2.3
Quality3.7
Difficulty26%
Would Retake86
Reviews26%
Would Retake
86
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
86 total ratings5
18
4
7
3
5
2
16
1
40
What Students Say
“His jokes are horrible and and so are his tests”
MATH101 - 1.0 rating“I didnt like his class”
MATH101 - 2.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
44%
Textbook Required
50%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.72 avg changeRatings by Course
ABSTALG
5.0
(1)MATH121
5.0
(1)MATH108
4.0
(1)MATH110
3.5
(2)101
3.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
101
5.0
MA219
5.0
FOUNDATIONS101
5.0
DISCRETEMATH
5.0
MATH271
4.5
Reviews (85)
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This guy forgot that he had this class to teach online for the majority of the semester, claiming he was ill. But he was in the physical lecture every dat. What the dilly yo?
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great guy! charismatic and reasonable.
who teaches math on a computer.... Alarcon does!! this guy sucks!!!
No Comments
Nice guy, great prof. He explain everything clearly and with humor. Often had food for us in class (class was small)
He taught everything on the computer..so if i r kinda computer illiterate..forget it!
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He explains everything very clearly, but can be a bit of a smartass sometimes. His tests may be kind of tricky, but you've got to hand it to a guy who can wear a bowtie & a pink shirt!
He always seems to have clever and helpful analogies to explain the sometimes, abstract consecpts, and always goes thru a very detail step by step process for doing the problems. However he gets mad if you don't understand. But its not hard to follow.
No Comments
This guy is terrible. If you have to take MA 219 Discrete Mathematics (which all computer science majors do), I STRONGLY advise you to wait until Dr. Balenovich teaches it. He is 1 Billion times better.
Terrible.
He is horrible! The class is a pain because all homework is submitted by a program only found in a few computer labs around campus, on top of that he is by far the most abnoxious teacher ever! tak my word, dont take him!
He is the worst professor I've ever had. I will never take him for another class.
I learned a lot from him. He is there for those who need help and has helped me more than any of my hs math teachers. Definitely hot!
He is really nice and helps out everyone. He doesn't make you fell dumb. I agree, he's hot.
Worst teacher ever, very unclear and only uses a program only on a few computers at iup. The only good thing is that he soulds like CON on King of the Hill.
Waste of time
he is an awful Prof. does not explain well and he is a jerk. It is all on comptuer which makes it difficult because you have no textto refer to. Tests are decent, but I would NEVER reccomend anyone to take him.
I suck at math (hence MATH 101), and he didn't make it easy. Tough to study when everything is on computer. Concepts were pretty easy, but he didn't always explain them well. Nice guy though, eager to help if you ask him. If you study, you'll be ok.
Whoa. He does sound like Kahn. I can't get the theme song to King of the Hill out of my head now. bwang giggy bwang giggy
I think this teacher sucks just to see the frown face by his name on here. To be this bad you have to be trying...or maybe he's not.
I hated this class. I hated math to begin with, and he just made it worse for me. Everything was on computer,it took forever to take tests because you had to click on every symbol!His voice made me cringe. Awful Prof. I dont recommend him!
Very passion about the subject. Never too busy to help students. If you do not like math, take his class over the summer.
I thought he was a good teacher and the class was easy. I guess that might have been because I already knew everything he was teaching, but i thought it was pretty easy.
No Comments
He might be ok for Math 101, but he was terrible for Discrete Mathematics. He made a simple class very hard. I then took Dr. Balenovich and did well.
This guy is terrible. He does not explain anything and there is no text to refer to. We have been on the same subject (powers of sums) since the first day of class but he just keeps adding to it. I have not learned anything from his class.
Horrible class and teacher, everything is on the computer... does not help you with anything.
I didnt like his class. He didnt explain things clearly and tests on the computer took too long. His class sucked!!
This teacher sucks! He does not explain things clearly. He also moves way to fast. You do not have a book so, make sure you are there every class to take notes. If you do not have good notes and cannot understand math on your own without having any help, then count on failing the class, cause I did!
I think he's the best, there should be more like him!!
He was very helpful.. never turning students away, would eat lunch with them. I highly reccomend him. If you have trouble go to him ASAP cause then you will get hopelessly lost.
couldnt understand him. caught him lookin at me in strange ways, when i got myself to go to class. hes not good, but i shouldve went more. if u take him go to class. but still, he sucks
I think this guy is kind of pompous. He makes jokes that he thinks are funny, but they come off as condescending. He posts all of his notes online so if it wasn't for mandatory attendance going to class would be pointless. I didn't learn anything in the class that I could use in any part of my life.
He sucks, his class sucks,do not take this class cause you will fail.He does not speak english and he should be fired and he sucks.Oh and did I say he sucks? Well he does.Lessons are very unclear and he is so full of himself he actually told me that textbooks are stupid.Miserable hatefull little man
No Comments
What a jerk. He's so mean to all the girls and he's incredibly UNHELPFUL in every way. I was sick for the first few classes and he tried to tell me it was my fault for being ill.
I took his class online. My GPA is 3.78 just to say I am a serious student and my comment is he is a terrible professor. There were tests before any of the homework was given back and I asked for help several times with no help from him at all! Do not take him unless you have to!!!
Took his online class it was horrible.
This class is horrible. I took this math because I only needed one for my major, so naturally I tool the easiest one so I thought! If you aren't one of Alarcon's math prodigies, he isn't much help.He pays certian students attendtion and acts as if the rest of us are invisible. More than 7 people failed our first test, that should tell him something
Not very helpful or clear
Well at least according to the others, Alarcon is not just terrible at upper level math. In my class he kept pronouncing the word circuit as ser-kwit. Man that was annoying. I ended up getting an F with this guy and took the class over with Balenovich and got a B. It wasn't just me either. Many people had the same opinion of this clown.
Francisco Alarcon is a poor excuse for a Math Professor. His teaching style is horrific, and he is unwilling to assist in helping any students who he doesnt feel deserve it. He has an annoying voice and hasnt pernounced my name correctly yet this semester. His jokes are horrible and and so are his tests.
his 101 course wasn't algebra or anything i learned in high school, but it was really easy to learn. he doesn't really try to get to know anyone too much, but he explains everything and if you have questions he'll talk to you about it. he's decent.
if you aren't a math fan...take his course online. it's really easy, and im no math genius trust me!!! i got an A in this course and it was only for a month!
Being a non-traditional student, I was not looking forward to Prob. & Stats. Dr. Alarcon was extremely helpful in class as well as during office hours. He was very patient and helpful. Attend clas, ask questions and LISTEN. The text book, though, was extremely obscure. I would recommend taking Dr. ALarcon for MATH 217.
I was skeptical about taking calculus during the summer, but at the end I leaned more than in a regular-semester math class. Dr. Alarcon make is funny, extremely helpful and explains everything you ask, and he tells you the easiest way to do things in the right way. I will take him for another class. Recommend!
I had Professor Alarcon for half of a summer session and I hated every second of it. I had Dr. Colon for the other half and had a 98%. I just barely got an A after Alarcon was through with me. Don't take him if you can avoid him.
Unless you are GOOD (not questionable at all) at math, do NOT take his prob & stat online, you HAVE to know what the heck you are doing or you'll drop it. He goes right into it expecting you to know whats going on, very difficult, I do NOT recommend the online class.
this is one of the worst teachers at iup, no question. he is disrespectful to students and constantly wastes their time having them type math assignments and always, always keeps you late in class. he teaches fundamentals and then tests on overarching concepts that were barely touched on in class. avoid!
Well the class has been over for 3 1/2 weeks and he STILL hasn't posted grades like every other professor has. He has now delayed my entry into my major because he can't do his job! I don't even have an idea of what my grade is seeing that he graded 7 homework assignments and NO tests!!! Worthless.......
I currently have him for summer session math 101 online. We are on the last assignment and last test and nobody has any idea what their grade is because he has over half of the assignments not graded. He thinks by giving you the example to a problem that you will know how to do it without explanation.. avoid him if possible
This is the worst professor I have ever had! I am an A/B student and I am barely passing his class. He moves very fast and skips over a lot of stuff and expects you to still know it. Gives tons of homework that is typed and grades it harshly. Tests and quizes are very difficult. Is terrible when it comes to partial credit. Avoid him if you can!
I am taking the winter session of Math 101. He is very on top of grading, emailing, and if you click the link "Course Content," you will find that he is VERY well prepared to teach math long distance. He has many examples of the work and video tutorials on how to do the problems. I am terrible at math and am acing the class. He's a great teacher.
Despite Dr. A's low ratings he is extremely professional. He was always prepared for this class, gave clear and understandable presentations, and transitioned into new material at appropriate times. Though he is quite anal about points and can be scant about giving hints during office hours this is an upper level course. HW helped a lot too.
Great prof! Dr. A was always super helpful and willing to answer questions in class. I learned a lot.
I enjoyed his class!
He's one of the best teachers i know at IUP. His grading is lenient and he tries to help people. Also he's a very nice guy to talk to
He was honestly awful. I had him for an online class and he wouldn't help me insult the program on my computer until 2 weeks in to the class. He never graded any assignment until weeks after you did it. He changed the final syllabus and never gave us a copy of the changed dates and I ended up missing the final exam. Never take his class.
I took my Math 101 online with him and I hated it! He expected us to know how to use logarithms and sigma notation without ever explaining any of it and when I'd email him for help, he would not respond. The only reason I passed was extensive help from a Calc student Avoid at ALL costs.
He truly doesnt care for his students and expects people to know things on the test that he hasnt even taught YET.
He is so funny but you do absolutely nothing in this class.
He constantly calls students' work "garbage". He puts content on the exams that he hasn't taught before and expects you to know it. 5/7 students have an F in my class and he just says he's disappointed in us. He does not give any bonus or curves. He gave us a chance to not take the final and then took away that chance w/o telling us. AVOID HIM!!!!!
I took him online during Covid for 217, this was one of the hardest classes Ive taken, nobody in class understood the assignments and he always kept on going and would not slow down, it started out easy and then became nearly impossible.
He's just mid. We did nothing in class. He doesn't care about anything. gave homework maybe 2 times. and the final project takes like 2hrs and he gives you class time.
He is very hard to reach outside of class and if you try to talk to him after even if there's a gap between classes, he won't listen and will send you out of the room. He also grades on the accuracy, but you have to do it his way or he will grade it wrong.
Easy work but attendance is important. He can be rude sometimes he literally cut me off in the middle of asking him a question before I could even finish. If you want to pass with a good grade go to the class, I got A's on every assignment but missed two classes which made my final grade a C??
I only had him once a week but overall he was very nice. It was a lab so it was pretty self paced. The workload was a lot to handle on top of the other math that goes in conjunction with it. But he was a very nice professor who tried his best to interact with us and was pretty caring. Make sure you attend because it will help your grade at the end.
His class is not easy. You need to spend time on the homework assignments. You need to show up. Despite all that, I have never enjoyed a class more than Dr. Alarcon's. He has a wonderfully eccentric personality, and makes an effort to make his class memorable and interesting. He goes out of his way to make personal connections with his students.
Very Arrogant
Had him for Math217 and it was really tough. We used the platform Aleks and it was awful. The stuff he taught in class and what was on Aleks never matched up. We were always so behind and he didn't care. Don't take this.
Hardest class ever. He uses Alek for all of his grades (homework/tests) and it doesn't match what he teaches in class. It have spent HOURS on this non-major course. I hired a tutor and still failed the tests. Engaging instruction, but doesn't relate to tests at all. If he made his own tests- it might be okay. I like him but would AVOID the class.
You have about 2 assignments a week on Aleks, all tests are on Aleks too. The work is miserable. Everything he does in lecture does not match anything you are doing in Aleks. I have spent hours on the platform trying to understand the topics as well as youtube and other students who have taken the class with another professor. I would avoid him.
when alarcon lectures, it sounds like its for a completely different course when you compare it to the aleks homework that you will spend hours on. This class was easy in the beginning, but gets really hard later on. There are certainly worse professors that you could take (looking at you pararai) but you better be really good at teaching yourself
All of the work was on ALEKS, and it was a gamble if the lecture even matched up with the homework. The homework took hours sometimes and it was miserable. The class was pretty easy in the beginning, but by the end of the semester he was giving out homework that wasn't taught in lecture. Be ready to figure out material through trial and error.
Uses ALEKS for everything yet barely knows how to work it. Homework is miserable and seems to be a whole unit ahead of what we are learning in class. Almost everyone in my class is failing, he doesn't seem to care. Said that he "doesn't believe in curving" when everyone in his class is failing. Makes tests 10 questions long.
Professor Alarcon is a kind and humorous person, but his class is very poorly organized. If you can, I'd recommend choosing a different instructor.
He's a nice professor, but the class wasn't structured well. The lectures were weeks behind the content in the homework, which took hours to complete. Exams were easy to fail since they had fewer than 20 questions, each worth one point. I struggled to maintain the grade I achieved, as I was essentially teaching myself.
Super chill, very low-stress class. It's a math lab, so he doesn't teach, he's basically there to watch us. He'll help you if you ask, but watching him try to understand why other students are lost is comedy. Not mean, just baffled. Also: drinks are his villain origin story.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
44%
Textbook Required
50%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.72 avg changeRatings by Course
ABSTALG
5.0
(1)MATH121
5.0
(1)MATH108
4.0
(1)MATH110
3.5
(2)101
3.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
101
5.0
MA219
5.0
FOUNDATIONS101
5.0
DISCRETEMATH
5.0
MATH271
4.5