypical of the experiences I normally have in classes, but learning how to do the work just never pays off. One could spend hours studying, but if you don't belong to the upper tier of the bimodal distribution of math majors, you'll have a bad time.

Nothing

For an introductory course, this was the hardest course I have ever taken by far. Only things that are graded are exams, and no partial credit is given. She is hard to reach by email (really, for an online class??), and responds bitterly when she does. Clearly puts herself on a pedestal over her students, and does not care how they do.

If you're taking this class instead of CS Fundamentals, don't. Half of lecture is spent talking about her son and her robots. The other half is material that barely matches the test. The worst test writer I've ever had to endure. If you're taking the class to learn Python, hop on Codecademy or FreeCodeCamp and save yourself some stress.

ome comment suggestions your unique experience writing / reading intensity attendance policy availability outside of class required participation

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HER. The class itself is pretty good but she's not a good professor. She barely cares about her students and think it's a good idea to grade an entire semester just on the tests. There is homework that is optional but that didn't help for what the exam covered.

Very condescending, and not very approachable. Grades are only based on tests and quiz's (both in class and online). Asks for input on the class, but will only accept it if it is what she already thanks. Consistently gets off track talking about things that are not class related and then rushes to make up time.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HER. SHE DON'T CURVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She makes discrete so much harder than it has to be. The actual content she teaches is not terribly difficult but she's an atrocious, disorganized lecturer, and she seems to be the kind of professor who takes pride in students struggling. Sometimes rude for no reason. Take it with another prof if you can.

Avoid taking classes with this professor unless you have to. She is a terrible lecturer that is constantly off topic. The actual material isn't all that difficult, but you have to teach yourself. Also, 80% of the grade is based on the exams, but it felt like she got some kind of smug satisfaction from students doing badly on them.

The whole class is torment. Hard to get a good grade and no curve

Denise loves to talk. A lot. About herself mainly. Took Math IV for Engineers during the 4 week summer session and I think we lucked out because with less material to cover, Denise did pretty well. Hey, at least she's honest. Tough class. She can teach math well when she focuses and really wants to... but I wouldn't recommend her for the semester.

Impossible. Don't take her online class whatever you do. No curve, slow feedback, and tests that are beyond difficult. Seriously, literally no one was passing after the second exam. Also exams are the only thing that count for credit.

Probably the worst professor I have ever had. Constantly off topic during lecture, talks about her robots as if they are her children which is super weird. She teaches you literally nothing about coding but expects you to know how to do everything. The final project is basically impossible unless you learn from python from somewhere else. Rate 0/10

Probably the worst teacher that I've ever had the displeasure of having. Offers no help outside class, or even during class for that matter. Started first week of the semester in INTRO by assigning programming assignments without actually teaching you anything about how to code in python. Only guidance for final project was a confusing document

Worst Prof I have ever had. Her grading system is terrible, if you don't have your code EXACTLY how she wants you to have it you get a 0. It is graded automatically so a single typo can result in a 0.

Took this class online. Worst mistake ever. I spent literally all my free time studying for this course and I hope to get a C-. She doesn't film her whole lectures, so they are very confusing. Everyone I've talked to that has taken this with her has either failed or dropped.

My first programming class, and the learning curve was miserable. You are given little to no help from the professor or TAs during discussion. Also, you aren't allowed to learn code from elsewhere or you get points off on the final project. Midterm and Final exams are awful. Her grading system/"curve" is awful too. Take CS1 instead.

Had already took one class of hers. Thought her teaching was miserable because it was a class aimed at CS students. Turns out, she's terrible in any class. I still think Szecsei has never actually "taught" a day in her life. Prepare to teach yourself the topics she failed to teach you in lecture and 10-question quizzes with a 5-question time limit.

Does not provide partial credit on free-response math exams. Allows zero room for error and does not curve the class. Not a very good system for teaching. Entire class grade was based off of quiz and exam scores, no homework was turned in for grading.

This was by far my worst experience with a college professor. If you don't know python then good luck getting a good grade. She started by hitting the ground running and went off on tangents about her son. I took this class to maybe major in computer science, but she shot down that idea. Grading is harsh. If something is wrong, you get a 0.

I have never cried from one class so much. I would not even be able to make it through one 50 minute lab without bursting into tears. Does the TA care? Absolutely not. He was so rude to me and to avoid dealing with me he would make other students 'teach' me what he was supposed to. If you want to stay mentally stable, I WOULD NOT TAKE THIS CALSS.

Easily the worst professor I've ever had. She does not teach during lecture and is hard to get ahold of outside of class. Her office hours were during my other classes so I was forced to get help from her over email instead. She rarely responded to my emails and was very unhelpful when I missed class due to serious illness. Hope for a good TA.

If you're not a complete computer nerd who sits in front of their computer all day then you might want to reconsider taking this class. The learning curve is very steep, so for a class like this you need a good professor and this woman is not one. "Outside of class help" is a joke. She just talks about her son and personal life in lecture

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. TAKE CS I YOU WILL BE JUST FINE.

Her lectures don't match her teaching plans. And her quizzes don't match her lectures. You should read the textbook and count on yourself. The lectures could jump back and forth from chapter 1, 2, 4, then back to 2 or 3. If you don't learn on your own, it'll be a nightmare.

You don't have a second chance to do the quizzes. And the lectures are very messy. I'm glad I don't have to take the class with her again!

Doesn't really know how to teach a class at all. Rambles about the old days when she did stuff and then scribbles random things on a board for an hour only to leave students more confused than they were before class. Homework and quizzes are confusing and tricky when they shouldn't be. Doesn't have any idea how to make questions for a class tolearn

Great professor

Does not understand anything about students, always off topic, never tells you about homework or projects and everything is just due at once while not being open all week. Awful class structure

She is rude and doesnt accommodate for students with disabilities. Even tho Ive mentioned that Im suffering from one

worst teacher I ever met

Does not teach anything, just rambles in class. 75% of the homework and lab exams were never mentioned in lecture. You have to learn everything yourself. Do not take this professor, very unhelpful and you will not learn anything from her.

Honestly, I dont think it was necessary to attend class. She would spend most of the class time talking about irrelevant information, like about her son and her robotic hobbies, and then speed through the lecture slides while showing maybe 5-10 minutes worth of code in an hour of class. If you want to succeed: Study the lecture slides religiously.

This class was the hardest class I've taken. I have never taken a course like this before, making the nonstop programming assignments impossible. Content in the lecture and the discussion sections did not aline, making it seem like I was taking two classes. I got a 7% on my project and I was rotting. No help was given when I needed it the most.

This is not someone that should be allowed to teach an introductory course. I can only imagine how many dreams of could-be-programers she has squandered by having this be their first experience.

This is not a flex, but I've always been a good student, I have close to a 4.0 GPA and I enjoy learning, but Denise genuinely made me want to drop out of college several times. You know that tweet about a student not wearing their seatbelt in hopes they would crash on their way to class? That's sincerely how I felt about this course.

Very unlcear on deadlines for a some assignments. Very boring and off topic lectures. Very confusing grader(grade on icon supposedly isnt the correct grade??). Seems to be very smart but doesnt really teach and just goes off on tangents all the time. She answers emails fairly quick. Seems annoyed when you ask a question.

Avoid her if you can! Her classes were unnecessarily stressful, and it is almost impossible to have access to the solutions of her daily worksheets.

Auditing her to begin the process of removal. She is an ideologically fanatical dullard who cares more about identity politics, and the perception that she is a good person for adopting, than teaching the class she is paid to teach. DO NOT TAKE ANY CLASS WITH THIS WOMAN

Where do I even begin? From weird class structure, to extremely test heavy grading scale, to irrelevant lecture content... the list goes on. You will teach yourself this entire class. I've had some less than stellar professors at Iowa, she is the worst, bar none. Get the online coding tutorials ready and stock up on booze... you're in for a treat.

For the love of your GPA, run! I took this class as a gen ed knowing nothing about CS, but for an INTRO course, she expects you to already understand CS. Her lectures rarely relate to the actual subject or the numerous tests and quizzes (she never mentions them until the day before). I made a Discord with classmates and learned from them than her.

Where to start? How about the fact she never covers things in her lectures that you need for your homework. Or she rambles about her robots that no one cares about. Or her grades are so skewed/hidden you can never get a accurate grade without asking (and she doesn't give it to you). Lord knows how many CS majors she has turned away with her crap.

Nothing we talk about during lecture has anything remotely close to the assignments that follow it. I might as well have just googled a programming tutorial and I would have learned more than I have from this class

NOT an introduction course. Get's irritated at every question. The course is very unorganized and not well put together at all. The assignments do not correlate to the lectures at all and a very good amount of students end up dropping the class. If you are not required to take this course, seriously stay away. Just start with 1210.

Absolute horrible teacher, worst professor I ever meet, when asked about her Covid policy she stated she didn't care about covid no matter the circumstances things had to be on time no matter what although TA's did all of her grading, only thing I learned was from a TA. I will hopefully never have to take this course again

Remember when you were a kid and your parents taught you to look both ways before crossing the street? Well, Denise would rather you get hit by a bus before teaching you anything.

DO NOT even think about taking a class with her. Lecture are too boring and not helpful AT ALL. Disscusion and Programing assignments are totally unrelated to anything she talks about in the lecture. Also, there are WAY too many assignments throughout the semester PLUS two books to read. I can keep going forever, so pls avoid her as much as you can

Professor Szecsei is the worst professor in the CS department at the University of Iowa. She refuses to answer any questions and acts like you are dumb if she receives any. She has no compassion and does not care for any of her students. Most tests are over obscure concepts she doesnt teach in class. Do not take this class.

This class was an absolute nightmare. Material that we were tested over in lab exams was only taught to us the first 2 weeks of class. Two books to read over the class that were not even text books for better knowledge. Writing papers was a nightmare for having no relation to course material. Avoid at all costs. If not, prepare to teach yourself.

just... unreasonable. assumes a huge amount of background knowledge that nobody has, assumes students have hours each day to spend pondering algorithms, assumes everyone's brain works the same way hers does. so many people dropped.

She makes the questions due during lecture each class unnecessarily difficult, things that aren't mentioned or different from the reading she assigned before. Does not actually teach the class, each lecture is just answering a question and then doing a worksheet. Also, her quizzes and homeworks are hard, but hard unfairly. Avoid this professor.

She wants us to take a final exam in person when she advertised her class as online. Let me re-iterate. She wants her students, who are from all over the country, to buy a plane ticket during the worst financial crisis in our lives, and fly over to take a test in the middle of a pandemic. Our safety and mental health is not in her best interests.

Good luck

Not good

Does not give good feedback, does not respect students, does not properly evaluate students on knowledge, does not consider student input, is literally the worst professor I have ever had.

I didn't actually take this teacher, but I took her class, taught by a TA in the Summer. It was horrendously structured and there is no way, without outside tutoring or 12-24 hours of python videos, you will be able to complete assignments or be up to coding standard. It is criminal to charge money for this class let alone make it mandatory.

The worst teacher I have ever had. I went to office hours and she would vaguely describe where I needed to look in the book or lectures instead of actually helping. Doesnt provide solutions to any quizzes or homework so you dont even know where you are messing up so its impossible to fix your mistakes on future assignments.

She has an auto-grader that is neat picky, and her teaching skills are subpar at best. She stands in front of the class for over an hour, and you don't learn very much. If you're entering with zero prior coding experience, this class will be quite difficult. The TA has more teaching capabilities than she does.

A very typical self-indulged person who thinks herself smart. Gives you "intuitive examples" without defining things clearly and layout the structure of proofs. Now I'm a grad student in math and she's still the worst one I ever had.

No need to go to lecture. She goes on tangents while the exams will be the slides. My friends and I would ignore her during class and read the slides (surprise, high scores on the exams). She thinks her RMP is funny, which says a lot. I invite students to record her during class and post it online to show the University how negative she is to kids.

Horrible professor. I had a heated comment written before but it was taken down. This professor does not care about students and only reason she has her job is because of tenure. Mental health is not a issue to her as she continues to berate students. Id ask the university to look into her teaching methods as she has bought a PS5 during lecture.

She is just bad. I never want to take computer science ever again because of her

I think Denise knows she's not a good lecturer, cause exams are open notes. Just memorize/copy the slides before the midterms. The coding/lab portion is not a part of the lecture portion and does not get harder as you go, you use the same functions throughout the semester. TA's will be a lifesaver for this part. I had no python experience.

By far the worst teacher I have ever been given. She doesn't teach for half the class and goes off on tangents all the time. Most of the time she would not be able to join the zoom lecture on time and would not be able to figure it out even though she is supposedly a Computer Science genius.

I have taken one class with this professor and can easily say they are the worst professor from my time at Iowa. Avoid Denise's class at all costs. Be prepared to be treated like a freshman in high school again. She is mean on purpose to "drive you to do well." This woman needs a life.

She goes on tangents during lectures that don't have to do with the course material, and seems to forget that this is an introduction course and not a more advanced course. She's rigid about her way of doing things, and is downright mean towards students.

Worse professor I've ever had. You have to teach yourself everything if you want a good grade.

She never follows her syllabus. The in-class quiz used to see if people are showing up to class is the worst thing ever. I only have 5 minutes to answer the questions and no time to think. Emailing her is so bad cause she is so rude with the response. I WILL NEVER TAKE ANOTHER COURSE WITH HER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, just no. Please don't take any class with her.

She is the worst professor in all 4 years of my time at Iowa. She keeps making you take quizzes if they are not 100% correct. She is awful at explaining and does not really care for her students that much. I hope that she gets fired so that future students don't have to put up with her.

Genuinely this professor is the worst one at the university. She goes on random rants during lecture, provides little help when you go to office hours, has these "special" quizzes that are the dumbest, most pointless things ever, literally created to just drag your grade down. It's ironic she is a part of the "Mathematical Education" research team.

It feels as though she doesn't respect her students and acts like she doesn't have time for simple questions. She is not very helpful at all, and don't bother emailing her because she responds with 5 words and rarely answers the question you present.

Started first day of class talking about her rate my professor rating as the worst on campus as if it is something to be proud of... does not care about teaching and is rude towards all students. You will have to learn everything on your own but still go to class because she takes attendance. Avoid at all costs, never take if you don't have to.

Absolutely terrible, I don't think I'm going to make it through the semester.

Constant tangents and rambling. Doesn't use simple terms when exampling complex concepts to a room filled with beginner coders. The weekly quizzes HURT your grade. Half the 1h15m class is usually content you don't even need to know.

She doesn't teach the class how to do the assignments, and expects everyone to already know how to code despite this being an introduction class. She rambles about her kids during lecture instead of teaching, and gives an INSANE amount of work. Gives quizzes and doesn't show you the correct answers so you have no idea where you went wrong.

Avoid her at all costs. She talks about her kids the whole lecture then in the last 2 min minutes, she'll try and explain everything at once and never finishes it. She expects you to know everything as well and is just terrible to her students.

Avoid this class at all costs if possible. You will learn more about her life and family than computer science. The whole lecture is her going on tangents then trying to explain the material within the last couple minutes. Tests become so hard because you are self teaching yourself and the material isn't covered in class.

Dont take her class. Her lectures are the greatest waste of time since success at iowa. She just goes on random rants and does not teach during her lectures

She doesn't even know how to teach properly, Cs is a logic base course and she doesn't use any visual tool to help the student to understand the algorithm. The worst teacher I ever meet in my life, she shouldn't be teaching this

bing bong

Exams are absurdly hard. Entire class fails and she wonders why. Boring lectures with a small amount of useful material. TAs and discussion are the only good things.

When it came to coding I felt like I was self-teaching myself. I was one of the lucky few to have previous experience with coding due to AP courses in high school and this class was still rough. If you have ZERO coding experience and you have her, please please please make friends- form a group. Help each other because Denise won't help you.

40 minutes of stories about things that have nothing to do with class - then 10 minutes of furious note taking. She likes to hear herself talk. You will hear more about her books and her personal projects than the the course. She seems to take pride in being difficult and aloof. be prepared for a bad experience.

The class just started, but I already know she is a terrible professor. We have tough quizzes (worth 10%) due before the lecture where we learn the topic. She gives us a reading for it, but this makes lectures pointless. There's no practice for these quizzes. Group work is also worth a whole 20% (why???) and done during class. Avoid her.

Genuinely the worst professor at the University of Iowa, unfortunately she is the only prof for Algorithms, so good luck! She has us take quizzes before every class, but the catch is, it isn't even content we have learned yet! You are entirely expected to learn the topic yourself. Extremely stupid.

Terrible. Quizzes on material we haven't learned yet, online group work every class, grades hard with poor feedback and criticizes students for failing. The material gets more confusing the longer you listen to her talk about it. This is a very hard class and it is worth it to wait another semester and see if somebody else will teach it.

Very tough, she expects you to do everything and to know all about algorithms before even taking the class.

I attended every discussion & lecture & am generally studious Denise spends 3/4 of lecture taking about family matters and 1/4 flying through the slides She is uncaring, sometimes rude & very strict Books are decent but summaries work Programming assignments and projects were fun Major/Minor in CS? CS1110 is required Good Luck TAs=bestfriends

Avoid Denise at all cost. She's a rude professor who does a terrible job of teaching the material. She is very condescending and doesn't curve the class enough to account for the terrible averages. She also uses a confusing cluster system to make it seem like you're doing better than you are in the class.

If there was a final boss at Iowa, Denise would be it. Both midterms averaged around 40 to 55 percent, she gives out pre-assignment quizzes due before class that goes over the information we learn in the lecture. After the first midterm, she wrote a 5 paragraph-long message essentially saying she did nothing wrong and we just need to learn better.

Where do I even start. Quizzes before we even learned the material. 27% average on the first midterm and she emailed us after telling us how poor we are at being students. WORST PROFESSOR EVER. Talking to other students years older than me told me to "beware" of Denise. Never felt so disrespected and I have never been put down so much in my life.

Possibly unfair grader. unclear on grading methods. Ended with exact same percentage as someone yet was given 2 full grades lower. Graded poorer on objective test questions than others. Curves completely arbitrary. Also, don't ask for accommodations, she will not give you them. Worst prof and experience ive had here.

She's dyslexic and makes a lot of mistakes on lecture notes. It's perfectly fine to have disabilities, but she doesn't try to correct the mistakes. She also has terrible handwriting. There's absolutely no textbooks either.