So the material is very easy to learn if another professor teaches it. But somehow, Golub manages to mess up whatever he teaches. His tests are incredibly unrealistic and long, and he is very unorganized. He goes off on tangents and his lectures put you to sleep. I am decently computer literate, and i pulled Ds on his tests...wtf?

If you didnt kiss ass he wouldnt talk to u. I would raise my hand constantly in class and he'd never call on me (I was a cute girl). When it came to the exams, we would have the exact same answers that he had in his lecture notes and he would mark them as wrong to show his power. We filed formal complaint which did no good because he has tenure.

If you want a decent grade, don't take this class. It's that simple. All the exams boast complete recall (i.e. fill in the blanks, absolutely NO multiple choice) and the classes are completely unhelpful. However, you can at least get all the material you need from the textbook.... wait nevermind there is no textbook.

Students of UMCP's Comp Science major. Golub is an AWFUL choice! He is an unreasonable, vague, and arrogant professor. His tests are really hard. His ability to teach is nil. If you don't want to repeat any course he teaches, avoid him like plague. I just want you to spare future frustration you will experice if you choose him. STAY AWAY!

Boring, not accurate to the class description. Miserable experience

I honestly have no idea who put this guy into a teaching environment. He tells the same mind-numbing stories multiple times in a semester, wastes class time babbling about unrelated crap, and tests you on concepts you have seen ONCE, tops, in a single step of a project. Boring as hell in lecture, don't buy the book- he wrote it.

He is the worst professor I have ever had. This is the only class I have dropped in college. He is boring, nerdy and self-absorbed. This man belongs behind a computer; not amongst society.

This is the worst professor I ever had. His lectures are easy to follow and understand, the homework is hard and you cant find too much help, and his tests are impossible. His "good ideas" don't help with anything. And in reality, i had an understanding where i can use this kind of stuff in the past, but because of him, I want to drop this major.

Definitely the worst teacher I have ever had, he is also a bit prejudice and very basis. I was only a little bit behind in one assignment he referred me not to worry and tell me his course is not my major and I should focus on my other courses, in other words, he wanted to give me a F and refused to even help me complete the assignment for his class. He teaches

Do NOT take Golub. He is very confusing, expects TOO MUCH from the students with very little explanation! It is a lot of work and the tests are set up for the student to fail. His lectures are boring, not to mention draining. Golub is not helpful and you have to figure out a lot of the material on your own...Avoid his class

Golub tried to be a funny guy, but ended up going off on tangents and squealing with laughter at his own dumb jokes. His lectures literally dumbed me down for CMSC132. If you're taking this class as a CS/CE major, don't take him.

This class is designed to essentially weed out those who are not meant for computer science. He didn't make an effort to make his lectures easier to understand. rather he made it really hard and often went off on tangents bragging about his and his students' works. if you have programming experience, this is fine but if you don't, find another.

horrible person, horrible class

This is the worst professor i had in my life. I don't like the way he teaches. His lectures is long and is helpless. His Exam and final Exam is extremely hard and are made for someone who had experience for coding. If you never do coding before, please avoid this professor. Quiz are hard too and projects take a lot of time to finish it.

He is the worst professor ever. You will not learn anything in his lectures as he wastes most of the lecture time going over his stupid stories. He will test you on the future material, that will be shown after you have already taken your test. Projects were really hard. You should start them early.

He is not only the single worst professor I have ever had, he is one of the worst human beings I have ever met. His classes are boring, and explain nothing. He spends most of the time trying to make stupid jokes that no one laughs at. You will learn nothing from his class! I got an A, but I taught myself everything. He is worthless as a professor.

Oh god please never again.

Professor Golub is incredibly obsessed with himself. He makes jokes that only he laughs at. He does a below-par job at explaining how the code actually works. It's very easy to find yourself sleepy and annoyed during lecture. I strongly recommend choosing a different teacher for this class.

Golub is pretty terrible, he often rambles for a good 15 minutes and never teaches the material in an easy to learn manner. You're much better off just reading the slides and looking at examples on the internet. However, he does clickers for a computer science class which is absurd so you have to be there to listen to him ramble.

HORRIBLE PROFESSOR!!! He really is a pain in the ass. He keeps on narrating his own stories in class and never focuses on the main point. He is just complete TRASH. Not only this, he never teaches anything properly and expects us to perform well on exams and quizzes. I shall never take this guy again

He's a terrible professor. PLEASE AVOID HIM AT ALL COSTS!!!! My GPA dropped down only because of him. He is completely useless as he narrates his own stories in class and never talks about the actual main topic. He keeps clickers on purpose so that we have to come to his class to listen to his crap.

He is a horrible teacher, I had already experience with computer science so I did very well but for others who were new to computer science they struggled a lot. His tests are not hard but he does not know how to teach. He literally spent the first few weeks talking about floppy disks and other old hard drives. Do not take him if you can!coo

This is the worst class you can take.

This is the worst professor. He talks about himself:-he spent a whole week talking about a selfie stick he coded for his android phone :X , then gives you a project to do that has nothing to do with the slides he provided. Don't take the class!!! RUN!!

The teaching style overall was very poor. I have taken Comp Sci before and the way I was taught here, it was horrible. I learned less, I mostly didn't understand what I was doing, the lectures nor the labs helped much. I think the projects suck. The instructions online are very poorly explained. The class was mandatory but otherwise a huge waste.

I had done little coding before 131 and I did learn, but mainly b/c I read the optional textbook and put in extra time. He's not a difficult prof per se, but he's a pretty terrible teacher. His slides are devoid of useful information, his lectures are ramble-y and irrelevant, and students don't respect him and talk through the whole class. Avoid.

Golub is a terrible professor. 60% of your grade is determined by exams and the final, all of which ask extremely specific questions about things you don't need to know about when actually coding. I took AP programming in high school and got a 4 on the exam, but this class was still a struggle for me due to golubs awful teaching. Hope for a good TA

I could not understand any thing he talked in our class this whole semester. Maybe he himself can do some codes well. But he has no ability of answering any question raised by us student. I did self-study of all of the projects and labs out of class. I didn't ask any help from him because he just cannot help.

Take this course if you like: 1 Teach yourself everything 2 Attend every boring lecture 3 Professor boasting and bragging 4 Have horrible exams in which the topics are not covered in lecture nor will ever be used in your future career 5 Uncertainty about your letter grade because the professor change it to something he thinks "you deserve"

Golub honestly doesn't teach. He thinks he's hilarious and in lecture he'll often go off on useless tangents talking about something that doesn't matter or trying to set up a joke that's not even funny. He makes you use clickers to force you to come to class, but class is pretty useless whether you know the material already or not. Don't take him.

His lectures are absolutely useless. He spends 5 minutes actually talking about relevant topics, and the rest babbling. His project descriptions can be annoyingly obtuse, making them more of a chore than the programming actually requires. His exams are straightforward if you pay attention to what he says during lecture, which you probably won't.

Alright broskis this is whats up y'all, k so if youve taken some hard core comp sci class before, then this is just another one of those if ya know what i mean dawg. But if ya havent even a clue bout comp sci then boy oh boy are u in for rough ride my friend. Like ur probs gonna fail if u bring xBoxs to class or if u like being a social human..

First semester, got him as my cmsc 131 prof. Just like all the other people said, boring lectures, didn't care about the students and really really love to brag about his achievements. Small talk at the first 20 min of the classes. Not recommended if you never had java before.

He is a super swell guy. Golub is a little bit awful at just about everything. Actually, wait, he is more than a little bit awful. Evan Golub is not one of my favorite people, although I am sure that he is for about two people at least, who are probably now not existent anymore, like his ability to teach students computer science at the Maryland

Golub is not somebody that you want to take. His lectures are him rambling about what he has done outside of class. If you want any actual help from him you have to go to office hours. He is helpful one on one, but a useless lecturer. You will NOT learn from him. You must self teach at all times if you want to learn anything. Avoid at all cost.

Golub uses clickers, so you have to come to class. However, he doesn't actually teach anything. Instead of talking about useful things in the lecture, he told stories about his old jobs and that actually weren't relevant to the class at all and then expected us to know random things he spent 3 minutes talking about for the test.

I just started java and I didn't look at the reviews for this teacher, but then I found out that he gave so many projects (one every other week) and for someone who hasn't done java, this was brutal b/c I had to go to office hours everyday. Exams are hard af with trick questions and poor wording. Office hours are crowded . PLS don't take him. :(

If you are good at java his class will be brutally boring and you will learn nothing. However, if you don't have a good amount of experience in java it is easy to get lost and fail the class because he barely cover what is needed for the exams and projects he just goof off the entire lecture and once you are lost it almost impossible to catch up

I think many know this by now, but Golub is one of the worst CS teachers in the department. His lecture time is spent talking about himself or going off on tangents about irrelevant things. People usually just spend the whole time on their laptops doing work for other classes. His tests were fair. The projects had the worst wording I've ever seen.

Golub does not explain anything. Your best bet would be to take this class with another professor. His projects are meant for people who already know Java. There are no resources to help you study. The exams are hard and not easy to pass. They cover things that are not even taught in class. I wish I had dropped out when I had the chance.

Students taught themselves how to do projects, and the same information you "taught" yourself was then tested. This course with Prof Golub is a living nightmare and no amount of free time will allow you to succeed if you don't already know the material. While loving my first semester at college, I hated this class specifically.

Aight dawgs, if its your first time programming, and have never coded before, avoid this professor like u one of character from the walking dead running away from the walkers

Extremely off-topic terrible TA's lectures do not make sense

So, if you're pretty familiar with Java, you'll likely get an A in this class and projects will be a breeze, but Golub is a really bad lecturer. He doesn't make it easy to learn and you probably won't walk out of this class prepared to take other CS classes if you're new to programming. Avoid him at all costs.

recently theres been a few instances where i devote my soul and entire life preparing for tests. I dont know what it is, or what organ i need to sacrifice next but it seems like no matter what i do i cant get a good grade on the tests. Im on my last kidney, lung, and leg here. Perhaps its a matter of not being able to remember content. Idk :/

NEVER TRY TO TAKE HIS CLASS!!!!!!!!

Dear God. Do not take Evan Golub. The man meanders his way through 50 minute lectures containing 10 minutes of true class material. Avoid if you can; good luck if you can't. Personally, I had little difficulty with the actual concepts covered in this course. I have a bit of programming experience, but nothing that should give me a huge edge.

He doesn't give any feedback on your assignments, making you rely on your peers for help. You could have no idea what he's asking for on the exams due to his poor wording. The class also has people who barely failed the exemption test; this means that there are people who have extensive experience in Java, who mess up any possible curves for exams.

Dont take this class, wait till next semster to get a diffrent professor. Dont come crying to me when your not doing so hot cause ur taking this guy.

Please. Don't take his class if it is the first time programming.

I took him because all the other professors were booked. He is the worse professor you can ever imagine. He will only give you points if you get everything 100% correct on the exam, a slight mistake gets you zero. He doesn't care for his students at all. The majority of students fail in his class. DONT TAKE GOLUB!!!

Taking Golub with little programming experience really put me to a bad start. He was the only one that fit my schedule. Lectures don't help and he wasn't the nicest during office hours when I was confused about his projects. TAs really helped though! Projects and exams drove me crazy(horrible wording). I'm so glad its over. Don't take his class! :(

Golub is arguably the worst CMSC professor in the school. He will show up with an idea of what he should lecture on, but will lose track and start ranting about some higher-level CMSC material like machine learning. Sounds cool, but once it happens every time, you realize you aren't learning anything.

This dude was terrible. I barely understood anything he said. He would ramble through an hour class and everyone looked unimpressed and confused on all material presented. He acts like you already have prior knowledge of coding, but if you're someone like me this will be hell. You can show up but nothing will help you. Goodluck.

Extremely vague in what he wants from the projects and will make up grading criteria that does not exist in the descriptions. Very poor lecturer with uninspired methods, simply going through a lazily created PowerPoints every day. Ask an absurd amount of question about exactly he wants for each assignment.

On exams he gives no points for any correct information, if one part is wrong, he will not give any points at all, that is an automatic 0.

The assignments for 434 have no rubric, no examples, and no criteria. His assignment descriptions are one large text to make it easier for him to claim "we weren't following directions". You will 100% miss something small on the assignment and he will take off an arbitrarily large amount of points off.

Inconsistent grading and very high percentage of grade is test dependent.